The European Citizen

Europa site

2012-01-31T18:34:00.000Z

There's a great new site on The Guardian: Europa. It's a joint project with a few other European newspapers to tackle European affairs. Hopefully it will generate some good analysis and debate on what's going on - and help us to debate a bit more across borders. The article on the EU budget is good, though I hope it moves on from the articles on stereotypes to more, well, news.

Definitely worth keeping an eye on.

The Fiscal Stability Treaty

2012-01-31T13:13:00.004Z

We've got our new Fiscal Stability Treaty (which you can read here). Frankly, it's hard to know how to approach it, given the fact that I've posted about it when it came out and on the problem it poses for the European left. Not much has changed in terms of the general aims and principles of the compact. Also there's a great summary of the text over at the European Union Law Blog:

"The provisions are intentionally vague in order to avoid any conflict with the enhanced powers of the EU post-Lisbon. The only meaningful instrument is the sui generis infringement procedure in case a participating Member State has failed to apply the automated deficit correction mechanism. However, this procedure is substantially weakened by the fact that Member States, and not the European Commission, must petition the ECJ. This will happen only in extraordinary circumstances and with great unease.

In addition the provisions on economic coordination are totally bland. I fail to understand how these texts may enhance economic policy coordination – they are restating existing opportunities in EU law."

I agree. We already have the Stability and Growth Pact part of the EU treaties, and the "6-pack" of legislation passed at the end of 2011 essentially tightened up the Economic and Monetary Union - which is already having an effect on national politics and budgetary policy in Belgium. Apart from enforcement mechanisms, the treaty offers little that is new: no Eurobonds, no expanded role for the ECB, nothing on investment - coordinated or otherwise - or any firm kind of economic strategy that would back up the vague mentions of growth as a goal. Good thing the treaty has the cumbersome title of "Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union" - if they'd called it a treaty on fiscal union they might as well have tied their credibility up in a bag and drowned it in a well.

This treaty does nothing to address the crisis, and it's only preventative in the sense that it aims to ensure that Member States don't continuously rack up debt. While this might prevent a future Greece/Italy crisis, it would be totally useless in an Irish-style crisis where budgets were balanced or in surplus before the crash and collapse in tax receipts. "Stability" is the key word. The treaty is designed to maintain the stability of a currency union which is made up of members who have joined having met the criteria and stuck to the criteria once inside the club. It does nothing to provide a mechanism for resolving crises, but rather the deficit correction ethos is directed towards isolating any crisis and protecting the stability of the currency union as a whole. It won't work, and it's hard to see how it could be politically attractive without being balanced with more fiscal solidarity - a transfer union. That's not to say that some budget discipline isn't necessary to promote stability in the good times and to build trust between Member States, but without a true fiscal union this trust isn't reciprocated and so the treaty is of questionable political and economic value.

Institutional politics and the UK

It's clear from the treaty that the Commission and ECJ will be involved under the treaty. The European Parliament and national parliaments will be involved via some sort of meeting with representatives of their relevant committees - how this works in practice is simply not mentioned - and the European Parliament president will be invited to talk at some EuroSummits. The President of the EuroSummits (yes, a president will be elected for the same 2.5 years as the European Council presidency currently held by Van Rompuy) will organise the summits (held 2x a year and after European Council summits) and report back to the European Parliament.

Clearly the European Parliament only has a slight consultative role, and it's demands for policies for economic growth have been ignored. Given that it's new president has made fighting for the EP's position under these issues a key part of his presidency, the Parliament might reject the treaty and try to weaken political support for it.

The treaty also leaves Cameron in an odd position. I've written about the strangeness of the British demands regarding the single market before, but we should be clear about one point: nothing in this treaty (or in the possible treaty within the EU) affects the single market legally. If the treaty had have been part of the EU treaty system is wouldn't have changed the single market legally. The British concern for national influence and the financial market is essentially about political and institutional influence.

The UK won't block the use of EU institutions - Cameron has confirmed this, though he points out that he will be on the look out to ensure that there is no abuse that would damage the British national interest. I have no idea what practical policy or action this would refer to as all single market legislation has to be voted on within the EU structures. One possibility would be that the UK would try to ensure that the Eurozone countries didn't discuss single market issues in their meetings, but it would be a bit hard to enforce in practice as ministers and heads of state and government could discuss these issues at the meetings without having them on the official agenda. However, the UK is helped by the fact that EuroSummits will take place after European Council summits, so this limits their potential as a platform for countries to agree and discuss issues in advance without the UK. On the other hand, as it isn't a signatory to the treaty, the UK won't have a right to be involved in the EuroSummits unlike other non-Euro participating countries.

Overall the UK hasn't gained anything by using it's veto,* and hasn't lost out legally from using it either. It's in good will, influence and future participation in negotiations and debates that it has lost. How big of a loss depends on the future of the Fiscal Stability Treaty...

*And using it prematurely at that, given that denying use of the EU treaty system would be a bigger threat later on in negotiations - it's hard not to get the impression that Cameron doesn't know the first thing about the practical aspects of negotiation...

Happy Birthday Bloggingportal.eu!

2012-01-25T19:42:00.004Z

The EU blog aggregating website Bloggingportal.eu is 3 tomorrow. Since it was launched the number of blogs being aggregated has ballooned to 904, with over 250 posts being generated over the past week. The Euroblogosphere is definitely more vibrant than when Bloggingportal started out, and Bloggingportal is still the top aggregation site for EU blogs - I'm not aware of any others.

I've been a voluntary editor with Bloggingportal for much of the last 3 years (it's been around 2 1/2 years now) - it's only staffed by volunteer Eurobloggers, and it's very much reflected in how the site's operated. The layout and look of the website hasn't changed much, though there's been lots of discussion about changing this and adding functionality, progress has been limited by the voluntary nature of the site, the small number of editors with the magical combination of free time and technical know-how, and the problems with coming up with a way of reconciling the need for a different role structure (at least partially) to make Bloggingportal.eu more useful with the dependence of the site on the motivation and goodwill of sufficient editors.

That said, Bloggingportal has become a focal point in the Euroblogosphere, with the Hungarian Presidency opening the presidency up more to Bloggingportal and the Euroblogosphere in general (when we had launched a blog action against the Hungarian media law), and editor's picks being linked to by the Guardian's CiF Europe site. Perhaps unsurprisingly for bloggers, we've been most successful with doing, well, blogging stuff on Bloggingportal - the "Week in Bloggingportal" posts that summarise what's been going on in the EU according to the editor's picks, and the blogging actions (like the action over the European Citizens' Initiative) are still where there is the most editor engagement and where Bloggingportal positively interacts with the Euroblogosphere.

The scope for positive engagement with the rest of the Euroblogosphere is extremely limited, as we try to remain neutral and to separate out what we do in our blogs (and what we might want to do in common through our blogs) and what is right for Bloggingportal's independent position. (Do you think we've managed to maintain Bloggingportal as a neutral aggregation site for the Euroblogosphere?) But we've also hosted physical events (such as an event in London in December 2010), and represented Bloggingportal at other blogging events. I think these physical meetings are important, particularly given the diverse and geographically spread nature of Euroblogging (though a lot of editors tend to end up in the London-Brussels-Berlin triangle at some point), which would encourage a feeling of community that would help sustain citizen blogging and can build more connections (I agree with Mathew Lowry that specialist blogs will be a fundamental part of a Euroblogosphere, but I think that non-specialist, citizen blogs are the connective tissue between them, or should be).

So we need to be more connective: connecting more blogs and bloggers online through offering a site that provides easy access to specialist Euroblogs and that has some limited level of real world presence that provides a small social boost to those outside the Brussels Bubble. Achieving any of this to even a modest level would require a lot of changes, though, and Bloggingportal changes slowly: it's a bit surprising that the rapidly changing Euroblogosphere hasn't been able to evolve anything better so far, so maybe we can work something out.

What do you want from Bloggingportal.eu? What would make you want to use it more?

A stronger, more active European Parliament?

2012-01-20T08:16:00.000Z

Martin Schulz, the former leader of the Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament has been elected the President of the Parliament for 2.5 years.* He's set out his stall for parliamentarianism: that he'll stick up for the EP within the EU's institutional triangle and in the ongoing negotiations for the New Fiscal Compact (acceptance speech [PDF]):

"The intergovernmental agreement on a new fiscal union will be the first test. In the negotiations, representatives of our Parliament initially failed to secure support for their call to combine budgetary discipline with measures to foster growth and employment. But it is just such a sensible compromise that the citizens of Europe want! For this reason as well, we must have a seat at the table at European summits."

So there are two political goals here: for the Parliament's resolution on the fiscal and stability union to be incorporated in some way into the New Fiscal Compact, and for the EP to have a seat at European summits (probably for the EP president who currently only reports on the Parliament's view to the European Council, but is not part of the European Council - while the Commission President is a member). Interestingly, Proinsais de Rossa, an Irish MEP who is stepping down soon, has claimed that the European Parliament might reject the new treaty. This wouldn't block the treaty - it won't be part of the EU treaty system - but it could politically damage the ratification process, especially if Ireland holds a referendum on the pact.

Polscieu has picked up on Schulz's line on first reading agreements - agreements between the Council and Parliament on a draft of legislation so it can be passed quickly. If Schulz's "re-thinking" of the issue leads to fewer first reading agreements, then we're likely to see more parliamentary debates on legislation and a strengthening of the Parliament's political voice and profile. Since the EP is now equal to the Council as a legislator in almost every area (that the EU has competence in) but foreign policy, the loss in profile by first reading agreements is self-inflicted. That's not to say that first reading agreements don't have their place, but it's hard to see why the statistic of 72% of legislation passed by co-decision (now called "ordinary legislative procedure") being decided under such agreements in the last parliament (2004-9) should be repeated again for this parliament.

If Schulz makes progress on all three counts, then the EP's public profile should increase - particularly if the EP gains a bigger role at European summits, given that most of the media attention is focused on these "zero-sum game" events. We'll see what his record is by the next European elections.

*The first 2.5 years of the Parliament presidency was held by Jerzy Buzek (EPP) - the two biggest political groupings traditionally make a pact to share the presidency between them during the life of the Parliament.

Debate on Hungary in the European Parliament

2012-01-19T08:12:00.001Z

Hungary's Prime Minister addressed the European Parliament today in the debate on Hungary's new constitution and Fidesz's actions in power. Earlier, in the debate on the Danish presidency, Danish PM Thorning-Schmidt signaled her support for the Commission's legal action against Hungary, side-stepping the question of using Article 7 TEU against Orban's government if Fidesz doesn't make sufficient changes.

Viktor Orban repeated his defence of the new constitution to the EP: that it was the final part of the transition from Communism to democracy. EPP group leader Daul continued along the same line, agreeing with Orban's assessment that it was part of the transition to democracy, while also signalling support for any changes that might be required under EU law. This is a shameful balancing act by the EPP leadership - both the Hungarian government and the Commission are linked to the European People's Party: Fidesz is part of the EPP and the Commission is dominated by the EPP. Since the legal action that can be taken by the Commission is limited to narrow breaches of EU law, rather than the separate procedure for breaches of the EU's values under Article 7 TEU, Daul is essentially making it known that the EPP in Parliament will block any motion to initiate the Article 7 procedure against Hungary. Zbigniew Ziobro (Europe of Freedom and Democracy group) came out in full support of Orban, denouncing EU interference as interference in a sovereign state, and praising Orban for standing up for Hungary.

Guy Verhofstadt (leader of the liberal ALDE group) attacked the direction of Hungary's government and brought up the issue of Article 7:

"What is necessary is to check the conformity of the Hungarian Constitution and cardinal laws with the European values: democracy, the rule of law, the freedom of religion, the freedom of expression, equality also.

I think, besides the infringement procedures, this House, should take its responsibility.

I call on our colleagues of the LIBE committee to make a report on the basis of article 71 TEU. Stating YES or NO if there is a clear risk of a serious breach of our values. That is what we have to do."

A parliamentary report finding a breach of EU values would be the basis for a reasoned opinion which would be part of an EP motion for an Article 7 action. While Hannes Swoboda, the new leader of the Socialists and Democrats group, was very critical of the Orban government and the authoritarian culture surrounding it (pointing out that if Croatia had adopted the same rules it wouldn't be given EU membership) and mentioned the question of starting the monitoring step for Article 7 (though not as stongly as Verhofstadt). He also urged the EPP to hold Orban to account. Daniel Cohn-Bendit gave an impassioned speech for the Greens against Orban and his line on his government's anti-Stalinist motives.

Since the United Left and European Conservatives and Reformists groups were also critical of Hungary, it might be possible that the Parliament will flex its political muscle by starting the Article 7 procedure. Even if it does, it would take 4/5s of Member States voting for the motion for it to be passed, which is extremely unlikely given the dominance of the EPP in the Council, but such a clear and determined action by the EP would send a powerful political signal and keep this issue in the spotlight.

What legal action is the Commission taking against Hungary?

2012-01-18T09:15:00.000Z

The Commission has announced that it will be taking legal action against Hungary, but only so much can be done under EU law. While people point out that:

"Viktor Orbán's regime combines the extreme centralisation of economic assets (including the expropriation of the private pension funds, of several public foundations and the forthcoming centralisation of the municipal government's assets) and the monopolisation of power in a single party that intends to dominate every aspect of social and private life, turning citizens into subjects. The improvised nature of many of the new laws creates a wide margin for arbitrary decisions that increase dependence and insecurity.

In addition to a frontal attack on civil liberties, the government has redistributed economic assets (particularly through the tax system and investment allocations) in favour of interest groups close to Fidesz and a restricted layer of the well-to-do. This group zealously defends the party's power and executes its guidelines.

At the same time – through the unilateral rewriting of the labour code, the restriction of union action and collective bargaining rights, the radical dismantling of social welfare nets and independent social care institutions – the government exposed the most vulnerable social groups (the poor, the unemployed, Roma, pensioners, sick and handicapped) to the unfolding economic crisis. Life is precarious for those who live on wages and have no reserves or additional revenue."

...the Commission doesn't have the jurisdiction (and neither does the European Court of Justice) to take Orban's government to task over all these issues. The Commission has decided to focus on the areas of the independence of the judiciary, the independence of the central bank, and the independence of Hungary's data protection authorities: probably because the EU legal case is strongest here. Let's look at some of the reasons behind the legal action:

"1) Independence of the national central bank

"The Commission has identified several breaches of primary law, notably breaches of Article 130 TFEU stipulating full independence of the central bank and of Article 127(4) TFEU requiring consultation with the ECB "on any draft legislative provision in its field of competence".

•Article 130 TFEU states that: “neither the ECB, nor national central bodies, from bank … shall seek or take instructions from Community institutions or any government of a Member State or from any other body”.

•Article 127(4) TFEU stipulates that "the ECB shall be consulted […] on any draft legislative provision in its field of competence"

Moreover, 14.2 of the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the ECB as well as Article 4 of Council decision (98/415/EC) on timely consultation of the ECB were not respected. On a number of elements, the Commission has invited the Hungarian authorities to provide clarification.

The infringements identified in the letter of formal notice concern both the MNB law ('Magyar Nemzeti Bank') but also the new constitution.

Under the MNB law, the Minister can participate directly in the meetings of the Monetary Council, offering to the government the possibility to influence the MNB from the inside. Similarly, the agenda of MNB meetings needs to be sent to the government in advance, thus impeding its capacity to hold confidential discussions. Also, changes in the remuneration scheme for the Governor are made again immediately applicable to the incumbent, while they should apply only as of a new term to avoid using salaries to put pressure on the MNB. Finally, the Governor and the members of the Monetary Council have to take an oath (of fidelity to the country and its interests) whose text is problematic given that the Governor of the MNB is also a member of the General Council of the ECB.

The Commission has doubts on the rules of dismissal for the Governor and the members of the Monetary Council which are prone to political interference (even the Parliament can propose to dismiss a member of the Monetary Council) and possible misuse. Also the frequent changes of the institutional framework of the MNB raise doubts, for instance via the increase in the number of Monetary Council members together with the possibility of increasing the number of deputy governors without due consideration of the MNB’s needs.

Moreover, a constitutional provision regulates the possible merger of the MNB with the financial supervisory authority. While the merger is not a problem as such, the MNB Governor would become a simple deputy chairman of the new structure, which would structurally encroach on his independence.

2) Independence of the judiciary

The infringement case affecting the judiciary focuses on the new retirement age for judges and prosecutors and relates to Hungary's decision to lower the mandatory retirement age for judges, prosecutors and public notaries from 70 years to the general pensionable age (62 years) as of 1 January 2012.

EU rules on equal treatment in employment (Directive 2000/78/EC) prohibit discrimination at the workplace on grounds of age. Under the case-law of the Court of Justice of the EU, an objective and proportionate justification is needed if a government decides to reduce the retirement age for one group of people and not for others. This principle was affirmed when the Court ruled on 13 September 2011 that prohibiting airline pilots from working after the age of 60 constitutes discrimination on grounds of age.

In Hungary's case, the Commission has not found any objective justification for treating judges and prosecutors differently than other groups, notably at a time when retirement ages across Europe are being progressively increased and not lowered. The situation is even more legally questionable because the government has already communicated to the Commission that it intends to raise the general retirement age to 65.

As regards the independence of the judiciary, the Commission is also asking Hungary for more information regarding new legislation on the organisation of the courts. Under the law, the president of a new National Judicial Office concentrates powers concerning the operational management of the courts, human resources, budget and allocation of cases. There is no longer collegial decision-making of the operational management of the courts or other appropriate safeguards. One person alone now makes all important decision on the judiciary, including as regards the appointment of judges. In addition, the mandate of the former president of the Supreme Court, who was elected for six years in June 2009, was prematurely terminated at the end of 2011. In contrast, other former judges of the Supreme Court continue their mandate as judges of the new Curia, which has replaced the Supreme Court. The Commission expects detailed answers of the Hungarian authorities to be able to decide whether further infringement proceedings are needed.

3) Independence of the data protection supervisory authority

The case on the data protection supervisor relates to Hungary's recent decision to create a new National Agency for Data Protection, replacing the current Data Protection Commissioner's Office as of 1 January 2012. As a result, the six-year term of the Data Protection Commissioner currently in office, who was appointed in 2008, will be prematurely put to an end. There are no interim measures until the term of the current Commissioner's term ends in 2014.The new rules also create the possibility that the prime minister and president could dismiss the new supervisor on arbitrary grounds.

The independence of data protection supervisors is guaranteed under Article 16 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU and Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. In addition, EU rules on data protection (Directive 95/46/EC) require Member States to establish a supervisory body to monitor the application of the Directive acting in complete independence. This has been confirmed by the Court of Justice. In its ruling in a case concerning Germany (C-518/07 of 3 March 2010), the Court underlined that data protection supervisory authorities have to remain free from any external influence, including the direct or indirect influence of the state. The mere risk of political influence through state scrutiny is sufficient to hinder the independent performance of the supervisory authority's tasks, the Court ruled."

The outcry over what is going on in Hungary has been very political - in the sense that it's been about the high politics of rights and what makes a fair democracy - and rightly so. The Commission's response reveals the nature of the EU's power when it comes to protecting these key rights: as an organisation of sovereign Member States, the EU can only act where the Member States have contravened EU law. The EU treaties don't define a specific governing structure that Member States have to have, such as a presidential or parliamentary system or how their judiciary is organised (though it does set human rights and democratic tests for candidates to pass before they join), so the points of EU law can be quite narrow. This is especially obvious when it comes to the Commission's action over the judiciary laws - the action focuses on the unfair dismissal of serving judges, rather than the general separation of powers between the judiciary and the executive. The press release references these wider questions and demands answers, but whether or not there will be further legal action depends on whether or not the measures breach EU law.

The Commission (and the EU) is therefore not well placed to become a crusader for liberal democracy in its Member States, so there's a limit to what we can expect. The EU can, however, remove Hungary's EU voting rights via Article 7 TEU as a last resort, but this would require a super-majority. The Commission should investigate the changes to the electoral system and judiciary with an eye to using Article 7 if Hungary refuses to reverse any abuses. While the EU and the Commission's power might be limited (and we need to bear this in mind when Hungary claims it has changed its judicial rules in line with EU requirements), we should demand that all Member States live up to minimum democratic standards if they want to stay in the EU.

Today the European Parliament will be debating the Hungarian situation.

Ireland's Euro-diplomacy (and Debate)

2012-01-18T08:14:00.001Z

Last night's Tonight with Vincent Browne debated the Irish government's (and Taoiseach Enda Kenny's) ability to negotiate in the EU. Key to this was an exchange in the Dáil where Michael Martin (the Leader of the Opposition) questioned Kenny's approach at the December summit for not meeting with David Cameron. Kenny replied that he'd been at the EPP pre-summit meeting in Marseilles, and he'd spoken to him by phone.

It was a very strange point to make - that Kenny was incompetent at negotiations because he didn't meet with Cameron, when it's Cameron who's opted out of the EPP (which controls the Council, Commission and is the largest party in the European Parliament), and that Cameron's own skill in negotiations has been seriously questioned since the December veto. The implication seems to be that a clever Irish premier would have been able to steer the British PM right and keep him in negotiations (though if having the pro-EU Lib Dems and a Deputy with plenty of personal European connections couldn't keep Cameron in negotiations, it's hard to see how Kenny could have).

Much more serious is the sense that the Irish government has no European vision or policy because it's absorbed in questions over the EU/IMF/ECB deal. There has been some debate in the media over Ireland's European direction (including the suggestion that Ireland should consider focusing less on aligning itself with a Britain that's flaky on European issues), but politicians haven't been able (or willing) to take up the debate on what kind of Eurozone/EU they want. This really goes for the opposition as well as the government, because the opposition has been focusing on criticising the government for this lack, while not coming up with much itself.

It's a serious defect in our politics that we've not been willing to have a robust debate on the kind of EU and Euro that we want. Do we want Eurobonds and a transfer union? Would we be willing to be major contributors to other Member States under those same conditions in any future crisis 30 years down the road? If we argue for investment-tempered austerity, we should ask ourselves the question: would we be willing to loan billions to, say, Slovakia, in order to invest in its infrastructure to revive its economy and reduce its deficit? Under what conditions, and with what common political institutions?

Without politicians (and enough citizens) taking up this debate, we'll probably find ourselves voting in a referendum a few months from now on the new fiscal compact, rushing ourselves through a low-quality debate and being asked to decide on a fundamental question of Ireland's European direction...

Brussels v Brussels: Belgium and the EU clash over the budget

2012-01-13T08:21:00.001Z

The Commission’s scrutiny of Belgium’s draft budget has caused a political backlash from PS (PES) government minister Paul Magnette:

““Wie kent Olli Rehn? Wie heeft ooit het gezicht van Olli Rehn gezien? Wie weet waar hij vandaan komt en wat hij heeft gedaan? Niemand. Terwijl hij zegt hoe wij onze economische politiek moeten voeren.”

[“Who knows who Olli Rehn [Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs] is? Who has seen Olli Rehn’s face? Who knows where he comes from and what he’s done? Nobody. Yet he tells us how we should conduct our economic policy.”]”

This was sparked by the Commission’s intervention through its budgetary surveillance role:

“The commission caused a flurry in Belgian political circles over the weekend by warning that the country needed to curb this year's spending. Rehn suggested the government's calculations that the budget deficit for 2012 would be 2.8 percent were too optimistic and asked for a cut of between €1.2 billion and €2 billion.

Belgium eventually settled on freezing €1.3 billion in spending, a move that saw it escape the threat of monetary sanctions on Wednesday (11 January) when the commission assessed the matter.”

Although the Commission has given Belgium a clean bill of health for its budget, how far the Commission should influence how Member States stick within the rules remains an issue. It’s up to Member States to meet their budget targets, but they’re free to do so however they want – it looks like the actual issue here was the credibility of the forecasts that the Belgian government built its budget on. Clearly the forecasts will have to be credible (if Member States could pluck numbers out of thin air or pick and force the Commission to accept them, then the rules would lose much of their force), but the political argument is over the democratic legitimacy of the Commission to involve itself in the sensitive area of national budgets. The Commission has rebutted the argument that it doesn’t have the democratic legitimacy to oversee the budgets:

“"De regels zijn regels die zijn goedgekeurd door het Europees parlement en door alle lidstaten", reageerde woordvoerder Amadeu Altafaj. "De 3 procent (de grens voor begrotingstekorten, nvdr) is dus geen dictaat van de Europese Commissie."

[“The rules are rules passed by the European Parliament and by Member States,” said spokesman Amadeu Altafaj. “The 3 procent (the limit for the budget deficit, nvdr) is therefore not a diktat from the European Commission.”]”

From the Commission’s point of view (and that of its supporters), it is applying the technical criteria set by the Parliament and Council (see three of the “six pact” acts for enforcement here, here and here [all PDFs]). But Magnette’s frustration goes further – he says the EU’s policies will cause a 15 year long recession, and that the Commission is a bastion of the “right and ultra liberal”. The Commission is dominated by the EPP, and it is a very political institution. But what’s happened with the “six pack” legislation on budgetary monitoring is that the political and economic assumptions behind the EU’s current direction have been enshrined in the technical rules governing the economic union. The Commission can say that it’s just applying the rules passed by the Member States and the democratically elected Parliament because, well, that’s what’s happening. However the Commission proposed these laws and it was politically active in shaping them and guiding them through the Union legislature – if Magnette (or indeed any government ministers or parliamentarians) want to push for different rules or attack the Commission for its political direction, it’s better done during the passage of legislation or when building a coalition for new legislation.

Like the new fiscal compact, there’s a problem for the left here. For there to be the necessary trust to build an economic union with more solidarity, there needs to be a certain level of discipline: it cannot be a one-sided bargain between those (currently) with deficit problems and the (current) core creditors. Magnette is right that the Commission is highly political (though we should distinguish between its political and technical functions), but those opposed to its political direction need to be equally political back. There needs to be support for Commission proposals for them to pass and the left will need a clearer strategy and narrative if it’s to build a coherent and effective opposition. Somehow I don’t expect it to be built around Di Rupo’s socialist-led government...

And Di Rupo? He distanced himself from Magnette’s remarks, citing Belgium’s pro-European traditions.

Shifts on the New Fiscal Compact

2012-01-12T07:32:00.001Z

The EU Observer has reported some changes in the drafts on the new fiscal compact:

"The role of the EU commission in taking debt sinners to court for not properly transposing the golden rule into national law, an idea introduced in the second draft at the demand of the European Parliament, has also been watered down to the commission "issuing a report" at the demand of another country adhering to the pact.

The power of taking countries to court is instead to reside with countries - a u-turn going back to the first draft - after French worries the commission risks becoming too powerful.

[...]

Another watering down of earlier drafts rules out introducing new sanctions for countries that break rules on overall public debt, opting instead to limit such penalties to ballooning budget deficits.

[...]

The 'working group' which is pumping out the texts - a mixed bag of member states' officials led by a Luxemburger - kept another EU parliament demand, to enshrine the intergovernmental pact in EU Treaty law in the next five years.

But it also changed the threshold of countries needed to ratify the pact for it to come into force from 15 to 12. In the first draft, the threshold was even lower, at nine countries."

The "golden rule" on deficits will no longer have to be inserted into constitutions, so the final deal could simply require an act of parliament to ensure governments don't spend over a certain limit. This would get around the need for referendums in several Member States, but it could open up political problems in the future if budgets passed by parliaments are being challenged by other EU countries in the courts - a potentially politically toxic situation.

France's position on the Commission's powers is revealing and worrying for the credibility of the pact. Given that it's simply a Stability and Growth Pact Plus, further entrenching the current rules, the institutional and political credibility of the mechanisms actually working was the key problem. Of course, if any contracting country can take another to court, then it's more likely to happen than under the current system which requires a vote in Council. Still, France wants the Commission to be kept away from this position of power because diplomacy could still influence the outcome - and this would be much more advantageous to larger Member States who could throw their weight around more. The potential for differences in treatment echo the complaints from the smaller Member States that France and Germany were among the first to break the Stability and Growth Pact in the last decade. Also, the value of integrating the deal into the current treaties for the European Parliament is questionable if the Commission's role is minimal, since there would be little for the EP to act on.

Finally, setting the minimum number of Member States at 12 for the treaty to come into effect will, if it's in the final draft, have a big effect in the parliamentary votes and referendum campaigns as it ensures that even some Eurozone states could reject it (and stay outside it), and the deal wouldn't be completely stopped. The fear of exclusion (and the effect of this on the economies of the excluded Eurozone States) will make opposing the deal more problematic, and it will be a major feature of the Yes campaigns.

UPDATE: Honor Mahony has written a good blog on the problems these shifts reveal for the future of the negotiations.

The Orbarony of Hungary

2012-01-09T08:01:00.002Z

This weekend saw, rightly, a wave of stories about Hungary (see yesterday's Week in Bloggingportal for some blog articles). The new constitution came in for a strong attack by the Party of European Socialists president Sergei Stanishev:

"Hungarian democracy is under siege. The actions of the conservative Fidesz government under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán have resulted in an unprecedented attack on basic international democratic standards. It is an extraordinary thing to say in the year 2012, but the cold hard fact is that the European Union could now be said to include a non-democratic state as one of its members.

Now it is a test for European leaders and institutions of their commitment to democratic values when democracy is at stake. It is not a matter of internal policy but rather the question of whether the EU will preserve one of its core values and features. A new constitution has been in place in Hungary since January 1 this year. It contains set of provisions that are an attempt to institutionalise authoritarian rule. The measures have been, accurately, described as a 'constitutional coup'.

[...]

The essential point is this: there does not seem to be any end-point to the actions of Fidesz. Their actions indicate a consistent and quickening slide towards authoritarian rule. Those responsible have not listened to rational requests and they have not heeded eloquent calls to respect democracy. Therefore the international community must look at more robust measures."

The PES counts the opposition MSZP party among its members. The changes brought about by the new constitution are:

"- The Constitutional Court has been stripped of its powers
- The government can decide which judges will review which cases
- The supervision of elections is overseen by a new Council of Government party appointees
- A'media board' of government appointees has been given power to decide what constitutes "balanced" media coverage and has been allowed to impose fines which only be appealed after payment
- Tax and fiscal policy, including a new flat tax, can only be changed by a two-thirds majority.
- The government can appoint a deputy governor to the central bank
- Provisions to protect citizens from discrimination based on sexual orientation have been deleted."

The governing Fidesz party is part of the European People's Party, which controls the Commission and the Council of the EU, and is the biggest party in the European Parliament. The Economist has called for the EPP to be tough on its wayward member:

"Mr Orban’s fellow centre-right leaders, who include Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, have more leverage over him than other European politicians, and therefore a particular responsibility to take him to task. Fidesz is proud to belong to their umbrella group, and the biggest political family within the EU, the European People’s Party. Threatening to chuck Mr Orban out of the EPP could be the best way of steering him off the path towards autocracy."

The only communication I can find from the EPP on the issue was this press release, stating that they would support whatever decision the Commission took on the constitution's compatibility with EU law - but this is not simply a matter of compliance with EU legal requirements (though The Economist points out that the Commission should stand firm on the requirement for an independent central bank). This is a question about European values and the standards of democracy that a Member State should be held accountable to. Candidate countries have to measure up to a certain democratic standard: so should current members.

While the EPP may control the Commission and play up its central role in European politics (every press release ends with a note to the editor on the size and influence of the Europarty), but as a political and parliamentary group it seems content to accept the decisions of the Commission and Council - no rebellious backbenchers, these. The press release shows the party trying to have it both ways, stating that they would support technical corrections, but using language supporting Orban's post-Communist narrative of the new constitution:

""The Hungarian Parliament adopted on 18 April 2011 a new constitution that replaced a Stalinist-type constitution, which dated from 1949. Hungary was the only country in Central Europe which could not draft a new fundamental law since the fall of communism. The new constitution has incorporated the Charter of Fundamental Rights and also a new, fairer electoctal system was established which offers the possibility for minorities to be represented in Parliament," said [EPP Leader and EP Group Chairman] Martens and Daul.

"At the same time, we are well aware that the European Commission has raised issues on some pieces of legislation and is currently examining the English and French translations to determine if they comply with EU law. [...] Needless to say, the EPP will back the Commission’s recommendations that will ensure Hungary’s full compliance with EU law.""

The EU cannot work if we don't stick to our common values: what happens to the trust that cooperation and common rules have to be founded on to work, if we don't feel that some members aren't following the same basic standards? It's an issue that we need to be strong enough to take on. Not only when it comes to Hungary, but for all members.

"The European Citizen" - Three Today!

2012-01-08T12:14:00.000Z

The European Citizen has now been going for three years! This year has been the quietest so far on the blog, even if it's been packed full of crises in the real world. Still, some of 2011 in the EU has been reflected here.

First, there was the long-awaited Irish election as the government collapsed over the need to go to the EU and IMF for loans to keep the country running. Along with Stephen Spillane, I helped follow it here and on MSN.ie with a blogging round-up series. The new governing parties have come up with a lot of constitutional reform ideas, and with the new constitutional convention coming up this year, delivery will be a key issue. Internationally, the EU was taken by surprise (like everyone else) by the Arab spring.

In the UK one of the most memorable debates was over prisoners' voting rights and (suggested from some quarters) withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights. I backed the loosing side in the AV referendum in April: British ethusiasm for First Past the Post is still confusing for me, though perhaps I just grew up in a different political atmosphere (Northern Ireland/Ireland), where the (proportional) Single Transferable Vote would have to be pried from voters' cold, dead hands (what voter would want to give up the power proportional representation gave them?). I also blogged about the debate on parliamentary sovereignty in the UK Parliament and what the difference is between a free trade area and the common market. But then it's sometimes hard to understand what kind of Free Trade the Tories believe in...

Citizenship was a big issue legally in the Court of Justice in Luxembourg - with the Zambrano case promising a new approach, before the law was cruelly reversed (if it ever had been changed) in McCarthy. This was probably the most legal I got all year! Old, more political chestnuts returned, like debates on European democracy and the values of referendums on the EU.

Barroso delivered his Commissarial Speech in September, showing just how much the EPP have shifted leftwards (or at least, how far their leaders have) - this was perhaps symbolised by the revival of debate around a Financial Transaction Tax. I also followed the PES and attended their Re:New conference (You can read my posts here, here, and here).

The year's end highlighted the two central questions we'll face this year: how many member states will join together and integrate further (sparked by the UK's veto and it's effects), and what kind of Eurozone do we want - and how will the left respond to the New Fiscal Compact?

This year I hope to be a bit more active - it looks like there'll be plenty to cover.

Hope you've a good 2012!

Send in the Junior Ministers

2012-01-06T14:00:00.001Z

Given the talk about the UK and the infamous veto and what it means for British diplomacy, it might be worth puzzling over the French use of its Junior Ministers.

French EU Affairs minister Jean Leonetti made a strong prediction for the Financial Transaction Tax being passed this year as France and Germany had decided it:

"He added: "France and Germany have already agreed on it. And I believe the new Italian government, with which we have been in contact, is not opposed. Twenty six out of 27, in fact all the EU countries except Great Britain have no objections to the idea, and except Sweden, which had a bad experiment in this area.""

This obviously will rub the other Member States up the wrong way, but it's not the first time France's junior ministers have mouthed off, and last month saw a big spat between the UK and France over the UK's credit rating. It's an astonishing way to do politics, and you have to wonder at the tactics behind it (or the political control and coherence in the heart of government). Britain might have shot itself in the foot last month, but France would be a fool if it thinks this behaviour won't impact on its diplomatic success.

Hungary for change

2012-01-06T08:22:00.000Z

Last year when Hungary was taking over the rotating Council presidency, the Fidesz government was bringing in a controversial media law which we launched a blogging action over. Though the law was revised after discussions with the EU, EU law in the area is mostly market-based. This time around the independence of the Hungarian Central Bank is under threat and is the source of a dispute between Hungary and the IMF:

"Hungary, the EU's most indebted eastern member, already saw its credit rating downgraded to junk in December and initiated talks for a standby loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

But the centre-right government led by Viktor Orban has pursued controversial legal changes to some of the country's independent institutions, including the central bank and media bodies, prompting IMF negotiators to walk out of talks.

The laws came into force on 1 January, prompting tens of thousands of people to take to the streets on Monday and repeated warnings from the EU commission that it may take Hungary to court."

The markets haven't reacted well to Hungary's course either:

"The forint fell to 319.4 against the euro, a record low after a gradual depreciation of 20 percent in the last six months, while 10-year bond yields spiked to 10.5 percent, the highest since April 2009."

At the moment Orban's government seems intent on sticking to it's course despite protests and pressure from the EU and IMF - perhaps the plan is to use the bank to print more money to avoid the necessity for the IMF loan. Fidesz's two-thirds majority in the Hungarian parliament allows it to change the constitution, and it's been making full use of the opportunity. Orban has made it clear that he sees these changes as the end-point of Hungary's post-Communist path:

"In Orban's view, the new legal text "marks the end of the country’s transition to democracy from Communism" - as he explained in an interview with the Magyar Nemzet newspaper on 24 December.

Foreign journalists are "right when describing what happens in Hungary not just as simple governance, but a regime change," he told the newspaper.

"They say this in a disparaging way but I think this is a compliment. We Hungarians have failed for over a hundred years to show western Europe our own virtues.""

It seems pretty odd to be portraying the rapid expansion of executive power as an anti-Communist evolution, particularly when former Communist dissidents are protesting against Fidesz's constitutional changes. Orban's rhetoric also smacks of Hungarian exceptionalism and is reminiscent of the talk of differing values and rights from the media law debates last year (not that anyone explained how Hungarian rights should differ from those set out in the European Convention on Human Rights or the values in the EU treaties).

As the EU deals mostly with internal market, security and environmental matters, and the Council of Europe's Convention and Court of Human Rights deals with human rights law and standards, the EU isn't well equipped or experienced enough to deal with Member States drifting away from the standards required for membership. Article 7 TEU gives us a nuclear option of sanctioning a Member State who risks breaching the values of the EU, but it would require a four-fifths majority of Member States and a majority in the European Parliament, which is unlikely to be reached (and would need to be focused on the health of Hungary's democracy and media rather than the central bank).

It does raise an interesting question though: what "red lines" should the EU have for Article 7 action, and how much constitutional change can be brought about before the EU starts questioning whether a country is still membership material?

The Troubles of the New Fiscal Compact

2011-12-16T08:23:00.000Z

Yesterday I wrote about the left and the new fiscal compact, and I've noted that the centre-left PES seems to be hoping that the French and German elections will help replace our current Merkozy with a PES version. EUObserver has reported that a majority of the French public (52%) are opposed to the (as yet undrafted) EU deal on fiscal union, largely following left-right lines. The Socialist challenger for the presidency, Francois Hollande:

"...announced that he would renegotiate the document.

"If I am elected president, I will renegotiate the agreement to put what it lacks today," he told RTL.

He said that he would “add what is missing”, mentioning he would push to include intervention from the European Central Bank, the creation of eurobonds and a financial relief fund.

“Finally, there must also be growth,” he added. “Without growth, we will not reach any of our objectives of deficit reduction.”

The Frenchman attacked the core concept of the new agreement, a ‘golden rule’, or balanced budget amendment that should be inscribed into constitutions, in effect preventing future governments from exercising expansionary fiscal policies.

Asked about the golden rule, the candidate said he would not vote for it “under this logic”."

While not all of the troubles fall along clearly drawn left-right battlelines, I think it's fair to say that it would be a mistake to read in a support for the UK negotiating position, as the issues seem to be based around the content of fiscal union rather than either the question of having a fiscal union or voting arrangements for regulating the financial services. Apart from the right-left divide is the concern of the non-Eurozone countries, like Hungary, that it would lead to tax harmonisation even outside the Eurozone. I don't know if this is being discussed (it wasn't mentioned in the deal produced last week), but it seems unlikely that there will be tax harmonisation even for the Eurozone, given so many Eurozone members are against it.

But the main issues will be those Hollande has highlighted: how much solidarity there should be in fiscal union. Merkel is kidding herself (or talking up the value of the deal for her domestic audiance) if she thinks that the deal on the table means political union - the greatest challenge to the deal will come from the push against the maintanence of the German sacred cows of retaining the ECB's current role and the ruling out of Eurobonds. However, it is doubtful that these ambitious goals could be won as well as removing the "golden budget rule" (who knows, maybe any financial relief fund would be sold as a counter-balance to national austerity brought about by the golden rule). The question is whether this pressure (and that of the markets) will force the negotiations to move further and further away from the starting points agreed on this month...

A new EU history. For China

2011-12-15T14:13:00.000Z

China has its first textbook on the history and development of the EU: an Austrian book that was unveilled by the Austrian ambassador in China, Sajdik, who also revised and updated the book for translation. As Der Standard reports, it's apparently one of the first books of its kind in China.

Interest in the EU might have peaked lately in China now with the crisis, but I wonder what they make of us these days...

The Left and the New Fiscal Compact

2011-12-15T08:13:00.001Z

The new fiscal compact is all about discipline. Eurozone states will need to keep their debt and deficits under control and this will be supervised by the Commission. The compact has come in for a lot of criticism already for two reasons - it's too austerity focused (making keynesianism policies difficult if not impossible), and it doesn't address the immediate crisis. This has lead to calls for the left to take the fight to the EU and queries over the democratic desirability of the deal. But what can the left do?

The urgency of fiscal union and the necessity of discipline

To some extent discipline is necessary. If there's going to be a currency union with fiscal solidarity (Eurobonds, the ECB playing the role of the lender of last resort, etc.), then Member states need to be relatively sure that they're not signing an open-ended agreement to support the spending plans of other Eurozone countries without any say or safeguards from the moral hazards that might arise.

The problem is that this new fiscal compact offers no real solidarity: it's essentially a Stability and Growth Pact Plus. The economic hopes behind the deal were pinned on the reaction of the ECB, and whether it would act more as a lender of last resort (it would have been better if this was part of the deal, rather than a hoped-for side effect). The deal expresses an intention for future fiscal solidarity, but it doesn't define what the possibilities are or set a time frame for them. That said, there's 3 months to negotiate the actual treaty so the crisis and negotiations could take twists and turns that force the Eurozone to look more closely at fiscal solidarity. Still, for all the urgency for greater solidarity to make the Eurozone more politically and economically credible, some level of discipline is necessary to underline the necessary trust for the system to work. Any alternative articulated by the left needs to take account of this.

The options for fiscal union seem to be: do nothing (which doesn't seem an option, but is the default if the deal falls apart), fiscal discipline, or fiscal discipline plus some form of solidarity (from a changed ECB role to Eurobonds and a common growth strategy). The argument runs that the bail-out countries need investment and growth plans and that the new discipline entrenches the failed austerity. But where would the money come from to invest in the bail-out countries and in the countries on the edge of bailed-out-dom? The markets won't accept the level of borrowing necessary, so there would need to be more solidarity and support across the Eurozone to encourage growth. (Not to mention rhe need for democratic controls through national and the European parliaments). There needs to be a coordinated response, and therefore any alternative has to be backed up by a political coalition that could win support to advance its solution across the Eurozone. Success in simply opposing the new fiscal compact would merely keep us in the same position we're in now: there needs to be a viable alternative.

Does the Left measure up to this?

Simply put: no, not really. The Party of European Socialists (the centre-left bloc of parties) has criticised the lack of Eurobonds and changes for the ECB:

"PES interim-President, Sergei Stanishev, argued that the important elements missing from the summit decisions are granting the European bailout fund a banking licence, introducing eurobonds, introducing a financial transactions tax, and a "real plan" for investment and growth.

[...]

The European Central Bank (ECB) has also been given the possibility to provide ‘technical support’ for the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) and buy bonds only on secondary markets. The European Stability Mechanism is set to start in July 2012.

In summary, this draft plan is a clear and historical signal of what a Conservative majority in Europe means for ordinary people. In the past, the European Union succeeded because any advance on the single market or on monetary union was always balanced by improvements in social Europe. This is not the case this time. The absence of a growth strategy and solidarity is striking.

There is a huge risk that the absence of proposals on Eurobonds, on an EFSF banking license, and on a coherent Investment strategy, could lead to an absence of public support."

Despite making the right noises, there doesn't seem to be a full vision for what needs to be done and what shape it will take. Though the Europarties tend to be quite coherent in the European Parliament, they have a dismal track record at forming the basis of promoting new political arguments or shaping a political coalition around established arguments.

Within the Eurozone countries discussion will turn to the benefits of the deal versus the loss of sovereignty. If the choice isn't to be between the compact and what we have now, the opposition will have to organise around a credible alternative. But then there's never been a political demand within the national parties for a stronger common platform - and even with the best will in the world it would be hard to construct one ad hoc at the moment. But perhaps the PES could act as a link between centre-left parties to transmit ideas and to help some sort of consensus emerge slowly as the crisis progresses (and it's got a long way to go yet). It will be a miracle if the left can build a common theme and European alliances they can point to form a basis to their opposition, but it's necessary to form a constructive opposition.

Anyone willing to place their bets?

Unreasonableness and the Rebate

2011-12-14T08:14:00.002Z

While political battles are being waged over Cameron's veto, there seems to be at least one point of consensus within Britain: that the demands on the protection for financial services were reasonable. The Labour party hasn't set out exactly what it would have done (it says it would have stayed at the table and achieved a better deal, though it's hard to run a "what-if" scenario since the Cameron government's relations and those of a Labour government with the other 26 Member States over the last few months would need to be taken into account), but it seems that Labour basically supports the government's position on the treaty changes it was seeking, and that such changes were reasonable.

But today the Commission President Barroso told the European Parliament that Britain's demands were unreasonable and would have threatened the internal market.

Unreasonable Demands?

Financial services are part of the internal market, and are covered by Article 114 TFEU. This article provides for the regulation of the internal market, and the legislative procedure is the ordinary legislative procedure (i.e. the Commission proposes, and the Council and Parliament have an equal say in amending and passing the legislation). Britain wanted to insert a protocol which would grant every Member State a veto if the regulation was concerned with the financial services sector. Because every Member State would have a veto, the British government argues that it wasn't merely seeking to protect the City or asking for special treatment for itself.

However, this does threaten the legal and political basis of the internal market. To make it harder to regulate one sector of the internal market is to privilege one sector of the internal market over all other sectors. While it may be technically correct that Britain wouldn't be legally privileged over the other Member States, this would have created a separate legal procedure for introducing regulations for a separate sector of the market, so it would have introduced a legal division in the treaties between financial services and the rest of the internal market.

Then there's the political concept of the internal market. That internal market legislation is passed by majority voting is not only necessary to ensure that legislation can be passed at a pace that more closely reflects the pace of innovation in the market (compared with unanimity - we don't want to return to the days of waiting years for a single regulation to be passed), but also this politically underlines the mutual trust between the Member States in each other as they work on the internal market. If legislation is passed by qualified majority vote, then everyone has to work together to get legislation passed (and can't simply oppose all legislation outright to get its way) and Member States also have to be sensitive to the needs of the others (in other words: if you outvote me here, I'll outvote you there, so let's not play the zero-sum game). By introducing special protections for parts of the market that have been identified as a key interest by one Member State, in political terms you are privileging that Member State over the others in the overall internal market negotiations, and weakening the trust that is supposed to underwrite the market.

So Barroso was right to say that what Britain was asking for was unacceptable (or at least that it would be unacceptable for other Member States). Why should the financial sector be treated differently to other parts of the internal market? Should Germany have a protocol so there's a veto in the area of environmental policy when it comes to the car industry? Why shouldn't economic sectors of interest to other Member States be more protected? Because the more you reverse the integration in the internal market, the more you break up that market. Similarly, most other Member States see the social chapter as protecting their welfare states from a race to the bottom while entrusting their economies to the competition of the internal market. Yes the UK is one of the most committed Member States to free markets and a liberal internal market. But it fails to see how these trade-offs are part of the "Single Market Pact" sometimes, and how unacceptable its position can appear to others. If you can't understand the position of those you negotiate with, then you don't stand a good chance in negotiations.

It should also be noted that there are plenty of EU regulations that only set minimum standards, above which Member States may regulate more heavily. It should be easy to negotiate this minimum standard approach, rather than pitch for a full legal division of the internal market.

Finally, Barroso claims that he tabled a motion that should have met key British demands on protecting the internal market from a Eurozone caucus:

"In search of compromise, I tabled a clause providing, in the EU treaties, that any measures adopted by the Council and applying to the euro area only, must not undermine the internal market including in financial services. Unfortunately this compromise proved impossible."

The Rebate

Joseph Daul, the leader of the European People's Party group in the European Parliament, said:

"I believe that the British rebate should be put into question. Our taxpayers' money should be used for things other than rewarding selfish and nationalistic attitudes."

For the UK, the rebate is like the EP's Strasbourg seat for France or the protection of the low corporation tax for Ireland. For Britain the rebate is a question of fairness: otherwise it would contribute more to the EU, which isn't fair as others get back more in the Common Agricultural Policy.

But times have changed since Thatcher demanded Britain's money back. Back then the EU was a club of fairly wealthy countries, but now it has expanded to include the former post-communist, Warsaw Pact countries. During the negotiations for the "Big Bang" enlargement - which the UK was a huge supporter of - the question of the British rebate was raised. With 10 new Member States joining, which would all be poorer than the then-current members, there would be greater pressure on the EU budget to cover the structural funds and CAP costs. Would Britain, who supported this enlargement so much, not either give up or reduce its rebate to help cover the costs of greater solidarity with the new members? No. In fact there was the sad situation where Poland had to ask how much more the new members would have to pay to make membership a reality. Because the EU budget cannot be based on debt, so other countries have to fund Britain's rebate.

Of course it's not as simple as saying that Britain should have surrendered its rebate at that point. It's not to say that there are not other interests that are protected in the EU budget and that these shouldn't be seriously negotiated over. But it is an odd policy to drive forward enlargement, while demanding the EU budget to remain static on the one hand, and defending the British rebate on the other. If Britain is to make the case for the fairness of the rebate, it will have to move on from the arguments of Thatcher.

The key point is that the EU is a compromise. The internal market isn't something that can be viewed in isolation, and it is a mistake of British politics that the EU is often only presented in that way. Without the solidarity with poorer regions, opening them up to the competition from the more advanced economies is a hard sell. A minimum level of solidarity is required to ensure that the welfare states and the communities in Member States won't be too negatively affected by the downsides of the internal market - and in some countries where euroscepticism is mainly on the left it is argued that the EU is neo-liberal and there isn't enough solidarity. So when discussing the internal market, social policy and the budget, we need to have a more nuanced and fuller idea of the fairness that's required in the EU for even a minimalist internal market to work.

Nirj Deva and the European Parliament Presidency Campaign

2011-12-13T21:15:00.003Z

The British European Conservative and Reformist candidate for the Presidency of the European Parliament, Nirj Deva, has gained support from far-right MEPs despite not seeking it:

"A nomination paper leaked to Hope Not Hate, a UK anti-fascist watchdog group, and seen by EUobserver shows the signatures of Griffin, Gollnisch and five other MEPs from the far-right of the chamber, one immediately after the other, suggesting the document was passed directly between these MEPs, all of which maintain close ties with each other.

The anti-federalist European Conservatives and Reformist grouping in the parliament, which backs Deva’s bid for the presidency, was quick to distance the candidate from his nationalist supporters.

“He has been nominated by the ECR and nobody else,” the group’s spokesman, James Holtum, told EUobserver."

Martin Schulz, the leader of the Socialists and Democrats group (the centre-left group), will probably win the contest as there is an agreement between the European People's Party group and the S&D that they will share the presidency during this parliament. The current president, Jerzy Buzek (EPP) will soon stand down, and Schulz will be officially backed by the EPP and the Liberal group. However, Schulz isn't the most popular MEP, and British Liberal MEP Diane Wallis is running as an independent against him.

With two challengers to the EPP-S&D carve up, it will be interesting to see who will do better. Wallis is officially acting without the support of her Liberal group, but she could attract those liberal and EPP MEPs - and perhaps even some S&D MEPs - who can't bring themselves to vote for Schulz. But how will it compare to Deva's support? Though the ECR group doesn't attract a lot of good will, and therefore is handicapped when it comes to building parliamentary coalitions, Deva is a well respected MEP who, according to EUObserver, has won "MEP of the year" in the area of development last month.

It's good to see the ECR contesting the election. The EP presidency is more political than the role of most parliamentary speakers/chairpersons as the EP President has to stick up for the Parliament in inter-institutional battles. So while I don't support the ECR, this is exactly the kind of election they should be contesting: institutional politics and questions of integration are a major reason for founding the ECR in the first place. Will Deva present himself as more than just a candidate hoping to force an election, and run on a more ideological campaign? It would be a lost opportunity if he doesn't, even if it makes it harder for him to build alliances.

Post-Veto Politics

2011-12-12T08:04:00.000Z

Britain has lost influence and friends in the EU due to the veto, but it doesn't mean that the UK won't get another chance to sit around the negotiating table because the new fiscal compact is far from a done deal.

Isolated Britain

First of all, how Britain has isolated itself needs to be recognised. When it comes to treaty renegotiation, Britain has a bad hand to play. Though the Tory right have talked up the crisis as an opportunity to renegotiate the UK's EU position and the possibility of leading a group of non-Eurozone countries. Both ideas are - and have proven themselves to be - ridiculous. The crisis makes it more likely that governments under pressure will try to circumvent an obstructive Britain in the rush to save the Euro than waste time opening up non-Euro areas of the Treaties. Most of the non-Eurozone countries either see themselves as future Eurozone members (most of them are legally obliged to eventually join), or see buying into the deal as a cheap way of ensuring influence (it has no affect on non-Eurozone members after all.

Second, though Britain wasn't arguing for major renegotiation of the treaties (e.g. on social policy powers), the UK's demands weren't as reasonable as they are now being presented. Under the present Treaties there is already a veto on introducing measures such as a financial transaction tax, so Cameron's veto doesn't add any extra protection in this area. On other financial regulations (decided by qualified majority voting, but in practice never previously passed without UK consent) we need to be clear that the UK was asking for special treatment of the financial services compared to other parts of the internal market. Why should financial services be treated differently and not any of the countless other economic interests of the other 26 Member States? Ironically France ending up standing up for the integrity of the internal market against Britain! In any case, Britain's demands could have probably been accomodated in practice during the normal legislative negotiations rather than tampering with the internal market as a concept.

It's not hard to see why the UK found itself without support for its position at the summit.

The New Fiscal Compact

Though Britain has damaged its own interests and alliances, it could try to repair them and it could find itself at the negotiating table again soon. The new fiscal compact only focuses on fiscal discipline, and doesn't touch on the role of the ECB or on the possibility of Eurobonds. Reassuring Germany over discipline without a trade-off on fiscal solidarity makes the deal harder to sell, and it could still fail. Some elements of solidarity might emerge over the course of negotiations between now and March (we all know that more happens in a week than in a year for the EU in this crisis).

Still, if the deal collapses, the Eurozone might need to reform the EU institutions (democratic legitimacy might re-emerge as an issue: after all, it's the aim of Merkel's CDU to mae the Commission President a directly elected office), and therefore an all-EU treaty change with the UK participating. It might even be the case that another treaty change is needed since the current deal doesn't do enough to help solve the crisis. This would still not be a good opportunity to renegotiate the UK-EU relationship to a great extent - if anything the Eurozone governments would be more panicked and willing to use any means necessary to save the Eurozone, and the international pressure on the UK not to block a deal would be huge - but it would provide a means of restoring influence and relationships within the EU for Britain. We'll see if it gets this second chance.

The new fiscal compact

2011-12-09T10:04:00.003Z

Yesterday's neotiations have produced an agreement on a new "fiscal compact" (i.e. they hope the ECB will start playing the role of a normal central bank as much as it can now, even though it's too politically difficult for Germany to agree to it yet). You can find the agreement here (PDF).

Some of the main points are:

"General government budgets shall be balanced or in surplus; this principle shall be deemed respected if, as a rule, the annual structural deficit does not exceed 0.5% of nominal GDP.

• Such a rule will also be introduced in Member States' national legal systems at constitutional or equivalent level. The rule will contain an automatic correction mechanism that shall be triggered in the event of deviation. It will be defined by each Member State on the basis of principles proposed by the Commission. We recognise the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice to verify the transposition of this rule at national level. [The ECJ will therefore only rule on whether thi rule has been correctly transposed into national law and will not rule on the imposition of sanctions].

• Member States shall converge towards their specific reference level, according to a calendar proposed by the Commission.

• Member States in Excessive Deficit Procedure shall submit to the Commission and the Council for endorsement, an economic partnership programme detailing the necessary structural reforms to ensure an effectively durable correction of excessive deficits. The implementation of the programme, and the yearly budgetary plans consistent with it, will be monitored by the Commission and the Council.

• A mechanism will be put in place for the ex ante reporting by Member States of their
national debt issuance plans."

There is also a promise to boost the IMF by €200 billion and the European Stability Mechanism (which is to take over from the EFSF in March as the crisis mechanism - though the EFSF will continue working on the current bail-outs until 2013) will take decision during times of crisis by a super qualified majority of 85% if Finland's parliament agrees.

It's easy to criticise the deal as not going anywhere to solving the current crisis - after all, the short term goal of the plan was to provide the ECB with the political cover to do what Germany lacked the political will to change legally in the Bank's charter. Since the ECB's president practically crushed these hopes yesterday, it's hard to see the ECB going a long way to meet this open secret demand. However, the level of integration proposed by the agreement is striking. The powers of budgetry oversight by the Commission and the ability to send in inspectors to non-bail-out countries are particularly remarkable.

While common budget discipline is necessary, there is only the promise to look at tools like Eurobonds in the future. This raises a big issue: if we accept that this agreement is a stepping stone on the way to Eurobonds (introduced in stages to reassure Germany), then it's still a difficult position for the other Euro states to take it on trust. Without the ability to voe on economic policy (opposed to simply vetoing sanctions), and without any promise of some form of transfer union or the possibility of Eurozone investment in deficit-reducing economies, the deal will be difficult to pass in places like Ireland. It will be justifiably argued that this deal sets an inflexible economic policy in stone, and it will be hard to convince people to accept it he understanding that Germany will eventually accede to Eurobonds and a transfer union if its confidence is built up by acceptance of the deal.

How do you sell only half a fiscal union that doesn't seem to deal with the short term crisis which demanded it in the first place?

The Veto

2011-12-09T09:21:00.003Z

Cameron has played the UK's veto. Returning social policy powers to London wasn't on the table, but it seems that having a seat at the Eurozone meetings and opt-outs on financial services laws were. Ironically the former was to ensure that the Eurozone didn't start dividing up the internal market, while the latter would have, er, divided the internal market by providing one rule for the UK and another for the other 26...

In any case the UK has been left out of the negotiating room: the deal will be signed by 23 Member States, with others considering whether or not to sign up. Backing out of a deal was always going to upset the Eurozone countries, but it will be interesting to see how the UK's relations will develop with the other non-Eurozone countries. Sweden's foreign minister mocked the UK's position in a tweet:

"Worried that Britain is starting to drift away from Europe in a serious way. To where? In a strong alliance with Hungary."

The inclusion of these other non-Eurozone countries should be enough to ensure that the Eurozone doesn't go ahead on internal market matters without the rest of the EU (the Danish presidency will be particularly helpful in protecting the position of non-Eurozone members), though it probably does damage the short term influence of the UK in the EU.

Britain's Bad Negotiating Position

2011-12-08T12:43:00.001Z

Eurosceptic Conservative backbenchers in the UK want to use the summit tomorrow to negotiate the return of powers from the EU to the UK. It's not clear what powers they want to return to Westminster, but it's likely that the area they're interested in is social policy. This area covers things like the 35 hour week, maternity leave, and holidays. The problem is that Britain isn't in a good negotiating position.

First of all, the official position of the British government is that they want the Eurozone to have some level of fiscal union so that the Euro survives and the British economy is protected by meltdown. It would be a bit strange if the UK government suddenly switched from cheer leading greater integration to threatening to block it so other treaty areas could be opened up. Even if there weren't any other problems with the renegotiation position, this would leave the renegotiation position without credibility. After all, which does Britain need more at the moment: a stable Eurozone or a full treaty renegotiation?

Second, any treaty change will be designed to only affect the Eurozone so the UK's referendum law won't be triggered. So no powers will move from the UK to the EU. But at the same time Britain, as stated by Cameron, wants safeguards that ensure that the Eurozone "Outs" are protected from the growing integration (and potential power) of the "Ins". So Britain (and the other non-Eurozone countries) want something from these negotiations, but they will not be offering anything on the integration side. Whie Germany and other Eurozone countries (like Ireland) support a treaty change for the 27, it has already been signalled that the Eurozone 17 could go on ahead with a treaty outside the EU if necessary. When you're in a position of asking for safeguards but not exchanging anything in return, with the possibility that your negotiating partners can ignore you altogether, it's not a very strong negotiating position.

Third, the UK underestimates how controversial returning social policy will be for the other EU Member States. Social policy seems to be portrayed like it is a small add-on to the internal market, but for other Member States this protects their social policies and welfare states from the opening up of their markets. Why should the special access the internal market provides be given to the UK if they are going to engage in race-to-the-bottom social practices that would harm their welfare states? To put it in terms of the UK's human rights debate: there are rights and responsibilities, and the UK is increasingly seen as wanting all of the rights, but none of the responsibilities.

So for Britain to successfully negotiate a return of social policy powers to London, they need allies (which they would loose from obstructing a treaty change that both Germany and other Outs like Poland want), be in a position to offer something in return (to reassure other Member States that they won't start a race to the bottom), and a credible negotiating position (i.e. not being dependent on the treaty being passed and the goodwill of other Member States to be a part of the negotiations). I can't imagine that the Conservative backbenches aren't already aware of this (I mean, if they aren't I'd like to see their negotiations!), so it could be a way of trying to force David Cameron into backing an In-or-Out referendum.

Cameron might have more luck with negotiating safeguards on financial services, though the 17 can still threaten to go on ahead without Britain. He'll have to hope that whatever safeguards he gets will satisfy the Tories back home.

Ireland's State of the Nation Address

2011-12-05T20:00:00.004Z

Ireland's Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, made what is only the 6th state of the nation address on Sunday evening before the new government's first austerity budget (to be announced over Monday and Tuesday). Brian Cowen, the last Taoiseach, was criticised for not making an address, and was probably held back by the memory of another past Fianna Fáil Taoiseach, Charlie Haughey, who famously told the country to tighten its belt while he was far from doing the same in his own life. Ireland's also had some experience of austerity speeches that have been mocked:

Here's Enda's State of the Nation address:

Enda will probably get some credit for making the address, but the devil will be in the detail of the budget, and the debate that follows will be inevitably overshadowed by the actual changes and choices made by the budget. Ireland has been living under austerity budgets for so long that the further cuts and tax increases by the government will be increasingly painful: we've long run out of low-lying fruit.

From a Eurozone perspective, this is the first major signal that the Irish government will accept treaty changes, which it had been opposing as recently as Kenny's visit to Berlin two weeks ago. In many ways the Irish government has been so absorbed by the austerity plan and worried about running a referendum in this climate that it put a bit too much hope in a solution being found without treaty change (and it has raised some valid points about the lack of implementation of all the summit agreements so far). However, there needs to be a better Eurozone system for the currency to work, and treaty change is inevitable if the Euro is to survive. It's a pity that the Irish government's sights are set so low (its main red line is preventing (corporate) tax harmonisation), rather than focusing on putting forward what it wants fiscal union to look like for the whole Eurozone. How we run the Eurozone will effect how we work in the future, and how much solidarity we will want to show with other Eurozone countries (for example, would Ireland be happy with lending money as part of a bail-out to another country [post-current-crisis], under the strict deficit rules being discussed?).

Do we want Eurobonds - and not just for Christmas? How much fiscal policy should be set by the Commission/European Parliament/Council? Lately there has been more discussion about the role the ECB should play, but it does seem as if our politicians will only discuss what "Merkozy" proposes instead of insisting on common ownership. It's not all Merkozy, of course. All Eurozone members will need to agree on the way forward, and the Franco-German proposals are the starting point. But we need to have a better sense of public ownership in the other Eurozone states. The rise of more extreme parties has been most marked in the smaller Member States: if the next treaty change is to solve the crisis it will have to go far enough to create a credible Eurozone and appear just and inclusive enough to be accepted across the Eurozone. It's too much of a gamble for Merkozy to appear to push too far ahead with their own project and then risk rejection in the smaller states which could derail the Euro entirely...

Eurocrisis, Democratic Deficit and the Re:New Conference

2011-12-02T10:15:00.000Z

Throughout the Re:New Conference references were made to that most European of monsters: Merkozy. Yesterday Sarkozy spoke, and today Merkel has spoken in the Bundestag about Europe and the Eurozone. While European integration - and a new treaty - was held up to be necessary, Merkel rejected Eurobonds as expensive and unconstitutional. At the same time, the European Parliament has passed a resolution, declaring that it should have equal powers with the Council over any new features of economic union (such as an EU Finance Minister) so that there is sufficient democratic oversight.

The same day Sarkozy, in Gaullist mode, firmly signalled that any further changes would be purely intergovernmental:

""The reform of Europe is not a march towards supra-nationality," Sarkozy said. "Europe will reform itself by pragmatically drawing the lessons of the crisis. The crisis has pushed the heads of state and government to assume greater responsibilities because ultimately they have the democratic legitimacy to take decisions."

"The integration of Europe will go the inter-governmental way because Europe needs to make strategic political choices.""

At first sight the battle between Merkozy and the EP might seem to be a foregone conclusion: the duo have sidelined the EU institutions so far in the Eurocrisis and Treaty change is itself intergovernmental, so how much power can influence can the Parliament, with falling turnout numbers, and the Commission, which has hardly been bursting with energy, bring to bear. However, intergovernmentalism favours secretive processes and large countries over transparency and smaller countries. I've written before about the faultlines dividing the European debate, and these will spur some Member States to fight for more supranationalism.

In the long run intergovernmentalism will be a mistake as is disempowers citizens and promotes a cynical them-and-us culture between the rest of us and the Paris-Berlin duopoly that is unhealthly for European politics and damaging to democracy. But it's also damaging in the short term - by going for intergovernmentalist solutions, the suspicion and anger with the Franco-German concentration of power will crystalise: should this summitry with France and Germany at the top - which has hardly worked wonders during this crisis - be not just for crises, but for life? Without QMV, Commission oversight and Parliamentary input, the majority of the Eurozone and Non-Eurozone states and citizens are threatened with the prospect of being marginalised within the EU structure. So far we've been working ad hoc, pretty much outside of the treaties. Now we're talking about committing ourselves to these governing structures by treaty.

That's not to say that the European Parliament is a great cure for this democratic deficit: though over last weekend I saw a PES that spoke like an opposition and proposed a different vision for the EU, as an opposition the PES, and other Europarties, remain too detached from citizens and even their national parties. It seems to me that supporters of a more democratic EU need to focus more energy on reforming the Europarties so that they can seriously propose new policies and debate them in public. This requires not just some autonomy on the part of the Europarties - you could argue they have autonomy at the moment since the national parties don't pay much attention to them for policy matters - but commitment from the national parties to help shape, debate and campaign on these policies.

With the PES in opposition almost everywhere in the EU, this should be easier for them to achieve. Could a basic common platform not provide a voice for the centre-left during the crisis both in Member States and at the EU level? The divisions between national parties and the protection of national party autonomy from European commitments are great and understandable, but it's hard to see how the centre-left - the opposition - can effectively put forward their own narrative and solutions if they cannot build a European coalition, even on a basic level, that can make their visions at a national level sound realistic. Given that pan-european crises of this scale are - thankfully - rare, I wouldn't expect much progress to happen in this area, which is why I hope a contest between Europarties for the Commission Presidency would push politics further along this path. But that's too long-term, and this crisis is progressing too rapidly.

I'm not a member of a political party, but if I believe in promoting democracy at a European level, then perhaps I should become one and add my voice, in whatever small way, to the need for a better European politics. Because we can't just hope that it will simply emerge to inspire a demand for it; rather those of us who want it should demand it, and demand it loudly. Despite my criticisms of the lack of policy at the PES Conference, I did see some vision there. If we want to have an inclusive EU rather than a concentrated summitry, then we'll have to strengthen our Europarties so they can represent us better.

Vote for the Irish Council Presidency's logo

2011-12-02T09:27:00.003Z

You can now vote for the logo of the Irish presidency of the Council of the European Union (to be held in the first have of 2013; currently held by Poland, but Denmark will take over in the new year). You can find the designs and vote here.

I liked the spirals and connections designs best, but as I can only vote for one, I went for the connections one.

Re:New: Europarties and Primaries

2011-12-01T17:30:00.004Z

When I wrote about the Re:New conference and the lack of policy at the PES level on Friday, I wanted to find out more about the Europarty and how things are done. Luckly there was a workshop on Transnational parties on Saturday, which I attended (annoyingly most of the workshops I would be interested in were on on Saturday afternoon: I would have liked to have asked a few questions at the citizenship workshop on Zambrano and McCarthy).

Understandably the structure of Europarties mitigated against more unified political platforms being put forward at European elections (and in between). Europarties have evolved over the last 20 years, with political foundations (such as FEPS for PES), and firmer legal regulation for their legal status and funding. While there was some interesting presentations on the history and structure of the Europarties (notably from Erol Kuelachi and Steven van Henke). However, of the three aspects raised by Sebastian von Thuena (1. institutional aspects of Europarties; 2. the legal structure; and 3. the role of the grassroots), the question of the grassroots was picked up on by the audience (which counted a few PES activists among its members). How grassroots activists should work alongside national parties - via exchanges and uring election campaigns - was debated. Apparently there have been PES activist exchange programmes trialed that haven't been very successful, and national parties are unsure of how to react to PES activists (in some cases perhaps fearing that the PES is a competitor for institutional control within the party).

I was disappointed that the PES primaries weren't being discussed, so I asked:

"What could be the effect of the PES presidential candidate (and does the PES see it as more parliamentary or presidential)? It could have a chain effect (if there’s enough momentum) – 1. Would it take away from activist influence on the manifesto? 2. Would it bring the Commission closer to the EP? 3. Would it mean coalition Commissions and provoke reorganisation in the Greens, etc.?"

There wasn't enough time to address all of these points, but Steven van Henke pointed out that the PES would confirm both the candidate and the programme, raising the prospect of the candidate not being able to stand on their own platform. Originally I had thought that it could push activists out of the role of manifesto-shaping that they had gained at the last election - it will be interesting to see how the PES balances the national parties, the activists and the candidate's view in the joint manifesto.

Another aspect of the PES primaries is their timing. I hadn't noticed anything about the timing of the primaries during my first glance through the procedure, but I've heard complaints about the process being held over the December/January before the election, since it is extremely difficult to organise events for national parties at that time (at least, I have heard these complaints from the Irish Labour activists; and Irish Labour has been one of the most enthusiastic parties for PES primaries). Together with the uncertainty of the number of parties which will hold direct votes and whether the candidate will have much control over his/her policy platform, the PES's seeming political coup could be strangled at birth. Since it has the potential to boost not only the PES but also push the other Europarties to be more coherent, it would be a big loss to EP democracy.

Re:New Conference in Brussels - Renewal for the European left?

2011-11-25T15:15:00.000Z

The plight of the European left is well known by now: despite the victory in Denmark a few months ago, the left has lost Spain, and now doesn't hold any of the 6 major Member States (the big 3 plus Italy, Spain and Poland). So does it have the ability to fight back and put forward a viable alternative political vision? The Party of European Socialists are holding a Re:New conference in Brussels (25th-26th November), with NGOs and Trade Union representatives present as well as activitists.

First of all, the PES have decided on their primaries for selecting their Commission President candidate for the next European elections (PDF; Ralf Grahn has already commented on this here). A good step for European democracy, as PES are now committed to fielding a candidate, whereas they failed to providean alternative to Barroso in 2009. However, it is still left to national political parties to decide wheather they will hold a direct vote with their members or indirectly consult them. This could have a big effect as the envisaged proportional voting (that the votes per member party are distributed proportionally among candidates rather than a first past the post system where candidates could win all the votes of a national party at the PES level) could be undermined if few parties adopt direct votes. Political pressure through example by more democratic parties seems to be the hope behind this compromise. Still, it commits the PES to a more European campaign centred around winning power in the Commission.

So does there seem to be a PES alternative to the European EPP majority?

Probably not, if you consider a proper alternative to be a coherent policy platform. Though the PES seems to be fairly united around Eurobonds and the financial transaction tax (although UK Labour's Emma Reynolds looked a bit uncomfortable as she defended the Conservative-led government's position that an FTT would have to be global as the Labour party's own position), there doesn't seem to be a fully thought through programme yet. Added to this difficulty is the leftwards drift of the EPP (which can be seen by Barroso's SOTEU speech and the increasing promotion of Eurobonds and FTTs in right-wing circles). While the PES can berate the EPP and "Merkozy" for being too little, too late at every turn, it does not make up for the lack of a concrete plan. Not that the EPP has a plan, but if the left wants to well, it has to earn it rather than hope to profit from anti-incumbant votes.

The first workshop I attended was "Progressive Policy Responses to the Crisis". Apart from Eurobonds and FTT, barely any policy was mentioned. The failings of the right and the need for closer European integration were highlighted, but a lot of the hope for the left seems to be based on the French and German elections even though there's a recognition that the crisis is so urgent that key political questions need to be addressed quickly. Implicitly this means that it's up to a leftwing Merkozy, replacing our conservative one, to help solve the crisis, rather than attempt to provide a European leftwing platform in the meantime (and after all, what better time is there for the PES to articulate a vision if not when the left is in opposition and Europe is on everyone's lips?).

In terms of immediate policy, the only relevant contribution was from Walter Cerfada, who put forward 3 chages for the next EU budget: 1. that structural funds should be made available to the economically weaker nations without the requirements for co-funding when the money does not exist at a national level; 2. that this budget plans for the 2013 budget too so governments can make longer-term plans; 3. that the European Investment Bank quickly starts to invest more.

The audience very quickly picked up on the lack of policy content and a very challenging question was posed: if the PES has little power within the EU institutions, why don't the PES Commissioners resign in protest at EPP policies? There wasn't really an answer. If PES leave the Commission, then it would mean something else for their Commission presidential campaign too: that the PES would believe that the Commission should be politically coherent (and closer to the EP), not just the Commission President.

George Papandreou was actually one of the best speakers at the conference so far. The PES seem to be good at generating vision, but has problems communicating that vision nationally, and putting together practical policies (at least as far as I can tell from this conference so far). Is this a problem of organisation - is the PES too national? What organisational developments are needed or are taking place to make the PES more effective? Hopefully I can find out some more over the next day.

BBC Radio Four: Britain and the Human Rights Act

2011-11-10T08:06:00.001Z

The Human Rights Act 1998, which transposes the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law, is controversal in British politics: the Liberal Democrats and Labour are for the HRA, while the Conservatives are against. The Conservatives want to bring in a British Bill of Rights, but it has never been spelt out what this means in practical terms. Will it contain less rights than the ECHR? More? Would the UK leave the ECHR (and therefore the Council of Europe - which only junta Greece has ever done)?

BBC Radio Four has produced an interesting programme this week on Britain and Human Rights, and what the practical legal implications of moves to change it are. You can listen to it here.

If the link doesn't work, try looking the programme up on the BBC Radio Four website - though you have to be in the UK to use the iPlayer, but I've been able to listen to BBC radio programmes through their websites from outside the UK before.

Cardiff's Controversal Court of Auditors nomination

2011-11-09T13:13:00.000Z

Last week the Irish Department of Finance discovered that it had counted the money borrowed by the Housing Finance Agency, leading it to overstate the Irish Government's debt by €3.6 billion. The Secretary General, Kevin Cardiff was called before a parliamentary committee to account for the mistake, but the controversy has rumbled on since Cardiff has been named as the government's nominee to the EU's Court of Auditors, which oversees the EU's budget.

Cardiff's departure is being explained in a few ways:

"The Fine Gael-Labour coalition made little secret of its desire to move those associated with the 2008 bank guarantee into different roles. [Note: He was in office at the time]. Mr Cariff’s appointment not only frees up the most senior post in the department, but also replaces a Fianna Fáil nominee at the court of auditors.

[...]

In Government circles, it had been widely anticipated the post would go to a political nominee from either Fine Gael or Labour. The speculation in Dublin was that the party, which did not receive a Luxembourg post, would have a claim on Ireland’s seat in the European Commission when next it falls vacant.

Sources familiar with the deliberations in Dublin said it was far too early in the life of the Government to consider appointing any Minister to the post. Given that the nomination is subject to the approval of MEPs, the Government was keen to nominate a figure with a financial background."

Cardiff has countered the criticism leveled at him by opposition TDs that he is unfit to take the CoA job considering the accounting mistake made under his watch:

"In his response to her direct criticism, Mr Cardiff said that as accounting officer he accepted responsibility and would act on the error to ensure it would not happen again. “If an accounting officer were to resign every time there was an error you would have no accounting officer. If they were to resign after every major error you would only have lucky accounting officers left,” he said."

However, it's not just the opposition that's exercised by the nomination, MEPs from the junior coalition party have spoken out against his appointment, as has UKIP MEP Marta Andreasen:

"Former chief accountant of the European Commission Marta Andreasen spoke out against the Irish Government and Mr Noonan yesterday for their support for Mr Cardiff. The UK Independence Party MEP said the Government was behaving irresponsibly by backing someone whom she believes is unfit for the European job."

It will be interesting to see how closely the Budget Control Committee will examine his record tomorrow.

Democracy and the Eurozone Crisis

2011-11-09T08:11:00.001Z

There will no longer be any referendum in Greece on the new Eurozone deal, and a technocratic-led national unity government will take over before elections can be held in February. (And a good thing that there will be elections - Greece needs to confront its economic future in a way that the Greek people will buy into the responsibility of the decisions that need to be taken). Now that the referendum has been called off, it's taken as a indictment of Europe that France and Germany could pressure Greece to drop the referendum by saying that the money will be withheld unless a referendum would return a positive result.

This is a very strange argument. Surely it wouldn't be taking Greek sovereignty and democracy seriously if the Eurozone continued to loan Greece money and expect them to implement austerity measures regardless of any referendum they held? And the implication that the Eurozone should be willing to loan money to Greece regardless of Greece's commitment to any deal suggests that the rest off the Eurozone deserves less of a say. While a partial default within a Eurozone deal or a total default outside any Eurozone loans isn't an attractive choice, Greece cannot change that choice by elections or referendums: democracy is when people come together to decide what to do in the situation in which they find themselves. Sadly, for Greece and the rest of the Eurozone there are no good options.

Fintan O'Toole has an article in The Irish Times about the disconnect between capitalism and democracy:

"And this isn’t just a simple matter of the Merkozy monster lording it over us little PIGS. For at this historic moment, even the German chancellor is little more than a cipher. She’s caught in the democratic crisis too. Remember this time last year when Angela Merkel started to make noises about bondholders sharing the pain of rescuing the banking system? She had to back down very quickly and make it clear that she didn’t mean present bondholders – heaven forbid. Even the German chancellor isn’t allowed to say certain things."

I don't entirely agree with him, but I do think that markets and globalisation has grown and proceeded to such and extent that it benefits us to make some market and economic decisions collectively in the EU. Yet the EU, despite the almost co-equal power of the European Parliament, has a huge democratic disconnect. With the Treaties unequipped to deal with the Eurozone crisis, the approach to solving it has been intergovernmental, which has caused tensions between small Member States and non-Eurozone states who have the most to loose politically from governing the Eruozone from the Eruopean Council, and big Eurozone Member States (primarily France and Germany) who are better placed to have the most influence.

It might take ages to finalise a new treaty to equip the EU institutions to better deal with fiscal union issues, but it is most likely to be produced after the major crises are solved (or stabilised, if we're lucky enough). European issues have never been so widely discussed in Europe than they are now: since the Euro and the future of the EU is such a major issue, and the European Parliament has gained more powers since the last election in 2009, it might be worth having another European election. It would provide an opportunity to involve citizens more directly in the debate over what needs to be done and can also focus on the Parliament's new power. Though the EP isn't in a prime position over the EFSF or future fiscal union, an election would give the Parliament (and the Europarties) a stronger mandate in their proposals, and could be a useful way of gauging (informed) public opinion before embarking on further treaty change.

European Faultlines

2011-11-07T20:07:00.001Z

Last year I blogged about the European outlook of the Dutch government. With the Eurozone crisis still rumbling on, some of the faultline themes are well established: the degree of fiscal union and the role of the ECB, the core versus the perciphery, austerity versus stimulus, Eurozone members versus non-Eurozone members, etc. Apart from the left-right question of austerity versus stimulus, most of the major questions are about integration and institutions: how much do we integrate, how do we integrate, and what will be the consequences of integration. So a lot of the old instutitional debates are being revived in the background.

First, intergovernmentalism and supranationalism remains a big question. The influence of France and Germany in the crisis is obvious, and in some ways justified given the financial commitment they are making on behalf of their citizens, but it does means that the debate on the solutions to the crisis are incredibly narrow. It may be better for Greece to remain in the Eurozone deal despite the devestating effects of austerity than to default and bring in an automatic and deeper austerity as the Greek government fails to be able to finance its government spending. However it's not necessarily the best policy for Greece or for the Eurozone: yet it remains up to discussions in certain Member States to come to that conclusion before anything changes rather than an open pan-Eurozone debate permitting a more dynamic an informed action. This is particularly the case as the deepening crisis in Italy and elsewhere is connected to the need for recapitalising and reforming Europe's banking and financial sector.

The European Council has gone some way to tackling this crisis, but the constant summits has meant that the Commission and Parliament are being sidelined. Since the treaties don't really provide for the EFSF (and the EFSF is probably contrary to the treaties, but sovereign states are quite practised at rewriting the rules), the Commission and Parliament are very limited in what they can do. But it would be a mistake to think that only the Commission and Parliament want more power for themselves: it is in the interest of many Member States for treaty changes to transfer powers to the Union more properly to deal with these crises. For small Member States, majority voting and a strong Parliament and Commission are safeguards against the overpowering influence of the big Member States, while for non-Eurozone Member States, it is better to anchor the Eurozone within the wider EU in order to prevent a core Eurozone from driving internal market and other policy. This level of integration would require a new treaty with sufficient fiscal and political union elements to work - if the institutions can't deal with the crisis even with a treaty change, then the European Council, dominated by the big Member States, would again step in.

Second, the European Council as an institution is asserting itself over the Commission, in a way that has similar big-versus-small states implications, as well as challenging the newly empowered Parliament. (We're lucky that Tony Blair didn't get the European Council Presidency) The Commission and Parliament will probably continue to grow closer together (or, the Commission will try to co-opt the Parliament in its battle with the Council, while the Parliament tries to co-opt the Commission in its battle with the Council).

Third, there is the Eurozone/Non-Eurozone divide. It's not a clear divide between those states, but a divide on whether or not to include them and how far to include them. The fear is that closer integration within the Eurozone will mean that non-Eurozone countries will have less say within the EU generally, as Eurozone countries co-ordinate more. Ireland, the Netherlands and Finland want to include the rest of the EU as much as possible: for the Netherlands and Ireland this is about including more free market-orientated countries, but it's also about diluting the influence of France and Germany and strengthening the position of the small states. For non-Eurozone countries to secure the position, it would be better to ensure that new institutional changes are committed to the treaties in a way that limits the consequences of the change to the Eurozone as much as possible (though multispeed Europe will mean that some Member States will end up with more political say than others). As long as the changes are reached ad hoc through the European Council and the Eurozone Group, the more exclusive the decision making will remain.

However the UK may be the spanner in the works. While ensuring the position of the non-Eurozone members means that the focus on treaty change should be on limiting the scope for Eurozone decisions to affect the internal market without some general EU involvement, the UK moves to gain further opt-outs could push Eurozone members to make any new treaty Eurozone-only. The UK may find that it cannot count on non-Eurozone countries for support in getting new opt-outs if they feel it could damage their chances of securing their positions in the EU.

The Irish Finance minister has given a speech at the IIEA last week outlining some of the Irish positions on the EU and the Eurozone which reflect some of these faultlines:

Irish President Michael D

2011-11-04T08:33:00.002Z

Last week Ireland elected its ninth president. Though the role is highly ceremonial, the election campaign was hard fought between 7 candidates: the widest choice in the office's history. At the end of the count, Michael D,* an academic, poet, and long-time elected politician, became the first "political millionaire", with over a million votes. He has a strong track record on fighting for human rights, and is a great orator.

Here's his acceptance speech (skip to 3:00 if you want to leave out the Irish language part and the thank yous):

As a resident of Northern Ireland, I didn't have a vote in the election (extending the franchise north of the border and to the Irish abroad will probably be considered as part of the political and constitutional reform agenda in Ireland). However, over the last 21 years the presidency has allowed Ireland to redefine itself and its identity in a very positive way - in terms of inclusion and the peace process - and Michael D clearly aims to continue this from his platform of inclusive and active citizenship. While people and the media complain that the post has little power, it's highly political role (despite being removed from daily politics and policy) that offers a powerful way for citizens to engage in what their identity is and what their republic means to them. Which is why I think this right to elect the head of state is an important and positive thing, why I take monarchists' claims of unity and symbolism with a certain amount of scepticism, and I look forward to Michael D's presidency.

* He will probably be called Michael Higgins/President Higgins abroad, but he's known by his middle initial in Ireland. What it stands for is a popular pub quiz question (Daniel, if you're wondering).

Papandreou's Gamble: a tale of two defaults

2011-11-02T14:52:00.004Z

It's clear that Papandreou's decision to hold a referendum on the latest Eurozone agreement, without even informing his cabinet of his decision, is a massive political gamble to restore his authority. The further reduction of the government's parliamentary majority, and the firing of the entire chiefs of staff reveal the instability of the government.

On the European level the problem with the referendum is not so much that people are being given a say - though there are probably elements that argue that, there needs to be a democratic buy-in of the Greek people into any plan for it to work properly - rather that it crystalises the issue. When presented with the referendum the Greek people will be asked to say yes or no to the deal: a yes would mean buying into the process so far and imply support for however it evolves; a no would mean the end to the loans, complete default (along with the instant austerity that the inability to fund the deficit implies) and probable exit of the Eurozone.

While this could be a clever move by Papandreou to bounce the electorate into supporting the government in a choice between two defaults, for the Eurozone it raises the spectre of a non-negotiatable stance, and a toxic debt fallout that will force a decision over Italy. Though Greece probably needs more haircuts over time and a plan for growth so it can service its remaining debts and rebuild its economy, this slow evolution of the Greek Crisis (though not necessarily inevitably moving in that direction) has been short-circuited by the referendum announcement. A "No" would mean that Greece would be dropped so the Eurozone could deal with Italy.

There has to be a real buy-in by the Greek people in the solution to the crisis: with all the strikes and the uncollected taxes, Greece can't recover unless there is a majority for reforming the state and the economy. With, as EUObserver reports:

"Polls over the weekend put Greek popular opposition to the new EU deal at 60 percent and the viability of the government is under threat from rolling general strikes and frequently violent protests that reach almost every quarter of the country.

At the same, polls put support for retention of the euro at 70 percent."

the binary choice of default within or outside the Eurozone might pass, and offer the Greek public to decide whether or not they want to be part of the Eurozone deal - and how much they want to be part of the Eurozone. But in the absence of a real debate about other options - however workable - that a parliamentary election might allow (essentially forcing the government and opposition to set out their alternatives), it's hard to see how much a "yes" vote would signal acceptance of the Eurozone's direction, and how much it would constitute a democratic buy-in by the Greek people.

It may turn out to be a masterstroke by Papandreou: giving the people a greater say and building a wider consensus in society, or it could backfire, either as a No, or as a Yes with no real substance to it. In any case, the Greek people are caught in a tale of two defaults, with an unenviable decision.

Edit: While I'm slightly sceptical of the referendum because of its limited choice, Polscieu has written a great post in favour of it.

Happy 3rd of October!

2011-10-03T08:02:00.000+01:00

It's Leiden's Ontzet and Germany's reunification day (or day of German unity). Have a great day!

Financial Transaction Tax and Multispeed Europe

2011-09-30T11:13:00.004+01:00

The UK government's stated opposition to the FTT was hardly unexpected. With the City of London acting as the financial heart of the EU, and a sacred (cash) cow for the UK government in terms of tax receipts, the UK was always going to be resistant to the idea. Barroso, in his State of the Union speech, seemed to recognise this and generally supported a two-speed (or multi-speed) EU.

When the national interest is invoked as a reason for a policy position, it shuts down debate. However, while national interest is part of it, since the UK government supports the idea of FTT in principle, provided it is applied globally, there has been a bit more debate on the idea. I have to admit that I don't fully understand the mechanics of how the tax would puch financial businesses outside the EU and outside the UK: my understanding is that the proposed tax would be applied to transactions where one side of the transaction was in the EU - so even if the financial businesses and banks moved outside the EU, they would have to pay the tax if they wanted to do business in the EU. It would only make sense to move if the business did most or all of its business outside the EU. However there are good points on the fact that a large proportion of the tax would be collected from the City of London, and this would be unfair if the Eurozone mainly benefited. If the income was used to build a safety net for the banking and financial system across the EU (to reduce the burden on taxpayers in the real economy), than that would probably be fairer.

While the Labour party in the UK will probably support the government's resistance, it would be interesting if they decided to support an EU FTT in some form - after all, their leader Ed Miliband has referred to businesses which were "bad" for the economy: would the FTT not make sense in rebalancing these ethical issues by making the financial industry pay a bit more tax to insure against the danger of being (ultimately) underwritten by the taxpayer? The BBC's Robert Peston has an interesting take on the FTT here.

In any case Member States have a veto on the matter, so the UK can block it. But the implications for the EU of a Eurozone FTT haven't received much attention. We already have a multi-speed EU, with some countries in or out of the Euro, the Schengen Zone, the EEA but not EU Members, etc, but these have been in different areas of integration. If you start to adopt different speeds to the internal market in a way that affects the four freedoms, then it could cause some political headaches. It would raise the EU's West Lothian Question. Why should MEPs from the slower countries have votes in areas where their countries aren't affected? Already the British Commissioner couldn't (politically) be the Commissioner for monetary policy since the UK is not a Eurozone member. The more the Eurozone countries pull ahead, the less influence those outside Euroland will have.

The Commissarial Speech 2011

2011-09-28T10:01:00.004+01:00

Barroso has just delivered his State of the (European) Union speech. Last year I pointed out that it was a work programme speech setting out the legislative programme for the year ahead - a bit like the speech from the throne in European constitutional monarchies. This year the speech actually reflected the State of the Union title a bit more, though it was still a Commissarial Speech.

The speech had two themes: the economic crisis and the EU's role in the world. On the economic crisis, Barroso proclaimed the Commission to be the economic government of Europe, and announced several measures on market regulation and on jobs and support for growth. Barroso reminded the Parliament of the Single Market Act announced last year, and urged that it be fast-tracked through the legislative process. He also pointed out that the services legislation had not yet been fully implemented by Member States, and claimed that implementation would spur growth in the economy.

The most notable announcements marked a shift leftwards - perhaps made possible by the leftwards shift of the EPP following the departure of the British Conservatives, and the economic and political pressures of the crisis. Growth is a goal. Barroso announced that the European Investment Bank needed to be reinforced so it could lend to the real economy (though no detail was given on how), and called on an "Erasmus for jobs" which would help with youth unemployment by making more internships and work experience available (however no plan has been put forward yet, apart from calling for industry, national governments and the EU to work together on such a scheme). Project bonds will be launched to finance green projects and transport projects, which will stimulate the economy, while Barroso noted that the Commission will bring forward Eurobond proposals. Some forms of Eurobond will require a treaty change, while others won't. The treaty-friendly Eurobond was coined the "Stability Bond".

The biggest announcement was his support for a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT). This was were Barroso showed the most rhetorical energy on the economy: it is a matter of fairness that the financial industry contributes when the ordinary taxpayer has pumped so much into the sector. Is it fair, Barroso asked, to make the farmer pay more in taxes when they have already contributed so much? However such a tax would require unanimity in the Council, and where it would face a lot of opposition. Given that tax sovereignty was such a big issue in Ireland during the Lisbon Referendums, it might even lead to a referednum, should it come to a Council vote.

This leftward shift is not all it might seem, however. Parts of this plan are hard for the Commission to deliver and may not actually happen (the FTT being the most obvious). But Barroso made passing reference to the need to reform the labour market and pension funds. As no actual plans, or even a direction, were given to these reforms, it will be interesting to see what proposals will surface.

Finally, Barroso made a few more general points on Europe and Europe's place in the world. The Commission would protect citizens' rights, including their free movement and Schengen rights. Nobody wants to see a G2 (of the US and China), but the EU needs to play its part in the world and take more responsibility. The COmmission's role in foreign policy - hard foreign policy, rather than development aid and trade - is quite limited, so Barroso could wax rhetorically here about Europe's potential role without making concrete proposals. He did, however make reference to the need for a European defence industry: though nothing was announced, maybe there will be some form of market reforms of further industry co-operation through the European Defence Agency.

Overall the speech was better than last year's - now we need to see how much progress will be made on these promises.

The Parliamentary Response:

Daul (EPP Leader) improved his performance this year. Though still a pro-Commission waffle (leading me to wonder whether Ashton was listening to improve her French or just tuning out), he said his group would support more public-private partnership in education, training and R&D, where more investment was needed, as well as a job erasmus.

Schulz (S&D Leader), who gave one of the better parliamentary speeches last year, floundered this year. Maybe it was because the key issue of the FTT was taken by Barroso, but there was no discussion or analysis of the proposals Barroso put forward, and no questions on the labour and pension reforms Barroso mentioned in passing. Instead of playing a good opposition, Schulz critiqued the use of "19th centuary Vienna Congress methods" of diplomacy which was being "bullied by the markets" - it may be true, but Schulz should be holding Barroso to account, and proposing alternatives, rather than devoting the whole speech to talking about the "other place". Politically, Schulz even failed to stake a claim on the FTT, despite the Party of European Socialists (that make up the vast majority of the S&D group in Parliament) campaigning on the issue.

Verhofstadt (ALDE), the Liberal group leader, has become the federalists' Farage, and focused entirely on a pro-intergration message. Like the S&D, the Liberal leader's central policy idea of the Eurobond was given a place in Barroso's speech, so maybe it left him without anything to say on the actual policies in the speech. The best line he delivered pointed out that it was all very well telling the Parliament about these plans, but "Now you have to say it in the other place" - the "other place" being the European Council.

Zahradil (ECR leader) is the only change in leader since the last speech (an indication of the political turbulance in the right wing group over the last year). While he agreed with Barroso's market measures, he attacked the proposed FTT, saying it would drive financial industries abroad. The rest of the speech attacked the federalism of the other groups, and the Euro, asking if some countries would leave the currency union and if other countries would reconsider their commitment to joining. Though he did not want the Euro to fail, he sharply criticised any of the proposals to change things in the Eurozone as increasing the EU's powers. This provides a handy political cover for playing up the anti-federalist credentials of the group, while not providing any alternatives on how to solve the Eurozone crisis.

Harms (Greens/EFA) hit out against the lack of action on sustainable development since 2007/8 when it was considered a priority, calling the proposals: "Small scale measures, taken too late". Bisky (United Left Leader) said he supported the Commission as far as it brings in good financial regulation, FTT and Eurogroup measures. He also spent a lot of time criticising the intergovernmental approach to solving the crisis. Farage (EFD) said that Barroso was doing more of the same of what was failing, and attacked him for being unelected. He said that people wanted trade, European co-operation, to work in other European capitals and Erasmus but without the EU. I've already written about the differences between free trade and the internal market: what Farage is proposing seems to be the end of the internal market - if so, he should come out and say it and campaign on it, instead of pretending that the same level of trade can be maintained without the EU structures. In his responce, Barroso retorted that Farage had failed to get elected to the UK Parliament, and that he should campaign for withdrawing from the EU there, since the European Parliament couldn't grant it.

Scoring Parliament

It was hardly the most inspiring parliamentary response. Little attention was paid to the actual policies (effectively limited to the ECR rejection of FTT and the Greens/EFA criticism that the project bonds plan and other measures weren't good enough), but there was a lot of time wasted on bashing the Council for being too intergovernmental. They had the Commission President in front of them! This was their opportunity to stake out their policy positions for the year - what they wanted to see happen, what they thought of the Commission's plans - but they failed to articulate an alternative. This might not be too serious for the EPP and ALDE (or even the ECR), which supported Barroso as Commission President, and are essentially the Commission's political base for delivering its economic and market policy. However the S&D, Greens and United Left should have been doing more do provide an alternative.

Verhofstadt and Farage have essentially become copies of each other for this set piece event on their respective sides. However Farage can rest easy knowing that he's done his political job by delivering a punchy speech, even if it doesn't do much in holding the Commission to account. Verhofstadt, on the other hand, advocates a position that needs strong and clear articulation, and which also demands a role of questioning the Commission and holding it to account (even as a pro-Commission party). He didn't measure up to this role.

(How did you score in Barroso Buzzword Bingo? You can read the Twittersphere comments on the speech here: #SOTEU).

Barroso's Buzzword Bingo: 2011 Edition

2011-09-26T16:47:00.003+01:00

It's that time of year again, with Barroso's State of the [European] Union address. At 9:00 a.m. CET on Wednesday this week, Barroso will make his speech to the European Parliament, setting out his vision (or lack thereof) of the future of the still-crisis-stricken Union.

Last year we ran a Barroso Buzzword Bingo over at Bloggingportal, and this blog is joining in for this year's round. To play the game, you pick 10 words or phrases that you think will pop up in the speech, and once you've got them all - bingo! You can watch the speech live here, and comment on Twitter with us (and the new official State of the Union Twitter account) using the #SOTEU hashtag. Let's hope an MEP playing along will shout out bingo in plenary.

Here's my list:

1. Solidarity.
2. Robust action.
3. Economic crisis.
4. Fiscal convergence.
5. Security.
6. Competitiveness.
7. European Added Value.
8. Community Method.
9. Innovative.
10. Federalism/Federal (a risky one, but it might be a way of trying to get some national press attention).

You can add your own list over at Bloggingportal (& in the comments below!) - if you need inspiration, Jon Worth and Polscieu have already written theirs.

Europese Dag van de Talen

2011-09-26T13:13:00.001+01:00

Het is de Europese Dag van de Talen! Vandaag is dus en goede dag vreemde talen te praktiseren: kijk naar een Franse televisieprogramma, praat met een Duitse vriend (of vriendin), lees naar een Spaans krant, of luisteren naar de Nederlandse radio.

Heb geen zorg, of je en vreemde taal niet vloeiend kunt spreken!

Veel succes!

Deal on the European Protection Order Directive

2011-09-23T08:07:00.001+01:00

The Council and Parliament have reached a deal on the European Protection Order Directive, originally proposed by Member States, ensuring that it will sail through the first and second legislative readings. The EPOD is aimed at protecting people subject to protection orders under their national criminal law, while allowing them to exercise their free movement rights (draft legislation PDF here). The Directive would apply to protection orders made by national authorities under criminal law (there's a separate measure dealing with civil law), which impose restrictions on persons that pose a risk to another such as:

"(a) a prohibition from entering certain localities, places or defined areas where the protected person resides or that he visits;

(b) a prohibition or regulation of contact, in any form, with the protected person, including by phone, electronic or ordinary mail, fax or any other means; or

(c) a prohibition or regulation on approaching the protected person closer than a prescribed
distance." [Article 5]

Protection orders would be issued normally by Member States under their national law, but if the person they are meant to protect resides in another Member State or wants to move to another Member State, they can request a EPO to extend the protection in the original national protection order so they are covered in their host Member State. So the proposed EPOD works on a modified mutual recognition model - the national measures made in one Member State are recognised and enforced in another Member State, though in this case a request for a European version would need to be made, and then the executing Member State would transpose it via a national measure. The Directive would only apply to victims/potential victims of crime, and not witnesses, so it isn't part of some European witness protection scheme.

From a legal perspective, this modified route to mutual recognition is quite interesting, and shows some movement on the use of mutual recognition measures by allowing for the difference in Member State's legal systems (a mix of criminal, civil and administrative measures). I haven't taken a close look at the jurisdiction/competence issues around the mini-Member State directives that will be EPOs, however. Hopefully the Parliament hasn't missed anything it might later regret...

Schengen Wars 2

2011-09-22T16:07:00.003+01:00

Romania and Bulgaria's Schengen aspirations are being put on hold again, with the Netherlands and Finland opposing the phased introduction of the two countries into the border-free zone due to concerns over their levels of corruption. Before the vote, Romania blocked tulips from being imported across its border. Their accession was blocked earlier this year in January, which also saw inept diplomacy by Romania.

So are the concerns over the levels of corruption in Bulgaria and Romania justified? The Commission helps and monitors the reform and implementation of changes in the justice system required by EU membership through the "Co-operation and Verification Mechanism" (or CVM). The latest reports on Bulgaria (PDF) and Romania (PDF) were delivered in July. Both reports documented progress, but there's still a long way to go.

The Bulgarian report raises concerns over corruption and over accountability of the judiciary (p.3-4):

"Since last summer, a number of acquittals in cases involving high-level corruption, fraud and organised crime have exposed serious deficiencies in judicial practice in Bulgaria. These deficiencies have not been properly analysed or followed up by the leadership of the judiciary, the Supreme Judicial Council, the General Prosecutor and the President of the Supreme Court of Cassation. Although the revised Judicial System Act adopted in December strengthens the judiciary's accountability, the law has not yet been implemented as intended. The quality and transparency of several important appointments within the judiciary since the beginning of this year have been questioned, leading to unprecedented public protests and a debate on possible constitutional amendments. In addition, allegations of corruption within the judiciary are still not pursued in a systematic way as recommended by the Commission.

[...]

Judicial appointments still lack the necessary level of transparency and credibility. An important senior appointment by the Supreme Judicial Council in November 2010 raised concerns as regards the lack of transparency and competitive character. The entry into force of the newly amended provisions of the Judicial Systems Act in
January 2011, has unfortunately not yet improved the situation as regards senior appointments, which have been still carried out under the old rules and lacked real assessment of the professional qualifications, managerial skills and personal integrity of candidates. Furthermore, a recent nomination was followed by allegations of conflict of interest and procedural irregularities in an ongoing trial handled by the successful candidate. As a protest, two members of the Supreme Judicial Council resigned and criticised the appointment decisions as pre-determined. The subsequent mobilisation of professional associations of magistrates and civil society calling for reform of the Supreme Judicial Council sends an important signal of support for judicial reform. Recommendations by civil society to hold public debates and announce the names of candidates at an earlier stage are laudable. The appointment of highly competent and motivated magistrates of unquestionable integrity via transparent procedures, in particular for the new specialised court for organised crime, is indispensable to successfully implement judicial reform.

[...]

Criminal investigations against magistrates are still not systematically launched by the
prosecution upon allegations of corruption. The decision of the Supreme Judicial Council in June to involve a magistrate with a disciplinary record in the recruitment panel for the new specialised criminal court raises serious concerns. Overall, there is a lack of consistent disciplinary practice. These problems remain a major factor undermining public trust in the judiciary."

Policing in the area of organised crime is also an area of concern (p.5):

"In spite of persevering police actions to tackle organised crime, the overall results need to be significantly improved. Although the joint team on organised crime achieved several indictments related to important organised crime-groups and some convictions have been rendered, other important cases have been concluded with acquittals since the Commission's last annual report. In appeal, severe detention sentences have been pronounced but not yet enforced in one emblematic organised crime case. Weaknesses exist in the collection of evidence, the protection of witnesses as well as in investigative strategies, comprehensive financial investigations and the securing of assets. The General Prosecutor should systematically analyse the reasons for acquittals in high level cases, make recommendations for the handling of future cases when shortcomings in the procedure have been identified and appeal the acquittal decisions when it appears that the Courts did not properly assess the evidence provided."

The report notes a lack of "convincing results" regarding corruption, with cases against former ministers and MPs, and cases involving fraud of EU funds ending in acquittal (p.6):

"The analysis of some of these cases by the Commission and independent experts demonstrated serious weaknesses in judicial and investigative practice. These weaknesses mainly concern the collection of evidence, the protection of witnesses and the general lack of investigative strategies, comprehensive financial investigations and securing of assets. Coordination within the prosecution and between the prosecution and the police should be improved. These weaknesses are compounded by an out-dated Penal Code. Court practice is permissive and excessively cautious, overly attentive to procedures at the expense of delivering justice. While the revision of the Penal Code is advancing, immediate corrective measures, such as the use of interpretative rulings by the Supreme Court of Cassation or legislative amendments should be considered, since the new Penal Code cannot be expected to enter into force before late 2013."

The Romanian report shows some significant improvements, as well as highlighting areas that need a lot of progress. I won't quote from the report to the same extent as the Bulgarian one - I'd recommmend reading both to get a fuller picture of the situation in both countries - but I'll quote to summary paragraphes from the start (p.3):

"Since the Commission's last annual report, Romania took significant steps to improve the efficiency of judicial procedures and continued preparations for the entering into force of four new codes which are the foundation for a modern judicial process. In advance of the implementation of the new codes, the Small Reform Law has brought improvements for the celerity of the judicial process. Romania also responded swiftly to the Commission’s recommendation by adopting a new legal framework for the National Integrity Agency. The National Integrity Agency has been operational under this new legal framework and started to re-establish its track record of investigations. Although not part of the CVM benchmarks, the authorities decided to carry out reviews of the judicial system and of public procurement and to make an evaluation of anti-corruption policy. During the same period, the National
Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) showed a continuously convincing track record in the investigation of high-level corruption cases.

Despite this progress since July 2010, consistency and results in a number of areas remain a challenge. Progress in the fight against corruption still needs to be pursued. Several important high-level cases remain delayed in court for several years and have also seen little movement during this period. Urgent action must be taken to accelerate these trials and prevent them being struck down because of reaching statute-barred periods. The fight against corruption should remain a top priority and be coordinated with the help of a new comprehensive and robust anti-corruption strategy. Urgent measures are needed to improve the recovery of the proceeds of crime, the pursuit of money laundering and protection against conflict of interest in the management of public funds. Better results should be demonstrated in the confiscation of unjustified assets and in delivering dissuasive sanctions for incompatibilities."

Though the domestic reasons for blocking Romania and Bulgaria's phased entry into the Schengen Zone may have more to do with political pressure from the far-right, there are real concerns over the handeling of corruption in romania and Bulgaria. It's true that both countries meet the technical requirements for entry, and that adding this judicial and policing requirements is moving the goalposts, but these issues do need to be tackled as obligations of EU membership. While the politicking might be distasteful - and condemned by both the EPP and the S&D groups in the European Parliament - there is truth to the contention that it's harder to get EU Member States to comply with EU conditions once they're in the club.

Our Commissioner, for a given value of "our"...

2011-09-21T15:27:00.005+01:00

The Commissioner for Financial Programming and Budget, Janusz Lewandowski, has been held up by the ruling Civic Platform Party in Poland as a means of getting the country a lot more money from the EU budget:

"Speaking in a wood-panelled room among fellow Civic Platform members, Lewandowski says: "We're talking about billions, even 300 billion zloty [€69 billion]. Thanks to this money we could reduce youth unemployment, even by half."

Fellow party member and foreign minister Radek Sikorski then pops up, adding: "That's what these elections are about. They are about money for Poland and who will get more of it. Why do we think we will do better? Because we have a strong team [gestures to Lewandowski] which can negotiate successfully.""

This has raised questions over the Commissioner's oath of independence, which Commissioners give when they are sworn into office to pledge that they will work in the general interest, and remain independent of national governments. EUObserver has reported that the Commission asserts that this was in line with the Commission's Code of Conduct:

"Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen on Tuesday (20 September) said he did not cross the line because his remarks were of a "general" nature.

"The president [Barroso] is aware of the participation of the commissioner in this specific activity and it's our opinion that the commissioner, who intervened in a personal capacity, passed a very general message about the benefits of the general budget to Poland ... This activity, for which the commission punctually gave its agreement, is compatible with the code of conduct," she said."

Having a "national Commissioner" is a big issue. While there are far too many Commissioners, reatining one per Member State is a sticking point that is unlinkely to go away soon - the prospective loss of a Commissioner for 10 out of every 15 years was a major reason for the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in the first referendum, despite equal treatment of the proposed rotation of Commissioners between big and small Member States. Though the Commissioners may swear independence (you can find the oath as a PDF here), they are generally held to be a national voice in the College of Commissioners.

At the moment Commissioners are nominated by national governments,* accepted by the Commission President elect, and elected by the European Parliament (as part of the Commission as a whole), with the Commission being accountable to the EP between elections. The independence of the Commission, and the indivdual Commissioners could be strengthened by bringing an end to the national nominations. So while there could still be one Commissioner per Member State, the choice of who the Commissioner actually is would be for the Commission President and the Parliament to decide. However, this would require a treaty change.

*The Council adopts a list of Commissioners based on the suggestions of Member States which are effectively Member State nominations in practice. (Art. 17(7) TEU.

An Education in Fees

2011-08-26T09:41:00.000+01:00

Should the English be charged more?

The huge rise in University tuition fees in the UK caused a massive political storm, and the devolved regional governments signaled that they would step in to prevent such increases locally. In Northern Ireland the plan is to stop any non-inflation related rise in fees and in Scotland University education will remain free, but this has raised concerns over NI and Scottish universities being flooded with English students hoping to escape the burden of higher student loans.

To prevent local students from being crowded out, Scotland will introduce fees for non-resident UK nationals at the same £9,000 level, and the Northern Ireland Executive is thinking of following suit. However, these fees are being challenged as a breach of the European Convention of Human Rights* for being contrary to its provisions on education and non-discrimination. It seems unlikely that the case will be sucessful - after all, Scotland has maintained free education for residents whereas English, Welsh and NI students would have to pay a fee (albeit lower than elsewhere in the UK) - but it has highlighted the issue of discrimination being able to take place within an EU Member State between its own nationals, and yet be outlawed between EU nationals.

Because while students will pay different fees depending on where they live within the UK, EU citizens from outside the UK will be able to access university education on the same basis - the same fees - as locals. Of course, it's not quite as simple as that because UK nationals will be able to draw on benefits that EU students who aren't working won't be entitled to, but the difference on fees is still significant. The political implications are huge - within the UK it will spark many debates: why should the regions with develoved governments be able to have lower fees? should the regions be able to discriminate against the English metropole? is it just that EU nationals should be treated better than part of the UK population?

On the EU question, it's a matter of the weakness of EU citizenship. EU citizenship is limited to cross-border situations, and Member States are free to decide how they grant citizenship and how they treat their own nationals. For a while, it looked like the European Court of Justice** would break down this connection between a cross-border element and relying on citizenship rights in the Zambrano case, but it categorically ruled it out shortly afterwards.

That students from elsewhere in the EU will be charged less is being called a "loophole", but it's a part of the fundamental rule of EU law of non-discrimination on the basis of nationality. The difference arises because EU citizenship rules only regulate cross-border relations, while these fees are being regulated by national and regional rules. The tuition fees debate will rumble on in the UK for some time yet, and get caught up in the wider debate of the relationship between the UK's constituent nations, and, perhaps, the EU too.

* Part of the Council of Europe, and not the EU!

** The EU Court.

Citizens will have to drag Europe closer to them

2011-08-25T20:21:00.004+01:00

There's an interesting article in the New York Times (hat-tip Grahnlaw), "E.U. Elites keep the Power from the People", reporting on criticism from Habermas and others on the EU's democratic deficit:

"“The process of European integration, which has always taken place over the heads of the population, has now reached a dead end,” Mr. Habermas said at a forum hosted by the European Council on Foreign Relations. “It cannot go any further without switching from its usual administrative mode to one of greater public involvement.”

The political elites “are burying their heads in the sand,” he said, adding, “They are doggedly persisting with their elitist project and the disenfranchisement of the European population.”

Those who agree with Mr. Habermas often cite the behavior of José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the Union’s executive, and Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, which represents the 27 member states.

During these past months, both have failed to explain to a wider public what is happening to Europe and the euro. When they give interviews, they tend to address an elitist audience. Neither reaches out to citizens. “I doubt if they ever thought of doing town-hall meetings,” said Pawel Swieboda, director of DemosEuropa, an independent research organization in Warsaw.

“They don’t bother to do such meetings because they don’t have to stand for election,” added Reinhard Bütikofer, a German and leader of the Greens in the European Parliament."

I agree. However, the solution seems to be changing the Treaties, and this doesn't really address the problem. While Treaty change can help (for example, giving the Parliament the sole respobsibility for electing the Commission without Council input, and severing the national backgrounds of Commissioners from national nominations), the biggest and most urgent challenge has nothing to do with institutional tinkering.

The EU is already formally democratic. The Parliament is directly elected and has almost equal power with the Council, the weakness being mainly in the area of foreign affairs. This is real power, with US Vice President Joe Biden making the trip to implore the Parliament to pass the SWIFT Agreement between the EU and US last year. The Parliament elects the Commission (just like the government is in many national parliamentary systems), which is nominated by the Council. The Council consists of the elected national governments, and the European Council - the Member States' heads of government - direct general policy. So in all the main legislative institutions, offices are either directly or indirectly elected.

But despite this, the main focus on EU politics is the summitry that takes place every few months or to combat crises - an increasingly common event. Summits are the face of the remote decision-making that's going on. Member States gather together, not all with an equal say in practice, and hammer out compromises based on haggling over national interests, instead of working out what would be the best solution for the EU or Eurozone as a whole. If this sidelines the Commission, then it definitely sidelines the Parliament: after all, how can they reject emergency agreements made at a European Council summit? These summits could even be sidelining the ECB, which has been one of the most influential players in the crisis so far.

If the EU is formally democratic, then the problem is that it isn't functionally democratic. The addage that in democracies the electorate get the government they deserve doesn't quite apply as there hasn't been much political competition yet at the European level. That might change at the next election, with the PES considering running a primary to select a candidate for the Commission Presidency. Political competition is what's necessary to bring the EU closer to citizens. The EU can't be sold or airbrushed into people's lives: people need to be engaged on European issues, and we have to talk about these issues from the perspective of arguing for EU or Eurozone policies.

We're in the middle of a massive crisis, but when it comes to the solutions, we are talking about national solutions to European problems. When Irish politicans talk about Eurobonds, they're thinking of the next five years and Ireland's interest rates, not how to make the Eurozone work - without even thinking about what fiscal union means, and how it should be run, how can it be properly debated or sold to an electorate? These conversations with ourselves mean that we're talking past each other on a European stage, rather than properly discussing what are our best collective options. Which is why working on giving substance to the Europarties is much more important than institutional tinkering. Citizens need to be engaged with the issues - using citizens' assemblies would be a good way of involving people and informing them on the options ahead.

Oddly, institutional tinkering is the sexy and glamorous side to ideas to tackle the democratic deficit. Hard graft within political parties and outside them in civil society to make them more responsive to European issues - and to make them fulfil their political function as a way of enabling citizens to influence policy - is a much more substantial task, even if it doesn't yet the attention of another constitutional treaty.

Once again the day is saved...

2011-07-22T12:38:00.000+01:00

...At least for now. It's hard to escape the feeling that each time an agreement is made at a European Council summit, it's only a matter of time (usually 3-6 months) before we're back in superhero mode again. Still, there seems to be something more to this deal than the simple bail-outs (or loans as they're normally called). The agreement's outline can be found here (PDF).

Greece.

First of all, Greece will get more loans - and more cheaply - to help fight its economic crisis: €109 billion. Structural funds and European Investment Bank funds will be directed towards helping Greece stimulate growth, and there will be some voluntary private sector involvement which will be for Greece only (a bizzare situation where creditors are seemly asked to take a partial default on the basis of what they can afford out of the goodness of their hearts).

And the rest...

All three countries will benefit from a interest rate reduction on the loans to 3.5% (for Ireland this is a 2% reduction), and the loans will have to be paid off in 15 years (at a minimum) rather than the previous 7.5 years. This should make it easier for the countries to implement their austerity programmes as it eases the economic and political pressure on the governments.

In Ireland the interest rate reduction is a great victory for the government. During the election campaign the (now) coalition parties had been campaigning for a negotiation of the EU/IMF deal for lower interest rates and for the burning of some bondholders. The restriction of voluntary private involvement in the scheme to Greece means that partial defaults on the private debts in Ireland are unlikely for now. I say for now because there's resentment in Ireland at having to pay back all the private debt and that the private sector is not taking any hit, and now it will be harder to argue morally, and politically, why there should be movement on this in Greece but not elsewhere. It gives the impression that being the golden pupil of the bail-out class doesn't win you any rewards. I wonder if the market will really see private investor involvement in the Greek deal as a one-off.

Also important is what Ireland might have conceded for this interest rate reduction, and hat it means for the Eurozone's economic policy. The Eurozone heads note:

"[W]e note Ireland's willingness to participate constructively in the discussions on the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base draft directive (CCCTB) and in the structured discussions on tax policy issues in the framework of the Euro+ Pact framework."

Since Ireland's corporate tax rate has become iconic and synomous with Irish economic success, the scale of this concession will be heavily debated: is it just a commitment to negotiate? Does it commit us to common tax policies?

I actually think that this is a victory of sorts for Irish diplomacy (well, good use of circumstances at least). It seemed like a raise of Irish corporate tax might have been a condition for a drop in interest rates - in other words, Ireland would unilaterally raise its tax rates without European harmonisation. Since this would have been Ireland and not the EU deciding this, no referendum would need to be held. However, if it comes to a EU Directive, then the Irish government could hold a referendum on the subject, citing it as a constitutional requirement (although I doubt the extent to which it might be one). It's hard to know if that's exactly the case yet, but by having the discussion at a pan-European (or pan-Eurozone) level, Ireland's diplomatic position is improved, not least because it can try to build coalitions around its positions.

Biggest loser: ECB?

The Europeans Financial Stability Fund willbe given several new powers. It can:

"- act on the basis of a precautionary programme;

- finance recapitalisation of financial institutions through loans to governments including in non programme countries;

- intervene in the secondary markets on the basis of an ECB analysis recognizing the
existence of exceptional financial market circumstances and risks to financial stability and on the basis of a decision by mutual agreement of the EFSF/ESM Member States, to avoid contagion."

If the EFSF is able to intervene in non-programme countries to be a lender of last resort to the banks,* then this would dilute the power of the European Central Bank. It's been widely noted that the ECB's loans of €120 billion to Irish banks gave it a lot of power, and that it was a big player in the events leading to the Irish EU/IMF deal. With another institution, created without treaty change, able to provide alternative credit in a crisis, it could be a way of Member States preventing the ECB gaining a strong hand in their economies during times of crisis. It will be interesting to see if this will change the institutional balance in the Eurozone.

*Technically it can't lend directly to the banks, but it lends to the Member State who then lends to the banks. This would also be done at a higher interest. It also means that there are aspects of EFSF loans to banks which make them less attractive than ECB loans, but it does show how wary the Member States are becoming of the ECB's power if they've created a way of circumventing its role as a lender of last resort, even in non-programme countries.

What kind of Free Trade do the Tories believe in?

2011-07-06T08:01:00.002+01:00

The news that a government contract for the Thameslink project worth £1.4 billion has been awarded to Siemens rather than Bombardier. It's become a big news story because Bombardier has announced plans to cut over 1,400 of its UK-based jobs. The EU has been singled out for some of the blame:

"The government has said that the Siemens bid represents the best value for money, and that it was following EU procurement rules, which do not allow where companies are based to be taken into account."

The deal with Siemens will reportedly create 2,000 jobs, though:

"...Siemens will build the trains in Germany and only 300 of the UK jobs it creates will be directly employed manufacturing posts, at a factory in Hebburn, South Tyneside."

The article shows that manufacturing jobs are seen as the goal for the UK economy. With services far outpacing manufacturing in the UK economy, job cuts in this area are seen as a further sign of failure. Interestingly, the BBC just produced a good 3-part documentary called "Made in Britain", the premise of which was that manufacturing jobs will leave the UK anyway and that the UK should (and is) moving into higher value economic activities. It's very strange that there is little debate on how Germany actually retains its manufacturing sector and whether the social and economic policies they use would work in the UK or if they are desirable.

[It seems that the loss due to the failure to win the contract is 200 jobs (as Bombardier wrote to the government stating that it would lay off 1,200 workers anyway). Talking about jobs in terms of "net gains" is not to dismiss the tough time these 1,400 workers are facing at the moment, but it does seem that making the deal with Siemens has the effect of creating more jobs than would have been saved had Bombardier won the contract (2,000 versus 200).]

Anyway, the fact that EU law on procurement (you can read the PDF of the legislation here if you have a spare week) prevented the government for picking Bombardier has been flagged as one of the (if not the) main reason for the loss. Under these rules, Siemens won the contract because they represented the best value for money under the criteria set out for procurement. Where the company was based was not allowed to be a factor in determining which company got the contract.

This raises some questions about how the internal market is really viewed, because the anger seems to be directed at the rules in different ways. The impression from the news is that either (a) it's Labour's fault for drawing up the contract criteria; (b) the rules are good in principle but other Member States don't apply them as well as Britain does; or (c) it's the evil EU, goddamnit!

(a) & (b) are linked - how contract competitions are run (what the criteria are) would depend on the sector/work. There have been suggestion from within the government that the rules should be changed. Via Conservative Home:

"[Transport Secretary Philip Hammond] did tell the BBC's Evan Davis that he wanted to look at whether similar contract processes could be rewritten in future so that successful bidders were, in some way, committed to the "domestic supply chain". Noting that French building contracts tend to be awarded to French manufacturers and German contracts to German manufacturers he promised to explore how British industry could be supported in future tender processes without compromising EU procurement laws."

So some Tories would like commitment to the "domestic supply chain" to be a factor. It's hard to see how this can be interpretated in any other way than that government should be able to value national over European companies purely on the basis of nationality or the level of establishment within the Member State. After all, the contract is awarded to those who can provide goods or services to the government's criteria and requirements. It's not like the companies create their own system and then, if they aren't rehired in a new contract, the system breaks down and needs to be rebuilt by another company to its different standards.

There are 2 options:

1. Weaker rules that permit more protectionism.
2. Keeping the rules and ensuring better implementation in other Member States IF that is a problem.

So what kind of internal market do some of these Tories want? What is their vision of free trade? Are they really going to pick a political fight over this?

Am I the only one bemused that Tories are complaining that the "socialist and bureaucratic EU" has prevented government from watering down market competition to engage in soft protectionism?

Lovers' Tiff?

2011-07-04T10:11:00.000+01:00

On the Council of the European Union's website a document called "Relations with the European Parliament (July 2011)" only has an image of a shredded piece of paper next to it.

Hopefully given the positive vision of the Polish Presidency, Warsaw can relight the spark of passion and return Brussels to its natural state of a lovers' paradise. ;)

"But we signed up to a free trade area!"

2011-06-25T12:46:00.004+01:00

More and more I see the argument that the EU should be turned into a free trade area, and I thought I should try to create a short reply.

"But we signed up to a free trade area!"

This is also argued with "common market", with it clear that a free trade area (like NAFTA, for example) is meant. But there's a big difference between a free trade area and a common market (a.k.a "single/internal market").

A free trade area simply reduces tariffs and import quotas between countries - this was the aim of the European Free Trade Area,* which the UK helped found in opposition to the EEC, and then left to join the EEC. FTAs don't cover the free movement of goods, people and services that a common market consists of.

The issue with free trade areas that they only reduce tariffs between members, so members can have different tariffs with third countries. This means that some goods might try to get into the free trade area via FTA country A (which has lower external tariffs) before moving on to country B (which has high external tariffs). This lack of control means that some countries prefer a customs union, which is like a FTA but with common external tariffs.

A common market is much more than a FTA because it not only deals with tariffs and import quotas, but also deals with the free movement of goods, services, establishment (freedom to set up businesses throughout the common market), capital and people. This requires some restrictions on the law-making of member states (they can't legislate for import quotas, discriminate against goods from outside the country with different tax rates, etc.), and requires common law making so goods, etc., can move freely without being blocked by different technical standards. This common law making and standards means that there would need to be a common court and law-making institutions in any case. That's why the EU needs to have institutions, but NAFTA doesn't.

Leaving a common market means that a country and its citizens would loose free movement rights. While it's true that there will still be trade between the EU and ex-members (the EU has FTA agreements with Chile, Mexico, South Africa, etc., so I don't see why an ex-member wouldn't get one as well), without common laws, the ex-member would move away from the common standards of the common market, and more and more non-tariff barriers would block trade. Citizens of the ex-member country would also loose their free movement rights.

Having a common market also means that there needs to be a common trade policy with third countries, and the free movement of persons creates pressure for there to beco-operation and common rules on cross-border crime, but foreign affairs and justice and home affairs are other debates.

Since the EEC was aimed at creating an common market, joining countries never signed up for a free trade area.

*Confusingly, the EFTA is now a single market because its member countries are linked up to the EU's single market via the European Economic Area (or via 120 bilateral agreements in the case of Switzerland).

Where exactly are the Europarties?

2011-06-24T09:33:00.001+01:00

The Europarties are supposed to be forums for political debate and participation in the EU - that's very much the theory, anyway. So during the Euro crisis (and particularly during today's summit), what have the Europarties been up to?

The Socialists and Democrats.

The S&D have been somewhat active. There was a conference recently in Barcelona that resulted in the "Barcelona Declaration" (designed to make Social Democrats electable to take power in the EU by 2014):

"In the "Barcelona Declaration", Socialists and Democrats say they will:

•WORK for fair and progressive financial recovery focused on job creation and the protection of the welfare state;
•PROMOTE inclusion and integration in the face of populism and xenophobia;
•BRING more representation into the democratic system through new ways of participation; and
•STRENGTHEN the EU based on solidarity and combating growing nationalisms and euroscepticism."

The Declaration itself (which you can read here [PDF] in French) pretty much says the same thing, but it pads it out to fill the page. Sadly it's all too vague to really mean anything - and this during a major economic crisis! Even though it's aimed at 2014, how can the second biggest political force have no ideas or strategy at this stage? That the PES's campaigns on the Financial Transaction Tax and on Eurobonds haven't even got a mention simply demonstrates that the PES's leadership can launch internet campaigns separate from the actual power structure in the party without any impact.

The S&D group has endorsed the European Trade Union's day of action in Luxembourg, and points to anternet campaign Change for Europe (I assume it's cross-party with the Greens). While there are a few noises about transaction taxes and shifting the taxation burden, it's not clear that this is leading anywhere other than a party-political endorsement of the Parliament's aim of some own resources (read: taxes) for the EU.

The S&D is, on the surface, in a difficult position as its member parties are engaged in different levels of austerity while its European leadership calls for less austerity and more investment. However, it's not a massive gap, as its member parties also want this too, at least in general. With the S&D* opposition pretty much across Europe, they should really be doing more to throw their political weight around - after all, they don't have enough voices in Council or the Commission, so surely they should want to create a more vocal public response if possible?

Of course, it's not quite that simple as there are divisions between the member parties and within them. But a greater effort to have a common platform is necessary, particularly if they want to be electable in the face of a European culture of austerity.

The PES has announced that it has collected the signatures of 1,000 elected MPs of their member parties for a transaction tax - why not try to make use of this to establish an effective pan-European position?

*The PES ("Party of European Socialists") is the actual party, but in the EP they're known at the S&D. Poor branding, but what can you do?

European People's Party.

The EPP is "in government" in the EU, with a big majority in the Commission and Council, and as the biggest party in the EP. It's been enjoying a period of huge electoral success and it hasn't needed a common programme, and it shows. The party seems to be obsessed with finishing their articles with a "note to the editor" about the EPP's dominance in whatever institution features.

I'm happy to be corrected, but it doesn't look like the EPP has done much in the way of stating policy decisions that haven't been an initative of the (EPP-run) Member States. The EPP acts as a pro-government party for whatever the Council or Commission puts in front of it, unless it was proposed by the S&D side or there's an EP interest against it.

Update: Reuniting Europe has a blogpost on the EPP summit before the European Council summit.

European Liberal Democrats. (Which are part of the ALDE Group).

I'm pretty sure this says it all:

"Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck MEP, President of the European Liberal Democrats re-iterated her views on the need for the European People's Party (EPP) to take a more pro-active approach towards developments in Greece, "the EPP needs to shoulder responsibility and help bring about relief to the Greek situation given that some of the main political actors in this scenario belong to its European political family"."

While the S&D may be more active, as the opposition, the onus is on them to be more active and creative than the incumbant party(ies) - and, in an ideal world, actually effective as an opposition. Reforming Europarty structures to make them more coherent could go a lot further than changing the EP electoral system. What's the point of having "more European" elections if the parties refuse to campaign publically on pan-European issues?

[I just quickly dashed off this post - feel free to bombard me with info on what the parties want to do or what the issues are with their internal structures].

Geert Wilders: Not Guilty

2011-06-24T01:28:00.000+01:00

Geert Wilders, the leader of the PVV party in the Netherlands (Partij voor de Vrijheid or Party for Freedom) has been found not guilty of hate speech and discrimination. The court action wasn't one the public prosecuter wanted to take - it was only after civil society groups challenged the public prosecuter's refusal to take Wilders to court was the complaint lodged. The result was a strange case where the prosecuters didn't really want Wilders to be found guilty, and the danger of the PVV benefiting from the case.

On winning the case, Wilders said:

"“I’m incredibly happy with this acquittal on all counts," Mr Wilders said outside the court. "It’s not only an acquittal for me, but a victory for freedom of expression in the Netherlands. Fortunately, you’re allowed to discuss Islam in public debate and you’re not muzzled in public debate. An enormous burden has fallen from my shoulders.”"

Although the court tagged on some disapproving language to its judgment:

"The court found that Mr Wilders’ rhetoric was “on the edge of what is legally permissible” but not illegal. The judge described statements about a “tsunami” of immigrants as “crude and denigrating”, but legally legitimate given the wider context and his acknowledgement that those who integrate are acceptable and do not call for violence."

It was likely to be a win-win situation for Wilders in any case: had he been found guilty, he could protray himself as a martyr for freedom of speech; now that he's been acquitted he can present his rhetoric as being perfectly within the bounds of reasonable political debate (even though the court didn't rule it to be "reasonable", just not illegal).

There are some cases where using the law to limit free speech is a good thing. In a democratic society we take certain level of tolerance and mutual understanding for granted, but hate speech and incitement to violence can have a very toxic effect on a democratic culture, even if they are not acted on. Apart from these extreme cases, it's generally better to fight extremist rhetoric openly. Otherwise court cases will just have the effect of giving such movements a greater dose of the oxygen of publicity.

The Gloom of having no Good Options

2011-06-22T07:55:00.000+01:00

The Greek government has survived the vote of confidence, and now its next test is passing more austerity measures. Austerity has little - if any - support among the Greek electorate simply because it hasn't delivered the goods yet. It seems obvious that Greece will default at some point, but would it be better to do it sooner rather than later?

There doesn't seem to be any good solution here.

Greece cannot pay its debts, but the default and decouple option, as advocated by Daniel Hannan, among others, would be disasterous for Greece and for the EU. Defaulting would unleash a tidalwave of debt back into the European banking system and European taxpayers in the Eurozone would take a big hit at the same time that their governments (particularly in Germany, France and the UK) would be forced to decide whether or not to bail out their bad-Greek-debt-holding banks. For Greece, it would be locked out of the international financal markets (as it is now), and without an alternate line of credit. Since it takes in less in taxes than it needs to finance its expenditure, the resulting austerity could be much, much worse. Leaving the Euro at such a time could lead to extremely high inflation.

Just leaving the Eurozone (and not defaulting) is unlikely to help either, as the devalued New Drachma would make it harder for Greece to pay off its debts, most of which are in Euros.

Continuing austerity doesn't seem to be working either. Greece needs time to restructure and reform its economy, but the time-frame is extremely short for the task that faces the country, and the refrain of "tough love" from Northern Europe is not endearing for the Greek public, to say the least.

Further integration is the call of others, and interestingly also of the IMF, urging the Eurozone to integrate economically and politically. However, these calls still seem vague to me on detail, and I'm not sure how much they are aimed at solving the current crisis rather than on preventing it from happening again (or both). The blue-and-red bonds (where there are some Eurobonds and some national bonds) or the Eurobonds idea is attractive, and could ease some of Greece's problems, but it could also raise some others. Regardless, there is little political will for more integration, and as no attempt by any Eurozone government to really make the case for further integration, it doesn't look like that will change soon.

At the moment the best option seems to be to accept the bad austerity and bail-out deal and forge ahead with reforms in Greece with at least the thin cushion of EU/IMF loans rather than no loans at all and hope that either (a) the EU gets its act together; or (b) the painful austerity will help Greece just enough so that it can partially default in a more managed way in a year or two when the prospects are better for it and the EU. Neither option is an inspiring or very sellable one.

The protests in Greece will continue, but I wonder what the historical legacy would be if they won and Greece defaulted unilaterally - both for internally and in Europe?

Referendums on the EU

2011-05-27T16:25:00.005+01:00

Nosemonkey and Jon Worth have been writing recently about the idea of a UK referendum on its EU membership. Nosemonkey focused on debunking the reasons for a referendum, but there is essentially two reasons put forward against an in/out referendum: it wouldn't settle the membership question, and without a clear "out" plan, such a referendum wouldn't offer any clear choice. I thought I'd add my two eurocents on this, and why I think it doesn't make sense for those supporting EU membership to support an in/out referendum in the UK at the moment.

If there's one thing that can be drawn from the campaigns on the Constitution for Europe and Lisbon Treaty, it's that referendums are very poor ways of deciding the structure of complex, multi-issue matters. Amending Treaties on the EU have always covered very general reforms, mostly on procedure, and it's hard to explain or campaign on such questions. And as Jon noted, being able to fall back on the status quo meant that rejecting Treaty changes was a responsibility-free pass to further your political stance, without the overall answer of the electorate being obvious. It strikes me that if the outcome of a referendum doesn't give you an idea of what people want, then it's not much use.

In the future, changes to the EU Treaties should be on a case-by-case basis, and not general reform Treaties. These would have the advantage of having clear aims that can be debated, and people would have a better understanding of the role the EU plays, and discuss whether it should play a bigger/different/smaller role in that area. This doesn't escape all the problems of uncertain outcomes, but it does greatly reduce them.

In/Out referendums are like general treaty reforms, even if it asks a clear underlying question. This is because the different options to membership - nicely summed up by Jon as the Norwegian, Swiss and US options - are complex results. Nosemonkey has written about Norway and Switerland, and some of the issues with their position. I'll try and write on their relationships with the EU soon (because they have different and complex relationships), but essentially if you're building a single market, it requires common rules, which in turn require common legislation, which in turn requires a common decision-making process.

Switching from EU to EEA membership means joining the internal market but not being part of the institutions that shape it, which is a loss of political power and autonomy.

As Jon points out, the withdrawalist side has to have a case for the alternative which can be debated - without this alternative, the referendum becomes a farce of decision-making. "Do you want the UK to leave the EU?" would translate into "Do you hate the EU?", since it would essentially ask people to state their opinion, rather than actually make a choice.

It would also be unfair to the withdrawalist side. The reason why some supporters of EU membership also support an in/out referendum is that it might be winnable and put the question of membership to rest. Given the non-choice described above, and the general indifference of people to the EU, a yes-leaning "meh" might be the outcome. This wouldn't let the withdrawalist side put their case forward properly, and it wouldn't result in an outcome that would be very meaningful.

Since membership is the status quo, it is essentially for withdrawalist to come up with a case for a non-Member State UK that they want to put to referendum. Until the withdrawalist side come up with an alternative to put to the vote, holding a referendum is pointless, and supporting a referendum without a clear question is merely a more principled-looking way of political point-scoring, whatever side of the debate you're on.

The Curious Case of Citizen McCarthy

2011-05-12T19:33:00.000+01:00

In my previous post I've written about how the Court of Justice (that's the EU court based in Luxembourg) has been influenced by the cases that come before it when it comes to citizenship, and how it has shaped EU citizenship. Last week the Court handed down its McCarthy Judgment which complicates things. (This post is my immediate reaction to the ruling, which I've just read).

Again, these cases and the legal arguments that go into them really affect people's lives, and it's interesting to see how the different circumstances of a person can affect which side of the line they fall on.

As a recap, in Zambrano the question was how far EU citizens can rely on their EU citizenship rights in the Member State of their own nationality, when they have never moved to another Member State. The judgment was vague so I outlined two models of citizenship: either relying on EU citizenship in your own country is only available as an option where you've either used your free movement rights before or where you might be prevented from using them effectively in the future ("Back to the Future" model; or you have a right to reside in your own Member State independent of your national citizenship,* and therefore you can rely on EU citizenship simply if EU law applies to EU citizens in those cases. This second option means that Member States can't discriminate against their own citizens so that EU citizens are treated better than their own nationals ("reverse discrimination").

[* Member States control who gets their citizenship, and therefore who gets EU citizenship deriving from this.]

The problem in the McCarthy case is pretty much an issue I raised with the Back to the Future model (because I knew the case was coming up, and I know people the senario has affected in real life [for want of a better term]):

"Under UK law if a British national marries a third country national and wants to bring them home to the UK, and they haven't used their EU free movement rights, then they have to pay to get them into the country. So other EU nationals and British nationals who have used their free movement rights have preferential treatment over British nationals who never used their free movement rights. It is unlikely that, under the Back to the Future model, that that British citizen could claim that they wouldn't be able to use their EU rights effectively in the future if their spouse couldn't join them in the UK, so they wouldn't be covered by EU citizenship law."

This is essentially what happened to McCarthy, who had never left the UK, nor been a worker under EU law. She applied for an Irish passport, which she got, and tried to assert her EU citizenship rights (based on her Irish citizenship) to bring her spouse from a third country (not an EU citizen himself) into the UK to live with her. Could she rely on her EU citizenship?

Though I stated that I thought the Court was using the "Back to the Future" model in Zambrano (the reasoning was vague), I thought that over time the Court would become more explicit in its reasoning and follow the separate right to reside reasoning. So I thought 3 outcomes were possible, in order of desending likelihood:

1. She could, because she had Irish citizenship, and therefore she could be said to be living in a Member State of another nationality despite never having moved. That she only applied for the Irish citizenship so this would be the case ("cherry picking" her legal rights in the words of Advocate General Kokott) doesn't matter as there is nothing wrong in making use of legal rights made available to you. This would not concern the Zambrano decision.

2. She could not rely on the Citizens' Directive (2004/38), because she is a national of the the UK. However, she has a right to reside due to her EU citizenship regardless of having such a right due to her nationality, and therefore the UK could not discriminate against her compared to EU citizens of non-UK nationality if they are in the same position. [Explicitly adopting the reasoning of AG Sharpston in the Zambrano case that was implicitly, but not clearly, endorsed].

3. As 2, but referring to the vague idea of the substance of EU citizenship rather than reasoning clearly. So as in Zambrano.

What the Court actually did, was rule that she did not have the protection of EU law as a citizen as she was a national of the Member State and had not exercised any free movement rights. Her Irish citizenship was irrelevant, and, in fact, there is no right of residence separate from the exercise of free movement rights. In other words, there is only the Back to the Future model.

To quote the Court (skippable if you're not interested in the technical legal reasoning of the Court):

"39 Hence, in circumstances such as those of the main proceedings, in so far as the Union citizen concerned has never exercised his right of free movement and has always resided in a Member State of which he is a national, that citizen is not covered by the concept of ‘beneficiary’ for the purposes of Article 3(1) of Directive 2004/38, so that that directive is not applicable to him.

40 That finding cannot be influenced by the fact that the citizen concerned is also a national of a Member State other than that where he resides.

41 Indeed, the fact that a Union citizen is a national of more than one Member State does not mean that he has made use of his right of freedom of movement.

[...]

The applicability of Article 21 TFEU

[...]

47 Indeed, the Court has stated several times that citizenship of the Union is intended to be the fundamental status of nationals of the Member States (see Case C‑34/09 Ruiz Zambrano [2011] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 41 and case-law cited). Furthermore, the Court has held that Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures which have the effect of depriving Union citizens of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of the rights conferred by virtue of that status (see Ruiz Zambrano, paragraph 42).

[...]

49 However, no element of the situation of Mrs McCarthy, as described by the national court, indicates that the national measure at issue in the main proceedings has the effect of depriving her of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of the rights associated with her status as a Union citizen, or of impeding the exercise of her right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States, in accordance with Article 21 TFEU. Indeed, the failure by the authorities of the United Kingdom to take into account the Irish nationality of Mrs McCarthy for the purposes of granting her a right of residence in the United Kingdom in no way affects her in her right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States, or any other right conferred on her by virtue of her status as a Union citizen.

50 In that regard, by contrast with the case of Ruiz Zambrano, the national measure at issue in the main proceedings in the present case does not have the effect of obliging Mrs McCarthy to leave the territory of the European Union. Indeed, as is clear from paragraph 29 of the present judgment, Mrs McCarthy enjoys, under a principle of international law, an unconditional right of residence in the United Kingdom since she is a national of the United Kingdom.

51 The case in the main proceedings also differs from Case C‑148/02 García Avello [2003] ECR I‑11613. In that judgment, the Court held that the application of the law of one Member State to nationals of that Member State who were also nationals of another Member State had the effect that those Union citizens had different surnames under the two legal systems concerned, and that that situation was liable to cause serious inconvenience for them at both professional and private levels resulting from, inter alia, difficulties in benefiting, in one Member State of which they are nationals, from the legal effects of diplomas or documents drawn up in the surname recognised in the other Member State of which they are also nationals. [Own note: so EU law only applied since national law might prevent EU citizens from using their EU rights in the future].

[...]

53 Thus, in Ruiz Zambrano and García Avello, the national measure at issue had the effect of depriving Union citizens of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of the rights conferred by virtue of that status or of impeding the exercise of their right of free movement and residence within the territory of the Member States.

54 As stated in paragraph 49 of the present judgment, in the context of the main proceedings in this case, the fact that Mrs McCarthy, in addition to being a national of the United Kingdom, is also a national of Ireland does not mean that a Member State has applied measures that have the effect of depriving her of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of the rights conferred by virtue of her status as a Union citizen or of impeding the exercise of her right of free movement and residence within the territory of the Member States. Accordingly, in such a context, such a factor is not sufficient, in itself, for a finding that the situation of the person concerned is covered by Article 21 TFEU."

There may still be some cases where EU citizens can rely on their Union citizenship against their own Member State on grounds of non-discrimination, but this makes it extremely difficult to argue if the Court refuses to acknowledge the significance of your Union citizenship in the first place. The judgment makes clear that in Zambrano the decisive factor was that the Union citizens would be required to leave the territory of their home country, and that of the whole Union as they were young children dependent on their non-EU national parents. We still don't know what the new idea of "substance of EU citizenship rights" is, but it doesn't mean what we thought it might mean - the Civis Europeus Sum that a more rational, unified idea of citizenship might bring.

It's obvious that the law on citizenship is messy - and, in my opinion, highly unsatisfactory. It is difficult for citizens to know when they are protected, and when they are not - and sometimes it can be based on a tiny detail of their life or how they might lead their life. Whether children are involved or not can also be a factor - perhaps this shows a certain sentimentality of the Court that it tries to rationalise through its case law. In any case, McCarthy is a blow for those supporting a more equal citizenship.

**(As an aside, the Court referred to Article 21 TFEU rather than Article 20 as it did in Zambrano - since they repeat each other to a certain extent makes the relevance unclear, but it's a debate best left to academic literature rather than this blog post).**

Citizen Zambrano

2011-04-25T09:12:00.000+01:00

Eurocrats: reviled faceless creatures that have no sense of fellow human feeling, right? Well it actually seems that a lot of them are softies whose conscience can influence the outcome of their decisions. Even the European Court of Court of Justice in Luxembourg (not to be confused with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which is part of the confusingly, similarly named Council of Europe), critised by the European left for the Laval and Viking decisions on union action, can be swayed by the human stories that come before them. In fact, there's a good case to be made that the development of the law on European citizenship owes a lot to the stories of families and individuals in difficult situations.

In early March the ECJ ruled in just such a case, in what is a milestone case on citizenship, in Zambrano. Not that you would have read about it in the media. In fact I only read about it in The Irish Times, which covered the case and the subsequent reaction of the Irish Government. The excellent Verfassungsblog covered it in German. Zambrano is a landmark case as it strikes a blow against reverse discrimination (the idea that Member States can give fewer rights to their own citizens than to EU ones from other Member States), and it could have an effect on immigration and national citizenship laws. So here are my own belated thoughts on the case - as with all court stories, it will require some side-stories to give it context, but I hope the human interest element will keep it interesting, and that it will provide some insight into how the Court can act and think.

Citizen Zambrano

Ruiz Zambrano and his wife , Moreno, left their home country of Colombia in 1999 for Belgium. They were looking for asylum as Ruiz had been subjected to 2 years of extortion demands, backed up by death threats, by private militias, and had witnessed assaults on his brother and his 3-year-old son had been kidnapped for a week in January 1999. Their application for asylum was refused, but a non-refoulement condition was attached - Belgian authorities could not send them home as the civil war situation in Colombia was too dangerous. Ruiz Zambrano worked in Belgium without a work permit, but he paid taxes and social security contributions. He was fired from his job as he didn't have a work permit, and he wasn't allowed unempolyment benefit as the work he had done, and contributions he paid wouldn't count as he never had a work permit. In addition, with the deportation order hanging over the family's head, it took years of legal challenges to get even a temporary residence permit. In the meantime the couple had 2 children, who had Belgian citizenship (and therefore EU citizenship) under Belgian law.

If the 2 children had been EU citizens from another Member State, they would have been protected by EU law, and their parents would have been allowed to live and work there while they were still children without permits. Even as Belgian citizens, they could have the protection of EU law if they had used their free movement rights (e.g. moving to another EU country for a while) at some point in the past, but as they had never left the country of their nationality, it appeared that Belgian law would discriminate against its own citizens. So the Belgian court essentially asked the ECJ: does EU law protect against such discrimination, and if so, would the Zambrano parents be entitled to stay and work in Belgium without the relevant permits as the carers of EU citizens?

Yes, the ECJ said, since without the right to live and work in Belgium, they (the children with citizenship) could be removed from the Union to remain with their parents if they were ejected from the country. By being removed from Belgium (or risking that removal), the children:

"... [would be deprived] of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of the rights conferred by the virtue of their status as citizens of the Union." [paragraph 42]

A victory for equality of all EU citizens before the law! Um, well, actually, not necessarily. In fact, it's a bit unclear how far reverse discrimination has been ruled illegal. What is the "substance of citizenship rights"? The ECJ hasn't mentioned it before, and it didn't explain it in its judgment. There were also 2 arguments that would have had the same effect for the Zambrano family, but different effects for other EU citizens, and it's not clear which one the ECJ accepted.

Back to the Future Citizenship

Here's where EU citizenship becomes more messy and complicated. There's a Citizen's Directive (Directive 2004/38/EC), which grants rights to EU citizens living in another Member State other than their own, and which expressly says that it does not apply to citizens living in their own Member State. The ECJ has got around this in the past by finding an EU law angle. So in Surinder Sigh, a non-EU national married a British citizen, and they then moved to Germany to live and work there until they moved back to the UK. When they moved back, his wife wanted to divorce him, and the UK tried to deport him before they were divorced. The ECJ said that it would render the right to move and work in other Member States unattractive if the spouses of citizens could be deported when they came back - however, once the divorce is final, then third country nationals no longer enjoy the rights of a spouse of an EU citizen.

In the Zambrano case there was no movement, but the ECJ may be protecting the potential exercise of EU rights by the children citizens. It's done this before in Rottmann, where an Austrian citizen living in Germany lost his citizenship of Austria when he gained German citizenship. The problem was that he hadn't disclosed all the necessary information on his application for German citizenship, and the German authorities decided to remove German citizenship from him - which would have left Janko Rottmann stateless. The ECJ stepped in and said that it was up to the Member States to decide when citizenship was granted, but they re prevented by EU law from unilaterally withdrawing it (and therefore Rottmann's German citizenship in this case) were it would result in a citizen not being able to exercise any of his or her rights. So a citizen could rely on their EU citizenship to protect thagainst their own Member State if they would be deprived of all potential future use of those rights.

The problem with the "Back to the Future Citizenship" is that it's messy and unclear when someone is covered and when they're not. Under UK law if a British national marries a third country national and wants to bring them home to the UK, and they haven't used their EU free movement rights, then they have to pay to get them into the country. So other EU nationals and British nationals who have used their free movement rights have preferential treatment over British nationals who never used their free movement rights. It is unlikely that, under the Back to the Future model, that that British citizen could claim that they wouldn't be able to use their EU rights effectively in the future if their spouse couldn't join them in the UK, so they wouldn't be covered by EU citizenship law.

Civis Europeus Sum - I am a European Citizen

While the Citizen's Directive doesn't apply to EU citizens living in their own country, the Treaty articles on citizenship and the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of nationality (Articles 18 & 20 TFEU) are, in legal jargon, "directly effective". This means people can rely on them without extra laws being passed by the EU or Member States.

Article 20 TFEU gives EU citizens the right to "move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States". The second method is perhaps an example of law being almost laughably technical, because it depends on how that "and" is interpreted. If you have to both move and reside, then you have to use free movement rights and the Back to the Future model applies. If you have 2 separate rights - to move and to reside - then citizens living in their own Member State would have a right to reside there under both their national citizenship, and their European citizenship. Then the non-discrimination clause would mean that they could not be "reverse discriminated" against by their own Member State!

This is the method proposed by British Advocate-General Eleanor Sharpston in her Opinion on the case. It would mean that just by living in the EU - anywhere in the EU - a citizen would be under the same protection as other EU citizens, and rights would not be dependent on complicated legal reasoning.

What was the Court thinking?

You can't really tell which of these the Court supported in it judgment, but it still wanted to help the Zambranos. It's not good enough, however for a Court to be so unclear about what the law is. As the Court cannot give the separate reasonings of the different judges, but only a single court judgment, there may have been a compromise to fudge the issue and not take Sharpston's more radical proposal.

However, I don't want to leave you with the impression that it's only the ECJ that influences the development of EU citizenship. The only reason a Belgian court asked the ECJ in the first place is that the Belgian constitutional court had held that reverse discrimination was not permitted, setting how EU law should work in the area into doubt.

Zambrano was a big step for EU citizenship, but it will be a long time before we know what it really means.

Siedentop and Democracy in Europe

2011-04-20T10:23:00.000+01:00

Last week I attended an interesting debate between Larry Siedentop, the author of Democracy in Europe, and several law Professors and lecturers in Leiden University. In his talk, and the subsequent debate, he discussed the direction of both the UK and Europe.

In Britain, he claimed that the social and cultural supports of the unwritten constitution are in decay, and that there would probably be a move towards a more codified constitution in the future. I agree that the support that the unwritten constitution rested on is decaying - just look at the debates in Parliament over sovereigny and parliamentary sovereignty and you can see that there's a worrying about of confusion over what the key principle of the British constitution actually means even to MPs: the very people the constitution gives absolute power to. With gorwing calls for referendums on issues (an aspect of popular sovereignty rather than parliamentary sovereignty), devolution, human rights and EU membership, more modern ideas of citizenship and the state seem to be seeping in, even if they are largely promoted with the language of the old constitution. If the UK is going to get a codified constitution, I doubt it will get it for a few decades.

On Europe, Siedentop focused on the problem that people aren't involved in the decision-making process and that they don't feel close to the EU. He remarked that nationalism had brought the state and the people closer together, but that it hadn't reached its full goal almost anywhere. Siedentop seemed to be against democratising the EU, saying that he would have prefered if the European Parliament wasn't elected as it hadn't brought people closer to the EU. Turning the clock back now was unrealistic, he accepted.

He proposed an EU were:

1. Member States could exit if they wanted (already the case under Article 50 TEU).
2. The European Parliament has an upper chamber consisting of the representatives of national parliaments (a "Senate").
3. Human rights was a focus.
4. The EU tried to do less, but did it better.

I'm not very convinced by this list. Apart from the first point, which is already the case, and I'm happy with, I can't the remaining points as particularly useful to solving the problem of bringing the EU closer to people and involving citizens in the decision making process.

Human rights have already been upgraded in the EU system. The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights constrains the EU institutions to act within the bounds of human rights, and the EU is committed to joining the European Convention on Human Rights to the ECHR in Strasbourg will provide an additional judicial check on the EU institutions. Article 7 TEU provides a mechanism for the EU to sanction Member States that seriously breach the EU's values (democracy, etc.). Perhaps the EU could be reformed so that it could do more before using this nuclear option, but I think that the ECHR does a lot without duplicating its role within the EU. promoting better democratic politics at an EU level would probably be a good break on more populist tendencies by having a pan-European public as a watchdog against breaches. It's a soft political "measure", but I think that it's a culture that needs to be encouraged and that could have a positive effect.

Getting the EU to do less, but do it better is much, much easier said than done. It would likely be a lot easier to change things in the EU if it was more democratic in substance, as there could be a clear political majority in the institutions for policies like CAP reform. However, the current system is a finely balanced equation of interests and priorities, with CAP and structural funds balancing out freer trade and more liberalised market integration. (Should the EU stop working in the area of cross-border crime? The Netherlands is a strong supporter of this area, so cutting back on the more political aspects of the EU wouldn't automatically please even the more "pro-market area" Member Sates). Remove one, and it's hard to garantee that anything will be done better in the face of bitter Member States.

The senate idea is one I'd reject too. There is little use for another chamber in European politics. I asked Siedentop if it wouldn't be a better approach to have stronger Europarties and EP elections that could decide the leadership of the Commission, so that people would be more engaged (over time) as there would be a clearer link between elections and politicians gaining office and implementing policies. Over time I think this would contribute to building up a common political culture over the EU, though it would admittedly be an extremely long and difficult process. Siedentop responded by saying that informing people about European issues was the point of the senate, so that national politicians would come back and discuss European politics more.

I disagree because we already have elected politicians that have to compete for votes to get elected to have a voice on European policy - having indirectly elected people who will face the same barriers in the media and national political cultures are hardly going to make much more difference. Perhaps Siedentop's focus was to Europeanise national politics by restoring the direct link between national parliaments and the EU. This would mean continuing along the segmented national political cultures, and that political debate is hghly unlikely to go beyond nthe summitry of European politics in the public mind, where a national interest is declared and heads of government arte locked in a room to strike a deal.

Focusing on more open democratic politics would be an uphill struggle - and less based on institutions - but it's a vital one if the decaying old consensus in Europe (the economic integration one) is replaced with something more democratic and long-lasting.

First Past the Post is my last preference

2011-04-19T11:26:00.002+01:00

Growing up in Northern Ireland has the advantage of having three easily accessable political arenas: Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the UK. So mentally hopping across borders and discussing what's going on in each area becomes almost second nature - perhaps this is why I warm so easily to the EU. The UK is preparing for a referendum on changing the voting system from First Past the Post (FPTP) to the Alternative Vote (AV).

Living in Northern Ireland,* I could vote in local, NI and Wesminster elections** which were held using the Single Transferable Vote (the same system is used for the elections in the Republic), but FPTP for Westminster elections. It's a very strange feeling going from STV elections to FPTP ones, and the abiding feeling was one of a loss of choice and power as a voter. In the Republic, attempts by the Fianna Fáil party to change the electoral system from STV to FPTP failed - the electorate saw it as an attempt to rig the system in their favour and to reduce the power of the voter. As STV is AV with more MPs per constituency, when there can only be one winner - in by-elections or for the Presidency in the Republic - AV is used.

So it's very hard to understand the political reactions of the British media (and people?) to the political changes over the last year. Coalitions? Preferential voting? "The sky is falling in!" the media seemed to cry. Today in the Guardian there's a poll saying that support for AV has fallen to 33%, with those against at 44%. It's difficult to explain how strange this seems for someone who has voted according to preference in the vast majority of the elections he's been involved in - particularly the claim that AV is complicated and voters won't understand it. Perhaps this is an Irish/STV thing?

While a system of proportional system would be better, I support AV for the following main reasons:

1. It empowers voters and shakes up safe seats. By being able to vote according to preference, suddenly the first preference doesn't have to be tactical anymore. Preferences can be expressed according to the candidate according to his/her personal ability and/or party affliation, and this means that candidates will have to represent the views of the constituency more faithfully as party membership will be less able to grant near-automatic victories in safe seats. This will encourage voter turnout. Though tactical voting will remain with the lower preferences (there's no electoral system that can eliminate tactical voting), it will free up first preferences, and many safe seats may turn out not to be as safe as once thought once voters can express their first preference free of tactical voting.

2. It enables (though doesn't guarantee - that depends on the electorate) a greater degree of control over the political parties. Parties in the UK are very broad churches - almost coalitions - and their success seems to be based on striking a balance between different wings in such a way as to appeal to the floating voters in marginal seats. By encouraging candidates to appeal to the political sentiments of their constituency more directly, gradual change can be introduced into the parties. A right-wing conservative may be sitting in a seat that would prefer a more liberal conservative, but there is little way of influencing the outcome if they absolutely do not want a Labour MP, and so vote tactically. It should be stressed that this depends on the electorate making use of the possibility, and that it would be a very gradual and indirect way of influencing the balance within parties, but it should mean that parties are a bit closer to their constituencies.

Those are the main reasons for supporting the system itself (I'm not going to be exhaustive in explaining them, or this long post will become far too long), but there are wider cultural perceptions that are attached to AV and proportional representation systems which mean that British voters are (or seem to be) against changing from FPTP.

Chief among these reasons is the fear of coalitions. Coalitions won't automatically come from AV: it cannot change the party political system so radically that there will be great fragmentation. However, coalitions aren't a bad thing that necessarily mean that voters' choices are reduced. Parties are coalitions that are hard in themselves to influence, and where there are only 2 (or 2 1/2) choices for government, it's hard to determine whether, when these parties win an election, their programmes get a near-total endorsement. What's more, the decreasing vote for the main parties means that a majority can be won on about between 36-38% (the upper reaches of which are harder to achieve nowadays) - should a single party be given such power when they don't have the support of 50% of the people? Through coalitions there is a greater chance for the voters to strengthen one party or the other and shape their relative strengths.

Again, perhaps this is a cultural perception, as in Ireland single party government is a threat - at the last election (in February), it looked like there may be enough Fine Gael support for single party government, and the electorate switched votes away from FG to ensure that there would be a coalition (in Labour speak, a "balanced government"). Ironically the most unstable government we've ever had in the Republic was a FF single party government with a large majority. Still, the ability to give preferences for candidates across parties in STV enables voters to shape the representation of the constituency and the political balance in the Dáil for coalition building. The "dream team" approach to building a government!

AV is a very moderate change to the electoral system. It won't change things radically, it's still possible (and fairly likely) to produce single party governments, and it doesn't create a proportional repersentive system. Such a moderate change won't have the hyped-up affects on British politics that the Yes campaign suggest, but it will give constituencies greater control over their MP. And that's why it's worth voting for.

* Annoyingly, if not surprisingly, the parties in NI have split along Nationalist-Unionist lines on the AV issue, though none are advocating a return to FPTP for NI...

**I'm currently living in the Netherlands, and was annoyingly too late for a postal vote.

It's not a bail-out, but it might need to be

2011-04-19T00:12:00.004+01:00

Jon Worth has a good post (and also pointed to this great post by Henning Meyer) on why the bail-outs are not actually bail-outs: they are loans to countries which will be paid off, with the creditor countries getting a profit at the end of the process. However, a problem with this can be seen in Meyer's post when he explains this:

"It is a widespread myth for instance that the European bailout fund is giving away money for free to countries such as Ireland and Greece. This is simply wrong! The ‘bail-out’ is a lending facility that lends money at rates with which the underwriting countries will make a profit if the debtor countries do not default. This is far from giving away money for free from presumed ‘responsible’ countries to ‘irresponsible’ countries to support their luxurious lifestyle."

"If the debtor countries do not default" looks like a big if to me. The structure of the bail out is such that it reinforces the austerity model that the debtor countries have been trying to enforce. This has been done with varying degrees of success when it comes to sticking to the programme. However, the plan is to change the EU structure so that countries can have a managed default after 2013, which means that there will be many voices (as there is currently in Ireland) questioning why they have to go through the harsh readjustments of austerity when after 2013 default would be the accepted option. Surely only a fool would go through that pain for no real reason?

It doesn't help that the rescue loans are structured so that they have fairly high interest rates, even if they are below the market rate - Europe seems to be caught in between solidarity and ensuring the hair-shirted redemption of the debtor states through some cleansing punishment. With the rates higher than the growth rates of the debtor countries, it may be that their debt could grow - particularly in Ireland. The Irish case seems to be different from the Greek case, in that the European system has stepped in to prop up the Irish banks to ensure that their debts to British and Eurozone banks are repaid. As they cannot be bailed out directly, the loan facility means that essentially the Irish government borrows money from the EU to give to the banks to pay off their loans to private continental banks, and the Irish taxpayer picks up the tab at the end of the process.

Allowing the private banks in Ireland to fail now is not an option as the ECB ensures that the banks keep running as the lender of last resort, but it is widely accepted that Ireland cannot pay off the debt, and the Irish government is looking to renegotiate parts of the EU-IMF deal, starting with the interest rate on the loans. Eventually Ireland may ask for some restructuring of the debt - which seems to essentially mean that some of it simply isn't paid back. Now that part would be a bail-out.

This is very different from the situations in Portugal and Greece, but with the domestic political pressures building up, it should be borne in mind that default only seems a scary prospect for debtor countries for so long. Once the pain of austerity becomes too much, with too little reward, then the option of default - which would turn the loans into lost money - becomes more realistic.

The current plan for the Eurozone has failed - it doesn't seem to be working in the Member States it's supposed to help out, as it forces them into narrow austerity plans that do a lot of damage to their economies and therefore damage their ability to pay the loans back; and it has failed to stop the debt crisis spreading. The loans have bought time to deal with the Eurozone more comprehensively, but there doesn't seem to be many good or imaginitive ideas on the table.

So while offering - and accepting - the loans was a good idea in order to buy time, if it's not followed up with effective action, then things could get worse. Not offering the loans, however, would have brought about default in the debtor countries, which would have meant that their debt would wash back into the economies of the creditor countries. This would have had an immediate effect on the economies of all the Eurozone members, since the credit originally came from their private sectors, or they would be simply affected by the damaging effects of the debt washing back into Germany and the Netherlands, etc. Which is why I think that mainstream European political parties need to put forward a realistic and effective vision - or at least start vigourous debates on options* - to combat the platforms of the populist parties. There's no excuse not to.

* I know, that will be the day.

Lifting the sanctions against Moussa Koussa is the right thing to do

2011-04-18T15:20:00.000+01:00

Moussa Koussa is hardly the most beloved former government ministers in the world - as a former minister under Gaddafi, he was part of one of the nastiest regimes, and no doubt there are plenty of cases that people want to take against him. However, the move by the EU to lift sanctions against him (so he can move throughout the EU without the restrictions placed on the other Gaddafi government members, and can access his assets) is not granting him immunity from prosecution in itself.

The aim of the sanction was to penalise the regime and put pressure on it to stop its war against the rebellion. By lifting sanctions on those who defect, the EU is creating an incentive - if a soft one - to defect from the regime and weaken Gaddafi's position. It is unlikely that there will be many defections now as the stalemate in Libya means that the regime isn't likely to be ousted, so those who decided to stay probably won't jump ship now. Still, the move may pay off in the future if the situation on the ground changes. Then members of the regime may see a life boat, and take the plunge.

It can be a tough decision to ease the position of people who have participated in such regimes, but the hope is that by removing them peacefully with incentives, bloodshed would be avoided or reduced than by backing regimes that are clearly capable of great cruelty into a corner with nothing to loose.

From EU Observer the routine attitude with which the sanctions were lifted seems to indicate that this is an accepted strategy across the EU:

"The EU decision was made unanimously at ambassador-level last Thursday.

Foreign ministers rubber stamped the move without debate or public remarks at a meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday. Koussa became legally able to once again travel inside the Union and take money from any bank accounts he has in Europe from Thursday morning onward."

Jumping ship is still a risky move for members of dictatorships: though they leave with promises of immunity or certain privileges, their legal situation has a habit of changing eventually.

Finnish Election

2011-04-18T11:14:00.002+01:00

Finland held its general election yesterday, with the right-wing populist True Finns breaking through to become one of the main parties in the Finnish parliament (Finland is unicameral, so it only has one chamber of parliament).

The BBC reports the predicted seats for the main parties (out of 200) as:

"National Coalition Party - 44

Social Democrats - 42

True Finns - 39

Centre Party - 35"

Percentage-wise, the True Finns will have gone from 4% to 20% of the vote. Their platform is eurosceptic and anti-immigration, with the bail-outs of Greece, Ireland and now Portugal helping to boost their popularity, as the idea of sending money over to other EU Member States doesn't seem to have been defended very well: it's a lot easier to sell a simple rejectionist message than explain the complex economic case for supporting other countries. That's not to tsay that there isn't a need to challenge the current approach to the European debt crisis - and the worrying signs of satisfaction at the measures taken so far. Though the methods and ideas so far haven't been far-sighted enough, going into reverse gear would make the situation worse.

"The party's candidates are a motley crew and amongst them there are distinct anti-immigrant views. Neither does the party leadership have much sympathy for a place for the Swedish language and Swedish teaching in Finland. Nor for development aid, climate policies and so on. The general impression is that of deep conservative values and a nationalistic spirit. The word extreme right is not used in Finland. The party's future shape depends however on which of the party's candidates finally win a place in parliament." - EU Observer.

Given how close the seat numbers arre for the 4 biggest parties, it is possible that the True Finns could even end up in government. Again, it's hard to know whether the best approach would be to freeze them out of coalition possibilities or not (which takes us back to the question of how to deal with such parties generally). I haven't been following Finnish politics closely enough to know how extreme the True Finns are in their rhetoric and policies, but from what I've read they seem quite extreme. I hope that the mainstream parties start digging in and re-vitalising their grassroots.

Back from the Grave

2011-04-18T10:59:00.000+01:00

Don't worry - I'm not dead! Things have been very busy over the last month and a half, so The European Citizen has gone a bit quiet. I'm hoping to revive the blog and use it more regularly from now on.

I'm not sure how smooth the process will be, since the next few weeks will still be pretty busy, but I hope to squeeze in a few blog posts each week.

Irish General Election 2011: Some early thoughts

2011-02-27T16:16:00.000Z

The first day of counting is over (Ireland uses the PR-STV system in its general elections), and at the time of writing the results for the 166 Dáil seats stand at: Fine Gael 68; Labour 35; Fianna Fáil 17; Sinn Féin 13; ULA 4; Others 13, so 147/166 seats have been filled. The election will have a big Irish political impact and an uncertain European impact, and it's unclear how this will work out.

In Irish Politics.

It looks pretty certain that the next government will be a Fine Gael-Labour coalition (in continental terms a Grand Coalition). It will be Labour's best result because they will now be the second biggest party in the Dáil after having been the third party for their entire history. There were concerns that their manifestos are too different on major economic issues to work together effectively, but I'm sure there are well established personal links between them and there will be large sections of the aging Labour front bench who will be eager to get into government at last.

For Fianna Fáil it's a complete disaster: only around 20 seats is an unthinkable result for the natural party of government. Their support base is aging and they have become "transfer toxic", so that they rarely won the last seat in any constituency, and there are few constituencies with more than one FF TD. It is a low support base to build form, and they will have trouble trying to distinguish themselves ideologically as they were always a broad-based, Gaulist-type movement whose main ideological componant was Irish Republicanism. In this regard Sinn Féin will be a threat since it can claim its ground on Republicanism and organises in Northern Ireland and in the Republic. FF may have recognised this threat and might be aiming to counter it by organising in Northern Ireland itself. It will be hard for FF to regain the Republican image after their government saw the IMF-EU bail-out deal, however.

A big boost to Fianna Fáil would be leading the opposition, which will give them a chance to feed on the anger of the electorate at the incoming government as it detoxifies. They could face challenges on this on two fronts.

Sinn Féin has done really well, and the party has a strong tradition for good constituency work that translates into votes, and they have more than doubled their representation this time around - a clear sign that all their base-building in the Republic is paying off. They wouldn't get as many seats as FF, but there is a danger for FF that they will try to form a technical group in the Dáil with the ULA and perhaps other left-wing independents to become the biggest opposition party. So it could be SF that robs FF of the "oxygen of publicity". SF will be aiming next time around to eat into Labour's support as the biggest left-wing opposition party. Though SF has become more transfer-friendly, if the economy does pick up I wonder if the rhetoric of opposition - and SF's plans seem quite unrealistic to me - will be able to attract even more votes, or if SF will need to moderate and broad its appeal? If they become more moderate the ULA (United Left Alliance) will be breathing down their neck to fill the protest vote gap.

There are some right-wing independents in the Dáil, most notably Shane Ross, who is reported to be trying to form a like-minded technical group of 8 TDs who could support a FG government and keep Labour out of power. FG is unlikely to take this option as ideological independents would be high maintenance, but it would be tempting in order to retain cabinet posts. In any case it will lessen Labour's bargaining hand.

FG's big election win means that it will be hard for Labour to influence government policy. The question is, should it try to influence it to benefit low and middle income families (its target voters), or become the leaders of the opposition and make Irish politics truly left-right? It sounds like Labour wants to be in government (a lot of rhetoric on government stability and a broad based government to deal with the crisis), but it has to be questioned whether it can influence government enough for it to be worth it. Labour is strong in Leinster and Munster, but very weak in the rest of the country, where SF has won seats. They would need to be wary of letting SF grow while it is in government, or it could fail to break out of the role of "the other party" of Irish politics. Both the alternative opposition allignments are threats to FF.

In European Politics.

There will have to be a renegotiation of the bail-out agreement, as Ireland simply cannot bear the burden of all the private debt in the system. Much of this private debt is made up of loans from German and British and other European banks, which raises the question of why the pain of dealing with bad lending should be concentrated in Ireland. Despite the moral arguments, any action has to be European-wide to be credible: we need money to fund the state and public services, and washing the debt back into the European system would restart the debt crisis which would be bad for the recovering Irish export industry without solving our own public funding crisis.

The problem is that strong negotiations need to be tempered by a clear vision and arguments for the compromises and changes that Irish, German, Dutch, etc, etc, people will have to make. For Eurobonds and bondholder burdening, we would be asking other people to take up the pain and burdens we have, and we need to sell that to them. Internally, we need to sell the pooling of sovereignty involved in Eurobonds and other forms of fiscal harmonisation - after all, we might be called on in the future to bail out other countries in the Eurozone, and we would want to make that as unlikely to happen as possible.

Compromise will be the other of the day, so the Irish government and the rest of the European Council needs to be exceptional in delivering a workable solution to the debt crisis, including economic governance, and at the same time sell it to the people - because all of this will need Treaty change.

If there is an agreement on the future shape of the Eurozone, then there will be a referendum in Ireland. What compromise would be realistic and acceptable to Ireland, and the other Eurozone members?

Irish Election Day Round-up 2011

2011-02-25T12:24:00.002Z

It’s polling day! This is what the last few weeks have been all about, so good luck to all the candidates, but most of all good luck to the electorate!

NewsWhip,ie has an article on the Paper Protest against the lack of votes for those living abroad. The protest is designed to send a message without spoiling the ballot papers. They also report on a poll on Irish attitudes to gay marriage, which may be a sign of the cultural shift in the country over the last few years.

On banking, there has been successful bidding by two Irish banks for the loan deposit books of two state-owned banks, which has not received a warm welcome everywhere.

Maman Poulet reveals the message of Bertie Ahern to his old constituency. And given the talk of taxes and cutting, The Cedar Lounge Revolution has an article on the Tobin tax, and how it might be introduced at an EU level.

Stephen Spillane has been predicting the election on the airwaves, and The European Citizen also has a few thoughts on the election.

If you have any tips on election blogs or posts, you can contact myself or Stephen on Twitter via @EuropeanCitizen and @Spiller2.

A few thoughts on the Irish Election 2011

2011-02-24T14:20:00.005Z

Tomorrow is the big day, where the next Dáil will be elected in Ireland. I had hoped to write more about the actual campaign, but sadly real life got in the way. So instead, here's the election boiled down to one badly-written post:

Trends and Strategy

Fine Gael, the centre-right party, looks set to win almost 40% of the vote, which could get them a single-party majority in the Dáil - something which hasn't happened in Ireland for decades. They'd a good campaign, deciding to hide their leader, famous for his poor media performance, while presenting a good team to fight the election battle on the airwaves. There were 4 leadership debates (and Enda Kenny only took part in three of them, which caused a bit of a fuss), where Enda simply had to not say anything incredibly daft and Fine Gael wouldn't be harmed.

Labour had a terrible campaign. The popularity of their leader, Eamon Gilmore, tempted them to run a presidential campaign with the slogan "Gilmore for Taoiseach" (Labour have never led a government in Ireland before). Given that Labour is the third party of Irish politics, it would have been hard to conduct a cabinet election since they had a more limited gene pool to draw on from their last Dáil cohort, which might explain the lack of a Plan B when the presidential campaign failed. Their finance spokesperson, Joan Burton, was disappointing on TV - the now famous outburst on Tonight with Vincent Browne damaged her image, and the strategy of selling a vision meant that in debates with her competitors she rarely got around to the detail (time limits and impatient presenters made sure of that): not a good position in a generally policy-dominated election. The "vision" point goes for all Labour performances: the party seemed more concerned about its brand than the policy. This changed after the first week and a half, with Gilmore doing well in the debates and trying to insert more substance, and Labour's poll ratings consolidated, but I wonder how much it will add anything to Labour's vote.

It should be said that Labour haven't had a good campaign in the light of their ambitions, but they will increase their vote and their seats. With a different strategy they could have done better yet.

Fianna Fáil probably had as good an election as they could have. In the last leadership debate, Micheál Martin was on the attack, and probably turned people off by talking over the other leaders, but it made clear that FF needs to consolidate its core vote. It seems to be around the 14-16% mark, which means that it's disasterous, but there was little that could be done about that after its record in government.

Sinn Féin and the ULA seemed to have done well for themselves with their messages of withdrawing from the IMF-EU bailout and insistuting a socialist economy with nationalised banks respectively. They will still be small parties, but it shows a fragmentation of the left, and it probably attracted support away from Labour.

The Greens look like they might be wiped out. I agree with Jason O'Mahony that this would be a pity, since they actually tried to achieve - and did achieve - some of their manifesto promises. that's not to say that they don't deserve punishment, but a wipe-out is a bit disproportionate in my opinion.

There are a record number of independents running this year, and around 17 could get elected (how votes split and transfer may decide this). There are still very localist independent who only care about constituency matters, but there are a new breed of independents who are campaigning on national issues, either from the left or the right. The phrase most often uttered by these independents is: "I will work with like-minded independents", to which my brain can't help muttering "what, you mean like in a party?". One of the tensions in democracy is between having independent-minded representatives, and the need to build broad coalitions to enact change. the party system has many faults, but I'm not convinced that independents will improve things much.

A European election?

Europe was a big issue in this election, but only in the limited sense of discussing what could be won from a renegotiation. There was no proper debate about what would need to be done about the entire Eurozone, though there was a brief mention (I counted 1 time during the campaign!) of Eurobonds being a good thing for Ireland. The level of tax harmonisation or budgetary convergence that might be negotiable in return for this and renegotiation of the bail out deal wasn't discussed, except to restate over and over that the coporation tax would not be for sale. In many ways it's natural that parties don't want to give away their negotiating position beforehand. However, these changes will require a referendum in Ireland, and perhaps in other Member States - we need to start speaking in a language of what is just for everyone in the Eurozone, and not simply "if it's good for us, it's good for everyone, because then we can pay some of the money back". The shape of the Eurozone will stay with us after we recover (however that happens, and however long it takes), so there should have been a more open discussion about this.

The Next Dáil

It's pretty clear from the poll trends that FG will near a majority on its own, and could form a government with the support of some independents. I'd like to see Labour stay out of government and lead the opposition. That would be a massive change in Irish politics as it would help solidify an opening left-right divide and end the old civil war political divide. Being in opposition and having that bigger gene pool (because Labour has done well in the election in that it will increase its seats, just not reach the huge ambitions it set itself in leading the next government) to construct a better alternative/shadow cabinet government. It could have big consequences for FF, who might not recover to lead a government in the forseeable future, and become the third party of Irish politics. Irish politics will be fluid in the future, so much depends on Labour's position over whether or not the civil war divide returns...

Irish Election Blog Round-up #14

2011-02-23T00:16:00.002Z

We’re nearing the finishing line, and the polls seem quite steady at the moment, though there are still undecideds out there and the question of the transfers from independent candidates.

The blogosphere has been musing on the nature of elections in Ireland. Stephen Spillane has written about the election broadcasting moratorium that will kick in on Thursday, and PoliticalReform.ie looks at the Irish political culture and localism – as does Slugger O’Toole.

Irish Election discusses the possibilities for the next government and Fine Gael, and Maman Poulet looks at the independents in this election.

The banks are an ever present concern, so The Cedar Lounge Revolution examines the comments by Alan Dukes on the sector. Also in the spotlight is the idea of job creation over at IrishQuestion.ie.

Despite the innovations of Twitter, Facebook and blogging in this election, posters will always be with us at election time – but that doesn’t mean that they all have to be serious...

If you have any tips on election blogs or posts, you can contact myself or Stephen on Twitter via @EuropeanCitizen and @Spiller2.

Irish Election Blog Round-Up #12

2011-02-18T15:56:00.003Z

We’re just a week from the big day when the votes for the crucial poll is cast, and it seems that we’re still in single-party government territory, which has drawn an interesting analysis from The Cedar Lounge on what this might mean for the Labour Party, and an eye-catching reaction from the Green Party.

Labour’s Eamon Gimore, it seems, has a personalised message for you. How has the Labour Party handled the internet campaign? A good move? Too manufactured? Or does it make any difference?

Political reform is the order of the day, so it’s good to see the blogosphere investigating the claims of the parties. PoliticalReform.ie examines the competing versions of proposed citizen’s assemblies.

And what do you think of the calibre of TDs in the Dáil? O’Keefe thinks that there are too many intellectuals! I wouldn’t have thought that brains to be the most maligned characteristic in Leinster House...

If you have any tips on election blogs or posts, you can contact myself or Stephen on Twitter via @EuropeanCitizen and @Spiller2.

Irish Election Blog Round-Up #10

2011-02-16T12:36:00.004Z

Or at least I think it's #10 - it's hard to keep track!

Another day, another debate, but the first debate between the big 3 – as Gaelige – will broadcast later, so we’ll have to wait for the next rash of post-debate analysis. Meanwhile, there are plenty of competing viewpoints in the blogosphere, particularly between those who believe we have the political clout for renegotiation, and those who a rapidly concluding that the parties won’t be in any position to renegotiate.

Social questions are getting more of an airing online than in the debates so far. Maman Poulet takes a look at how the parties’ manifestos deal with LGBT issues and Jason O’Mahony asks the question: what will Fine Gael’s social values be in a single-party government?

With Labour not doing as well as they expected in the polls, Eoin O’Malley tries to answer the conundrum: What’s gone wrong for Labour? Fianna Fáil may have dropped historically low in the polls, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t attracting a new electoral base...

Finally, more talk about tax, with Fine Gael proposing a tax on “content” instead of a TV licence.

If you have any tips on election blogs or posts, you can contact myself or Stephen on Twitter via @EuropeanCitizen and @Spiller2.

Withdrawing from the ECHR: a European "Civil Death"?

2011-02-13T00:46:00.003Z

Increasingly there are calls for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, which has recently been brought to public attention because the of the Hirst v UK (No. 2) case, in which the Court ruled that the UK breached the rights of prisoners by having the loss of the right to vote as an automatic consequence of imprisonment. It should be noted that the Court of Human Rights is not connected to the EU, which is a different organisation - a mistake that people who should know better continuously make.

[Though the Convention has influenced the rulings of the court of Justice of the European Union, this was historically mostly because the EU Court wants to avoid confrontation with national courts like the Bundesverfassingsgericht over respecting rights, rather than some assumed desire to subordinate themselves to another court. Now the ECJ has to take into account Convention law under the Treaties, but this only applies to EU law - and why it's a bad thing that the ECJ should respect the ECHR has yet to be explained to me.]

The Court noted the state of the law in the 47 Council of Europe countries:

"Law and practice in Contracting States

33. According to the Government’s survey based on information obtained from its diplomatic representation, eighteen countries allowed prisoners to vote without restriction (Albania, Azerbaijan, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, Germany, Iceland, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine), in thirteen countries all prisoners were barred from voting or unable to vote (Armenia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Ireland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey and the United Kingdom), while in twelve countries prisoners’ right to vote could be limited in some other way (Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Poland, Romania and Spain).

34. Other material before the Court indicates that in Romania prisoners may be debarred from voting if the principal sentence exceeds two years, while in Latvia prisoners serving a sentence in penitentiaries are not entitled to vote; nor are prisoners in Liechtenstein."

The Court ruled that an indiscriminate restriction of the right to vote was contrary to the Convention. This doesn't mean that prisoners' right to vote cannot be restricted, but it has to be proportionate to the offence and not automatically applied to all prisoners regardless of the crime committed. I have heard few arguments against this per se, except that of the medieval concept of the civil death, where a prisoner looses all his or her civil rights upon conviction. The problem with this line of argument is that it hasn't been made in a very coherent way. The medieval concept entailed the loss of all rights - even that of the right to life, so that murdering such a person was not against the law (just like killing an animal isn't murder). Nobody is advocating that, but then that means that we distinguish between different types of punishment all the time. Some crimes result in a prison sentence, some do not. Much of the anger has been directed against the idea that murderers and rapists would get the vote - but this is not what the judgment is about, and the people in prisons are not solely murderers and rapists. Should I take it that serious violent crime is the sole criteria that people think would merit disenfranchisement, or are there other grounds?

Sadly, it has not been a subject of public debate to decide which crimes are worthy of disenfranchisement. It is a sad loss to the public debate, but it was raised by David Rennie of The Economist - the only place in the mainstream media I have read such an argument about the quality of this debate.

Jon Worth has looked at the international dimension to the idea of withdrawal from the Convention. Mutual responsibilities are important, and it's odd the way some people are eager to reject the argument that withdrawal would encourage other countries with worse human rights records to ignore the Convention or withdrawal as not the UK's concern (is it not in everyone's interest that their remains a culture of human rights and democracy in Europe? Like a garden, these things need to be maintained, and it's foolish to pretend that history is simply progressive and that things won't decline). The political culture in Europe and other European countries tends to spill over and become an argument in other countries, for good and bad. The argument that other countries should withdraw and take responsibility for these matters themselves - well, I don't find that convincing at all. I doubt that France's outburst over being called on the Roma expulsions was down to being part of a system of international law, but rather due to a feeling of entitlement, as if it should be allowed to do whatever it wants.

Similarly the attitudes of exceptionalism do not make good arguments for withdrawal. The idea that there is something unique about the UK that it will always deal with these matters well is not very reasuring. Likewise, I wouldn't believe France would be great at the job simply because it can claim that the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen as part of its historical legacy. The UK's recent anti-terrorism laws have been a cause for concern for the UK courts, but some of these issues (unrestrained stop-and-search) had to reach the ECHR.

A claim that is also being made is that British judges can protect the rights of citizens better than the European Court. First of all, this ignores the fact that due to the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty, British judges cannot overturn breaches of human rights enacted by Parliament (say, if it legalised torture or restricted the franchise). Second, though it has been pointed out that some US states don't permit prisoners to vote, it's not a clear "continental European v the Commonwealth" dividing line, as Canada and South Africa have produced similar judgments. The question then becomes would the people who argue that the British judiciary should be able to protect rights accept it if the Supreme Court made the same judgment? Or is it more of an argument that it should be for the legislature rather than the judiciary (in which case it becomes a question of should the state be able to do what it wants - for no matter how democratic the decision is, it ultimately uses state power against the individual)? I'm afraid I've never been convinced by the argument that politicians should have absolute power.

Indeed, in a system where rights in general are conferred and may be taken away without reference to the rule of law it is hard to speak of rights as such. Surely the correct term for rights that are bestowed and may be taken away by an unchecked sovereign authority is "privileges"?

Irish Election Blog Round-Up #8

2011-02-12T17:37:00.002Z

As we come to the end of another week of election campaigning, there seems to be a divide between the blogosphere and the media on the quality of the election. While many in the mainstream media seem to find the campaign interesting – at least when it came to the debate earlier this week – the blogosphere’s not so impressed. Over at Irish Question they ask if Ireland is a “political zombie” because of the lack of ideology.

Meanwhile Stephen Spillane has a few notes on canvassing, and Jason Mahony asks about Labour: if not now, when?

Maman Poulet takes a look at the manifesto promises so far on disability, and News Whip challenges us on political reform, asking: is the car broken, or the driver just drunk?

Finally, as the election seems to be focused on who we will send to Europe to negotiate on our behalf, it’s worth noting that we’ve chosen “Jedward” to send to the next Eurovision. What that says about the prospects of electing a competent government, I’ll leave for you to decide...

If you have any tips on election blogs or posts, you can contact myself or Stephen on Twitter via @EuropeanCitizen and @Spiller2.

Irish Election Blog Round-Up #6

2011-02-10T07:23:00.000Z

Yet another day on the election campaign trail in the Blogosphere, and no doubt you have been saturated with debate analysis. The big election show on Tuesday is a common trend in the blogs, but there are a few other stories cropping up as well.

Slugger O'Toole has noticed that Sinn Féin have mixed up the nationality of the road signs on their election literature.

Irish Election is questioning Brian Lenihan's decision to delay drawing on the Stability Mechanism until the new government enters office: is it allowed under the deal? Also, for those who are interested in polling statistics, Irish Election spells out just how bad the polls are for Fianna Fáil, while the Cedar Lounge Revolution is stunned by the stability of the polls.

Meanwhile, in Brussels, the vague Franco-German plan doesn't seem to have rallied many to it. How will the debate on the Eurozone change as this election progresses?

And Pass Level Politics gives some insight into the art of canvassing.

If you have any tips on election blogs or posts, you can contact myself or Stephen on Twitter via @EuropeanCitizen and @Spiller2.

The Eurozone and the Europarties: ELDR

2011-02-09T09:07:00.004Z

Given that there's a lot of discussion on how to reform the Eurozone, I thought I'd send some quick questions by email to some of the Europarties on what there positions are on Eurozone reform, and what role they play in the debate.

The first to reply was the European Liberal Demoract and Reform Party, and I've included the questions and ELDR's answers below. I've included some of my own notes to explain what the links included contain, but read the links in full to get the full sense of the proposals. Thanks to ELDR for replying.

As a further note, ELDR now has Associate Membership (hat-tip Stephen Spillane). I wonder how this might start to change the party, if at all. Will the addition of the ELDR's "own" members (as separate from the membership of its constituent parties) start to have influence its positions in the European Parliament?

1. So far the high-profile discussions on economic governance have been at the level of Heads of State and Government during European Council summit meetings. What do you see the role of Europarties in this debate to be, and what role is ELDR trying to play?

ELDR has for many years already been organizing liberal Prime Minister summits preceding the European Council meeting. By those meetings, ELDR assumes a coordination function among the member parties to bring together the positions of liberal governments.

See here the links to the two past liberal summits.

http://www.eldr.eu/en/news/2010/12/european-liberals-back-common-crisis-mechanism-

http://www.eldr.eu/en/news/2010/10/liberals-support-calls-for-crisis-management-mechanism

2. Is the European Financial Stability Mechanism a good method of combating the debt crisis in the Eurozone? Are you satisfied with how it works in ensuring lending to certain countries, or should it be changed, and why?

This mechanism has been conceived as a temporary mechanism and should orderly phase-out in 2013. Permanent crisis mechanisms such as the EFSM risk moral hazard behavior of EU member states as they provide for the wrong incentives concerning budget policies. Only a comprehensive package of measures can prevent future debt crisis as called for by the ELDR in 2010.*

* Own Note: As an extract:

"[ELDR] Calls for:

Strict budget discipline in all member states of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). As laid down in the treaties, member states ought to aim for balanced budgets, with a three percent budget deficit being the maximum allowed under extraordinary conditions. Stronger emphasis should also be laid on staying below the maximum debt level of 60% of GDP as defined in the second criterion of the SGP, and on surveillance of both public and private debt;

A stronger enforcement of the criteria of the Stability and Growth Pact by creating gradual and automatic sanctions in the preventive and corrective arms of the Stability and Growth Pact which are not only financial, but also political, and calls for a new Stability and Growth Pact that would allow for temporary suspensions of payments from the cohesion and structural funds to countries that repeatedly violate the SGP. However, this does not exempt the Member States from fulfilling their obligations toward their citizens and businesses;

The depoliticisation of the power to enforce the Stability and Growth Pact, by moving the decision from the ECOFIN council to an independently enforced mechanism executed by the European Commission;

The orderly phase-out of the EFSF on 30 June 2013, as planned and promised at the time of its creation;

The introduction of European standards for EMU member states’ financial accounts, including clear and enforceable reporting standards that are cross-checked by EUROSTAT"

3. More fiscal integration is often mentioned as a key part of economic governance: what does this mean to ELDR? How far should integration go in this area (for example, should there be Eurobonds?): what should the EU do on one hand, and the Member States on the other?

Europe needs the Euro but a common currency also demands greater fiscal and economic coordination. The key is a stricter budget discipline of member states and stronger enforcement of the criteria of the Stability and Growth Pact as adopted by the ELDR Party in Helsinki in October 2010.

European Liberals are at the forefront of discussing proposals how to go about Eurobonds. Among them former ELDR Vice President and chair of the European Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee Sharon Bowles** or the liberal group leader in the European Parliament Guy Verhofstadt.*** In this respect it is equally clear for Liberals that the EU must not become a monetary transfer union or falling into the trap of member state to run down the same fatal spiral huge budget deficits.

** [Own Note: this proposal is for the bailed out countries to be refunded some of the high interest that they have paid when all debts have been paid off].

*** [Own Note: proposal for Eurobonds].

4. In the budget discussions at the end of last year, the European Parliament thought it was important to leave the question of own resources, including the idea of taxation (e.g. financial/environmental taxes), open for future budget discussions. Where do the European Liberal Democrats stand on EU taxation? Is this an important part of economic governance, or a separate issue?

Taxation (be it national or European) is obviously an important part of economic policies, particularly for liberals. The ELDR Party is about to launch its focus year 2011 (www.eldrfocus.eu) on the next multi-annual framework of the EU budget. The question of EU taxation will be an essential part of the discussion and the ELDR Party is expected to adopt a theme resolution on those issues at the party congress in November. The possibility of levying EU taxes has always to be reviewed in the context of national austerity measures and national taxation. Europe cannot afford to generally burden citizens with more dues.

5. Financial regulation is a big issue and the EU has tried to tackle this on a macroeconomic level and in hedge fund regulation last year. Has the EU done enough in this area? What, if anything, should be done differently and why?

At the beginning of the financial crisis there was a substantial failure in governmental supervision as well as in the financial institutions themselves. Even though everyone loves to blame hedge funds, they were certainly not the cause for the crisis.

In its resolution on a new prosperity from November 2009, ELDR has spelled out that existing regulation needs to be reviewed but that more intervention will not lead to economic recovery.

Irish Election Blog Round-Up #3

2011-02-05T11:49:00.003Z

It's only the first week of the election, but already some are drawing a few lessons. Enda Kenny may want to prove himself capable of being a fast learner, as the Blogosphere has been quite critical of him over the last few hours. Kenny has stated that he doesn't want to appear on a TV3 debate run by Vincent Browne due to a joke he made during the Fine Gael leadership challenge last year. Called an act of cowardice by some, and simply ridiculed by others, unfortunately his comments on Gemma Hussey's questioning of his leadership on RTÉ haven't gone down well either.

Fianna Fáil's first video of the campaign is doing the rounds, and it features Micheál Martin playing some hurling - is this the Irish version of Tony Blair playing tennis?

It is impossible to escape the issue of the banks in this election, and NewsWhip brings us some more news on AIB bank bonuses.

There will be few constituencies as interesting as Dun Laoghaire in this campaign, so over at The Cedar Lounge Revolution they've been musing about what way the vote is likely to go.

It may be one of the most serious elections that has faced the state, but there's plenty of election humour around. Here's some courtesy of Lucy's Drowning and the Oireachtas Retort.

If you have any tips on election blogs or posts, you can contact myself or Stephen on Twitter via @EuropeanCitizen and @Spiller2.

Plan Outside: Going it alone Ireland

2011-02-04T15:47:00.001Z

Today the Labour Party leader, Eamon Gilmore, was having fun down in Limerick aping the Rubberbandits by telling potential voters: "Feck the bailout, we've a plan outside". Labour's position has hardened over the past few days, perhaps due to seeing the dregs of the plunging Fianna Fáil support trickle off to Sinn Féin, rather than give a boost to the traditional third party. Labour may be polling in the early 20s - a good place to be for it historically - but when Labour is pushing Gilmore as Taoiseach, they would want to make greater headway over the next few weeks.

So Labour revealed its plan earlier this week, and it's more ambitious in its bailout renegotiation aims. Instead of the deficit-reducing plan (reducing it to 3% of GDP) lasting until 2015, as currently agreed, it should be pushed back to 2016; instead of a €9 billion adjustment, it should be €7 billion. Labour is hoping that if they reach their aims, there will be another billion for it to invest in the economy.

This isn't as unilateralist as Sinn Féin, who really would tell the IMF to take their money and go home. In the meantime, Sinn Féin hopes to raid the pension fund to invest in the economy, while raising taxes to cover the gap between tax receipts and state spending for the next year. Sinn Féin's leader, Gerry Adams, is not known for his economic competence, and has been questioned over SF's version of past events, and whether there is simply enough money to be raised to cover the whole state bill without cutting public services. (Here's a 20 minute radio interview with him on RTÉ) Sinn Féin hopes that by shutting down and amalgamating banks so private debt is separated from the public, the bond market will be kind after only a year.

While Labour may be talking unilateralist, yet standing on a renegotiating platform, there seems to be little discussion about what a real unilateralist stance may do to Ireland and the wider Eurozone economy. The original rationale for Ireland accepting the bailout was that Portugal - and perhaps even Spain - may need to be bailed out if Ireland refused, and that it was unlikely for Ireland's situation to have sufficiently improved after 6 months, if it chose to rely on its pension fund. Portugal may have survived its first borrowing test, but, if the Greece-Ireland pattern is anything to go by, it won't be long until the European Financial Stability Mechanism will need to be called on again. With France and Germany launching their own plan today, it’s clear that there's a general consensus that things in the Eurozone need to change. How would unilaterally pulling out of the EFSM affect the Eurozone and Britain, at a time when it's the export sector that is one of the few areas of the economy that we can feel good about? Surely the core of the Eurozone would be damaged financially, as they have to borrow more to bail out banks and other countries, or, conversely, they let them fail (either one or the other or both), in which case there will be a lot of economic turbulence.

Would Ireland have enough money, or be able to raise enough, in such an economic climate to sufficiently invest in and revive the domestic economy before we need to go back to the bond markets? Of course, I could be way, way, off in many of my assumptions here: I know little of economics. However, shouldn't these issues, and how the Eurozone is going to be run in the future, be debated more?

What shine there was on austerity has now definitely come off, and despite the resignation to fixing the deficit, parties of all colours are now talking about investment to some degree. The consensus is that Ireland will eventually have to default and cannot continue to pay of the private debt it has accumulated. If unilateralism doesn't work, then negotiation will have to. So there's the fundamental question of how each of the parties are seeking to influence opinion and shape the debate: through the Europarties; contacts with other governments; shaping plans for how the Eurozone should be run?

I've heard very little of this from any of the parties here. "We must save our corporate tax rate", is the line in the sand we draw, but a simple "it's good for Ireland", is unlikely to be an endearing stance. There is very little argument about why tax competition is a good way to run a currency union - and surely this is the best way of attracting allies and forming a coherent vision of the Eurozone. It's sad to see that the response to other countries debating our taxes, and Eurozone taxes in general, is mostly "they should mind their own business". We also contributed to the Greek bailout, and were at the table when the conditions were drawn up, so we have to give aid as well as receive it: shouldn't we focus on the Eurozone as something we have an equal right to have an opinion on and argue about, rather than sulking that other people dare discuss our corner?

Fine Gael has tried to show that they have strong European connections - and imply that they're best placed to renegotiate the deal - when Enda Kenny met Barroso last month:

The hyped-up music - a mix between The Incredibles and Mission Impossible - may detract from the credibility (you can skip to 1.16), but at least it shows an awareness that negotiation means convincing others, not just ourselves.

Ireland 2011 Blog Round-up #1

2011-02-03T10:12:00.001Z

The moment everyone had been waiting for has gone and passed: Cowen went to Áras an Uachtaráin to receive the President's signature on the dissolution of the Dáil, and we finally have a firm election date - 25th February. It's one of the most important elections in the state's history, and there will no doubt be a few political musings of different colours on the web over the next few weeks, and perhaps even a few questions over the partys' online campaigning. So this is the first in a series of Irish election blog round-ups that I'm doing over the campaign with Stephen Spillane.*

Over at the Cedar Lounge Revolution, there have been a few thoughts on the latest polls.

The health system may turn out to be an important election issue, and Andy Pollak at Slugger O'Toole has been comparing the health systems North and South.

Veronica at Irish Election asks if the Labour Party are going to U-Turn and reject the IMF-EU bail-out deal outright.

Pete Barker at Slugger O'Toole picks up on an interview with Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams (who seems to be increasely staddled with the nickname "the Baron"), focusing on the SF bank guarantee narrative.

At the moment Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore appear to be the two most likely rivals for the post of Taoiseach. Jason Mahony asks how a rough election campaign may affect a coalition government.

Suggestions for other blogs covering the election to keep an eye on are welcome!

*UPDATE: Our round-ups will be cross-posted on MSN.ie, and if you want to send Stephen ideas, you can mail him at stephen@stephenspillane.com.

"We have a democratic calling"

2011-02-02T16:56:00.004Z

Catherine Ashton, the High Representative, has just spoken to the European Parliament in Brussels on Tunisia and Egypt.

On Tunisia, Ashton was able to describe what action is being taken. She will submit a proposal to the Foreign Affairs Council on restrictive measures to freeze the assets of Tunisian figures suspected of embezzling public Tunisian funds. A EU mission to support the legal framework of elections in Tunisia has been sent, and Ashton will visit Tunisia in two weeks. Ashton also pointed out to parliamentarians that the newly appointed Tunisian Minister of Foreign Affairs visited Brussels as his first official visit, and spoke with her.

Regarding Egypt, Ashton had some praise for the demonstrations, saying that "the great strength of this movement is that it is happening across Egypt", and called for peaceful protesters who had been arrested to be released, and the restrictions on online media to be ended. Recently violence has broken out, with at least 500 people injured in the violence according to Euronews (which has taken to showing a continuous stream of fighting on Egyptian streets), and it seems that the clashes are caused by the police and pro-Mubarak demonstrators trying to dislodge the anti-government protestors, with the army standing aside, as if waiting to see which side will be more determined. Ashton called for calm on all sides, and described the EU as willing to help with reform and change in the region, saying, "we are a Union of democracies, we have a democratic calling".

Guy Verhofstadt described the only proper European response to the Egyptian crisis to be the Turkish one, which called for Mubarak to listen to the demands of the people, and demanded that Ashton state that the EU is fully behind the Egyptian people and their demands. I agree that that is the correct, principled, stance that we can take, though I understand that Ashton - indeed, any High Representative - isn't in the position to make strong statements off her own bat. I also have some sympathy for the High Representative: these situations are hard to react to, particularly when you have to co-ordinate 27 different foreign policies. However, there is clearly a popular movement in Egypt, and we should be consistent in our calls for democracy and human rights. Ashton's weakness here is probably her inexperience - I do not know what her personal reaction to the situation is, and I feel that she probably recognises what the circumstances in Egypt mean, but any High Representative has to have a clear vision and strategy, backed up with facts and strong arguments when faced with such a rapidly changing situation. This inexperience probably means that any response she wants to formulate is done relatively slowly, and she is unable to deal with national policy variations well enough to co-ordinate quickly.

There was a lot of talk by MEPs about how the EU should take a stand and acted together, which I agree with, but we need to recognise that we can only have a limited impact on events within other countries undergoing popular protests at the best of times. The Iraq invasion has discredited the idea of intervening, and any action we take has to be principled, but always allowing for the change to be a domestic affair. If we say we shouldn't intervene in other countries to change their regimes, then we have to accept that that means that we have to deal with other countries as we find them, and that international politics are complicated by more competition from powers that aren't that interested in democracy (though obviously our own record on this internationally isn't the cleanest).

Firm, principled political stances, and being able to offer assistance to ensure peaceful and stable reform (it is hard to foster democracy in a revolutionary atmosphere, given that compromise and trust is at the heart of the democratic system), are probably the limit of what we could do, but they are important nonetheless in encouraging a peaceful transfer of power. In the future it may be wise to have a plan in the European External Action Service that mandates the high Representative to deal with similar principled and supportive way, with the speed and coherence that are required.

Our Mission, should we choose to accept it...

2011-01-28T11:10:00.003Z

Italian Foreign minister, Franco Frattini, has called for an EU mission to be sent to North African countries affected by protect movements, including Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria:

"...the EU should send a high-level "political support team" to calm tensions in Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia and other countries in the region hit by deadly civil unrest in recent days.

"The European mission ... [should] take contact with the highest levels, beginning with the authorities in Tunisia, with civil society, mayors, opposition parties, to collect information, not to give orders," he said, Italian newswires report.

"I do not think this can be dealt with by sporadic initiatives of this or that country in Europe, but only by a European initiative.""

To calm tensions, but to not give orders? The EU would have to be very clear about what it wanted to see in the region after the protests ran their course. Does it want to see a return to the status quo, or does it want to ensure a stable transition to more democracy or an accommodation of the protesters' demands? Sending in a clearly political mission without figuring out what kind of role it is to play could backfire pretty easily - what would be the reaction to the mission if the protesters failed or succeeded? Would the EU mission get some of the blame for the outcome, even if it didn't really do anything?

The EU can afford a sort of distant pro-democratic attitude from outside the region, but once it sets foot there - even if it's just dipping in its small toe - it better have a clearly thought out strategy and be able to position itself (very publically, if need be) when things change quickly. North Africa is our neighbouring region, so we should have a common position and policy regarding it, but it should be thought out at home, not created ad hoc through missions.

The Politics of Debate

2011-01-27T07:14:00.000Z

The former foreign minister, Micheál Martin, has won the contest to become the leader of Fianna Fáil, and immediately called for a series of leaders debates between himself, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, and Labour leader Eamonn Gilmore. He's asked for one at the start and at the end of the election campaign, as well as one in Irish. He is also calling for other head-to-head debates. So far Gilmore has accepted, while Kenny has sounded more cautious about Martin defining the structure of the debates.

With Fianna Fáil still well under 20% in the polls, Martin will naturally want to highlight his approach to both distance FF under him and under Cowen, and at the same time stick to the original message that Fianna Fáil is taking the tough but necessary decisions. Current Fianna Fáil strategy is to point out the differences between FG and Labour, since they will most likely form a coalition after the election. To some extent FG and Labour are happy enough with this: they tried a pact in the last election and failed, and their strategy this time is to run separate campaigns.

In some ways, this line of reasoning should be turned against FF: who would they form a coalition with? The Green Party are facing a likely wipeout - and in any case, FF will be a shadow of its former self in the next Dáil. Martin has spoken about not letting the election turn into a "coronation" of a Fine Gael-Labour coalition, but the sense I get from the question-and-answer session after Martin's leadership press conference is that the focus is on damage limitation, and therefore not on government. This in itself would suggest that the election will be a coronation of sorts, and as long as nobody even thinks to ask the question: well, who would you form a coalition with?, it will remain that way.

The politics of the debates is revealing, though it highlights something that has long been common knowledge in Ireland. FG's leader, Enda Kenny, is not a good speaker in the Dáil, and isn't seen as a strong leader. Gilmore, however, is, and its his leadership that was credited with the now-waning climb in the polls by Labour - called the "Gilmore Gale". The enthusaism of Gilmore and Martin for debates is clearly rooted in their desire to capitalise on this. Labour have never held the position of Taoiseach before, and they will want to revive the call "Gilmore for Taoiseach" in a meaningful sense - I wouldn't be surprised if Gilmore tries to use Martin's charges of irreconcilable differences between Labour and FG against Kenny by suggesting that a FF-FG coalition is a possibility. Such an outcome would be political suicide for Kenny and FG, but the ploy may attract some votes to Labour as a more anti-FF party (though I doubt the effect would be great).

The debates may just inject more fluidity into the polls and excitement into the Irish election.

Irish Government in Flux

2011-01-24T15:56:00.003Z

The situation in Ireland is changing quite rapidly: after the motion of confidence and the resignation of Brian Cowen as leader of Fianna Fáil but not as Taoiseach, the coalition Green Party yesterday pulled out of government.

John Gromley, the Green Party leader, said that their patience had run out:

“In his statement, Gormley soon focused on why the relationship had fractured irreparably. It was grindingly obvious, given all that had happened in the preceding days: “Our patience has reached an end. There’s a lack of communication and a breakdown in trust. We have decided that we can no longer continue in Government.”

From their perspective, the crucial moment had come when Cowen had decided to press ahead with a reshuffle without consulting the partners. “What cut us to the quick was that Cowen thought he could bypass convention and somehow override our concerns by forcing resignations and creating vacancies,” said one. “That was not on.””

Now there is a minority Fianna Fáil government in place at the constitutional minimum limit of 7 ministers (as Stephen Spillane has pointed out), which will only remain in place until the passage of the Finance Bill. The Finance Bill is an implementing bill which will set out in more detail some of the budgetary legislation passed last year. Some elements of the Bill were only published on Friday, and usually there is a long process of scrutiny before it is passed, but the opposition are demanding that the Bill be passed by this Friday, and then an election called, or they will proceed with their various no confidence motions (there is one of no confidence in the Taoiseach, and another in the whole government).

Brian Lenihan, the Finance Minister and a contender for the FF leadership, has stated that the Bill cannot be passed so quickly, though some have suggested that the parts of the Bill had been published before Friday could be voted on and passed, while the more recent parts could be deleted and left until after the election.

This week will be another eventful one. A new FF leader should be elected by Wednesday, there may or may not be a motion of confidence before the Dáil on Tuesday, and whatever is agreed by Friday, the government is bound to be in trouble. I had thought about explaining who is running for the leadership for the FF party – there are 4 contenders – but there doesn’t seem to be much point, quite frankly. Fianna Fáil won’t be leading a government any time soon, and whoever is elected as leader will be defending the general approach of the current government to the crisis, even if admitting some mistakes. Still, the 4 candidates are: Micheál Martin, Mary Hanafin, Éamon Ó Cúiv (a grandson of party founder Eamon de Valera), and Brian Lenihan. Martin and Lenihan are the two main rivals for the post.

Meanwhile, it seems that Berlin will announce its vision for the future of the Eurozone. I suspect that this will have a greater impact on Ireland’s economic and political future than the farce taking place in Leinster House. It’s a pity that the parties are focused on purely national budgetary policy, and don’t seem to be forming stronger Eurozone policies.

More Fianna Fáil drama

2011-01-22T14:21:00.003Z

At 2 o'clock Irish time, Brian Cowen, announced his resignation as the leader of Fianna Fáil, but not as Taoiseach (Prime Minister). This comes at the end of a week which saw Cowen win a motion of confidence from the parliamentary party, the resignation of six ministers from the government, and his failure to appoint new ministers (due to the opposition of his coalition partners, the Green Party).

Cowen said that this would give the party a chance to elect a new leader to contest the election while he focused on getting the finance bill through the Dáil. The decision was taken after consulting his family, and on his own political judgment - it seems that he didn't consult senior ministers (though he did say that he spoke to ministers, but there was no question of his leadership). He told the leader of the Green Party, John Gormley, "as a matter of courtesy" about the decision 15-20 minutes before the press conference. While his resignation is a party matter, it will affect how the government (and coalition) is perceived. I wonder if this is tit-for-tat after the Greens forced an early election on Fianna Fáil and refused to permit a reshuffle of the cabinet.

The big question now, is will this arrangement work? The election will take place on March 11th: is this enough time for Fianna Fáil to elect a new leader, and present itself as renewed? In many ways it doesn't matter, because the electorate has largely made up its mind, but it doesn't give Cowen's successor much time to even try to do anything about it. The successor will also be tainted by the election defeat, even if only as someone slightly responsible. In terms of successors, the timing of the decision should be good news for Micheál Martin, the former foreign minister who resigned to openly vote against Cowen in the motion of confidence. Other possible leaders, Hanafin and (Brian) Lenihan, repectively voted against but didn't resign, and publically supported Cowen while encouraging others to vote against him, which was very damaging for both of them. So Martin's party political capital will have less time to decline, while other challengers have a tough job in rebuilding their political credibility.

And how easy will it be for Fianna Fáil to campaign with a party leader who isn't Taoiseach - when in Ireland it's an unwritten rule that the party leader of the biggest party in government becomes Taoiseach? Micheál Martin had proposed the idea that the party leader would be different from the Taoiseach if Cowen had been ousted (which makes a certain amount of sense: why change Taoiseach so close to the election?), but critics rightly pointed out that it would be hard, if not nigh-on impossible, for Fianna Fáil to sell the idea that Cowen was too bad a leader to lead the party, but it's ok for him to lead the country for a while longer. To a certain extent Cowen's resignation takes some of the contradictions out of this. By resigning, the choice is Cowen's own, and the arrangement can be portrayed as purely practical. But on the other hand, it will still be a Fianna Fáil party that has time and again refused to topple Cowen that will go before the electorate.

Fianna Fáil: the party who needed Cowen to go so badly that even he knew it, but which couldn't do it itself.

Fighting the Polite Fight

2011-01-20T15:54:00.002Z

The last week has been interesting in Irish politics – something that’s hardly a comfort for those who wish that Irish politics would settle down a bit. Last week the Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Brian Cowen, was plagued by questions over the fact that he had been golfing during the long summer Dáil recess with Seán FitzPatrick, the head of Anglo-Irish bank a few weeks before the infamous bank guarantee that fixed bank debts to the state debt. Anglo-Irish turned out to be the bank with the worst lending record, and the bank has had tens of billions of Euros pumped into it, making it the symbol of Ireland’s economic woes.

Cowen spent a few days consulting the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party on his position as party leader, and a confidence vote was called for Tuesday this week. On Sunday the Foreign Minister, Micheál Martin, offered his resignation and declared that he would vote against Cowen. On Tuesday, after a secret vote (it was Tweeted that the result was 2 to 1 for Cowen), Cowen was declared the winner. Martin’s resignation was finally accepted, but despite his loss, it is Martin who has gained the most from the last week. Two other Fianna Fáil ministers – Brian Lenihan and Mary Hanafin – with some leadership designs did not come out of the attempted heave well, with Lenihan declaring support for Cowen before other minister and TDs (MPs) publically complained that Lenihan was encouraging others to vote against Cowen. Hanafin refused to declare her support either way, but has now admitted that she voted against Cowen. Factor in her refusal to resign, and she has greatly damaged her profile within the party.

All in all, this attempted heave comes much too late to matter: Fianna Fáil are now at 14% in the polls, which is the same as Sinn Féin, so there can be no question of the party leading any government any time soon. The question now is will Fianna Fáil even be the main opposition party (suggestions by Labour that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil might go into coalition are extremely unlikely considering the Civil War divide between them and how toxic they have become). The certain defeat and Fianna Fáil’s electoral toxicity means that there will be a wipeout in any case, and changing a leader won’t help. This might have saved Cowen this week, but after the election, there will have to be a new leader, and Micheál Martin has just made himself the front runner.

Much has been made by the party of the civilised nature of the heave, in comparison to the great turmoil of the party in the Haughy era, and the leadership challenge in the main opposition party, Fine Gael, last year. But in many ways the whole thing has been very much a side-show, with Irish Times journalist Miriam Lord, characterising it as a fight between:

“Cowen, the dead duck; Martin the lame duck; Hanafin the gutless duck; and Lenihan, the superior duck who shot himself in the foot.”.

It also hasn’t stemmed the government’s problems. With Martin out of the cabinet a reshuffle was needed, and many ministers who won’t be running in the next election have bowed out – making a current total of 6 ministers that the Taoiseach had to find replacements for. It was always going to be a difficult task: Fianna Fáil backbenchers are more likely to get elected if they distance themselves from the government, and the Green Party did not be participate in the reshuffle. So Cowen has quickly reassigned the ministeral portfolios among the remaining Fianna Fáil ministers.

One good thing has emerged, however – we now have an election date: 11th March. It cannot come soon enough.