European Elections 2019 - Greens, Liberals and Nationalists stay afloat in churning electoral waters

After the last five years, it's not surprising that the old centrist parties of left and right faced a slip in support - to the extent that the big two of the EPP and S&D can no longer command a majority on their own - but their votes held up a bit more than might be expected.  The nationalists and far right had a very mixed night, advancing in Italy and Germany while falling back in Denmark and the Netherlands.  The big winners were the Greens and the liberals, winning an extra 57 seats between them and giving them a strong position in the upcoming coalition horsetrading.

The Results

The results are still to be fully confirmed, and some of the national parties may still switch between the European blocs (Orban's Fidesz party is currently suspended by the EPP and may decide to switch to the ECR), but at the time of writing the results are:

European People's Party 178 seats (-35)
Socialists & Democrats 153 (-34)
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats - 105 (+30)
Greens / EFA - 69 (+17)
European Conservatives and Reformists - 63 (-13)
Europe of Nations and Freedom - 58 (+22)
Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy - 54 (+13)
European United Left / Nordic Green Left - 38 (-14)
Non-Attached Members - 8
New Members (yet to join one of the blocs) - 25

Turnout across the EU was up for the first time after years of continuous decline from 43% to 51%, giving a huge boost to the legitimacy of the Parliament, but the Spitzenkandidat process seems to have made less of an impact than in its first outing in 2014 - except perhaps in the Netherlands, where Timmermans led a revival in S&D fortunes.

What's the Story?

The election brought such differing results that no Europe-wide narrative could really be drawn from them.  The Greens, Liberals and nationalists had good nights in certain areas, though the nationalist right will be disappointed that it hasn't done as well as expected.  The Greens made great progress in Germany, France, Finland and Ireland, while the far right scored successes in Italy and Britain (making modest gains in Germany and Spain, where they underperformed their previous national support, and standing still in France).  The Liberals did well in France, Britain, Czech Republic, Romania and the Nordic countries.  Meanwhile, the centre-left managed to hold on or revive itself in Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal.

Proportional representation means that there is always going to be a certain kaleidoscopic quality to the results, but the electoral churn this year is particularly perplexing.  It seems that the liberal/far right populist divide has polarised pro- and anti-European feeling, leading to mirroring support for those movements in certain countries, and that the Greens are stepping in as an alternative to the old centre-left in countries where the established left is struggling to revive itself.  Both developments will have a big impact on politics at a European level, as MEPs more self-consciously pitch themselves to these audiences, and nationally, as Green issues are taken ever more seriously and certain countries are absorbed in culture wars (particularly France, Italy and the UK).

Tilting left: where now for the Parliament?

Overall the Parliament has started to tilt ever-so-slightly leftwards.  Now the big two have lost their majority, the Liberals and the Greens are increasingly important in forming a stable coalition.  Coalitions aren't as important as at the national level as they can be formed more easily on issue-to-issue votes, but there needs to be a sufficient level of stability and cohesion to elect a college of commissioners and help pick the top EU jobs.

The Parliament website has a useful tool for calculating potential majorities.  The main ones are:

EPP + S&D + ALDE - 436 seats

EPP + S&D + Greens - 400 seats

EPP + S&D + ALDE + Greens - 505 seats

EPP + ALDE + ECR + ENF - 404 seats

The last of these potential coalitions, EPP + ALDE + ECR + ENF, is highly unlikely as ENF houses France's National Rally party and would be considered unacceptable as a coalition partner.  However, it illustrates how difficult it is constructing a coalition on the right as the ENF and EFDD are not only difficult partners politically, but they have very low levels of voting cohesion (this also applies to the far-left EUL/NGL bloc).

The weakness of both the EPP and S&D, coupled with the shift towards the Liberals and Greens, means that the political balance has started to shift leftwards, which may impact on the shape of future Eurozone and other economic legislation.  It would also add weight to arguments on civil liberties.  The four-bloc pro-EU coalition has a very large majority, showing that on issue-to-issue votes, ad hoc coalitions necessary to get amendments and legislation through can afford to err more on the left of an argument. The ability of the EPP to maintain its own cohesion on votes and the economic positioning of the Liberals will be key in determining how far the leftward shift can actually go.  The left is, after all, very divided and will need to have a clearer idea of where it wants to go to make an impact.

Martin Schulz: Political, Left-wing and Federalist

Yesterday Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament, was announced to be the Party of European Socialists' candidate for the Commission Presidency.

So who is Martin Schulz? A former binder and book-shop owner, Schulz's only experience in political office outside of the European Parliament was at the local level as a councillor and then mayor of Wuerselen in Germany. He was elected to the European Parliament in 1994, was head of the PES/S&D group between 2004-2012 and has been president of the Parliament since 2012.

This experience is both a weakness and a strength. The current trend for Commission presidents is for them to be selected from the ranks of former prime ministers, and it's easy to see why. Name recognition, executive and diplomatic experience and (for members of the European Council) an understanding of national leaders. While Schulz doesn't have this, he clearly knows the EU institutions inside out and currently leads one. Speaking German, French and English and having lead a multi-national political group in the Parliament for 8 years, he should have a good grasp of EU political issues, how the institutions work (and how to work them) and how to build coalitions at the European level. Compared to a former prime minister who is offered the job, Schulz clearly sees the Commission presidency as the top job in his career and will probably be more politically ambitious in the role.

As a more openly political Commission president, a Commission lead by him would probably be more combative. Schulz sees wants the election to be a battle of ideas. As president of the European Parliament for almost 2 years, he hasn't actually voted on many of the most recent and controversial policies (as it's not the role of the president), but he has been a vocal president (no doubt with an eye on the upcoming campaign). In the last few months he's called for immigration reform (and wants Germany to take more refugees), supported pausing the trade talks with the US over the spying affair, supports a smaller Commission, sees the balance between large and small Member Sates shifting too much towards the larger ones, and is anti-austerity and wants Eurozone reforms (including a Currency Commissioner who chairs the Eurogroup). 

It's an open question how far he can take this combativeness from the Commission - the Commission still needs Council and Parliament approval to pass legislation. However, having an outspoken President could be a positive for small member states who want the Commission to do more to counterbalance the big countries, provided that they feel they can hang on to their Commissioners. Those who want an active Commission or to change the economic direction of Europe could see him as the man to pin their political hopes on, but Schulz will need to build broad support across Europe to get the votes he needs, and it might not be the biggest electorate in the world. Though with Eurosceptic parties established as the protest vote and rising in popularity, the PES probably can no longer simply rely on anti-incumbency sentiment to boost its vote. A more coherent anti-austerity vision may actually be the better than national parties simply going their own way. Politically and rhetorically, Schulz is to the left of several of the PES's member parties, though his main Eurozone and anti-austerity ideas are not too far outside the mainstream of the pro-integration centre-left.

How much Schulz's opinions will make it into the PES election manifesto remains to be seen, but Schulz has used the EP presidency to set out his leadership style: political, left-wing and federalist on the Eurozone and not afraid to annoy the bigger Member States. Whatever your political opinion, you can't accuse him of being another Barroso. Obviously this makes him an unlikely choice as the European Council's pick for the Commission, which makes electoral success all the more important for Schulz. He not only needs the PES/S&D to emerge as the winners of the election, but he has to be a visible and successful part of the campaign so that he can't be sidelined by the European Council. As I said yesterday, the lack of an open primary contest makes this more difficult.

The Primary will not be Televised

Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, has become the candidate designate of the Party of European Socialists for the Commission Presidency. You didn't have to work for the NSA to know that Schulz wanted to run - it's been widely known for over a year that he has been the front runner in the centre-left camp - but the fact that his candidacy has pretty much been confirmed today was a surprise.

It certainly surprised me that the PES announced their candidate today. A few weeks ago I'd written about the PES primary process, so I thought that the nominees would be announced today, with a primary campaign being waged until the end of January. It turns out that out of all the names touted for the role - Helle Thorning Schmidt, Pascal Lamy, Margot Wallstroem, etc. - only one was nominated. So, with 19 member parties of the PES supporting him (out of 32), Martin Schulz has been elected PES candidate unopposed.


Bad for the PES, bad for Schulz

I'm sure Schulz is glad to have it in the bag, but the lack of a proper primary is a bad result for both Schulz and the PES. The primary race was going to be a way of connecting voters (or at least party members) with the European elections, which would boost the profile of the nominees and eventual candidate, make the elections more European (both within the national parties and in the media for the elections) and help energise and inform the grassroots for the election campaign. These factors would have supported and re-enforced each other. However, without a proper campaign, member parties are not so attached to their candidate and Schulz has lost out on the publicity that he will need (as a candidate who was never a prime minister and so not very well known outside the Brussels bubble). The PES have also heavily diluted out on their chance to boast about how democratic they are in comparison to the European People's Party's more intergovernmental horse-trading approach.

It is probably a sign of Schulz's success in his campaign for the nomination that he was the only candidate in the end. He will now spend the primary time touring member parties to talk to them and raise his profile. But it is a loss not to have a contest.


Positives

The good news is that the PES have a candidate! In a way this is a bit ridiculous to have something so basic as running a candidate to be a plus for a political party, but the PES failed to run one last year. Having a candidate will be a plus if placed within the campaign properly. Schulz is right to want a left-right debate in the elections, and it's the PES's best chance to win more seats. Especially within the Eurozone, the PES need to present themselves as the political group with policy alternatives, and a working alliance (demonstrated by having candidates for executive office) that can change things. The centre-left have done very poorly in polls nationally, and with the prospect of a strong Eurosceptic showing, simply waiting for voters to come to them as the party of opposition in most Member States will not work. (Whether Schulz is the best placed for this I'll leave til tomorrow).


The Merkel Factor

With Merkel re-elected, an PES win would complicate things. Schulz, as a German, would be taking the German slot in the Commission and despite the prize position, Merkel would probably be uncomfortable with loosing the power to pick a more CDU/EPP friendly person for the post. In fact, she has already spoken out against the winning Europarty candidate automatically becoming the Commission president. At the same time, the issue of Germany's Commissioner job has not come up in coalition talks between the CDU/CSU and Schulz's SPD (and Schulz has been involved in these talks). Having a CDU-SPD government should make the idea more realistic at the same time.

EU Budget Deal: Progress, from a Psychological point of View?

The EU institutions (Commission, Council and Parliament) reached a deal on the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) that plans EU budget spending for 2014-2020. The MFF is not absolutely final since it has to pass a Parliamentary vote in September, but the deal does mark the end of the parliamentary revolt against the deal cut by national leaders. Politically, it's been a very charged budget, with arguments for cuts in a time of austerity, the European Parliament flexing its muscles over the budget, and the resignation of the parliamentary rapporteur on the MFF after the Irish Presidency mistakenly announced a deal last week.


So what's in the deal?

The cuts agreed by the Council remain: for the first time, the EU Budget will face a real terms cut of €85 billion, reducing the budget over the next 7 years to €960 billion. The focus on cuts meant that the parts of the budget prized by national governments were protected at the expense of more discretionary spending. The deal softens this by:

- Permitting the front loading of up to €2,543 million in 2014-15 for youth employment, research and Erasmus and apprenticeships and pro-SME policies, to be split as:
            - €2,143 million for youth unemployment;
            - €200 million for Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation;
            - €150 million for Erasmus; and
            - €50 million for COSME, a programme for the competitiveness of SMEs;
- Allowing for voluntary contributions by Member States by up to €1 billion to the €2.5 billion pot for aid for the most deprived;
- Unspent money will in an annual budget will be retained by the EU for spending on other projects, rather than being returned to the Member States;

- There is a concession to the idea of the MFF being subject to review and revision, but it seems very vague.

Is this, in the words of EP President Martin Schulz, progress "from a psychological point of view"?

The deal has shown that the EP has made some progress in shifting the MFF back towards some spending that is not the preserve of a national carve-up. There are national vetoes behind agricultural spending, cohesion spending and rebates, but no single Member State has a defining interest in EU projects that tackle unemployment, research or competitiveness. Can you imagine a British Prime Minister saying that they've cut some of the rebate in order to protect spending on unemployment programmes? The EP has demonstrated some value in trying to balance the budget more in the direction of spending for programmes that all of Europe benefits from, but that don't deliver specific national receipts of money.

That said, the concessions aren't a major victory for the Parliament - particularly on the aid for the most deprived and on MFF review, where the concessions appear so vague and woolly as to be practically meaningless. However, it is notable that a right-leaning European Parliament has not held out for reducing or eliminating the cuts to the EU budget. Despite the unprecedented level of power over the budget, the Parliament hasn't been as pushy as it might have been. From my point of view on the left, the deal is a defeat: it doesn't really deliver that much in terms of research and employment projects, and it buys into the idea of austerity despite the EU Budget not being in deficit. Cutting from common programmes to symbolically satisfy austerity is daft, and it undercuts further the ability of common European spending to offset, at least to some extent, the economic damage caused by national austerity.

Still, the fact that a right-wing EP largely endorsed the budget direction set by the European People's Party-dominated Council is not surprising, though it's another sign that the Parliament does act along ideological and party lines, which is important for the upcoming elections next year. Party and policy do matter in the EP.


Party Positions

The EP still has to vote in the MFF in September if the Framework is to be passed, so the positions of the European political groups matter. What are they?

Supporters:

The European People's Party (EPP; centre-right) probably support the deal, though they do not have a specific press release at the time of writing. Since they are the largest group in the Parliament and dominate the Council and national governments, they will probably support the deal. EPP parliamentary leader Joseph Daul supports current Eurozone/EU economic policy, but also insists on flexibility and a review clause in the MFF. I think EPP support can be assumed.

The European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR; centre-right, but further right than the EPP), have welcomed the deal, and have complained that the European Parliament tried to obstruct it. Since they have got the cut in the budget they wanted, and the cut is a big win for David Cameron, they're not likely to vote against.

Qualified Supporters:

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE; centrist, and economically centre-right) have welcomed the deal, but want to secure some of the details before giving support, such as on the legal basis of the MFF (to secure the Parliament's power), on money for the Digital Agenda and on the review clause.

The Socialists and Democrats group (S&D; centre-left) have welcomed the deal as an improvement for youth unemployment schemes and Erasmus, but will discuss their position next week.

Though only qualified support has been given, I imagine that now that the EP has finished its negotiations as a whole and that there have been some concessions, these groups will largely support the MFF.

Opposition:

The European Greens (Green) have condemned the deal as only consisting of cosmetic changes when the overall budget is still being cut.

United Left (GUE-NGL; left-wing) also condemned the cuts to the budget, and hit out against EP President Schulz for only seeking agreement with the two biggest political groups in the Parliament (EPP and S&D), keeping the rest of the groups in the dark.


While these aren't firm voting stances by the political groups, it looks like there will probably be a majority for the MFF, failing any last minute revivals of Parliament-wide opposition.

SPD Manifesto: A different course for Europe?

It's no secret that the European left are depending on a victory in Germany in this year's federal election before there can be some change of course on the Eurocrisis. With French, Italian and German elections within 18 months of each other (though the Italian one was more unexpected), the hope must have been to capture the big 3 Eurozone Member States to change the currency's political direction. It's an uphill battle: Hollande is struggling in the polls, the Italian centre-left failed to win a parliamentary majority, and at the moment Merkel's CDU are ahead of the SPD in the polls.

John Palmer over at Social Europe Journal, has questioned whether the SPD really do have the policy prescriptions that might help the Eurozone. Are the SPD putting forward vague promises or a more substantive platform for Europe? The SPD has published its election manifesto (PDF in German), where you can find the relevant European sections on pages 21-23 and 89-92.

Miteinander fuer mehr Soziale Marktwirtschaft in Europa - Working together for a more social market economy in Europe (pp.21-23):

"Wir wollen kein Europa, das Spielball der Maerkte ist, sondern eines, das im Interesse der Menschen handelt. Nur geeint und im festen Zusammenschluss der Europaeischen Union hat Europa eine Chance im globalen Wettbewerb von Ideen und Werten, von Politik und Wirtschaft. Aus diesem Grund wollen wir die Politische Union Europas weiter vertiefen.

[We don't want a Europe that is a plaything of the markets, but one that works in the interests of people. Only with a united European Union does Europe have a chance to compete globally when it comes to ideas, values, politics and economics. For this reason we want to further deepen the political union - (Own translation)]"

 

The SPD essentially agree on the need for a Banking Union with the ECB as a regulator for the big banks (but with national oversight for the medium and small banks), and are for a Bank Fund, funded by the banks, that will deal with future financial crises. They also want more harmonisation when it comes to taxation (including corporation tax). The commitment to Social Europe is repeated, with support for investment through a European Investment Fund and a further strengthening of the European Investment Bank.

Finally, the manifesto sets out the SPD's support for a European Debt Fund to ensure the capacities of the Eurozone members, in return for a binding debt reduction and reform plan.


Ein anderes und besseres Europa - A different and better Europe (pp.89-92):

This section is mostly rhetoric setting out the SPD's European identity and credentials in comparison to the governing parties. The SPD supports the development of the Commission as the executive of the EU, but with a stronger role for the European Parliament in electing it and holding it to account. The manifesto also highlights the PES primaries for their Commission president candidate. I'm glad to see the SPD explicitly support creating a parliamentary tradition on the European stage ("Auch so wird ein Stueck Parlamentstradition die in den Mitgliedsstaaten selbstverstaendlich ist, auch auf die EU Ebene gebracht" - Thus will a part of the parliamentary tradition of the Member States be brought to the EU stage).

Strikingly, the SPD places a "competence division" at the heart of the reform process - though the manifesto clearly aims towards a more European economic policy, the possibility for the return of powers to the national level is left open. Cameron's renegotiation policy may find more success if the more federalist opposition is elected than if his ideological neighbour is.

The SPD calls for a strong European Social Union, and an European economic government subject to European Parliament control, but these concepts remain vague (no doubt leaving more room for negotiation if the other Eurozone Member States accept the idea).


Conclusion

A victory for the SPD-Green opposition this autumn is not going to be revolutionary: the SPD support a lot of what is already in place or what will be put in place in terms of the Banking Union, Financial Transaction Tax and the bail-outs. But it would signal to the rest of the EU that a second pillar could be negotiated alongside the rigid rules for fiscal rigour.

It's still quite a vague vision, and a limited one. No mention is made of the possibility of a Eurozone budget and a Eurozone Parliament (or part of the European Parliament) when it comes to economic government, so investment funds, bonds and banks are the vehicles for economic investment. This means that essentially additions to the institutional architecture are being envisaged rather than a more flexible (and electorally responsive) vision of a central budget subject to the European Parliament. The manifesto may be more realistic when it comes to winning electoral support, but the worry on the left must be that these new bonds and institutions may not generate enough investment to counter the depressive effect of fiscal rigour in a recession.

Youth Guarantees and Youth Unemployment

Youth unemployment is a serious problem across recession-hit Europe. In each country there is increasing concern that the crisis is producing a lost generation denied the opportunity to get into the workforce, and of a brain drain as people educated and trained at home cannot find that economic opportunity once promised to them.

Last weekend youth unemployment was the topic of a Relaunching Europe conference organised by UK Labour and the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament. I went along to the conference, and I had the opportunity to talk to Hannes Swoboda, leader of the S&D group, and Glenis Willmott, the leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party.


Youth Guarantees, EU budget and joint campaigning

From the Party of European Socialists Conference in September, the Youth Guarantee was clearly the centrepiece of the PES's policy on youth unemployment: €10 billion Euro from the EU budget to help guarantee jobs and training for young people. But how would that work, and what would the money be spent on?

Hannes pointed to his own experience with Youth Guarantees in Vienna, where a collaboration between local government, unions and business could link unemployed young people with opportunities in work and training if they had been unemployed for a certain amount of time after leaving education. The idea for Member State youth guarantees supported by EU money (the €10 billion would come from the European Structural Funds), with the EU facilitating the exchange of expertise from countries like Austria and Finland who already have guarantees in place. Funding for education and European programmes such as Erasmus was also highlighted by Hannes, who said that the increasing centrality of mobility to the workforce underlined the importance of the programme.

With €10 billion the proposed price tag, the EU budget would clearly be an issue. Labour is behind the youth guarantee with its proposed jobs fund as its version of the national guarantee, but Glenis had to defend Labour's EU budget position. She said that Labour's aim is to shift the focus from CAP spending towards investment and guarantees like the youth guarantee. However, with CAP, rebates and cohesion backed by national vetoes and with the European Parliament as the sole defender of investment programmes under the budget (some of which are already under threat), I can't see how Labour's rationale for a real terms cut in the EU budget will achieve this. Shifting money in the European Structural Funds to a new project was always going to be difficult in itself, but winning EU funding for youth guarantees in a climate of budget cuts is going to be an uphill struggle. Glenis and Hannes made the argument that the Member States are hypocritical when it comes to wasteful spending, with offices for the European Patent system shared between Britain, France and Germany. I agree, but sadly this doesn't change the voting situation.

So given these divisions would there be much of a pan-European election campaign for the PES and Labour in 2014? What would the effect of a PES presidental candidate for the Commission be and will there be a common manifesto? Glenis reflected on the last campaign, saying that the last common manifesto didn't get much press attention, and that the lack of PES candidate for the Commission presidency was a handicap when it came to electing the Commission - "why were we [Labour] supporting a conservative candidate [Barroso]?". She seemed optimistic about PES cohesion and the manifesto for the next campaign, given the anti-austerity stance of the party as a whole (Labour agrees with "about 80%" of S&D positions). For Hannes, while the PES will be putting forward a candidate, no candidate will be able to have name recognition and appeal across all Member States.

I understand the caution over the presidential candidate - the lack of appeal for a single candidate across 27 or 28 Member States is part of why I favour a parliamentary Europe - but with the primaries being held over winter 2013, and the caution in the air over how to use a candidate in the election, it feels as if there's a real possibility that the PES could not make the most of an electoral asset out of fear. The pro-European left desperately wants to make it clear that current European policy is the fault of the Coservatives in power, but it will hard to do that at election time if they're not bold about putting up an alternative vision with alternative candidates.

Youth Unemployment, Europe and Campaigning: Relaunching Europe Impressions

On Saturday I was at the Relaunching Europe event in Nottingham on Youth Unemployment, where I got to meet Hannes Swoboda, S&D Leader, and Glenis Willmott, leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party, who organised the event. It was an interesting conference, with debate jumping from local to national to European level, as well as debate on Labour as a party.

Youth unemployment is unfortunately a very live issue at the moment, and there were several deeply personal stories from people affected by unemployment, from the Oxford graduate unable to find a steady job 2 years after graduating (and with many friends in similar positions), to an unemployed Labour councillor who had been advised by her JobCentre to quit the council to help her job prospects. The big idea of youth guarantees (more of which tomorrow) would lend some EU help to reducing youth unemployment, but the very personal nature of unemployment means that any help must also have a strongly local character.

Employment and social protection are areas where the EU has very little influence and not much financial firepower. Attempts to help workers retrain and find new work under the Globalisation Fund, which is under severe budgetary pressure, shows how difficult it is for the EU to have an impact without the money necessary to act. Some of what the S&D can do is working on changing the single market rules to help employment - Glenis Willmott highlighted work on the new Public Procurement Directive to strengthen social and environmental criteria for public authorities when placing orders with businesses. The more abstract nature of EU work was reflected in the debates, however, as most of questions and panel discussions centred around making Labour more campaign-orientated and focusing on what could be done in universities and locally by counsels to boost employment.

All of this is important, but little explicit link was made between these local campaigns - or local party members - and engagement with the European party or European campaigns. Is there support for Labour party members not only to launch local campaigns, but also to try and launch grassroots European campaigns? What about the Youth Guarantee - there is a website dedicated to the Youth Guarantee, but it is well known locally in the party and are there ways for the local party to get involved in the campaign? Also, can Labour counsels get involved in the campaign and link up with local authorities in Austria and Finland, where such guarantees already exist to see what they can already do without EU funding (or just with PES/S&D support)?

There were a lot of interesting debates around unemployment on Saturday, but it still felt like there was an invisible wall between the discussions on action at a local and national level, and on action at a European level. The raw material for linking them together, getting local party members involved in European projects, and bringing Europe closer to citizens seems to be there, but they need to be drawn together. If Youth Guarantees are about bringing EU policy, national policy, business and unions together to enable young people to find their way into the workforce, then perhaps there also needs to be a stronger party version of pathways into participation on European campaigns and policy.

Employment and Social Affairs Committee on Economic and Monetary Union

The European Parliament's Employment and Social Affairs Committee adopted an opinion last week on its position on economic and monetary union, pushing, naturally enough, for employment and social matters to be given more weight when it comes to European economic policy. You can read it here: PDF. The non-binding opinion was adopted on a vote of 27 for, 16 against and 1 abstention.

The Committee's basic attitude is reflected in this paragraph (p.6):

"...any upgrade of the role of the Commissioner for economic and monetary affairs will need to be echoed by an upgrade of the role of the Commissioner for employment and social affairs so as to ensure a balanced approach of the social market economy, in the same spirit the EPSCO Council [Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council in the Council of Ministers] should be upgraded and organized in a euro zone formation."

The opinion calls for minimum social benchmarks and for the Commission to look into the feasibility of introducing a minimum unemployment allowance for the Eurozone. The Committee also calls for an "integrated employment and social policy framework", and that increased worker mobility should be complimented with access to social protection and the portability of pension rights.

The recommendations reflect some of the amendments in the parliamentary reports on the 2-Pack of legislation: a Social Pact, employment and social benchmarks to make up part of any troika programme, for there to be a representative of the International Labour Organisation added to the Troika, and making the European Semester more accountable to the European Parliament. Cooperation on tax is also cited as necessary to prevent the free movement of capital from undermining tax systems - probably the most controversial idea if it gained any ground in public debate: tax competition versus certain common bands to prevent an undermining of tax systems within the internal market.

The European Conservatives and Reformists hit out against the opinion:

"The document also called for a minimum unemployment allowance and integration of civic initiatives, trade unions and other social groups at all levels of political decision-making. Such a populist proposal would, however, cut back on powers of democratically elected representatives in favour of lobbying organizations."

While I don't agree with everything in the opinion (there's a crazy paragraph on linking access to capital to the potential for employment in the investment) , I would support support some minimum social standards. The problem we face at the moment is that the policies at the EU level are far too focused on sovereign debt and the banking system, to the determent of employment and social policies (and the internal market has by definition a social dimension) - and while introducing minimum social standards is necessary to make the internal market work for all and to help preserve the Member States' own powers in this area, there needs to be political debate and support for these programmes.

I hope the parties that voted for this opinion will put these ideas and policies into their manifestos come election time so we have a chance to vote on them.

Activity Report of the Socialists and Democrats

At the PES Congress the Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament submitted its activity report (PDF). It gives an interesting snapshot of how the parliamentary party views itself, as a party of opposition within the EU institutions.

The poor election results of 2009, the dominance of the EPP and Liberals in the Council and Commission, and the failure to select a candidate for the Commission within the PES have cut deeply, and seems to be the motivation behind a lot of the changes within the PES recently. The need to increase coordination between PES ministers before ministerial meetings (like the EPP and Liberals do), and to promote dialogue between national parties and national parliamentary parties to help build a workable alternative comes across very strongly in the report.

It's good to see that there is an awareness there of the challenges the PES and S&D face in order to increase their representation across the EU, and, more importantly, it's good to see that the direction is towards a more coherent party that can deliver a political alternative at elections. Easier said than done, but it's an important debate for the party and political group to have.

PES Congress 2012

Last week the Party of European Socialists (which sits in the Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament) held its 2012 Congress in Brussels. There they adopted a resolution "Together for the Europe we need" (PDF). The resolution set out what the PES has to do:

"We need to convince people that a progressive European Union can be the answer to their problems. To do this we need to be a confident, relevant and visible political force. We need to create the conditions for our own success. Revitalised active democracy is needed to move the European Union forwards. Since the beginning of the crisis we have seen that despite feeling alienated from the establishment people do want to engage with what is happening in their societies. They want their voices to be heard. We must listen to what women and men across Europe are saying."

What is the PES alternative?

Economy:

A Financial Transaction Tax is still the centrepiece of the PES economic programme as far as defined policy goes. The general economic strategy focuses on longer periods for budgetary consolidation and greater investment at the European level. The PES mention a European redemption fund as a possible measure to help solve the crisis, but it's merely referenced as a possibility so it looks like there's not a consensus on this point within the party yet.

Along with advocating stronger regulation of financial markets, the PES supports measures against tax evasion and avoidance (no defined policies are name-checked here). When it comes to the EU budget, the PES says:

"A long run solution to the crisis would entail tackling the strong divergences of the economies in the euro area through common economic policies and common investments in innovation, growth and decent jobs. We need to implement effective policies in order to halt the fiscal race to the bottom."

It's a good aspiration - I hope to see some policies on this coming out for the 2014 elections.

Employment:

Here the PES is more radical, calling for a €10 billion EU programme to aid employment and a Youth Pact to ensure that young people have access to further education or training:

"A European youth guarantee must be gradually implemented in all Member States, giving a state guaranteed right to every young woman and man to a new job, training or further education at the latest four months after leaving the education system or becoming unemployed. A European Employment Programme of at least 10 billion Euros must be introduced immediately, financing the creation of new jobs and supporting better education and training. A strong gender perspective must be included in this programme in order to prevent bigger gaps between women and men in the labour market and across society at a later stage. Improving the competitiveness of European companies is essential for Europe’s economic success. Instead of the Conservative recipe of weakening social protection and lowering wages, the following structural reforms must be pursued:

- Investment in education, training and active labour market policies should be increased.

- Europe´s industries must play a central and dynamic role in transforming our economies and developing our regions by fostering world-class innovation and green growth. Therefore, a reindustrialisation process must be launched. The manufacturing sector, especially Small and Medium Enterprises, as well as microenterprises - which represent a motor of the European economy, need to receive more support and a high-quality infrastructure must be built, for example on access to clean, reliable and affordable energy, broadband networks and transport. To this end, a growth-oriented review at EU level of the relevant state aid schemes is necessary.

- Energy and resource use must be reduced with an emphasis on reducing carbon emissions.

- More efforts are needed to support all dimensions of innovation and more resources need to be invested in research and development.

- The representation of male and female workers in companies must be strengthened, giving them an active role in the economy. We need to remove barriers to women's entry to the labour market. Furthermore, we have to provide women with equal opportunities to access decision-making positions within companies."

The Social Pact is another key policy, aiming to fix Member State and EU spending on education and training at 6% of GDP for Member States, and 6% of the EU budget, and preventing a race to the bottom on social standards within the EU. There are quite a few ambitious aims under the Social Pact heading.

Environment:

The PES wants to strengthen the European Emissions Tradings Scheme and the introduction of an EU Carbon Tax. They also note the need to ensure that the EU's biofuels policy does not harm food security.

Institutional Reform and Democracy:

The PES wants the European Parliament to be strengthened along with Economic and Political Union, and wants an effective European monitoring of democratic standards not only for candidate countries, but also for Member States. The PES has promised to produce concrete proposals for strengthening the European Parliament.

Foreign Policy:

The PES supports enlargement of the EU in the Western Balkans, and wants to extend its domestic policies (FTT, climate change, etc.) to the EU's multilateral relations, dubbing it a "Global New Deal".



As a political programme, it's surprisingly ambitious for a European political party in some areas. It's a good statement of principles, and it gives us a statement to track PES policy development with. Personally, I think that there needs to be a more social alternative presented at the next election - too often, the EU is seen just as a mix of the internal market and CAP payments, as if there should be not social dimension to the EU (and as if the internal market is not a social and political project in itself). The challenge for the PES is to produce a more detailed manifesto for the 2014 elections along with choosing a candidate for the Commission Presidency, and to present it through a credible European campaign - after all, the programme is only credible if the national parties are selling it on the doorsteps as a programme that they stand for on a European level.

The PES confirmed that it would select a candidate for the European Commission Presidency for the 2014 European Elections through party primaries.

A few questions for Relaunching Europe

The S&D Group have set up their Relaunching Europe initiative, asking for opinions and questions about Europe and their policies, so I thought I'd ask a few questions.

1. It's a good idea for Europarties and the groups in the European Parliament to reach out to citizens and include them in the European debate. Will there be many Relaunching Europe events outside of Brussels?

2. How should tax evasion and avoidance be tackled at the European level? Barroso mentioned saving tax agreements in his State of the Union speech: are these effective and would the S&D Group propose any other measures?

3. If there was a Social Compact inserted into the EU Treaties, what would it do? Would it oblige Member States to maintain a certain level of social protection or would it create an EU support mechanism for social protection?

4. You argue that Troikas undermine democracy, so it seems that the current rules for the Eurozone are unjust. If the S&D and PES win the next election, will you push for repealing or reforming the 6-Pack (and 2-Pack if it's passed) of legislation and propose changes if you win the next election (as your candidate would become Commission President)?

5. Hannes Swoboda has mentioned the creation of a class of working poor in Germany. Would the S&D push for a European Minimum Wage (or a band of minimum wages to take into account the different economies)? (Or what other measures would you propose?).

6. It's great that the PES has committed itself to proposing a candidate for the Commission Presidency at the next election. Do you think the Commission should reflect the European Parliament better - ie. reflect the make up of any coalition or majority after the European elections?

7. There seem to be problems with finding projects for the regional funds to fund in crisis-hit Member States. Should the regional funds be reformed to also support national social spending in crisis situations to help the country reform?

8. Hannes Swoboda also said that we need an adequate EU budget to promote growth. How much should the EU budget be increased by, and what should the money be spent on?

Relaunching Europe

The Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament have launched their Relaunching Europe website. The initiative is about creating an alternative to the current policies and direction of Europe, and it invites people to submits ideas and questions. Hannes Swoboda, the leader of the S&D group, was in Hamburg recently for a talk that produced this video for the launch of the site:





There will be a debate in Brussels for people to debate the direction of Europe on the 3rd of October, but hopefully there will be events outside of Brussels to increase accessability.


S&D Ideas

It's a listening and communication exercise - which suggests that there won't be many new announcments at the PES Congress this month - but the group is outlining some ideas on the website that add a bit more detail to Swoboda's idea of a Social Compact that he called for during the State of the Union speech last week. Here's a list of some of the ideas:

• The current Troikas should be expanded to include advise from the International Labour Organisation and similar organisations so that expertise and concern for employment and growth is reflected in policy.
•  They demand a commitment on social cohesion in the Van Rompuy report and a pact for social cohesion within the treaties.
• The financial markets must be better regulated and the rating agencies must do their job in a more transparent manner. We have to control high-frequency trading.
• We have to ensure that tax evasion and avoidance are tackled.
• We need stronger private and public investment to create employment. But Europe is seeing a reduction in public investment, as opposed to the policies in the US and Japan. And there is money for investment. Tax evasion costs €1 trillion a year in Europe. Just one quarter of this money could boost public investment by 40%.
• We need a financial transaction tax.
• Europe must launch an efficient union for banking supervision that reaches beyond the eurozone, accompanied by comprehensive banking reform across Europe.
• We need an adequate European budget that stimulates growth.

These ideas need to be further fleshed out: what would a Social Compact contain? The idea of a Social Compact to balance out the Fiscal one is a nice idea, but I'm not sure what it would mean in practice: should Member States commit to a certain level of social protection (and how would this fit in with the Fiscal Compact - would European solidarity bridge some social spending gaps while there's fiscal reforms, or would it just moderate the timescale and austerity of the current Troika system)? More details on the better regulation of banks and financial markets would be welcome: what changes to the recent legislation are necessary?

There are also some more broader views and principles:

"We must not only solve the economic and social crises but also the democratic one. In several countries, notably Germany, parliamentary participation and national sovereignty are at the heart of the debate. But what is overlooked is that it is not the EU that threatens sovereignty, but the financial markets and the rating agencies which dictate interest rates and spreads.

 

But we are also seeing increasing de-democratisation. The European Council is increasingly taking more and more decisions, including on the EU budget. But who are the Council and the President of the Council accountable to? Neither the national parliaments nor the European Parliament. The Troikas too act in a democratic vacuum with no accountability.

 

[...]

 

[T]his means strengthening parliamentary participation and the European Parliament and the national parliaments must co-operate closely.

 

[...]

 

 Referendums can strengthen democracy in Europe if they are held at European, not just national level. We must have the courage to speak out clearly against growing nationalism. We have to organise referendums in a way that does not allow the outcomes in individual countries to dominate the others and undermine the European project."

 

I like the connection with the working poor in Germany; the S&D Group (and PES) need to have a broad message of social justice and how it can be delivered through the EU for all citizens, rather than  a simplistci dicotomy of strong versus weak Member States. The commitment to better parliamentary democracy and cooperation and to European referendums is very interesting, but really should be fleashed out.

How far are these ideas just Swoboda's and not those of the group or the PES Europarty? It all depends on if the PES come up with a good manifesto with clear policy commitments come the 2014 election - that will be the real test. But Swoboda took pains to refer to the agreement in his group for these ideas during the State of the Union speech. What difference this initiative will make depends on what use people make by contributing and what use the S&D make of them.

They invite people to ask questions on Facebook or via Twitter.

Dutch Elections: "The Political Centre is Back!"

The centre is back is the news out of The Netherlands today - from De Volkskrant:

"De PvdA en de VVD boeken vandaag allebei een enorme verkiezingsoverwinning. Samen met het CDA en D66 behalen de middenpartijen maar liefst 106 zetels. Het politieke midden is terug. En Europa is de grote winnaar van de avond.

[Own translation: 'Today Labour and the Party of Freedom and Democracy (right-wing liberals) have had a enormous election win . Together with the Christian Democrats and Social Liberals, the parties of the centre hold up to 106 seats. The political centre is back. And Europe is the biggest winner this evening.]"

At the time of writing with constituencies still to be declared, the results are (Europarty/seat change in brackets):

VVD (ELDR): 41 (+10). [This is the party of the outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte].
PvdA (PES): 39 (+9).
SP (GUE-NGL): 15 (0).
PVV (None): 15 (-9).
CDA (EPP): 13 (-8).
D66 (ELDR): 12 (+2).
GroenLinks (European Greens): 3 (-7).
Christen Unie (ECR): 5 (0).
SGP (EFD): 3 (+1).
PvdD (None): 2 (0).
50Plus (None): 2 (+2).

De Volkskrant is predicting a coalition of the centre and notes that the old coalition of VVD-CDA with support from Geert Wilders' anti-Islam and anti-Europe PVV  would not have enough seats to form a majority (now around 69 seats) and that governments of the left and right blocks are only "theoretically possible". Clearly despite the big gains for the centre right and left the Dutch political system is still quite fragmented. If a grand coalition is formed it will be interesting to see if the return to the political centre will continue, or if the extremes will grow in opposition. The head-to-head race between the VVD and PvdA with different outlooks on key policy areas has probably been a big factor in attracting voters to the political centre, and now compromises need to be made to form a government. 76 seats are needed for a majority.

The election confirms the centre-right liberals (VVD) as the dominant party of the right in The Netherlands, with the formerly dominant Christian Democrats (CDA) continuing to decline. On the left, Labour (PvdA) has not only retained its position, but the far-left Socialist Party has failed to make the inroads widely expected at the start of the campaign. The SP had been doing well in the polls, but a poor performance in the leaders' debates (which were widely seen to have been won by Labour's Diederik Samsom) meant that they couldn't keep up their electoral momentum.

The result is a big boost for the pro-European parties. Geert Wilders, who pulled the plug on the last government, wanted to make the election into a referendum on Europe (and against austerity and EU membership) and the SP were also Eurosceptic on the left (against further bail-outs).

The next challenge will be for the VVD and PvdA to form a coalition government.

Europarty Congress Season and a Third Term for Barroso

There have been some comments in favour of Barroso winnning a third term as Commission President. It's interesting that the comments come from Reding, who was considered one of the front-runners for the race in 2014. However it's not an idea I'd warm to exactly - I'm not the biggest fan of Barroso - but it does raise an important question for the European conference season: how will the Europarties approach the next European elections and the election of the next Commission President?

The Commission President is nominated by the European Council (by Qualified Majority Voting), but it's the European Parliament that elects the Commission President, and later the President elect's nominated College of Commissioners. Since the Parliament elects the Commission, the European Council nominates a candidate from the same Europarty as the one that won the election. The European People's Party endorsed Barroso for the presidency in 2009, and the Party of European Socialists failed to make any nomination so the presidency wasn't an election issue. The centre-left PES governments of the UK, Spain and Portugal backed Barroso, preventing a common PES candidate, but the PES has committed itself to picking a candidate for the post in the future, and will hold primaries for deciding its candidate. The vote adopting these procedures will take place during its September Congress:

"The European Socialist Party is due to vote to change its party statute on 29 September. The plan is to have national parties put forward a candidate for commission president. The final socialist nominee is then expected to be unveiled in February 2014, just ahead of the June elections"

EUObserver reports that ELDR, the liberal Europarty, also intends to consider procedures for selecting a candidate:

""We will be making a recommendation to our party congress this autumn on what the procedure should be for the selection of a liberal candidate for the president of the commission. And we would see that process taking place in the autumn of next year," Graham Watson, leader of the European Liberals, told this website.

He said it is the first time the party has ever tried to set down rules for the procedure. Previously names "sort of emerged" from a "conclave of liberal leaders."

The European People's Party is likely to discuss the possibility of candidate selection as part of its election strategy at its conference.

Being able to vote for a policy platform and for candidates for the Commission presidency is essential if the EU is to become more democratic and open. This Congress season will be an important early test to gauge the commitment - and ability - of the Europarties to present alternatives when it comes to election time. It's not enough to blame the Commission and the Member States from the Parliament Chamber: Europarties have to be able to present and fight for alternatives if they're to pass themselves off as political parties.

The PES Congress will take place at the end of the month in Brussels, the EPP's will be held in October in Bucharest, and the ELDR Congress will be held in early November in Dublin.

PES Congress to be moved from Bucharest to Brussels

Due to the political battles between the Romanian governing coalition of socialists and liberals and the conservative president, the Party of European Socialists (which sits in the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament) will move its September congress from Bucharest to Brussels.

The leader of the S&D group in the European Parliament, Hannes Swoboda, says that the move came at the request of the Romanian Prime Minister (and PES member) Victor Ponta, but the change of venue is being interpreted as a result of political pressure and a desire of political leaders not to be seen with a government that's had its commitment to the rule of law so seriously questioned over the past few months.

From EurActiv:

"[Socialist sources from the European Parliament], who asked not to be named, said “only a couple of leaders” of the PES-affiliated parties across Europe had confirmed attendance at the Bucharest congress, the rest apparently being reluctant to be hosted by Ponta, who has been under fire since he took office this spring."

The loss of the congress may also be a blow to Ponta's image and electoral strategy for the autumn election:
 

"When the decision to hold the congress in Bucharest was taken last year, Ponta was in opposition. As Romania’s parliamentary elections are due in the autumn, the congress was designed to boost his international image ahead of the poll."

So EurActiv is (indirectly) calling the news of Ponta's request  out for what it is: a face-saving exercise:

"PES sources said that while leaders of centre-left parties didn’t want to be criticised at home for being hosted by such a controversial leader as Ponta, there were also concerns that he should not be weakened before the election.

It would be a sharp blow for Ponta, who will turn 40 on 20 September, if the congress is moved away from Bucharest, a Romanian PSD source told EurActiv.

In any case, it appears that a decision to move the congress to Brussels should be coupled with a face-saving reason to be used internally in Romania, a difficult exercise for the PES secretariat."

This shows that the PES is much more uncomfortable with its Romanian member's actions than its weak response to the political crisis on the floor of the European Parliament would suggest.

A much needed referendum debate

Sigmund Gabriel of the German opposition SPD (PES) has called for Eurobonds as a necessary part of the solution to the Eurozone crisis, and for the referendum required to permit German participation. Although Gabriel is just one of the Troika that heads the SPD (Steinbrueck and Steinmeier are the other two), the - increasingly frequent - judgments from the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe have made it clear that further integration may require a referendum. So there has been a bit of a debate lately on when and how a referendum should be held over Europe - notably coming from the Finance Minister.

The German Constitution can be changed by the German Parliament (which is why it could be argued that the independence of the Bundesbank from political interference and pressure is slightly mythical), but Karlsruhe has essentially stated in its Lisbon Treaty Judgment that at some point a referendum would be needed. So despite the outcry from the governing parties that the SPD are being irresponsible in backing Eurobonds:

"Merkel spokesman Georg Streiter said the a German referendum "lies a very long way in the future"..."

Any fiscal union will need explicit consent from the people of the Eurozone, and there has to be an open political debate about the alternatives with competing proposals. The step-by-step approach that has been taken so far (in Europe generally, but in Germany and by Merkel especially) has a corrosive effect on the confidence in national and European political leadership and ability, and in the idea that there is a solution. What we have now is a strategy that breeds cynicism, to the extent that it's hard to know if there is a strategy at all and we have to engage with a new type of Kremlinology centred entirely on the contents of Merkel's head! Without even a debate on the future of fiscal union, it's hard to see any political deal produced at the end of this process being accepted after all the suspicion and bickering that will likely continue for another 2 years, if not longer.

So the debate is necessary for any plan to have a hope of working. Speaking in favour of Eurobonds is not the same as making an open commitment to Eurobonds to be introduced as soon as possible (the SPD are still quite close to the government on conditionality, but with more solidarity); it needs to be part of a deal that covers conditions and democratic oversight. It cannot be a technical fix introduced at breaking point, but the product of an open political process. Utopian to hope for given all the summitry, but necessary if we're to have any hope of creating a workable compromise.

Note: Juergen Habermas' (et al) article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (here in German) has been linked to the SPD's move, and Habermas will be involved in the SPD's manifesto for the next German elections. Other interesting articles on the SPD's website on Eurobonds and meeting their Spanish counterparts here and here.

Romania and the rule of law in the EU

The EU is a strange creature: in order to join a country must respect democracy, fundamental rights and the rule of law - a concept that is becoming ever more detailed and developed on the European stage - but the EU finds it incredibly difficult to ensure these standards are respected one a country is inside the club. There have been a few battles over the last few years: France's treatment of the Roma, Hungary's constitutional changes in the media and the courts, and now Romania.

In Romania there is a power struggle over the constitution and the presidency. The social democrat Prime Minister, Victor Ponta, wants to impeach the unpopular conservative president Traian Basescu and has tried to change the threshold necessary in the process to get it done. The Economist also lists a number of seriously worrying changes that the Romanian government wants to bring about:

"His government has replaced the ombudsman (the only brake on emergency government ordinances), grabbed control of the Monitorul Oficial, the official promulgator of laws and decrees, taken over the national cultural institute and threatened to fire the judges of the constitutional court."

These changes has provoked concern in Brussels (and Berlin) over the threat to the rule of law. There is a way of sanctioning Member States that break the values of the EU: under Article 7 TEU a country in breach of these values can be stripped of its voting rights. However it's a nuclear option, and one that is difficult to threaten, never mind enforce or enact. There are two linked reasons for this: one technical and one political.

Politically it is hard for Member States to condemn a fellow Member State, and if the government of the offending Member State is aligned to either the EPP or PES (sitting in the S&D group in the Parliament), then it could have a strong lobby in its favour. Both the S&D and EPP have acted in the Hungarian and Romanian cases in support of governments that they are aligned with, as the Financial Times Blog rightly points out. The tactic used is generally to call for time while the Commission launches an investigation. This brings us to the second problem: the Commission only can investigate on narrow technical grounds, which allows for governments to make some concessions on these matters to lessen political pressure, while the measure is largely passed intact.

The Commission is equipped as a guardian of the treaties, but not as a protector of fundamental rights. To change this and to create a better culture for fundamental rights protection, it would be better for the Fundamental Rights Agency* to be empowered to assess the state of fundamental rights and compliance with the rule of law and EU values. Then it could recommend in a report what needs to be changed to bring a government back into line.

It would still be up to the Commission, Council and Parliament how they should act and if they invoke Article 7 TEU. Still, it is important that we move away from the culture of hiding behind technical requirements and changes and to a culture of debating the substance of protecting rights and the rule of law in the EU and the Member States. Even now European approval - or lack of sanction - carries a certain moral authority and legitimacy. We should make sure this is put to good use and not twisted and hollowed out to provide cover for subverting the rule of law. *The FRA's remit would probably need to be expanded for this.

Reding v Schulz

EurActiv has reported that Viviane Reding, the current Justice Commissioner, may be positioning herslf to run as the European People's Party candidate during the 2014 European Elections. She's in her third term as a Commissioner (I've heard it said that Luxembourg keeps sending her to Brussels to remove Junker's biggest party rival from the home stage), so she's very experienced when it comes to the EU and it's executive wing. Reding has also served as Commissioner for education and culture in 1999-2004 and as Commissioner for information society and the media from 2004-2010.

EurActiv comments that she had a base in the EP, which could serve her well in gaining the nomination. I'm not sure how well known she would be in the Member States come election time, however.

The possible challenger from the Party of European Socialists is current EP president Martin Schulz. The PES will hold primaries in the run up to the elections to choose a candidate, but timetabling issues (it looks like the primaries may run partially during the winter holidays) may mean that early positioning is an effective way to ward off competition that could struggle to gain momentum. He's not held a post in the Commission - I don't think he's held an executive post yet apart from being mayor of Wuerselen - but he has been an active MEP and served as the leader of the Socialists and Democrats Group in the EP before becoming the EP President.

So neither candidate has a continent-wide  profile in the same way that national heads of government have, but a good contest could quickly change that, particularly if the elections become a referendum on the economic direction of Europe. Both Reding and Schulz are able to give good speeches, so a head to head debate could inject more energy into the elections (certainly, they're more engaging than Barroso).

I can't help wondering how the other Europarties are going to react - will they run their own candidates, or will they try to gain policy concessions in exchange for parliamentary support (and would that mean that we'd effectively be voting for coalitions in the Parliament)...?

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

I once had a work experience were I had to read through several contracts selling and assigning the right to turn a book into a TV programme and then give a presentation on who owned/did/does what. I'd only done a year at university and hadn't covered contract law or intellectual property law, so I was given a few textbooks on contract law and on copyright. As well as being one of the most interesting work experiences I ever did, it's also the only time I did anything to do with intellectual property law - while I was interested to read ACTA (PDF), I was a bit wary since I don't have the time to read into all the surrounding legislation and the debate on IPR. I do agree with this article over at The Atlantic, though: while some of the claims against ACTA might be a bit overblown, the trend in international IPR law is worryingly focused on the enforcement side, and ratcheting up enforcement standards without ever adapting to the issues brought up by our digital age. (A major debate is on whether copyrights do in fact encourage innovation and investment, or if the current laws actually detract from such innovation).

ACTA has rightly caused a huge reaction from the public, and the Party of European Socialists has come out attacking the treaty( PDF):

"The Party of European Socialists considers the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) to be fundamentally flawed in both content and process. There is a severe imbalance between the rights attributed to the users, service providers and rights holders.

The agreement, which is to be voted on by the European Parliament before summer 2012 and ratified by National Parliaments, is flawed in content for the following reasons; it gives undue power of oversight to internet providers; it infringes the privacy of internet users; and it will curtail developing countries access to generic medicines. It is flawed in process because of the secret manner in which the accord was agreed upon, and because of the significantly reduced time afforded to the European Parliament to scrutinise the final draft."

I haven't been able to find the positions of any other Europarties yet, but if you know them, let me know in the comments.

ACTA itself seems to raise a few questions over due process and the role of Internet Service Providers in policing IPR (which has serious implications for privacy and data protection - though it should be stressed that the actual role of ISPs would be decided by domestic legislation and ACTA does not require ISPs to take on a policing role). The EU has signed up to ACTA along with its Member States, but it has yet to be ratified and the European Parliament will make its decision this summer. The explanatory memorandum to the agreement makes clear that the Commission considers the agreement as adding noting new to current EU law on IPR, while leaving any additional obligations for judicial enforcement to be carried out by Member States as parties to the treaty. This doesn't strike me as a reason to be reassured by ACTA: if our legislation already goes further than ACTA, then where does that leave all our talk on this side of the Atlantic about being more enlightened about IPR and the internet? We still may have the safe harbour provisions that SOPA attacked, but ACTA clearly underlines that our approach is guided by a similar philosophy rather than being subjected to a serious debate about how the internet and digital media have changed the environment for IPR and how we should adapt (not to mention the price we might pay in terms of privacy and free speech to enforce these ever stricter laws).

So while not every evil assigned to ACTA finds backing in its vague provisions, it is another important step in the development of our IPR laws. We should take this opportunity to ask our MPs and MEPs to debate not just ACTA, but our approach to IPR in general. It's more than just this agreement.

You can sign the petition against ACTA here.

Also, Grahnlaw has been providing good coverage of this issue (see here, here and here for examples).

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

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.