Liberal candidate Guy Verhofstadt and the “Federalist Cause”

Guy Verhofstadt, who has led the liberal ALDE group in the European Parliament for the last few years, will be the Liberals’ candidate forthe Commission Presidency in the May elections. He has fended off Olli Rehn, the Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs for the candidacy. It was unlikely that Rehn would have much appeal across Europe – he is the face of Eurozone austerity in the bailed-out countries and would represent a very fiscally hawkish face for the liberals – but he had a lot of support among the ALDE member-parties. The two will run together on a the same “ticket”, with Rehn proposed for another “senior post”. Perhaps the thinking is that if Verhofstadt doesn’t get the Presidency, he might stay as leader of the parliamentary group…?

Verhofstadt is probably a better bet than Rehn in that he’s a former Prime Minister (or Belgium) and has experience in both the European Parliament and in the European Council. He failed in his last attempt to become Commission President when Barroso first got the job in 2004… and I can’t see him having much hope this time around. Though some in his party have noted that he’s more centrist (and therefore more likely to be able to deal with either a right- or left- leaning Parliament), the liberals are probably going to have a very tough election. Two of the biggest liberal contingents – the Liberal Democrats in the UK and the FDP in Germany – are battered, with the FDP thrown out of the Bundestag last year and the Lib Dems predicted to come 4^th in the UK in the May poll.

Verhofstadt is an interesting choice given his very outspoken federalism. Having written a federalist book – The United States of Europe – and given tub-thumping federalist speeches in the European Parliament, I’ve come to think of him as the federalist Farage. He has tried to set out his vision of federalism as more democratic:

However, I can’t see a more nuanced version reaching people. And, as I said at the start of the last Parliament, a focus on federalism and pro-Europeanism is not the way to go. Federalism is a concept for organising things rather than a proper ideology that sets out values and priorities. Really, competing ideas for the Eurozone, economic growth, the CAP, etc., need to be put to people and then the decision is make on how much to do at the European level, and how to do it.

The Liberals, and Verhofstadt, will need to come out with credible policies to make their brand more bankable. It strikes me that civil liberties and data protection could be a good issue for them if they tap into it – certainly it would chime with a lot more people than vague sermons on “federalism”.

Stripping Citizenship

Last week the UK House of Commons voted on an amendment to the Immigration Bill that would empower the Home Secretary to strip foreign-born terrorist suspects of their UK citizenship, even if it would render them stateless. (Those with dual citizenship can already be stripped of their British citizenship). The amendment reads (p.3):

"(4A) But that does not prevent the Secretary of State from making an order under subsection (2) to deprive a person of a citizenship status if—
(a) the citizenship status results from the person’s naturalisation, and
(b) the Secretary of State is satisfied that the deprivation is conducive to the public good because the person, while having that citizenship status, has conducted him or herself in a manner which is seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the United Kingdom, any of the Islands, or any British overseas territory.”

The decision doesn’t have to be made following a court ruling and it isn’t made by a court – it’s made by the Secretary of State herself. The amendment was proposed by the Home Office Secretary of State, Theresa May, and was reportedly aimed at drawing Tory back-benchers away from an amendment that would have limited criminals up for deportation’s ability to rely on the right to family life under the European Convention on Human Rights. That amendment was defeated with the help of Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

The vote is another example of how difficult it is for Cameron to control his back bench, which will be worrying for him come the European elections. At the moment the Conservatives are expecting to come behind UKIP in the May poll, but even with that factored into their calculations, the back benches may take the result as a spur to become even more rebellious.

Disappointingly, the anti-immigration rhetoric has meant that the other parties have failed to take a firm stand on the issue of taking away citizenship. On Question Time on Thursday, the Labour and Lib Dem representatives weren’t able to give a clear “yes” or “no” on whether or not they supported the idea. UK politics seems to be stuck on an illiberal course…

Keller and Bové to lead the European Greens in the elections

The online European Greens primaries ended with anti-globalisation campaigner and French Green MEP José Bové and German Green youth leader and MEP Ska Keller heading the election campaign.

22,676 people voted in the online primaries, and the four candidates debated in ten different cities. The turnout for the vote is disappointing, but as an exercise in democracy it was a good effort – with all the primary campaign hype in the Social Democratic camp, the Greens are the ones that actually held a competitive election.

The challenge for the winners now is to really add a European dimension to the campaign – visiting campaign events across the continent and explaining Green positions can not only add that dimension, but give extra credibility to the value of a vote for the Greens if they can show that they are an engaged and active parliamentary group worth supporting.

The idea of common candidates is becoming normalised now, with the main Europarty groups planning to run (at least) one. It’s unclear how much influence they have on the common platforms of their respective parties – the Green candidates appear to be campaign leaders, rather than being picked as parliamentary group leaders or potential Commission candidates – but there will be an incentive there for the candidates to promote themselves and their party platform.

It’s very much open whether the media and electorate will be attracted to these common candidates, but already the election is looking to be a more engaging prospect than last time around.

5 Years of Bloggingportal!

Today is the 5^th birthday of Bloggingportal! In the years that Bloggingportal has been linking Euroblogs and trying to make discussions more accessible, the number of blogs has ballooned from barely 100 to over 1000. The Euroblogosphere is still relatively small, but the Eurocrisis and Europeanisation of national politics has spurred the increased debate on the EU.

Bloggingportal has been around for almost as long as this blog, and I’ve found it useful in following different opinions and news. But 5 years is a long time and the site is definitely showing its age. Editors have drifted off as work and life have become more demanding, but the people at Bloggingportal towers have been planning and working on a renewal and relaunch of the site. With the 2014 European elections coming up in May, it’s important to keep up with the debate across the continent, and hopefully Bloggingportal will soon be able to make it easier to do so.

So here’s to another 5 years!

No Free Movement Rights for the Working Class?

The debate over the free movement of people is continuing to grow. It's worth remembering that EU citizens currently have the right to reside in another Member State for 3 months to look for work, with no obligation on the host Member State to provide benefits (Citizen's Directive, PDF). They can stay longer than 3 months if they are employed, self-employed, or have the resources to support themselves. When they're a worker (an employee), then they have access to the same social and tax advantages as the host country's nationals (Directive 1612/68).

In the UK, some Tories are calling for a 2 year period before EU citizens will have access to the welfare system. That's 2 years of living, working and contributing in a country without being able to draw on the same support open to other citizens. Given that so many supported by the welfare system are in work (an indication of how wages have stagnated and the worrying necessity to support those in work to ensure that they can actually make a living), such a long period would greatly disadvantage poorer people from exercising their Treaty rights in practice.

Labour appears to be thinking of controlling intra-EU migration for the skill levels of the migrant, as Chuka Umunna said on the BBC's Question Time last Thursday:

"Umunna said the EU should change its rules to prevent citizens from travelling to other member states in search of work, with a focus on banning highly skilled workers from less affluent EU members taking low-skilled jobs in richer member states.
[...]
He said this would revive the spirit of the EU's founding fathers, who wanted to encourage freedom of movement for highly skilled workers to highly skilled jobs."

I'm not sure what founding father he's talking about; he didn't quote any and I can't remember any famous quotes about Europe only being for graduates. Labour's position is very confusing. They seem to be talking about preventing movement to other countries to find work (so you'd already need to have a job before you move), preventing highly skilled workers from the new accession countries from taking lower-skilled jobs in the older Member States (which sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare to define and enforce, never mind getting all the Member States to sign off on it), and limiting the free movement rights to the highly skilled.

This last point, which seems to be the most likely, is an odd position for the Labour party. So the highly skilled (presumably also those from more privileged backgrounds) should have these rights but the less well skilled shouldn't (which is hard to define and probably just means "poor")? It's a sad state of affairs when the Labour party is for disenfranchising the poor in Europe rather than opening up more opportunity and creating work and security...

Even the Liberal Democrats have voiced support for limited access to benefits. Perhaps someone can explain the electoral rationale behind this move, because I can't see it. Nobody who wants a tough stance on immigration is going to vote for the Lib Dems over the Tories because of this. The net result is that there's no real political voice that is speaking out in defence of free movement rights.

It's widely reported, and accepted by supporters for tougher immigration controls such as Migration Watch, that EEA migrants claim less than locals, and contribute more to society and the economy than they receive in social welfare. The political weather has changed so much that even the politicians that make this argument are supporting a dilution of free movement rights. This political cowardice just lets the panic over immigration to grow. Without dissenting voices, the political culture as a whole shifts in an ever more anti-immigrant direction - you could say that it's a microcosm of the overall EU debate in the UK.

Political attitudes of the CSU in Germany are also hardening on this, though opinion polls suggest that a majority thinks that Germany has benefited from immigration and that it has benefited from EU membership overall.

European Parliament wants to question Snowden

The European Parliament's LIBE Committee's Inquiry into the Electronic Mass Surveillance of European Citizens is not due to be published in March, and the Committee has voted to question the whistle-blower Edward Snowden via video-link. However The Guardian has ran a story on the draft of the report in which the Inquiry says the actions of the NSA and the UK's GCHQ "appear illegal".

The draft report states (PDF; main findings start at p.16):

"[The Inquiry] Condemns in the strongest possible terms the vast, systemic, blanket collection of the  personal data of innocent people, often comprising intimate personal information; emphasises that the systems of mass, indiscriminate surveillance by intelligence services constitute a serious interference with the fundamental rights of citizens; stresses that privacy is not a luxury right, but that it is the foundation stone of a free and democratic society; points out, furthermore, that mass surveillance has potentially severe effects on the freedom of the press, thought and speech, as well as a significant potential for abuse of the information gathered against political adversaries; emphasises that these mass surveillance activities appear also to entail illegal actions by intelligence services and raise questions regarding the extra-territoriality of national laws

[...]

[The Inquiry] Stresses that, despite the fact that oversight of intelligence services’ activities should be based on both democratic legitimacy (strong legal framework, ex ante authorisation and ex post verification) and an adequate technical capability and expertise, the majority of current EU and US oversight bodies dramatically lack both, in particular the technical capabilities."

(Points 9,and 60 of the main findings).

Along with calling for the US and EU Member States to prohibit blanket mass surveillance activities and demanding that the UK, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany revise their national intelligence laws in line with the European Convention on Human Rights, the rapporteur, S&D MEP Claude Moraes (UK),  called for the SWIFT Agreement with the US to be put on ice.

The SWIFT Agreement allows for the transfer of financial transaction data to the US, and has come in for a lot of criticism. The first attempt at agreement failed, but the European Parliament voted through a second renegotiated SWIFT deal earlier during this parliament.

Tagesschau reports that the inquiry may show that French and German intelligence agencies have also been carrying out similar surveillance programmes. This is probably widely suspected anyway, but for a parliamentary inquiry to finger France and Germany after the outrage expressed by those two countries would be very embarrassing. It would be particularly uncomfortable for Merkel, who is seen to have reacted to the NSA Affair slowly, and due to the controversial nature of the EU's own data retention laws in the country.

The European Parliament report won't have any binding effect, but the Inquiry is a strong political statement. As well as being a fundamental issue that needs investigation, this is a ticket to the central political stage. Questioning Snowden would be a major coup and turn the Inquiry into an international event. Though the Inquiry overwhelmingly wants to question Snowden (only 2 UK Conservatives on the Committee voted against the proposal), it is depending on Snowden wanting to use the platform - something that the US Congress fears and has warned against. It's hard to see why Snowden wouldn't take this opportunity to state his case personally and publicly.


EDIT: Ralf Grahn drew my attention to the draft report online, so I've changed the blog to include links and some extracts to it.

Poland says No to watering down Free Movement

The Polish government has made it clear that it will veto changes to the free movement of people in the EU Treaties. Since the EU Treaties can only be changed by unanimity, this is a blow to calls from Cameron's UK government (and from the Bavarian CSU) for changes to the system.

I've written before about how the UK debate seems to frame the single market as the only good thing about the EU when the social elements are such a big part of the bargain. This is desire for the single market to respect national social protections gives rise to a kind of European social contract - a kind of minimum (and from the left's point of view it is very minimum) level of protection that limits the single market in undercutting national welfare and social systems (though the single market has had a big impact on these). But now the debate has shifted to reviewing and limiting one of the fundamental freedoms of the single market.

The fears over EU immigration in the UK (with the ending of the restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian citizens) has been the main spark for this, and the idea of being tough on immigration is popular. And because a "market" is seen as just goods you buy in a shop, rather than an economy people live in, the free movement of people is perhaps seen as not really being part of the single market. Despite this, there are polls indicating that Britain would be welcoming of immigrants who play by the rules, so the panic may be more linked to the rhetoric over benefits and the young than might be seen at first glance.

Watering down free movement rights is likely to come up against fierce opposition from many Member States - not just Poland, but also Spain, Ireland, Greece, and other countries afraid to see their citizens treated as second-class EU citizens - so it's unlikely to work. But watering down further the social side of the EU will make everyone more economically insecure and could further undermine support for free movement rights and solidarity in the wealthier Member States, and ultimately support for the single market.

For Cameron to be able to claim victory through renegotiation, he will have to get something big in the area of social policy now that so many other areas are sealed off (the UK is outside of Schengen, the Euro and has an opt in to justice legislation). The undermining of social rules and standards needs to be resisted.