Through the EU Labyrinth

Why David Cameron must lead a New Model Conservative Government

2008-09-24T06:42:00.000-07:00

I feel compelled to endorse a new publication, The Plan, Twelve Months to Renew Britain, by Douglas Carswell MP and Daniel Hannan MEP, released today and I would suggest that David Cameron give serious consideration to its key proposals. It is targeted at a generation who have not yet given up with politics, but instead have given up with MPs, lying politicians, a cynical political elite, false Westminster promises and empty political initiatives. Thus, in the worst cases, those voters have ceased to believe in the ballot box. The election turnout figures have said it all – so the point does not need to be reiterated here.

Carswell and Hannan bat out some honest and very real plans for a 12 month term in Parliament, which can help bring about a true restoration of faith in Westminster and our national political system. Their ambitious aim, inherent in the Tory localist agenda, amounts to “nothing less than the restoration of liberty to the individual, dignity to the legislature and purpose to the ballot box.” (The Plan, page 44). The Conservatives must be responsible for rejecting the Big Government-knows-best approach and ensure that decisions should be taken as closely as possible to the people who are affected by them, decision-makers should be directly accountable and that the citizens should be as free as possible from state coercion (The Plan, page 42). It is a template for how many people would probably like their country to be run, given the completely disastrous management of Britain under New Labour and the collapse of trust in Parliament and its representatives.

It is essential that David Cameron endorses its key proposals, as specified in The Plan because it may prove essential to support important proposals from within his own Party in order to win the next General Election. In this book, there is a vast array of proposals to lend support to. Within the next two years, it may well be upon the shoulders of the Conservative leader to commit his leadership to:

Assert direct democracy, including the right to popular legislative initiative, the right to initiate a referendum to block new laws, local referendums and referendums for proposed constitutional changes;
Clean up Westminster for good by abolishing MPs’ perks, ensuring MPs are bound by the same laws as the rest of the people, shrinking the House of Commons bureaucracy, ensuring parliamentary officials are elected and therefore, accountable;
Return law, order and accountability by allowing for directly elected sheriffs to act with a degree of control over local policing, sentencing and prioritising of offences;
Demand the Supremacy of Parliament, so that we can scrap the destructive Human Rights Act, withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, pass a new Act to ensure the supremacy of Parliament over authoritarian EU Treaty requirements and appoint senior judges through a transparent parliamentary process (who currently appear to be running the country on behalf of some ancient Islamic fundamentalist sect);
Ensure the independence of state schools, so that central Government does not dictate administrative and teaching policies to every local school in the land;
Initiate a true localism to make local councils self-financing and abolish regional development agencies and the regional governmental bodies we have already voted against;
Put patients in control of health choices so that they can opt out of the NHS if they choose – and opt in to their own health accounts with their own contributions;
Allow neighbourhoods to take care of their own welfare by allowing counties/cities to determine eligibility for benefits and allocation of funds for social security;
Repeal the Acts that provide the basis for costly UK regulations, including the worst of all, the necessary amendment/repeal of sections 2 and 3 of the European Communities Act 1972;
Create an independent Britain which will be achieved by scrapping Crown Prerogative Powers and replace the existing terms of EU membership with a Swiss-style bilateral free trade agreement.

If Cameron did speak up on behalf of these well established ideas, it would make his position resolute and boldly Conservative because there would be less of a concern from the people about what our troubled Conservative Party will actually stand for, if they do ever decide to vote for it over the next two years. Carswell and Hannan have laid down the framework – all it needs now is a little debate and in my view, a whole lot of support.

Jim McConalogue

EU Council split over maritime law

2008-09-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

Margarida Vasconcelos reports: The “Third Maritime Safety Package” or the so called Erika III was proposed by the European Commission in 2005. Several Member States, including the UK, believe that EU legislation on those issues will jeopardize their maritime interests. In April 2007 the European Parliament adopted this package however the European Parliament position was not consistent with the Council general approach. On 6 June 2008 the Council adopted six common positions on the basis of the Commission proposals of the third maritime safety package which were forwarded to the European Parliament for a second reading under the codecision procedure.

At the informal meeting of the EU Transport ministers which took place on 1 and 2 September the Member States expressed their doubts on the European Parliament’s eagerness to incorporate into its second reading reports part of the Council amendments to the Erika package. And, on 4 September the European Parliament’s Transport Committee has confirmed the Council’s fears. It has voted unanimously on the Erika III package reintroducing all the amendments from the first reading which the Council has not taken on board. The MEPs have stressed that they “did not want the Council to water down important suggestions on port state control, a Community vessel traffic monitoring system, accident investigation, the liability boat passenger carriers and ship inspection and survey organisations.”

The draft directive amending directive 2002/59/EC establishing a Community vessel traffic monitoring and information system is intending to create an independent competent authority for the accommodation of ships in distress. The Commission proposal requires Member States to notify the Commission of refuge places to welcome ships in distress and equip them. According to the European Commission, as well as the European Parliament, the decision of whether to harbour ships in distress should be left to independent authorities. The European Parliament rapporteur, Dirk Sterckx, has said “that there should be no margin of discretion for Member States in applying this decision on places of refuge and that an independent authority should be set up to designate ports of refuge for vessels in distress.” The EU Member States do not want to be under the obligation to harbour ships. The Council, taking into account several Member States fear of financial risks, has rejected the possibility of establishment of an independent authority in charge of providing assistance when accidents happened and with the capability of imposing independent decisions on where ships should be taken for rescue as well as repair operations. Moreover, the MEPs believe that the lack of evidence of financial security must not be taken into account when deciding whether to accommodate a ship in distress and that the accommodation in a place of refuge should not be limited to insured ships. However, Member States want to have the possibility of refusing assistance to ships that lack sufficient financial guarantees.

The European Parliament vote on the draft directive for port state control has tightened up the inspection regime, the criteria for selecting ships for inspection and the parameters for calculating a ship's risk profile.

The Commission has proposed a permanent ban from Community waters of ships which have been detained three times following inspections at a Community port. However, the Council believes that a permanent ban is not proportional therefore, as regards to substandard ships it agreed that access of these ships to Member States' ports will be indefinitely refused. But, this indefinite access refusal might be lifted after 36 months. In what concerns ship inspection regimes, several Member States believe that the Commission and MEPs proposals would create too many additional costs for their administrations. The Council has therefore agreed on a new inspection regime for ships coming to the European ports which gives more flexibility to the Member States. Hence, Member States would be allowed to skip inspections on 5 per cent of ships with a high risk profile and on 10 per cent of other ships whilst the Commission and the European Parliament have demanded that 100 per cent of individual ships must be inspected. Member states have been arguing that this measure will be very expensive and very difficult to control.

The draft regulation on the liability of carriers of passengers by sea and inland waterways in the event of accidents is aimed at creating a Community regime of uniform liability for the carriage of passengers by sea and inland waterways. It incorporates the 2002 Athens Convention relating to the carriage of passengers and their luggage by sea into Community legislation. The draft directive would introduce a compulsory insurance to cover passengers in the event of shipping accidents. The right for an advance payment in the event of death or injury of a passenger is also included in the proposal. The Council has modified the Commission proposal in its scope, the relation between the regulation and other international conventions on global limitation of liability and advance payments. The Council has rejected the Commission's proposal to extend the application of the Athens Convention to international and domestic carriage by inland waterways. However, the European Parliament Transport Committee has also introduced amendments on broadening the scope of this regulation. According to the MEPs the text should apply to all international and national maritime transport. This contrasts to the Council which has rejected the Committee Members readopted amendments to step up the mechanisms proposed to harmonise compensation levels on the amounts to be paid to passengers in case of accidents.

The draft directive establishing fundamental principles governing the investigation of accidents in the maritime transport sector which amends directives 1999/35/EC and 2002/59/EC is intending to improve maritime safety by establishing Community guidelines on technical investigations to be taken following maritime casualties and incidents. The Council introduced changes to the Commission proposal as it agrees that mandatory investigations should take place only in case of very serious casualties and incidents. The members of the European Parliament Transport Committee have stressed that safety investigation must concern serious accidents, and not merely, as the Council has proposed, “very serious” accidents.

It should be recalled that Member States have been unable to reach an agreement on the other two proposals: the proposal concerning the obligations of flag states and the proposal on civil liability and the financial guarantees of shipowners. These proposals are blocked in the Council and in fact several Member States would like to shelve them. Under the proposal for a directive on compliance with flag state requirements the International Maritime Organisation conventions on flag state obligations would be turned into Community law and consequently it would transfer the Member States competence in these areas to the Community.

Dr Stephen Ladyman said to the European Scrutiny Committee (ESC) that the “Government is keen to see this proposal substantially amended if not dropped altogether.”

The European Parliament adopted several amendments to the draft proposal at first reading which amount to further requirements on flag states. The draft directive on civil liability and the financial guarantees of shipowners is aimed at introducing a Community civil liability regime. Under the draft directive ship operators would be fully liable for damage to third parties and a compulsory insurance scheme to ensure that shipowners are able to compensate third parties in the event of accidents would be introduced. It would also introduce a system of mandatory state certification for all ships. Member States would therefore be obliged to validate the insurance of every ship on its register and issue a certificate attesting that insurance is in place. Several Member States including the UK are already parties to the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims (LLMC) – therefore Jim Fitzpatrick has recently explained to the ESC that the Government believes that “greater Member State ratification of this Convention would extend the coverage of the higher limits of liability.” Last April the majority of the Member States agreed at the Transport Council that there was no need for Community legislation in this area. Several Member States are not in favour of transferring International Maritime Organisation (IMO) conventions into Community law.

In general, Member States believe that the flag state and civil liability proposals contain provisions which would entail additional costs for the shipping industry and would increase the administrative burden. However, at the informal meeting of the EU Transport ministers which took place on 1 and 2 September France made clear that it wants to reopen the negotiations on both the draft directive on flag state requirements and the draft directive on civil liability. France is willing to negotiate with the European Parliament rather than shelve the two texts. It will try to reach a compromise solution between the Member States and the Commission and the European Parliament.

European Court authority precedes United Nations Charter, says ECJ

2008-09-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

Margarida Vaconcelos reports: On 3 September, the European Court of Justice annulled the Council regulation freezing the assets of Yassin Abdullah Kadi and the Al Barakaat International Foundation. In its ruling the ECJ affirmed the jurisdiction of the EU Courts to review the implementation of UN Security Council Resolutions and to guarantee their compliance with human rights. The ECJ ruled that the Council of Ministers must provide for a fair hearing and adequate judicial remedy for those which are on the list of persons considered to be associated to Usama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda or the Taleban of the Sanctions Committee of the United Nations Security Council.

According to several resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council, all members of the United Nations must freeze the funds and other financial resources controlled directly or indirectly by members of the Al-Qaeda network and the Taliban and other associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities. In May 2002 the Council adopted a Common Position and the regulation (EC) No 881/2002, the contested regulation, imposing certain specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities associated with Usama bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda network and the Taliban. The regulation was adopted on the basis of Article 60, 301 and 308 EC. The names of persons, groups and entities affected by the freezing of funds are listed in Annex I of the contested regulation. The Commission was given the power to amend such annex, taking into account the Security Council Sanctions Committee determinations. In 2001, the Sanctions Committee included the claimants, Yassin Abdullah Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation in the list of persons and bodies associated with Usama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda or the Taliban. The Commission therefore added Mr Kadi and Al Barakaat to Annex I. Consequently, Mr Kadi and Al Barakaat brought actions before the Court of First Instance (CFI) seeking annulment of the Council regulations giving effect to the UN Sanctions Committee decision since those measures concerned them. The claimants argue that the Council was not competent to adopt the regulation and that it infringed their fundamental rights, the right to property and the rights of defence such as the right to be heard and the right to effective judicial review.

In September 2005 the Court of First Instance gave its judgments rejecting all the pleas in law raised by Mr Kadi and Al Barakaat and confirmed the validity of the Council regulation. Then, Mr Kadi and Al Barakaat brought appeals against those judgments before the Court of Justice. They asked the ECJ to set aside the judgments of the Court of First Instance and declare the contested regulation null and void. The appellants challenged the judgment on the grounds of lack of legal basis for the contested regulation, breach of several rules of international law by the Court of First Instance and infringement of their fundamental rights. The UK has brought a cross-appeal contending that the ECJ should dismiss the appeals.

The CFI has dismissed the applicants’ claim alleging that there was no legal basis for the contested regulation rejecting the argument that the Council regulation affected individuals while Articles 60 EC and 301 EC only allow the Council to take measures against third countries. In fact, Article 60 EC concerns measures against third countries with regard to capital movements and payments. This Article is amended by the Lisbon Treaty which would provide the Union with a clear legal base to impose financial sanctions such as freezing of funds, financial assets or economic gains against “natural or legal persons, groups or non-State entities” considered to be terrorists.

The ECJ upheld the CFI conclusion that there is no specific provision in the EC Treaty providing for the adoption of measures such as the ones provide in the contested regulation relating to the imposition of economic and financial sanctions to individuals and entities suspected of funding international terrorism, where no link has been established with the governing regime of a third State.

The ECJ has stressed that the conclusion reached by the Court of First Instance that the Council was competent to adopt that regulation on the joint basis of Articles 60 EC, 301 EC and 308 EC is justified but on other legal grounds. The aim of Article 308 EC is to confer on the Community institutions express or implied powers to act, if there are no specific provisions on the Treaty conferring such powers and they are necessary to enable the Community to carry out its functions with a view to attaining one of the objectives laid down by the Treaty.

According to the Court of First Instance, Articles 60 EC and 301 EC are special provisions of the EC Treaty and they contemplate situations in which action by the Community may prove to be necessary in order to achieve one of the objectives assigned to the European Union, i.e., the implementation of a common foreign and security policy.

The ECJ has held that the resource to Article 308 EC cannot be justified by the fact that that measure pursued a CFSP objective but that provision could be used as a legal basis because that regulation could be regarded as intended to attain an objective of the Community and as, in addition, linked to the operation of the common market within the meaning of Article 308 EC.

As regards the applicants allegation that the Council regulation infringes their fundamental rights the CFI has decided to first consider “the relationship between the international legal order under the United Nations and the domestic or Community legal order.” The CFI has stressed that the applicants’ challenging of the internal lawfulness of the contested regulation implied that it should review, directly or indirectly, the lawfulness of the resolutions put into effect by that regulation in the light of fundamental rights as protected by the Community legal order. The Court of First Instance has stressed that resolutions adopted by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations are binding on all the Member States of the Community. It has held that under international law the Member States, as Members of the United Nations, are bound to respect the principle of the primacy of their obligations under the Charter of the United Nations, therefore, the obligation to carry out the decisions of the Security Council prevails over any other obligation they may have entered into under an international agreement. However, according to the Court of First Instance, the EC Treaty does not affect the Member States obligation to respect the principle of the primacy of obligations undertaken by virtue of the Charter of the United Nations as such obligation arises from an agreement concluded before the Treaty. The CFI concluded that the Community is bound by the Treaty to adopt all the measures necessary to allow its Member States to fulfil those obligations. The Court of First Instance recalled that the contested regulation constitutes the implementation at Community level of the EU Member States obligation, as Members of the United Nations, to give effect to the sanctions against Usama bin Laden, members of the Al-Qaeda network and other associated individuals or entities, which have been decided by several resolutions of the Security Council adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations.

According to the CFI, the Community Courts in principle had no jurisdiction to review the validity of the regulation at issue. The Court of First Instance held that the contested regulation, since it is intended to give effect to a resolution adopted by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations could not be subject to judicial review of its internal lawfulness, with the exception of its compatibility with the norms of jus cogens, and then to that extent enjoyed immunity from jurisdiction.

The CFI has stressed that it is not for the Court to review whether the Security Council’s resolutions are compatible with fundamental rights as protected by the Community legal order as in doing so it would trespass the Security Council’s prerogatives under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations in relation to determining if there is a threat to international peace and security and the appropriate measures for confronting such a threat.

However, the ECJ, unsurprisingly, has not agreed with this ruling. The CFI also held that the freezing of funds did not constitute an inappropriate interference with the right to private property of the persons concerned and therefore could not be considered as contrary to jus cogens. Moreover, according to the CFI “(…) the limitation of the applicant’s right of access to a court, as a result of the immunity from jurisdiction enjoyed as a rule, in the domestic legal order of the Member States of the United Nations, by resolutions of the Security Council adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, in accordance with the relevant principles of international law (…), is inherent in that right as it is guaranteed by jus cogens.” The CFI has pointed out that the nonexistence of an international court with jurisdiction to determine whether acts of the Security Council are lawful is sorted by the creation of the Sanctions Committee as the opportunity of applying to that committee in order to have any individual case re-examined guarantees adequate protection of the applicant’s fundamental rights as recognised by jus cogens.’ Thus the Court of First Instance dismissed the pleas alleging breach of the right to effective judicial review and the actions in their entirety.

Although France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the Council have endorsed the CFI conclusion that the contested regulation in principle escapes all review by the Community judicature, even concerning observance of fundamental rights, those Member States believe that no review of the internal lawfulness of resolutions of the Security Council may be pursued by the Community judicature.

In fact, the UK has brought a cross-appeal on a single ground related to the error of law allegedly committed by the Court of First Instance in concluding that it was competent to consider whether the Security Council’s resolutions at issue were compatible with the rules of jus cogens. The UK took the view that the resolutions of the Security Council at issue were adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations therefore defining what constitutes a threat to international peace and security and the measures required to maintain them is the responsibility of the Security Council alone therefore escapes the jurisdiction of national or Community authorities and courts. According to the UK the resolutions of the Security Council in question do not fall within the ambit of the Court’s judicial review therefore the Court has no authority to analyse, even indirectly, their lawfulness in the light of Community law. In fact, the Court is bound to interpret and apply Community law in a manner compatible with the obligations of the Member States under the Charter of the United Nations.

It is clear, the ECJ has not upheld these arguments. The ECJ has stressed “… that the obligations imposed by an international agreement cannot have the effect of prejudicing the constitutional principles of the EC Treaty, which include the principle that all Community acts must respect fundamental rights, that respect constituting a condition of their lawfulness which it is for the Court to review in the framework of the complete system of legal remedies established by the Treaty.” The ECJ made a distinction between reviewing the lawfulness of an international agreement and reviewing an EC measure intended to give effect to the international agreement at issue. The Court has stressed that the review of lawfulness ensured by the Community courts applies to the Community act intended to give effect to the international agreement at issue and not to the international agreement itself. Moreover, the Court held that a judgment given by the Community Courts deciding that a Community measure aimed at giving effect to a resolution of the UN Security Council is contrary to a higher rule of law in the Community legal order that would not entail any challenge to the primacy of that resolution in international law. The Court has held that “the review by the Court of the validity of any Community measure in the light of fundamental rights must be considered to be the expression, in a community based on the rule of law, of a constitutional guarantee stemming from the EC Treaty as an autonomous legal system which is not to be prejudiced by an international agreement.”

Moreover, the ECJ stressed that the UN system, of the re-examination procedure before the Sanctions Committee cannot justify a generalised immunity from jurisdiction within the internal legal order of the Community. In fact, according to the ECJ “such immunity, constituting a significant derogation from the scheme of judicial protection of fundamental rights laid down by the EC Treaty, appears unjustified, for clearly that re-examination procedure does not offer the guarantees of judicial protection.” The ECJ has concluded that the Community courts have jurisdiction, under the EC Treaty, to review the lawfulness of all Community acts in the light of the fundamental rights forming an integral part of the general principles of Community law, including review of Community measures which, such as the contested regulation, are intended to give effect to resolutions adopted by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations. Consequently, the Court ruled that the judgments under appeal must be set aside in this regard. The ECJ found that there was no need to examine the UK cross-appeal on the review of the contested regulation on the basis of the rules of international law falling within the ambit of jus cogens. But it has decided to examine the claims made by Mr Kadi and Al Barakaat concerning the breach of the rights of the defence, particularly the right to be heard, and the right to effective judicial review, created by the measures for the freezing of funds as they were imposed on the appellants by the contested regulation. The ECJ held that the rights of the defence and the right to effective judicial review were clearly not respected. The Court has pointed out that in order to enable the persons subject to restrictive measures to defend their rights the Community authorities are bound to communicate the grounds of the restrictive measures to the persons or entities concerned. The ECJ has acknowledged that the Community authorities cannot be required to communicate the grounds of restrictive measures imposed by the contested regulation before the name of a person or entity is entered in that list for the first time as this would jeopardise the effectiveness of the freezing of funds and resources imposed by that regulation.

For the same reasons, the Court also stressed that the Community authorities were not bound to hear the appellants before their names were added to the list set out in Annex I of that regulation. Nevertheless, the Court has stressed “that does not mean, with regard to the principle of effective judicial protection, that restrictive measures such as those imposed by the contested regulation escape all review by the Community judicature once it has been claimed that the act laying them down concerns national security and terrorism.” The ECJ concluded that the Common Position 2002/402 as well as the contested regulation do not provide for a procedure for communicating the evidence justifying the inclusion of the names of the persons concerned in Annex I to that regulation and for hearing those persons therefore the contested regulation was adopted under a procedure in which the rights of defence of the appellants were not observed. The Court held that because the Council failed to communicate to the appellants the evidence used against them to justify the restrictive measures imposed on them the appellants’ rights of defence and the right to an effective legal remedy have been infringed. Moreover, the ECJ also held that the imposition of the restrictive measures established in the contested regulation such as freezing of funds constitutes an unjustified restriction of Mr Kadi’s right to property.

The ECJ has held that the EU implementation of UN Security Council’s Resolutions at issue breaches fundamental rights. Hence, the Court ruled that the contested regulation, so far as it concerns the appellants, must be annulled on the grounds of breach of principles applicable in the procedure pursue when the restrictive measures introduced by that regulation were adopted. However the Court has not excluded the possibility that, on the merits of the case, the imposition of such measures on the appellants may be justified. The Court acknowledged that an annulment with immediate effect would seriously prejudice the effectiveness of the restrictive measures imposed on the applicants as they might take steps in order to prevent measures freezing funds from being applied to them again. Hence, the Court order to the effects of regulation No 881/2002 to be maintained, so far as concerns Mr Kadi and the Al Barakaat International Foundation, for a period that may not exceed three months running from the date of delivery of this judgment in order to allow the Council to remedy the infringements found. According to EUobserver the Commission has said that it would “work together with other [European] community institutions to find a general framework on how to establish sufficient mechanisms, in which targeted persons can be heard and effective judicial review can be exercised by [European] Community courts.”

For every pound of petrol, 14.29p is controlled by EU’s VAT Directives

2008-09-19T07:19:00.000-07:00

All the key industry experts agree that there is a massive injustice in the UK Government’s extortionate taxes on fuel: the UK now pays the most duty and VAT on fuel in Europe. The main fuel taxes (duty and VAT) account for around 55% of the pump price, but it is often the VAT cost which the decision-makers have ceased to question. Whilst the Treasury continues to generate an extra £123million a month in VAT compared to this time last year from drivers, already suffering under the burdens of taxes on petrol, it has agreed to maintain European Union VAT levels which it cannot now renegotiate. The explanation of why decision-makers cease to question the Chancellor’s maintenance of VAT on petrol, even as drivers continue to suffer in paying huge prices at the pumps, is because the root of its control lies with the European Commission. For every pound of petrol, 14.29p [1] is deemed unarguable because the UK Government is locked into deals it has made with the Commission:

The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been at the helm of the EU’s French Presidency, already suggested to the European Commission in May 2008 a cut in VAT on fuel. The Commission warned of the use of tax cuts on fuel and assured, under EU law, that Member States could not apply a VAT rate of less than 15% unless they were able to obtain an exemption, which requires the unlikely unanimous backing from the 27 Member States.
The United Kingdom Parliament does not have full control over VAT; the tax system and its levy standards are derived from the European Union.
The UK adopted VAT in 1973 as a condition of joining the European Economic Community and it became a replacement for the Purchase Tax and Selective Employment Tax;
The requirement to harmonise EU Member States’ systems of indirect taxation, through a VAT system, has long been embodied in Directive 77/388/EC, the Sixth VAT Directive, setting standard rate (still a minimum 15%), reduced rates, zero rate and exemptions;
Through negotiations, the UK achieved important derogations, particularly its mush disputed right to put some goods into a Zero Rate category under the condition it takes the matters up with the European Commission, who has overall say on the derogations;
The European impetus pushing for the modern transfer of taxation systems from transparent direct taxes to indirect taxes are pursued on the basis that the individual can not trace their own costs of contribution.

Worse still, for VAT payments on fuel is that the current view on taxation in the European Commission is that it would prefer Member States to adopt a completely harmonized VAT system with a “more uniform application” and asserts that the maintenance of existing reduced rates are “complicated by a multitude of derogations granted to certain Member States” and so it is working on legislation to harmonize systems in the near future. This would only lead to further fuel rate rises, absorbed through price increases.

Any tax cuts for VAT on fuel have therefore been deemed inappropriate at the European Union level, even during the petrol crisis periods. Does this, then, not convince the existing Prime Minister that we need to renegotiate our position with Europe so that it is clear that Westminster (and not Brussels) controls the taxes which are imposed upon the British people? Put aside the greedy £123million a month Treasury fortune and think about who controls the taxes that are levied upon the people of this country – Brussels or Westminster?

[1] As a % of price of Unleaded petrol, based on approximate VAT cost provided by: www.petrolprices.com

Fundamental cornerstone of British justice surrendered

2008-09-18T02:01:00.009-07:00

Last June, the Justice and Home Affairs Council reached a general approach on a draft framework decision supporting the application of the principle of mutual recognition in respect of decisions rendered in the absence of the person at the trial. Such framework decision will jeopardise fundamental principles of British justice such as the right to a fair trial.

Trials in absentia are allowed in the British law since 2001 but only in rare circumstances, nevertheless the Government has not only backed such proposal but in fact it co-sponsored it. Under the proposal a British citizen might be sentenced in a court of another EU Member State without his/her presence and then extradited to that Member State to face a prison sentence without having chance to exercise their right to defence – which does not respect the principles of a fair trial.

On 14 January, EU countries Slovenia, France, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Slovakia, the United Kingdom and Germany put forward a proposal for a Council framework decision on the enforcement of decisions rendered in absentia aiming at harmonising recognition of trials in absentia within the EU. This framework decision would amend the four existing pieces of legislation which provided for the recognition and enforcement of several judicial decisions in criminal matters: the framework decision on the European Arrest Warrant, the framework decision on the mutual recognition of financial penalties, the framework decision on the mutual recognition of confiscation orders and the draft framework decision on the mutual recognition of judgments in criminal matters imposing custodial sentences or measures involving the deprivation of liberty.

The aim of the proposal is to determine the circumstances that must be present for the enforcing country to implement a decision even though the defendant is absent at the trial. The draft framework decision introduces a criterion which, if it is not met, would allow judicial authorities of the executing country to refuse to recognise and enforce a judgment received from another Member State made in absentia. Hence, under the draft framework decision the defendants must be notified in their own language about the trial, have access to legal representation and have a right to apply for a retrial. In this case the recognition and execution of a decision rendered following a trial in absentia should not be refused.

For instance, the execution of a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) may be refused when the defendant has not appeared personally in the trial – however, the EAW states that one of four cases applies: the defendant has received an official information of date and place of trial in due time in order to be allowed to exercise his rights of defence; the defendant had appointed a legal representative and was represented by this person at the trial; the defendant has been served with the decision and, having been informed about the right to a retrial has stated that he did not contest the decision or did not request a retrial. However, the right to a retrial following judgements in absentia is an inadequate safeguard.

The draft proposal is to be adopted through the consultation procedure with unanimity required at the Council. The European Parliament has issued its opinion on this proposal on 2 September 2008. The European Parliament approved the proposal for a framework decision on enforcement of decisions rendered in absentia by 609 votes in favour, 60 against and 14 with amendments. Under the consultation procedure the Council is not bound by the Parliament’s position but only under the obligation to consult it. The European Parliament wants to strengthen the rights of persons judged in absentia but it also wants to ease the application of the principle of mutual recognition. The European Parliament has called for the adoption of the framework decision on procedural rights in criminal proceedings as soon as possible.

The MEPs have defined cases in which the enforcement of the decision rendered following a trial at which the person concerned did not appear in person can be refused. The European Parliament has stressed that it must be “unequivocally established that the person was aware of the trial.” Moreover, according to the European Parliament, the system of a retrial does not exist in all Member States. Hence, it has proposed that the person concerned has the right to participate in the retrial or appeal.

According to the European Voice, the European Criminal Bar Association (ECBA) and the German Federal Bar have criticised this framework decision as they believe it would be difficult for member states to refuse requests which are not properly justified to extradite their nationals to other EU Member States. According to the ECBA, the proposal “simply facilitates the execution of in absentia judgements.” There are also concerns over violation of the procedural rights of the defendant. Under the system of mutual recognition, the UK is prevented from challenging any judgment from a court of another member state and is required to execute it. Philip Bradbourn, MEP, Conservative justice and home affairs spokesman in the European Parliament has said “This proposal goes against one of the most fundamental cornerstones of British justice – that the accused has a right to defend himself at trial. … Not content with eroding our liberties in Westminster, Labour is also undermining them in Brussels.” The proposal will go back to the Council to be formally adopted and it will not take long to be implemented as EU law.

Margarida Vasconcelos, The European Foundation

EU wants détente with Belarus

2008-09-18T02:01:00.008-07:00

Poland and some other EU states have called for the EU to adopt a more positive attitude towards Belarus. The Polish Foreign Minister, Radek Sikorski, has said that he wants to give “democratic forces” a chance there. He was supported in this by Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Minister. Both men are known for their strongly pro-American politics. The EU commissar for foreign affairs, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, said that the Belarusian Foreign Minister should be invited to the next meeting of the European Council in Brussels in order to discuss reforms. Following the presidential elections in March 2006, the EU froze the foreign assets of the Belarusian President and 35 other senior officials. Radio and TV stations were given for the support of the opposition. The President, Alexander Lukashenko, has been in power since 1994 and is widely decried in the West as a dictator. But even his worst enemies in Belarus admit that he enjoys huge support in the population and that the pro-Western opposition is regarded with suspicion. [Handelsblatt, 6 September 2008]

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Cheeky Czechs

2008-09-18T02:01:00.007-07:00

The Czech government has produced a short advertisement for its upcoming presidency of the European Union which has raised a few eyebrows. To the tune of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, the clip shows an apparently anodyne meeting, as if between euro-officials, but on closer inspection it turns out that all the characters are famous Czechs – a conductor, a football player, a dancer, a cancer research specialist, a model etc. They play with sugar cubes around the table and then finally one of them drops a cube into a small cup of espresso. The slogan comes up, which apparently is to be the slogan for the presidency as a whole – Evropĕ to Osladíme. The slogan means either “We will sweeten Europe”, “We will give Europe a rough time” or “We will give Europe a sweet taste of its own medicine.” One assumes that the double-entendre is deliberate and that it is intended to reach out to the relatively Eurosceptic Czech population. [The clip can be seen on YouTube]

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Yes, we have no more straight cucumbers

2008-09-18T02:01:00.006-07:00

Fed up with decades of hostile propaganda about its rules on the shape and size of cucumbers (propaganda which has always been attacked as unfounded by the EU defenders) the EU commission has decided to abandon its rules on straight cucumbers and on 25 other types of fruit and vegetables. The Chairman of the Anti-Bureaucracy Group in the EU commission, Edmund Stoiber (the former Bavarian Prime Minister) says, “Everyone knows what a cucumber is.” Yet there are rules on the EU on everything from cucumbers to hazel nuts, garlic and watermelons. Some people, however, think that the rules should stay. The man responsible for fruit and vegetable affairs in the German farmers’ union, Hans-Dieter Stallknecht, says that no one in the industry has called for these rules to be abolished and that the move now is being itself driven by pure politics. Stallknecht (which means “Stable Boy” in German) says that the Commission is going to damage a system which functions well just in order to show that it is acting against bureaucracy. Other EU states seem to agree: when the matter was put to a vote, only 8 states voted in favour and all the major agrarian states including Germany, France and Italy voted against. Indeed, the national bureaucracies are likely to fight against the EU bureaucracy’s attempt to reduce bureaucracy. In any case, the Commission wants to abolish only 26 out of its 36 rules on fruit and veg: it wants to keep the rules on the 10 most important products, including apples and tomatoes, which in any case form 75 per cent of the market. In any case, the EU’s rules are in fact 99 per cent identical to those of the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva, where they indeed have their origin. The origin of the straight cucumber, indeed, lies not in Brussels but in Geneva. So even if EU directive 1677/88 is abolished, which provides for the straightness of “extra” class cucumbers, then the cucumbers themselves will remain unchanged since their shape is regulated by a UNECE rule which says they cannot bend by more than 10mm for every 10cm of length. [Hendrik Kafsack, Handelsblatt, 2 September 2008]

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EU wants to control national economic policies

2008-09-18T02:01:00.005-07:00

Jean-Claude Juncker having been reappointed (as predicted in the Digest in August) to a third term as the head of the Eurogroup, the Council of Finance Ministers which oversees economic policy in the euro zone has now said that it needs to have more control over the economic policy in order to manage the economy better. Calls are growing in the euro zone for more “early warning systems” to be introduced so that the policies of the euro states can be better controlled. The commissar for economic policy, Joaquín Almunia, told the German business daily, Handelsblatt, “In the Eurogroup and in the EU-wide Council of Finance Ministers, we must have more discussions about how to solve the structural problems in our economies, for instance excessive labour costs, inflation rates or budget deficits. We must talk about these things regularly in future, not sporadically as at present.” Almunia said that the euro zone had suffered brutally from the credit crunch, especially Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and Greece. In these countries, he said, wage costs had risen far faster than the average euro zone rate. As a result, the international competitivity of these states had suffered and the effects of this were now clear.

The German Finance Minister, Peer Steinbrück, is also worried about the lack of coordination between euro zone states. At the last meeting of the EU Council of Finance Ministers, he called for a fundamental debate about the above-inflation rises in wages. Steinbrück said that his fear was that the weaker euro states would soon start to blame the European Central Bank for their woes, for instance presumably by demanding an inflationary increase in the money supply in order to counter the effects of the credit crunch. In other words, the old German fear that its economic policy would be determined by laxist “Club Med” states has returned, spurred on no doubt by the difficult economic times.

Germany, therefore, like the European Commission, wants the euro zone states to work more closely together on economic policy – or, to be more precise, that they follow Germany’s lead. However, the Germans naturally do not want to be seen to be pressurising the smaller states and so they want Jean-Claude Juncker, who is Prime Minister of the EU’s smallest state, to front the show. [Handelsblatt, 3 September 2008]

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German army official says his country “at war”

2008-09-18T02:01:00.004-07:00

The Chairman of the German Army Association, Bernhard Gertz, has attacked the German government for downplaying the military situation in Afghanistan. He said that his country was “at war against an all too determined, fanatical enemy.” Gertz said that it was wrong for the government to have said that a 29 year old German soldier killed in Afghanistan had “died”. “The truth is that he gave his life for the Federal Republic of Germany”, he said. He said that the language of the press release was obscuring the true nature of the combat.

Germany’s participation in the NATO mission to Afghanistan has always been controversial. Yet the opposition Green Party, which used to be known for its pacifism, continues to support it. A Green politician, Jürgen Trittin, has recently said that he opposes an early withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan in spite of the fact that the situation on the ground is deteriorating there. [Die Welt, 3 September 2008]

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Kosovo recognition runs into the sands

2008-09-18T02:01:00.003-07:00

According to the Albanian daily, Koha Ditore, Kosovo’s campaign to become a member of the United Nations by the end of this year has run into the sands. Although the majority of the EU states and the USA have recognised the independence of Kosovo from Serbia, only 45 states in the world have followed them in this. This is less than a quarter of the existing Member States of the UN (there are nearly 200 states in the world now) and therefore there is little chance that the organisation will admit Kosovo as a member. [www.b92.net, August 2008]

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Dutch resist pressure to bring in Serbia

2008-09-18T02:01:00.002-07:00

The Dutch government is resisting pressure to accelerate Serbia’s entry to the EU. Following a meeting between the Serbian President, Boris Tadic, and the President of the European Commission, which led to strong hints that Serbia might become a candidate country by 2009, The Hague has said that any progress towards EU membership must be strictly linked to the arrest of General Ratko Mladic, wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and still at large. The Dutch Foreign Minister, Maxime Verhagen, said, “We are absolutely clear about Serbia: we have taken a decision, united, that there is a need for full cooperation' with war-crimes prosecutors. Full cooperation does mean the arrests of those who are still not put before the tribunal.” The attitude of the Netherlands stands in contrast to that of nearly all other EU states, who want to move ahead faster with Serbian accession following the recent arrest of Radovan Karadzic. [Bloomberg, 6 September 2008]

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Serbia applies to UN over Kosovo

2008-09-18T02:01:00.001-07:00

Serbia has submitted its request to the General Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations asking for it to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legality of Kosovo’s unilateral proclamation of independence, which has been recognised by most EU states and by the USA. A decision by the General Committee is expected around the middle of September but even if the case goes to the ICJ, it could be several years before the court rules. [Beta, Belgrade, 29 August 2008]

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Revolution devours children

2008-09-18T02:01:00.000-07:00

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague has issued an indictment for contempt of court against the former spokesman for the Prosecution, Florence Hartmann. Hartmann, a former journalist for Le Monde, is one of the attack dogs of modern international justice and she has always taken a very partisan line on the Balkans. In her kiss-and-tell book recounting her experiences, Hartmann attacks the judges of the tribunal, as well as her former boss, for allegedly accepting a deal with Belgrade whereby certain minutes of the country’s Supreme Defence Council could be submitted only in part.

According to her, these documents in fact contained information which could have been used to prove Serbia’s complicity in atrocities committed by the Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia if they had been submitted in their entirety. Serbia would then have been condemned for genocide as a state before the International Court of Justice, where a case had been brought by Bosnia. Now the judges have exacted their own revenge by indicting Hartmann for allegedly revealing confidential information in her book, and in an article published online by the Bosnia Institute.

It is ironic that Hartmann herself was still the Prosecutor’s spokeswoman when two Croatian journalists, Domagoj Margetic and Josip Jovic, were themselves indicted for contempt of court although in fact they had only republished information which was already in the public domain. (Their indictment was eventually withdrawn.) The full text of the Hartmann’s indictment can be found on the web site of the ICTY under the section dealing with the Milosevic trial. [www.un.org.icty]. If convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of seven years in prison and a fine of $150,000 although to date no one convicted of contempt has received such a punishment.

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Mosque gets go-ahead in Cologne

2008-09-16T03:46:00.000-07:00

The city authorities in Cologne, a town known mainly for its great cathedral, have given the go-ahead for the construction of a large mosque with two 55 metre high minarets. The construction of the mosque has been very controversial, with one German Holocaust survivor attacking the project as “a demonstration of the power of Islam”. Cologne is home to the main Islamic organisation in Germany and there has in fact been a Muslim house of prayer on the site which is now going to be used for the mosque. German language courses and course in citizenship and integration are to be taught there, and sermons are to be translated. A large demonstration against the project is planned for 19 September. [Die Welt, 29 August 2008]

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Child migrants flood into Europe

2008-09-16T02:53:00.000-07:00

As the European Union has started to send back illegal immigrants when they are caught without papers, ever more children are trying illegally to cross the Mediterranean in order to enter Europe. The ports of Morocco are full of hundreds of children as young as nine who live there, begging and sniffing glue (from which they occasionally die). They are sent, of course, by their own families, as the local UNICEF officials admit. Often whole villages club together to pay the 3,000 – 5,000 euros which are needed to pay the people traffickers. (The OSCE estimates that people trafficking now earns more money than drug running.) The children then work in Europe and send money home; because of the laws against repatriating children, they generally can stay even if they are caught by the police. In 2006 alone, more than one thousand children were stranded on the beaches of the Canaries (a favourite destination for illegal immigrants) and Spain, like many countries, has signed a UN convention which requires them to be housed, not sent back. There are now therefore some 7,000 child refugees living in Spain without their families. They try to survive until they are 18 at which time they can become legal residents. The children employ ever more inventive ruses to overcome the security measures which the port authorities use in order to try to prevent them reaching the boats. For instance, after the introduction of guard dogs, many of the children were bitten when they climbed over the fences to get to the quayside. But then they caught a bitch and lowered her down behind the fence on a rope: the guard dogs’ attention was sufficiently distracted in order to give them free passage. One of the children told a journalist he had hidden in the spare wheel box of a caravan – he eventually got caught in Spain and was nonetheless sent back to Morocco, from whence he is again trying to enter Europe. The children are completely fearless and they regularly take such risks that many of them do die. Ever smaller boats are being used to carry the illegals across the Mediterranean, often exclusively children. Of the 3,500 who drowned at sea last year trying to cross to Europe, therefore, many were children. Many accidents occur in the ports themselves, as children are run over by lorries, for instance: there are child casualties in the local hospital every day. [Die Welt, 26 August 2008]

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Change of guard in German SPD

2008-09-16T02:49:00.000-07:00

In an extraordinary meeting of the presidium of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the party leader, Kurt Beck, suddenly resigned. The new strong man in the party is the Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is also one of the country’s strongest ministers. His profile has been raised by the crisis with Russia, where he has taken a strong line in favour of a cool reaction to the conflict in Georgia. Steinmeier, indeed, is a disciple of the pro-Russian former Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder. Following Beck’s unexpected resignation, Steinmeier suggested that Frank Müntefering, currently Vice Chancellor and Labour Minister, become party leader and that he, Steinmeier, be the party’s next candidate for Chancellor. Both decisions were accepted. (It is typical in Germany for the party leader not to be the candidate for the head of the government.) This means that Steinmeier is now in fact Angela Merkel’s rival, since he wants her job at the same time as serving in her government. Naturally this will increase tensions within the Grand Coalition government. Some voices in the CDU have attacked the SPD, with which they govern in a grand coalition, for its internal instability. They no doubt also fear the return of the influence of Schröder: the CDU leader, Angela Merkel, has taken a virulently anti-Russian line over the Georgian crisis and has been reined in only by Steinmeier. [Süddeutsche Zeitung, 8 September 2008]

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Lithuania caught between a rock and a hard place

2008-09-12T08:26:00.001-07:00

One of the conditions imposed on Lithuania by the EU before it could become a member was that it had to agree to close down its nuclear power station at Ignalina. It has agreed to do this by 2010. However, since the power station produces 90 per cent of Lithuania’s electricity, it will become even more dependent on Russian energy exports than before once it is closed. Moreover, Russia has just announced that it is building a new nuclear power station in Kaliningrad region, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania, and that it will use this station to export electricity to those states and elsewhere in the EU. The Estonians are also claiming to be afraid of a newly resurgent Russia: their secret services claim that a lot of new Russian passports have been given out recently. About one-third of Estonia’s inhabitants are Russians but the Estonian state, like the Latvian, has done everything to make them feel unwelcome, especially by refusing to give them citizenship. Many of them are therefore stateless. But, the Estonian authorities claim, if they now have Russian passports then Russia will claim the right to defend them just as it defended the South Ossetian Russian passport holders in Georgia. [Handelsblatt, 28 August 2008]

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Russia tests inter-continental missile

2008-09-12T08:25:00.002-07:00

In the middle of the Georgia crisis, Russia has tested an inter-continental ballistic missile. The 45 tonne Topol missile was launched from the North-Western Russian town of Plessezk and landed some 6,000 km away on target in Kamchatka in the Pacific Ocean. The Russian authorities stated that the missile was capable of avoiding anti-missile technologies like the one which is to be stationed in Poland. According to the Russian army, this was a routine test which had nothing to do with the deteriorating situation between East and West.

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EU-Russia: Schröder strikes again

2008-09-12T08:25:00.001-07:00

The former German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, has again supported Russia and attacked the West over the Georgia crisis. In a speech to a group promoting workers’ welfare, the former Chancellor said that the West had committed “serious mistakes” in its relations with Russia and that these mistakes were seen as “intolerable” in Moscow. He said that Russia had to react to the policy of “encirclement” being pursued by the West, with encroachments in the Caucasus and Europe (where the new anti-missile shield is being stationed). He conceded that Russia’s reaction may have been exaggerated but that “it depends who started it”. He said that the recognition of Kosovo was a mistake (even though he was Chancellor when NATO, including Germany, attacked Yugoslavia over Kosovo) and that he hoped for “more cooperation” after the US Presidential elections in November. He said that the Social Democratic Party could be proud of the efforts of the current Foreign Minister of Germany, Frank Walter Steinmeier, who has indeed pursued a very Schröderian line. His speech was roundly attacked by members of the Christian Democratic Party, one of whom accused him of aligning his foreign policy positions according to his personal interests. Schröder, indeed, is head of the consortium building the trans-Baltic pipeline which will transport Russian gas directly to Germany. [Die Welt, 1 September 2008]

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EU Council condemns Russia

2008-09-12T08:23:00.002-07:00

Following its extraordinary meeting in Brussels, held to discuss the conflict between Russia and Georgia, EU heads of state and government have issued a statement condemning the Russian intervention but have stopped short of imposing any sanctions. They expressed their desire to continue developing strong relations with Russia but suspended any further meetings to discuss the partnership agreement with Russia. Given that the EU had been unable to reach an agreement on access to the Russian oil and gas network anyway, this was hardly a strong gesture. The EU leaders called on other states in the world not to recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia and indeed there are probably few that will. But Turkish recognition of Northern Cyprus (the only country in the world to do so) has not prevented the EU from inviting Turkey to become a Member State and so Moscow is unlikely to be very peturbed by this. [Statement of European Council, 1 September 2008] It seems likely that the refusal to apply any sanctions against Russia (and still less to use military force) is thanks to France and Germany. Leaks in the French and German press before the summit indicated that there would be no sanctions. These leaks came from the Elysée Palace and from the German government. The German Foreign Minister, for instance, Frank Walter Steinmeier, was vocal in his insistence that there should be no sanctions and he specifically attacked statements coming from Paris (he undoubtedly meant his opposite number, Bernard Kouchner). Steinmeier said, “Even in this serious political situation, it is important that we allow a trace of common sense to prevail. Russia is going to continue to be our neighbour and it is in our own interest to return to a normal relationship with her.” Steinmeier has for long adopted a pro-Russian profile, in striking contrast to the Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who although a Russian speaker and a former Communist, has now adopted a very anti-Russian line. Following the leaks from Berlin, source in Paris said that Mr. Kouchner had never meant to call for sanctions but instead only that the French presidency would strive to reach a common position. The Russian Foreign Minister, meanwhile, was very forthright in his denunciation of the EU and its initial threat of sanctions. He said that Kouchner’s suggestion that Russia would soon attack Moldova or Ukraine or the Crimea were the product of “a sick fantasy” and that calls for sanctions were “a demonstration of complete confusion”. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 28 August 2008]

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EU: Pöttering shakes his fist

2008-09-12T08:23:00.001-07:00

The President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, has strenuously denied that the EU is powerless to act against the Russian intervention in Georgia. In an interview with an Italian newspaper, he insisted that Europe was strong and united. As an example, he cited the fact that the European extraordinary summit meeting in Brussels – as if a meeting were enough to undo a military act. In spite of all of his bluster and insistence on the need for Russia to respect international law, therefore, it is obvious that the EU will in fact do nothing. Indeed, its own position is of course weakened by the fact that most EU states have themselves recognised the unilateral proclamation of independence by Kosovo, while the EU as such has set up an administration in Kosovo (EULEX) whose status is nowhere to be found in the relevant UN resolutions which of course put the territory under UN (not EU) administration.

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Kouchner attacks ‘Russian threat’

2008-09-12T08:22:00.000-07:00

As the EU tried to profile itself in the Georgian crisis – Presidency Sarkozy has been to both Georgia and Russia twice now, the calculation presumably being that the Americans are too busy with their election campaigns – the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, issued a dire warning about future Russian aggression. Following Moscow’s military intervention in Georgia, Kouchner said that Russia may have “other goals” such as “the Crimea, Ukraine and Moldova” following Moscow’s controversial decision to recognise the secessionist territories of South Ossetia and Georgia. “It is very dangerous,” Kouchner said. His tone differed slightly from that of President Sarkozy, who – at least at the beginning of the conflict – tried to present himself as a broker between Georgia and Russia. [Le Monde, 27 August 2008]

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Russia threatens retaliation over Georgia

2008-09-12T08:21:00.002-07:00

The Russian ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, has explained in an interview with Le Monde what Russia will do if Georgia is now fast-tracked into NATO. “We will terminate all contact with NATO because we cannot cooperate with an organisation which supports an aggressor against us. If NATO makes another mistake in its relations with the East, we will be unable to continue our relations. Our people will not understand. For us, it is a “red line”. Rogozin said that NATO had multiplied its hostile acts towards Russia and that the accession of the Baltic States had only strengthened the alliance’s anti-Russian attitude. Asked if the crisis would strengthen the resolve of NATO to admit Georgia, Rogozin said that such a decision would mean that the Europeans were supporting “a war criminal” – Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian President – who was “a puppet of the United States”. “Saakashvili tried to smash the barrier preventing his country’s accesion to NATO by trying physically to eliminate the inhabitants of South Ossetia and Abkazia.” Rogozin confirmed that Russian troops would soon leave Georgian territory but that they would stay in South Ossetia and Abkazia if asked to by their respective governments. Asked if cooperation with NATO could re-start, Rogozin replied, “If the Americans send their fleet into the Black Sea, if they rearm Saakashvili, if they continue to call the aggressor a victim and the victim an aggressor, then what cooperation can one talk about?” [Interview in Le Monde, 7 November 2008]

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Russia attacks Cheney

2008-09-12T08:21:00.001-07:00

After the fighting had died down, a rather tired-looking Dick Cheney travelled to Tbilisi to show support for Georgia and its prospects for joining NATO. Russia immediately attacked the American Vice-President for supporting Georgian aggression. A spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Cheney’s gesture would strengthen “the dangerous feeling of impunity” and “dangerous ambition” in Georgia. Cheney told his Georgian host, President Mikheil Saakashvili, that the flagship of the US 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean had been despatched to the Georgian port of Poti. Cheney said that this ship, which is equipped with the most modern surveillance equipment, was delivering baby food to the people of Georgia. The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman questioned whether indeed the ship was being used for this purpose. “Navy ships of this class are ill suited to the transport of large quantities of aid,” he said. “They have plenty of space for the crew’s supplies but do they have room for dozens of tons of aid?” Cheney then travelled to Ukraine, where the pro-Western President, Victor Yushchenko, is increasingly beleaguered as his own government has turned against him and is trying to take away his powers. [Süddeutsche Zeitung, 5 September 2008]

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Ukraine asks for strong sign from Europe

2008-09-12T08:20:00.002-07:00

Ukraine has asked the EU to give it a strong signal that it will be accepted as a candidate state. It has asked for this to be given at the EU summit in Evian on 9 September. The Ukrainian authorities are trying to profit from Europe’s need to be seen to be doing something about Georgia and they evidently hope that EU leaders will react by offering the country swift membership. [Le Monde, 29 August 2008] However, the crisis in the government will make it extremely difficult for the EU to fast-track the country, when EU membership (and even more so NATO membership) enjoys only controversial support in the country.

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Ukraine coalition collapses

2008-09-12T08:20:00.001-07:00

The Georgian crisis has had an immediate effect on the politics of another Black Sea state which wants to join NATO and the EU – Ukraine. As discussed in the last Digest, there has been a bitter falling-out between the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, and the country’s Prime Minister, Julia Timoshenko. Now that falling out has translated into a collapse in the coalition between the two leaders respective parties. The cause of the crisis was the failure of Timoshenko’s government to criticise Russia over Georgia. Yushchenko immediately turned with even greater fury on his former ally, accusing her of mounting a “coup” against him because her party voted with Viktor Yanukovich’s Party of the Regions to reduce the powers of the presidency. (Much Ukrainian politics in recent years has consisted in a struggle for power between the Presidency and the government.) Now there is talk of a parliamentary coalition and government being formed by Timoshenko and Yanukovich, the man who lost the presidential election to Yushchenko in 2004. [Handelsblatt & other papers, 3 September 2008]

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Georgia: Saakashvili feels the heat

2008-09-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

The Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, is facing increasing pressure from the opposition following Georgia’s defeat over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Independent media are calling for an end to the current censorship rules so that the truth can be established about who is responsible for the crisis. The temporary alliance between the government and the opposition, which came into being during the hostilities, has now begun to break down. Eighty members of the opposition have written an open letter demanding to know whether and why Saakashvili ignored warnings from the USA when he attacked South Ossetia. The letter attacks the government censorship and says that the “extreme propaganda” in the Georgian media blames everyone – “aggressive Russia, the ignorant West, the opposition, Russian spies, etc. etc. but never the government itself”. But, the authors go on, it is the government itself, and its “unprofessional and undemocratic attitude” which bears responsibility for the “catastrophic consequences” of the conflict. The leader of the opposition Christian Democratic party, Georgiy Targamadze, has also said, “It will be difficult to prove that Georgia did not begin this war.” Commentators say that the pressure on Saakashvili is likely to increase, as there are thousands of homeless people now in Georgia as a result of the war. [Die Welt, 5 September 2008]

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Gordon Brown’s £1 billion household energy package – a result of bungled EU climate change policy

2008-09-12T05:44:00.000-07:00

Jim McConalogue of The European Foundation said:

“Gordon Brown’s £1 billion household energy package is not only naïve, unprincipled and cosmetic, but marks a failure of the Labour Government after adopting a botched EU climate change policy. His attempt to offer £910 million to pay for all low-income and pensioner families to get free loft and cavity insulation, with six million others offered half-price deals, is a short term fix. Basic economics will prove that those energy companies will now be forced to hit the consumers in the long-term with increased prices. Those are the terms of Brown’s daylight robbery of the Big Six power companies.

“This is not merely a national failure – it is a failure of its European Union climate change policy. Brown’s national energy package has been presented as a ‘better alternative’ to a windfall tax. The windfall tax was itself debated by the Labour Party because the Government signed itself up to a European climate change initiative and got its figures completely wrong. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which was designed to tackle climate change through anti-pollution measures, ended up awarding large and substantial funds to energy companies. Labour has already realized the extent of the losses but will do nothing. It is already reported to have cost the UK economy up to £530 million a year. To rob the cash he lost on his bungled EU anti-pollution climate change policy, Brown is now pumping grand sums of money, £1 billion in fact, to prop up consumer energy and home bills.

“To cover his mistakes on a massively destructive EU policy, Brown has decided to give away the money to cover himself. It will not rub off on the voters and the Prime Minister has already been rumbled. But it is on Europe, not merely his failed economic recovery plan, where he got the sums wrong.”

‘No’ means ‘No’: French lunacy in Brussels is no cure for Irish ‘No’ vote

2008-09-12T01:45:00.000-07:00

In response to the discovery of an internal EU briefing paper group written by French European officials, demanding a second referendum in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty, rather than comprehend the original Irish ‘No’ vote, Jim McConalogue of the European Foundation has said:

“The internal EU briefing paper, ‘The Solution to the Irish Problem’ ensuring that Dublin must have a second referendum, is wholly anti-democratic. Whether its contents come to fruition will confirm once and for all, who governs Ireland – the Irish or the European Union?

“How odd it is that the French President wants Europe to assert democracy in Russia yet his countrymen’s own EU officials cannot assert democracy in Europe. Talk about defecating on one's own doorstep.

“The attempts by ‘Le Amis du Traite de Lisbonne’ and EU officials to circumvent the will of the Irish people in ratifying the Lisbon Treaty are proof of the stupendous but forceful idealism in the European Union. There is no democratic method or process which justifies senior European official’s asserting that the EU will instruct a national parliament to hold another referendum until they get their ‘yes’ – as if its rejection by a nation has meant nothing.

“To carry on this manner and without principle is an attack first on the Irish people who said ‘No’ to this Treaty and second it is an assault on the reasoned and right-minded 500 million citizens within the European Union whose national governments must not allow this abuse of democracy to go on.”
“It couldn’t be clearer. This latest development shows the anti-democratic lunacy of EU thinking in bulldozing over the Irish ‘No’ vote. ”

Is CAP “designed to kill Europeans” through heart disease?

2008-09-04T03:04:00.000-07:00

As if it were not enough that CAP imposes substantial costs on developing countries as well on EU consumers and taxpayers, according to a new study published in the July Bulletin of the World Health Organization, CAP is also to blame for cardiovascular mortality (www.who.int). The study pointed out that CAP has increased availability and consumption of products which contain saturated fats and that the EU spends €16 billion a year in supporting the dairy industry.

The study stressed that “These full-fat dairy products are a significant source of saturated fat to the population, potentially increasing coronary heart disease (CHD) and obesity.” Consequently the authors of the study argued that CAP has now become “a hazard to public health throughout the EU and may be promoting inequalities in health through the types of food consumed.”

CAP itself has been described as “a system designed to kill Europeans through CHD.” The objective of the study was to estimate the burden of cardiovascular disease (CVDs) as a result of excess dietary saturated fats attributable to CAP in 15 EU Member States before the 2004 enlargement. The authors quantified the CAP subsidies for dairy and meat products through impact on cardiovascular mortality, making several calculations based on population mortality rates and dietary information.

They concluded that “The estimated mortality contribution attributable to CAP was approximately 9800 additional CHD deaths and 3000 additional stroke deaths within the EU ….” The authors believe that “Reducing saturated fat consumption by 1 per cent and increasing monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat by 0.5 per cent each would lower blood cholesterol levels by approximately 0.06 mmol/l, resulting in approximately 9800 fewer coronary heart disease deaths and 3000 fewer stroke deaths each year.” CAP is to blame for cardiovascular diseases and stroke deaths. The authors believe that “changes in CAP subsides would particularly benefit France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.”

-- From The European Journal. Sign up for FREE to Margarida Vasconcelos' 'Through the EU Labyrinth' reports and John Laughland's 'Intelligence Digest' to find out what’s really happening in Europe --

We have a “two speed” Europe for cross border divorce law

2008-09-04T03:02:00.000-07:00

News @ The Justice and Home Affairs Council. Raising concerns of a “two speed” Europe, a group of EU Member States has decided to proceed with further EU integration having decided to go ahead with enhanced cooperation to by-pass the veto of other Member States in order to adopt common rules to designate the law applicable to cross border divorce cases. The Council Regulation 2201/2003, the so called Brussels II Regulation, provides for rules on jurisdiction and on recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters but the applicable law is determined according to the domestic conflict of laws rules. In 2006, the European Commission presented a proposal for a regulation on Applicable law and Jurisdiction in Matrimonial Matters, amending the Brussels II Regulation. The so called Rome III proposal introduces the possibility for the spouses to determine by common agreement the competent court in proceedings concerning divorce and legal separation. The choice of the party is not unrestricted – there must be a “substantial connection” with the Member State in question, hence the Member State chosen must be the place of the last common habitual residence of the parties or the Member State of nationality of one of the spouses. The Commission has pointed out that Brussels II Article 7 refers to the national rules on international jurisdiction in cases where the spouses are not habitually resident in the territory of a Member State and do not have common nationality. The national rules have different criteria and according to the Commission there may be cases where no EU Member State or a third State has jurisdiction to deal with an application for divorce.

The Commission has therefore decided to introduce a uniform rule on residual jurisdiction aimed at ensuring access to court for spouses who live in a third countries but would like to bring proceedings in a Member State with which they have a close connections: they are nationals or live in a country in which they have resided for a certain period. The draft regulation also introduces harmonised conflict-of-law rules to decide which law applies to the divorce and legal separation proceedings based, firstly, on the choice of the spouses. It introduces the possibility for the spouses to choose the applicable law to divorce and legal separation.

Such choice is limited to laws of countries with which the parties have a connection taking into account their last common habitual residence if one of them still resides there, the nationality of one of the spouses, the law of the State of their previous habitual residence, or the law of the forum. The draft regulation also sets up criteria to determine the applicable law in cross-border divorces in case of absence of choice by the spouses. The draft proposal defines several connecting factors hence a cross border divorce is to be ruled by the law of the country of the spouses common habitual residence, or failing that, by the law of the country of their last common habitual residence if one of them still resides there, or failing that, the law of the state of common nationality of the parties or failing that, by the law of the forum. The Commission has stressed that the draft proposal is meant to be of universal application – hence the conflict-of-law rule can designate the law of a Member State of the European Union or the law of a third state.

The Rome III Regulation would not harmonise Member States substantive divorce laws but will rule on conflict of laws. Nevertheless, the application of non-national law in domestic courts is a very controversial issue. The Justice and Home Affairs Council have failed to reach an agreement on the draft proposal. As abovementioned, the Rome III aims to set up rules for determining which law is applicable in divorce cases when the court is in a different member state from the country of at least one of the spouses. There are different opinions, especially between those Member States which apply lex fori and those which apply conflict of law rules to determine applicable law and apply foreign law within their systems. The UK as well as Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, and Sweden apply the lex fori – hence, once jurisdiction is determined the courts apply domestic rules to a divorce case. Obviously, the Commission proposal entails substantial changes in the laws of several Member States especially in those which apply lex fori. Consequently, the UK has decided not opted in to such proposal. Moreover, Rome III could apply to cases with no connection with the internal market as it extends applicable law to non-Member State law. The Commission’s draft proposal raises subsidiarity issues. Several Member States could not support the measure on the grounds of subsidiarity and proportionality principles. Family and marriage are very sensitive issues and they are at the core of Member States’ traditions. Member States substantive domestic divorce laws vary substantially, so it is little wonder that the draft proposal could not achieve unanimous support. The draft proposal on Applicable law and Jurisdiction in Matrimonial Matters has been blocked, mainly by Sweden. Sweden could not accept the application of foreign divorce laws in its courts. At a recent Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting, member states came to the conclusion that the required unanimity to adopt the proposal on the law applicable in matrimonial matters (Rome III Regulation) could not be obtained. The solution found at the Council meeting was to proceed through enhanced cooperation. Consequently some member states would be allowed to proceed with the legislation whereas others would not participate.

So, in order to by-pass Sweden’s veto, a group of nine EU Member States Austria, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovenia and Spain having indicated that they support the aims of the draft regulation and that it is not possible to reach an agreement. Therefore, they want to adopt it through the enhanced cooperation method. Those Member States have written to the European Commission formally requesting it to prepare a legislative proposal for enhanced cooperation, and for the first time activated this mechanism. The Commission will submit a proposal based on the request before the end of the year. The Commission has said that it would like to see, in order to prevent legal fragmentation, as many member states as possible involved in the enhanced cooperation. But that should not be a problem as several other Member States, Germany, Belgium, Portugal and Lithuania are already considering joining the initiative. Authorisation to establish enhanced cooperation would be granted by the Council, acting by a qualified majority on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament. Hence, other member states are not able to veto and prevent other member states to press ahead with further integration. Such a move will eventually lead to a “two-speed Europe.” The provisions on enhanced cooperation had never been put into effect – therefore, their possible outcome is still being debated. But, one thing is for sure, enhance cooperation reinforces the integration process.

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Commission’s eco proposal will damage small businesses

2008-09-04T03:00:00.000-07:00

News @ European Commission. In aiming to achieve sustainable production, the European Commission has recently proposed a package of measures which are likely to have a severe impact on small business. According to the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, UEAPME, the European Commission Action Plan “might put small businesses at a competitive disadvantage and in some cases price them out of the market, (…).” The Commission, on 16 July, adopted a communication on the Sustainable Consumption and Production and Sustainable Industrial Policy which presents an Action Plan aiming at improving the energy and environmental performance of products. Among the measures proposed by the Commission is the review of the Directive on the Ecodesign of energy-using products. The Commission has been promising to reduce bureaucracy and introduce measures to encourage small and medium sized enterprises however the review of the Ecodesign Directive will put on regulatory burdens and increase costs therefore it will discourage small businesses.

The 2005 Ecodesign Directive introduced rules establishing ecodesign requirements for energy-using products. It set ups a framework under which producers of energy using products are obliged, at the design stage, to reduce energy consumption which occurs throughout the product life. The directive determines the conditions and criteria to the Commission to adopt requirements for products through the comitology procedure. Manufacturers who are marketing an energy using a product covered by an implementing measure adopted by the Commission are obliged to ensure that their product observes the energy and environmental standards put forward by that measure.

The energy-using products which comply with implementing measures possess a CE marking and are placed on the internal market. However, it is not clear yet if such measures will make improvements in energy efficiency.

The Ecodesign Directive only currently applies to energy-using products such as heating, water heaters, electric motor systems, lighting, domestic appliances. The Commission has proposed, as part of its Action Plan, to extend the scope of the Ecodesign Directive to cover all energy-related products, keeping the exception to means of transport.

The Commission wants to put in place a single Community framework establishing ecodesign requirements and therefore wants to harmonise national laws on those requirements for all significant energy related products. Energy-related products are defined in the draft directive as “any good having an impact on energy consumption during use which is placed on the market and/or put into service in the European Union” such as window frames, water-using devices and insulating materials. The revised Ecodesign Directive would cover all energy-related products and set compulsory minimum requirements to put the products on the market. However, the definition of such products is far from precise.

Obviously, since the Commission has proposed to extend the scope of the Directive there will be a widened choice of product groups for which implementing measures can be adopted. The Commission urges industry to develop benchmarks and standards for several products that would be affected by the proposal otherwise the Commission will regulate specific standards when it deems the industry initiatives to be insufficient. The Commission has stressed that “Legislative measures may be needed where market forces fail to evolve in the right direction or at an acceptable speed.” The Commission will develop implementing measures for products with significant environmental impact, and consider potential room for improvement in its environmental impact. The products which will be targeted by the so-called implementing measures still need to be determined. The Commission will put forward a working plan setting out an indicative list of product groups considered to be as priorities meaning those which have a significant environmental impact for the adoption of implementing measures. The implementing measures will take into account the lifecycle of products, environmental aspects and the energy and resource use of products. There is no indication of which products will be targeted in any implementing measures; therefore it is very difficult to make an accurate business impact assessment.

The existing Ecodesign Directive sets minimum requirements for products to be placed on the market as well as environmental performance benchmarks referring to the best performing products on the market. Therefore, this will, under the Commission’s draft proposal, be extended to all energy related products. Member States would be required to take all the necessary measures to guarantee that energy related products affected by implementing measures may be placed on the internal market solely if they comply with such measures and bear the CE marking. In case of noncompliance, the Member State would be required to prohibit the product’s placing on the market or withdrawing it from the market. A manufacturer would be required to ensure that an assessment of such products conforms with the applicable implementing measure requirements are made before placing that product (covered by those measures) on the market or putting it into service.

Professionals in the industry are not pleased with the Commission’s plan to extend the scope of the Ecodesign directive. The Commission is once again over-regulating the industry. Manufacturers would have to change their production methods in order to comply with the Commission rules which would have serious financial implications for them. The SME would have to comply with extra eco-design criteria for a CE mark, further administrative requirements and testing procedures. The conformity assessment will introduce further bureaucracy and red tape and some SMEs will not be able to implement it. Guido Lena, UEAPME Director for Sustainable Development has pointed out that there is a risk of a large number of SMEs not being able to comply with minimum requirements and, therefore, such enterprises will not be allowed to place their products on the market. According to Euractiv, Alexandre Affre, Business Europe’s Advisor on Environmental Affairs, has said “If there are higher standards in the EU as regards the environment than in non-EU countries, this could impact seriously on the cost of EU products.”

The Commission is expecting that its proposal will be adopted by the European Parliament and the Council at first reading before the end of the European Parliament legislature.

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Commission: Member States must pay for health tourism of patients

2008-09-04T02:57:00.000-07:00

News @ European Scrutiny Committee. The Commission has recently adopted a proposal for a Directive on the application of patient’s rights in cross-border healthcare as part of the ‘Renewed Social Agenda’ which has been considered to promote “health tourism.” The Commission proposal will interfere with Member States’ responsibilities in organising and delivering health services and medical care and will put the financial stability of the NHS at risk.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has been ruling that patients have the right, under the EC Treaty, to seek healthcare within the EU and be reimbursed with healthcare costs received abroad that they would have been entitled to receive at the Member State of affiliation (country where the patient is an insured person). According to the ECJ, the requirement of prior authorisation for reimbursement of a patient’s costs for treatment received in another Member State represents a barrier to the freedom to provide services. The Commission has been inspired by ECJ case law. The Commission has pointed out that “the uncertainty about the general application of rights to reimbursement for healthcare provided in other Member States is creating obstacles to the free movement of patients and of health services more generally in practice.”

Consequently, the Commission has addressed the issue of reimbursement of the cost of healthcare provided in other Member States in its draft proposal. The Commission’s proposal would allow patients to seek healthcare in another Member State which would have been provided at home and then be reimbursed the costs of anything up to the full amount that would have been paid if they have had received that treatment at home. Under Article 6 (1) of the draft proposal, the Member States of affiliation would be required to ensure that their patients seeking to receive healthcare provided in another Member State would not be prevented from receiving it. However, it is not clear what it would be the scope of such duty of the home state or whether it is enforceable. According to the European Scrutiny Committee (ESC) “… it is not apparent that the duty is limited to events within the home State, or that the home State has any power to require healthcare providers in another State to treat a patient.” The ESC has expressed doubts over home State ability to ensure that the patient is not prevented from receiving the treatment in question.

The Commission has asserted that a prior authorisation requirement on cross-border non-hospital care represents an obstacle to the free movement of health services which is not justified. The Commission has pointed out that the absence of a prior authorisation requirement will not undermine the financial equilibrium of social security systems or the organisation, planning and delivery of health services if the reimbursement of cross-border non-hospital care is within the limits of the cover guaranteed by the sickness insurance scheme of the Member State of affiliation.

Under the Commission draft proposal, patients would be allowed to seek non-hospital care in another Member State and Member States would no longer be able to require prior authorisation. A Member State would not be obliged to reimburse treatment provided in another Member State which is not offered by its own national health system. In concerns over hospital care, Member States would be allowed to introduce a prior authorisation scheme for reimbursement. However, Member States must provide evidence that due to the implementation of the Directive, the outflow of patients is likely or that it seriously undermines the financial balance of the social security system or the planning of hospital capacity. Nevertheless, if a Member State has established a system of prior authorisation for assumption of costs of hospital care provided in another Member State, the costs of such care should also be reimbursed by the home Member State up to the level of costs that would have been taken had the same treatment been provided at home. Moreover, the Commission believes that the absence of a common definition of what constitutes hospital care throughout the different health systems in the EU represents an obstacle to the freedom for patients to obtain healthcare services. Hence, unsurprisingly, the Commission has introduced a Community definition of hospital care which is “treatment that requires at least one night of stay in a hospital or clinic” and treatment that requires the use of highly specialised and cost-intensive medical infrastructure or medical equipment. The Commission will, through the comitology procedure, define a regularly updated technical list of such treatments. In fact, under the draft proposal a lot of room is left to comitology, a process which will diminish Member State control over the content of such measures.

It is clear that the Draft Directive would make it much more difficult for the Member States to require prior authorisation for reimbursement of hospital treatment provided in another Member State. Dawn Primarolo, the Minister of State at the Department of Health, has said to the European Scrutiny Committee “The current proposal allows Member States to put in place a system of prior authorisation for hospital care … However, the Directive tries to limit the circumstances in which prior authorisation for treatment abroad will be permitted.” According to the Government, “it is imperative that the home Member State retains responsibility for deciding entitlement to healthcare and that Member States can put in place a system of prior authorisation where necessary for their system.” Hence, the Government “will be seeking to protect this principle during negotiations.”

Through the proced ure of prior authorization, healthcare systems can supervise their finances and organize their delivery of services so that the Commission proposal will have a negative impact on the right of a Member State to organise and finance their health services.

Under the draft proposal, the home state is entitled to impose on a patient seeking healthcare provided in another Member State its general requirements, criteria for eligibility and administrative formalities for receipt of healthcare and reimbursement of healthcare costs, as it would impose if the same treatment was provided at home – providing that such conditions are necessary, proportionate and are not discretionary and discriminatory. Member States would be required to establish national contact points for cross-border healthcare to provide patients information on their right to seek care within the EU. The draft Directive creates further bureaucratic and administrative burdens for health systems. According to Euractiv a Member State representative has said “It is justifiable to ask how big the administrative burden will be compared to the number of people actually crossing borders to seek care and to calculate how much tax payers' money is spent on maintaining an administration to serve those few.” It remains to be seen what will come out from the negotiations but it is noteworthy that the UK cannot veto the proposal as QMV is required at the Council. The draft Directive would be adopted through the co-decision procedure. It has been foreseen that long and fierce discussions at the Council and with the European Parliament will ensue.

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Gypsies causing trouble in France too

2008-09-04T02:56:00.000-07:00

Italy is not the only country where new arrivals from Romania and Bulgaria are causing trouble. In Marseille, there is a big gypsy camp and the inhabitants of it live in squalor, many of them involved in petty crime. As in Italy, they have been the object of much hostility and even physical attacks, especially after the rumour spread (precisely as it did in various parts of Italy too) that the gypsies were trying to steal children. Most of the violence comes from the Arabs who already live in this part of Marseilles. [Luc Leroux, Le Monde, 13 August 2008]

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Italian mayors enforce law and order

2008-09-04T02:55:00.000-07:00

City police in Adro have been promised 500 euros for every illegal immigrant they arrest; Assisi has forbidden begging outside its churches; Rome has started cleaning up (and clearing out) its gypsy camps. Across Italy, new brooms are sweeping away illegal and semi-legal practices, mainly by immigrants, which have grown up over recent years and which the new right-wing government has promised to stamp out. Some of the measures are being taken by the city authorities.

Much of the trouble comes from gypsies who have migrated to Western Europe, especially Italy, from Romania and Bulgaria since the enlargement of the EU in 2007. The new Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, has encouraged the development of “mayor-sheriffs”. On 5th August he signed a governmental decree which gives mayors powers to act against prostitution, drug trafficking, begging (especially by children), drinking in public and outrages committed against public decency.

In Rome, the new Mayor, Gianni Alemanno, is going to give the municipal police guns and tell them to stop people begging and stop windscreen-washers at red lights. But it is not just the right which is getting tough on law and order; left-wing mayors have also acted against gypsy camps, for instance in Vicenza. Indeed, it was a left-wing city, Florence, which originally forbade windscreen-washers. In Verona, the Mayor, who is from the Northern League, has forbidden begging and any beggars caught will have their money confiscated and will get a 100 euro fine. In Assisi, the Mayor has forbidden people from begging outside churches. [Salvatore Aloïse, Le Monde, 13 August 2008]

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Walloons would like to be French

2008-09-04T02:54:00.000-07:00

An opinion poll has found that 49 per cent of Walloons would like their part of Belgium to be annexed to France if the Flemings declare independence. The poll was conducted by the French polling agency Ifop for the newspaper, La Voix du Nord. If true, it means that support for the existence of the Belgian state is crumbling on both sides of the linguistic divide: previously the Walloons had been considered pro-Belgian, if only because they profit from political union with the richer North. Hitherto, political parties which have campaigned for Wallonia to become part of France have been very marginalized: now all the old taboos are disappearing and presumably France appears as a useful anchor for the Walloons who will have lost their country. Of course the disappearance of Belgium would be very embarrassing for the EU, which would thereby lose not only one of its founder members (“The King of the Belgians” is the first signatory of the European treaties, because the heads of state sign it in alphabetical order) but also a country whose multi-national arrangements are a model for the greater EU as a whole. The Belgian capital is, of course, the EU’s own capital and so the fault-line of national division would run right through the EU city itself.

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Italian inflation rises to 4.1 and 6.1 per cent

2008-09-04T02:53:00.000-07:00

The official inflation rate in Italy has risen to 4.1 per cent in July, more than double what it should be in the euro zone. If the trend continued, it would make the annual inflation rate 3.5 per cent. However, if the price rise calculation is based on products which people buy frequently, then the inflation rate is 6.1 per cent. (The official figures include many products, such as white goods and televisions, which people buy only once every few years.) Alcoholic drinks and tobacco rose by 2 per cent in July; rent, water, electricity and fuel by 8.6 per cent; transport by 7 per cent and food and non-alcoholic drinks by 6.3 per cent. [La Repubblica, 11 August 2008]

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European Commission punishes Bulgaria

2008-09-04T02:52:00.002-07:00

The European Commission has decided that the problems in the Bulgarian judicial system (especially corruption) remain so strong that it has blocked some 500 million euros in aid until the irregularities are sorted out. Ever since Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU, the Commission has been complaining about how corrupt they are. (Some may think this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.) Now, after repeated warnings, they have decided to turn the heat up onto Bulgaria by withdrawing these funds. The Commission has concluded in its report that although Romania continues to have problems with corruption, the situation there is “mixed” while it is completely inadequate in Bulgaria. 250 million euros from the PHARE programme (structural funds), 115 million from the IPSA programme (for infrastructure) and 121 million from the SPARD programme (for agriculture) have now been blocked, on the basis that Bulgaria’s administrative structures are too weak and that there are serious accusations of corrupt and conflict of interest in the distribution of tasks. In plain English, the money is being stolen. It is not clear how much this decision will affect Bulgaria, however, since it already gets 6.9 billion euros from the structural funds anyway – these cuts are less than 10 per cent of that sum. [Nikolas Busse, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 24 July 2008]

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EU and UN sign agreement over Kosovo

2008-09-04T02:52:00.001-07:00

The European Union administration of Kosovo, EULEX, has signed an agreement with UNMIK, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, governing the transfer of responsibilities from the latter to the former. The government in Belgrade immediately opposed the agreement, since it does not recognise EULEX’s right even to be in Kosovo: EULEX was set up as part of the recognition of Kosovo’s independence by a majority of EU states. The State Secretary in Belgrade’s Ministry for Kosovo, Oliver Ivanović, said that his government would submit a protest to the United Nations Security Council, which brought UNMIK into being in the first place. He said, “This is a technical memorandum concerning technical details, space, cars, equipment, but that memorandum cannot sanction the mission. As with every similar provocation, this technical move cannot be ignored.” The Defence Minister attacked the agreement as “a violation of international law.” “It’s a bad move,” said Dragan Šutanovac. “There is no United Nations decision on this.” The opposition Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) said that the signing of the document was a demonstration that the policy of force can provide official status to the illegal mission of the European Union in Kosovo, EULEX. DSS Vice-President, Slobodan Samardžić said there had been numerous attempt in the United Nations Security Council to provide legality to EULEX. “One by one, all these attempts have failed, and now UNMIK is making an agreement with EULEX without the approval of the Security Council. It is necessary that the Serbian authorities react most energetically, in keeping with the resolutions adopted by the National Assembly, and make an unequivocal announcement that the EULEX mission is illegal and that its presence in the province has absolutely no legal meaning for Serbia.” [B92.net, 18 August 2008]

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Serbia determined to join EU

2008-09-04T02:50:00.000-07:00

Following the arrest of Radovan Karadžić, the Foreign Minister of Serbia, Vuk Jeremić, has said that his country is determined to join the EU and that it wants to obtain the status of a candidate country by the end of the year. Jeremić re-stated his country’s determination to preserve its territorial integrity and to regain control over Kosovo. He said that Serbia had demonstrated its support for international law by handing over Karadžić but that it expected international law to be respected over Kosovo too. Asked about the arrest of Ratko Mladić, Jeremić gave a very strong hint that it would happen soon. He said, though, that he expected countries which are in any case opposed to Serbia’s accession to come up with new pretexts to stop it, even after a future Mladić arrest. Jeremić also confirmed that Serbia will apply in the autumn at the UN General Assembly for a ruling from the International Court of Justice in The Hague (the United Nations’ court of arbitration, not a criminal tribunal) on whether or not Kosovo’s declaration of independence is legal under international law. Its case is strong, since of course it is UN Security Council Resolution 1244 from 1999 which reaffirmed that Kosovo is part of Serbia. Jeremić said that he could not imagine the General Assembly refusing the agree to such a request for a ruling from the ICJ. Some Western states are trying to prevent Serbia’s request from being granted. Jeremić said, “Serbia is under strong pressure to respect international law where the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is concerned. We should therefore not be prevented from seeking protection from international law where Kosovo is concerned.” Jeremić was also asked why Serbia had decided to send its ambassadors back to those countries which have recognised the independence Kosovo: they had been recalled to Belgrade for extensive consultations by the previous government. He replied that an intensive diplomatic effort was needed to achieve the goal of obtaining candidate status by the end of the year. He also said that Belgrade hoped to undertake dialogue with the secessionist authorities in Kosovo by putting aside for a while the question of status. Jeremić repeated Belgrade’s refusal to accept the legitimacy of the EU mission in Kosovo, which is not legitimised by any UN resolution and which implements the very Ahtisaari plan which Belgrade rejected. On the other hand, he also said that he was ready to work with the new international authority in Kosovo, i.e. with EULEX. [Interview, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 25 July 2008]

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Juncker’s successor might be Juncker

2008-09-01T06:53:00.001-07:00

The states which use the euro are looking for a new chairman of the so-called euro group of Finance Ministers which coordinates economic policy between them. The chairman has been Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, since the beginning of 2005 and his second two-year term ends in December. According to the rules of procedure, the chairman can be reappointed only once, in other words Juncker cannot continue to hold the post. However, many European states want to change the rules to allow him to stay on. This would be relatively easy to do since the group is informal and so are its rules: no EU legislation is involved. Juncker has been Finance Minister of Luxembourg since 1989 and he is valued both for his experience and also for his ability to broke agreements between the various euro states. In addition, the other possible candidates are all unsuitable for various reasons. The Belgian Didier Reynders is no good because the Belgian “government” itself is far too unstable; the Austrian Finance Minister has ambitions to be more than a Finance Minister. Other candidates like the French or Dutch ministers would not have consensual support, while the Spanish and German ministers do not want the job. The euro group meets once a month before the monthly meeting of the EU Finance Ministers (Council of Ministers) to discuss matters pertaining specifically to the euro. Juncker’s decision to seek a third term as euro-group chairman is a direct result of the rejection of the Lisbon treaty by Irish voters in their referendum in June: had the treaty passed, then Juncker would have been a candidate for the new post of president of the European Council. But that post will not now be created, at least not until the treaty is ratified and that could take a long time or never come about. So Juncker will probably remain a Luxembourg politician in 2009, with the chairmanship of the euro group as an add-on. [Werner Mussler, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 27 July 2008]

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Ever closer union, ever quicker divorce

2008-09-01T06:52:00.001-07:00

The same politicians who want to weld European states for ever into a quasi-federal superstate are simultaneously working to make divorce easier throughout the EU. The veteran French euro-federalist, Alain Lamassoure, a Member of the European Parliament, has produced a report which proposes to put in place a cooperation procedure between nine countries (who are interested in cooperating) in order to harmonise divorce proceedings in their respective states. The idea of course is to make it easier for couples from different EU member states to get divorced. The nine states who have decided to cooperate on this are using the semi-forgotten procedure known as “reinforced cooperation”, which allows groups of states to cooperate more closely on certain matters without all EU states having to be involved. One assumes that the authors of this concept did not expect it to be used for matters such as harmonising divorce law. The nine states in question are Romania, Hungary, Austria, Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Greece and France. Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Lithuania and Slovakia may join in later. Alain Lamassoure says the matter is urgent because there are 350,000 “cross-border” marriages a year in the EU and presumably therefore quite a lot of cross-border divorces too. A typical problem is this: if a Portuguese man return to Portugal and wants to divorce his Italian wife, the Italian courts will apply the law of the country where the marriage was contracted while the Portuguese courts will apply the law of the country where the couple lived. Another example is that the German courts systematically award custody of children to the German parent where one of them is not German. [Anne Cheyvialle, Le Figaro, 25 July 2008]

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The most expensive house in the world

2008-09-01T05:24:00.000-07:00

A house on the Côte d’Azur has just become the most expensive house in the world, beating by many times the previous record held by Lakshmi Mittal’s house in Kensington Palace Gardens. An unnamed Russian oligarch has paid 500 million euros for the Villa Leopolda overlooking Cap Ferrat. The vendor, Lily Safra, is the widow of the Swiss banker, Edmund Safra, killed in 1999 in a criminal arson attack (some speculated at the time that he may have been killed by the Russian Mafia). The reason why the price rose to such heights is that she did not want to sell. The Villa was originally built by the Belgian King, Leopold II, and was later owned by (among others) Gianni Agnelli. To give an idea of how inflated the price is, the French government recently sold a former Ministry building, an enormous hotel particulier near the Invalides in central Paris with a surface area of 7,000 square metres for 142 million euros. Incidentally, the purchase of that property was Russian too. [Agnès Leclair, Le Figaro, 8 August 2008]

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Romania tries to prevent emigration of doctors

2008-08-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

According to an opinion poll conducted by a European medical foundation, 45 per cent of Romanian doctors and medical assistants want to emigrate. According to the doctors’ professional body in France, the number of Romanian doctors practising in France has risen by 320 per cent in the last ten months. Since January 2008, more than 7,000 health professionals have sought from the Romanian authorities a certificate which they can use to have their qualifications recognised abroad. The Romanian authorities, though, are playing down the risk of losing their doctors on the same scale as Poland has lost hers. But there is already a shortage of anaesthetists, cardiologists, urologists and neurosurgeons in Romanian hospitals. The danger is of course that medical students will go abroad before completing their studies, completing them instead in a foreign country and therefore disappearing from the official statistics (because they will have not been qualified at the time they emigrate). The Romanian government is, though, trying to persuade people to stay by promising to build some thirty new hospitals and to increase the monthly salary from 220 euros to 400. At any rate, it is estimated that some 3 million Romanians have already left their country to work abroad, which means that there is already massive emigration, and not only from among the most highly educated section of society. [Mirel Bran, Le Monde, 9 August 2008]

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Sarkozy’s idea for the Commission

2008-08-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

As reported in the last Digest, the number of commissars in the European Commission after Lisbon has been ratified can be modified by a decision in the European Council. The plan was originally to reduce the number of commissars to two thirds of the number of member states. This would mean reducing the number from 27 as at present to 18. However, European leaders are considering whether to modify this in the light of the Irish rejection of Lisbon. President Sarkozy has suggested that countries “from similar language and cultural circles” share a commissar. So Austria and Germany could have the same commissar, and the UK and Ireland or the Benelux states. Of course if the Lisbon treaty is not ratified, all this will never come to pass. [Der Standard, 6 August 2008]

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Klaus attacks Lisbon treaty again

2008-08-29T07:26:00.000-07:00

The Czech president, Václav Klaus, has again attacked the Lisbon treaty. Asked if he would sign the Lisbon treaty if the Polish president decided to sign it, Klaus replied, “The Czech national interests tell me that I should never sign the Lisbon Treaty.” Asked to explain his expression of delight when the treaty was rejected in Ireland, Klaus said, “Such a document [i.e. like Lisbon] is unnecessary for the standard functioning of the EU (including further enlargements) and is detrimental to freedom and democracy in Europe in the future.” Asked what he would put in a new treaty, Klaus replied, “The most important issue would be the return to intergovernmentalism and unanimity of decision-making. The return from “Union” to “Community”.” [Rzeczpospolita, 26 July 2008; see also the web site of the President of the Czech Republic, www.hrad.cz]

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Irish would vote No a second time

2008-08-29T07:25:00.000-07:00

When President Sarkozy had the temerity to suggest that the Irish should hold a second vote on the Lisbon treaty, he of course assumed that they would vote ‘Yes’, as they did when they voted for a second time on the Nice treaty in 2001. However, opinion polls suggest that a new poll would produce the same result as the first one. According to one poll, 62 per cent would reject the treaty in a new vote and only 38 per cent would vote in favour of it. Seventy one per cent said they were opposed to a new referendum. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 27 July 2008]

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Sarkozy having a bad war

2008-08-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

All government buildings in Paris are currently decorated with the EU flag, as is even the Arc de Triomphe itself. (When a group of four Eurosceptics spontaneously protested against the hoisting of this flag at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier – the focal point of the Bastille Day celebrations on 14 July – they were arrested.) The presence of the flags is supposed to emphasise France’s role as president of the EU, a role Nicolas Sarkozy also emphasised when he appointed himself mediator in the Russian-Georgian conflict. But his foreign policy initiatives have not brought him any political benefit. On the contrary, the death of ten French soldiers in Afghanistan, killed in a Taliban ambush, has brought heavy criticism on Sarkozy’s foreign policy by his political opponents. They have attacked Sarkozy for his “Atlantic obsessions”. For instance, the leader of the Socialist Party, François Hollande, reminded the President that he had always warned against France sending troops to Afghanistan because of the danger that the war would escalate there. Hollande called for a parliamentary debate on the purposes and goals of France’s participation in the NATO force in Afghanistan. He said, “Our soldiers should not let themselves be killed for Uncle Sam.” The government has tried to deflect the criticism, saying that it is fighting the war on terror. Le Figaro, which often acts like a government mouthpiece, proclaimed on its front page that France was “defending the freedom of the world”. Less favourable papers (Le Parisien for example) have asked if Sarkozy was not naïve when he got the Russians’ agreement to the ceasefire before their troops had left South Ossetia. [Le Figaro, 21 August 2008; Le Parisien, 20 August 2008]

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Ukraine goes wobbly too

2008-08-29T07:23:00.000-07:00

Just as Georgia’s accession to NATO now seems very seriously in doubt, the tectonic plates of Ukrainian politics have also shifted. The former pro-Western allies there have fallen out, a development which threatens that country’s NATO accession too. At the time of the Orange Revolution in 2004, the pro-Western alliance consisted of the man who became president, Viktor Yushchenko, and the billionaire businesswoman, Julia Timoshenko. Now these two have quarrelled, the former accusing the latter (who is the current Prime Minister) of “high treason”. Yushchenko has also accused Timoshenko of “political corruption”. Yushchenko said that Timoshenko was “working for the interests of Russia. Timoshenko had sought the support of Moscow for her candidacy in the presidential elections of 2009 or 2010. The Ukrainian government which she controls has not criticised Russia’s intervention in Georgia, for instance, presumably in order to curry favour in Moscow. Yushchenko said that he would instruct his security services to investigate his Prime Minister’s dealings with the Russians. [Süddeutsche Zeitung, 18 August 2008]

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Georgia: Schröder wades in

2008-08-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

Just as all the serving heads of state and government in Europe were issuing various forms of instructions to Russia to withdraw her troops from Georgia – Nicolas Sarkozy, for instance, published a long article in Le Figaro on 18 August, the same day that Angela Merkel was photographed visiting Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi – the former German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, has expressed support for the Russian position in the conflict. In an interview with Der Spiegel, Schröder said that Georgia had started the conflict by invading South Ossetia (something Sarkozy also conceded in his otherwise pro-Georgian article). Schröder also warned against early NATO membership for Georgia and said that the chances of it happening had now become extremely remote. Schröder referred to Mikheil Saakashvili as a “chance-taker” and said that he was sure that Russia was not trying to annex any territory. He said, “I think nothing of this demonisation of Russia. I think of Russia as part of Europe.” [Der Spiegel,16 August 2008]

Schröder’s interview has caused outrage in the German political class. One CSU politician said that Schröder has become totally unreliable on matters Russian and that his interview was an insult to Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the serving (Social Democrat) Foreign Minister. The same politicians said that the whole idea of a strategic partnership between Germany and Russia now had to be revisited. Many of Schröder’s enemies attack him for being the voice of Moscow in Germany, especially since he now works for the consortium building the trans-Baltic pipeline which will bring gas directly to Germany.

His intervention comes just as the current Chancellor, Angela Merkel, travelled to Tbilisi where she gave strong support to the accession of both Georgia and Ukraine to NATO. Previously she had been opposed to both: indeed, it was largely as a result of German opposition that neither country was invited to join at the Bucharest summit this spring. Merkel called on Russia to withdraw its troops immediately from South Ossetia and reaffirmed her government’s support for Georgia’s territorial integrity. [Handelsblatt, 17 August 2008]

As it happens, NATO is bitterly divided over the conflict in the Caucasus. According to diplomatic sources, the alliance cannot agree on who is responsible for starting the war. The Alliance members also cannot agree whether or not to support Georgia. The United States, Britain and Canada and the East European countries want a very firm anti-Russian policy; by contrast, Germany and France, while also basically anti-Russian, want to put the emphasis more on dialogue and diplomacy. One commentator wrote, “The Caucasus conflict has shown that NATO is a paper tiger.” [Cerstin Gammelin, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 19 August 2008; Richard Herzinger, Die Welt, 19 August 2008]

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Russian analyst says Cuban base should be reopened

2008-08-29T07:19:00.000-07:00

The head of the Department for Disarmament and Conflict Resolution in the Institute for World Economics and International Relations at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Pikayev, has said that Russia should re-open a listening and surveillance base in Cuba, which used to cover the whole USA, in retaliation for the American decision to install anti-missile radars and launchers in the Czech Republic and Poland or Lithuania. The electronic surveillance facility, which used to be near Havana, was shut down in October 2001 in a friendly gesture by Moscow towards the West in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. That gesture has never been reciprocated and the West has only become ever more anti-Russian since. Pikayev said, “Cuba is a unique place to gather intelligence on the United States. I believe that the reopening of this station is both possible and necessary amid the threat that the Americans are creating for Russia. Russia has every right to respond.” The facility covered 28 square miles and employed over one thousand Russian technicians and engineers; it enabled Russia to monitor communications in the US and between the US and Europe. [RIA Novosti, 23 July 2008]

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Poland signs anti-missile shield agreement

2008-08-29T07:17:00.000-07:00

As if the new Cold War over South Ossetia were not enough, Poland and the United States signed their agreement on the stationing of the new anti-missile shield missiles in Poland – and you read about it here first. Issue No. 249 of the Digest in December 2007 stated, “Radek Sikorski’s elevation to head of the Polish Foreign Office [in the new government of Donald Tusk] means that Warsaw’s foreign policy will be every bit as pro-American as it was under the previous Kaczynski government, in which Sikorski was Minister of Defence.” On 20 August, Sikorski hosted Condoleezza Rice in Warsaw for the signing ceremony.

One German paper comments, “The crisis in the Caucasus strengthened those who supported the shield.” This is an admission that the shield is directed against Russia after all, whereas the official American position is that it is designed to prevent missile attacks from Iran. Certainly, Russia has interpreted the decision as an unfriendly act.

On 20 August, the presidents of Russia and Belarus met to discuss the creation of a common air defence system as a response. [Itar-Tass, 20 August 2008] President Medvedev of Russia and President Lukashenko of Belarus agreed that a treaty on the matter should be signed by the autumn.

Other Russian reactions have been more colourful if less substantial. The Russian ambassador to NATO, Dmitri Rogozin, said, “The Europeans have received a ‘dead cat’ from the Americans.” (A more accurate English translation of what he said might be “The Europeans have bought a pig in a poke” or “They have been sold a pup”.) Rogozin said that signing the agreement with the United States, Poland had confirmed that the missile shield is directed against Russia. “The Poles should be thanked for helping reveal the strategic goal of the U.S. missile defence plan," he said. [RIA Novosti 20 August 2008]

The Polish Prime Minister confirmed that the decision was a momentous one. Donald Tusk said, “We have crossed the Rubicon.” Patriot missiles will now also be stationed in Poland, one of Warsaw’s main demands; there is also an agreement that America will defend Poland from any external attack. [Die Welt, 14 August 2008]

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EU and EU hopefuls show support for Georgia

2008-08-29T07:14:00.000-07:00

The short war in South Ossetia seems to have radically changed the balance of power in the world. The failure of NATO states to reach any proper conclusions about how to react to the crisis has confirmed the split within the Alliance; the war and the near-impossibility of Georgia now ever re-establishing its territorial integrity means that NATO accession must be now little more than fantasy.

While the West could not agree on action, it did agree on words. Even as evidence was emerging of atrocities committed by Georgian forces as they invaded South Ossetia, the leaders of various EU, NATO and EU-NATO candidate states travelled to the Georgian capital to show their support for the man who started the conflict, President Mikheil Saakashvili. These included politicians from Germany (Angela Merkel herself went to Tbilisi), Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic States. The president of the European Council, Nicolas Sarkozy, meanwhile acted as a broker between Georgia and Russia.

The President of Estonia (who grew up in the United States, like the President of Lithuania, and just as the president of Latvia grew up in Canada), Toomas Hendrik Ilves, has been especially virulent. He attacked Russia, together with his two Baltic counterparts, for having “crossed a red line”. In an interview with the FAZ, Elves said that the Russian intervention in Georgia was “an illegal act of aggression.” He said it was possible to imagine how the EU could have a strategic partnership with a country “which bombs cities in a neighbouring state, which breaks international law and which demands regime change of legitimate and democratically elected governments.” (Saakashvili was originally elected in 2004 with a score of over 95 per cent.) “This is an illegal act of aggression which violates the UN charter and the fundamental principles of cooperation and security in Europe.” He called for the EU to revise the whole of its policies towards Russia as a result. Ilves said it was highly regrettable that NATO had not admitted Georgia and Ukraine in the spring, for Russia had interpreted this as a sign that those countries were to remain in her sphere of influence. [Interview, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 13 August 2008]

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What Spain’s José Luis Zapatero does not know

2008-08-29T06:23:00.000-07:00

THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL, AUGUST 2008:

Sara Moore explores current European Central Bank policy through the historical lens of how Germany used deflation in the Great Depression for political ends. Moore argues that Spain has lost patience with the ECB since it has had to endure high interest rates for the last year. It is therefore legitimate for Spain’s premier, Jose Luis Zapatero, today to ask: Is Germany using deflation today again for the same reason? Perhaps when Zapatero realises just how far Germany bore the responsibiliy for the Great Depression, he will be even more vociferous.

Spain’s premier Jose Luis Zapatero is an ardent European but he has lost patience with the ECB. Spain has had to endure high interest rates for the last year – with pain for her homebuyers because strong Germany said that she needed them to stop her workers making extravagant demands. Now Axel Weber of the Bundesbank seems to have successfully pushed for another rise in ECB interest rates, despite German consumer spending and industrial production easing, to curb the demands of its workers.

While British commentators, beset with their own inflation, might sympathise with Axel Weber’s efforts to damp down wage demands, they worry about something that Jose Luis does not know, that Germany has used ‘deflation’ before for political ends. In fact, Germany’s record in the Great Depression was appalling.

It is agreed that Germany had a more powerful economy by 1928 than in 1913 and in 1928/29 she had the additional financial advantage of not having to pay for howitzers and artillery and the 758,000 men Germany had in battle-readiness before the First World War. She waged a propaganda war over paying war reparations in the 1920s but the French financial controls over her economy from 1924 till 1929 ensured that the actual sums demanded were paid without a hitch. Indeed Germany was deemed so virtuous a payer in 1929, that it was decided that the French controls were superfluous.

Americans lent vast sums to Germany in the 1920s because they believed she was able to repay them. Less known are the large unidentified sums that Germans put on the American stock market between 1928 and 1929 because of worries about the arrival of a socialist government at home. The American stock market rose to dizzy heights as negotiators decided that they could trust Germany to pay her reparations and they gave her a generous new deal which meant she would be paying less in debt from the First World War than Britain.

Expectations were Olympian in 1929 and the stock market was fizzing. The agreement was signed in June but not finally agreed till the end of August. Still Wall Street went crazy but subterranean economic currents should have raised alarms. All the major nations were on the Gold Standard in 1929 and strong Germany was buying gold. Even in June her large purchases were disturbing; by the end of July an alarmed France decided to buy gold too. France and Germany’s gold purchases were so large that eventually Britain felt that she would have to raise her bank rate. Then German citizens began withdrawing their money from Wall Street. A petition was floated by Germany’s largest newspaper owner and leader of Germany’s second largest political party, Alfred Hugenberg, to have the whole German cabinet and even the President tried for treason, on the grounds that Germany had not started the First World War and was not therefore liable to pay any war reparations. The projected success of the petition caused a disastrous drop in the American stock market as insiders realised that not only German war reparations but also related allied war debts and even American loans to Germany might be at risk, indeed all the international community’s trust in Germany since the war could have been misplaced. The 1929 Wall Street crash was huge. Millions of life savings were swept away but insiders remained mute, hoping against hope that their fears about Germany were wrong. The evils of capitalism were blamed for the national disaster and Germany continued to pay war reparations, although now instead of industry it was mainly the man in the street asked to pay. In 1930, an ex-army officer, Heinrich Brüning, became chancellor of Germany.

He told his friends in the unions that his chief aim was to liberate Germany from paying war reparations and foreign debt – without telling them that he also hoped eventually to re-arm and return Germany to a patrician dictatorship! He argued that if he pursued a policy of deflation and diverted all Germany’s efforts into exports it would weaken the ability of America and the Allies to force Germany to pay her IOUs if she chose not to. The German unions therefore agreed to Brüning reducing wages raising taxes and imposing a poll tax on the German people, while diverting all the benefits into exports so as to bring pressure on the Western powers. German unemployment increased dramatically. A coalition government between left and right was formed before Brüning heaped on more taxes. The declaration of a customs union between German and Austria prompted France to withdraw her Austrian loans in protest, a banking crash ensued and Germany pleaded poverty. The abject misery of the German people helped soften the blow when Germany was given a reparations moratorium, even though she was the greatest exporter in the world, with a mountain of cash in the bank.

We must give modern Germany credit for bringing wages under under control and improving industrial efficiency after the unification of Germany. Indeed, this process continued into the 21st Century. After the arrival of the euro (accounting currency 1999, actual currency 2002) German workers suffered years of stagnant or declining wages, enabling the country to claw back 40 per cent in labour competitiveness against Italy 30 per cent against Spain and 20 per cent against France by 2007. Unfortunately, the sometimes disparagingly called ‘PIGS’ (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) had reacted to the ECB’s initial low interest rate policy by stimulating their economies, paying their workers more and – especially in Spain - pumping up their property sectors in the tourist areas. However, they should have paid more attention to the economic policies of the European Union’s strongest state, Germany.

In November 2005, while the ECB gradually raised European interest rates, a German coalition government between left and right was formed to tackle the German budget deficit by raising taxes and cutting public spending. In 2007, the German government decided, in an admittedly pale comparison with 1930, to cut corporation tax and give other advantages to industry, and to raise VAT in order to pay for it. Naturally, the German unions asked for more money to compensate them for the hike in VAT but after wage increases of 4.1 per cent were agreed with Germany’s most powerful union, I G Metall, the head of the German Bundesbank, Axel Weber, declared that wage inflation was getting out of control, that there was a growth in the money supply, and that the ECB needed to raise interest rates again to curb it. In May, France’s bank chief, Christian Noyer, contradicted Weber’s comments on inflation; yet euroland interest rates were still raised to 4 per cent causing hardship for many Southern European countries and an escalation of the American subprime crisis.

Now Germany is pushing for still higher interest rates to control wage inflation, although she was able to control it effortlessly for years and was herself responsible for the inflation that persuaded I G Metall to ask for more money. There is genuine inflation in euroland because Indians, Chinese, Brazilians and other nations want to eat more and buy new motorcars. So the price of oil and food is going up everywhere. But will causing mortgage defaults and unemployment in Europe help solve the problem or just make people in Europe poorer? Germany used deflation in the Great Depression for political ends. It is legitimate for Jose Luis Zapetro today to ask: Is Germany using deflation today again for the same reason? When he knows just how far Germany bore the responsibiliy for the Great Depression he will be even more vociferous.

Germany – an emerging superpower? Comparisons with the 1930s

2008-08-29T06:13:00.000-07:00

THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL, MAY 2008:

Having previously written two major books, Peace without Victory for the Allies 1918-1932 and How Hitler came to Power, Sara Moore offers some valuable insights into Germany as an emerging superpower through drawing comparisons with German power in the 1930s.

A reassessment of how Germany’s deflationary policies contributed to the Great Depression in the 1930s and to her rise to power is overdue. When in 1930 Heinrich Brüning became Chancellor of Germany he told his friends in the unions that his chief aim was to liberate Germany from paying war reparations and foreign debt. He felt that if he diverted all Germany’s efforts into exports it would weaken the ability of America and the Allies to force Germany to pay her IOUs if she chose not to. The German unions therefore agreed to Brüning reducing wages, raising taxes and diverting all industrial activity into exports so as to bring pressure on the Western powers, not realising to what extent this would mean misery unemployment and a diminution of power for the workers. Brüning’s initiative was successful. Millions of people abroad were fooled into believing that Germany herself was really poor not just her hapless citizens, even though Germany was the greatest exporter in the world, with a mountain of cash in the bank.

Seventy years after the Treaty of Versailles consensus has at last been reached that the legend of the ‘vindictive’ Treaty was a fable. Yet historians have hesitated to draw new conclusions about the Great Depression, namely if German politicians escape censure for their actions in the twentieth Century will they be tempted to use deflation for political purposes in the twenty-first Century? It is true that modern Germany is a very different nation from the 1930s. She is a model of democracy and a pillar of the international community. Yet this must not stop us from voicing our alarm if we see parallels with the Great Depression. The world economy is huge compared to the 1930s but if Germay imposes a deflationary policy on Europe it can have an effect worldwide because the European Union comprises nearly 500 million people with money to save or spend.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is located in Frankfurt and modelled on the German Bundesbank. When the euro was first introduced interest rates were kept at 2 per cent, causing a slump in the value of the euro and a mass exodus of surplus funds. However since 2005 European interest rates have risen 8 times, causing the euro to rise over 50 per cent against the dollar by 2007, both because of the dollar’s weakness and to the rise in Europe’s interest rates.

Foreigners’ faith in the euro rests primarily with Germany. Other euroland countries economies are not so strong. Indeed Germany’s European neighbours have suddenly discovered that Germany effectively imposed a ‘wage freeze’ on its workers after the adoption of the euro in 1999, clawing back 40 per cent in labour competitiveness against Italy, 30 per cent against Spain and 20 per cent against France by 2007. Britain’s bankers shed few tears over France and Italy when they complained of the ECB interest rate rises making their businesses uncompetitive, or even Spain, hit by ‘an ECB-created property bubble.’ Britain’s pound was strong in the spring of 2007. It had moved ‘tightly with the euro’ for the last three years but as it always paid a little more in interest than the euro many European countries held their balances in pounds. However, in July 2007 the Bank of England decided, in view of Britain’s rising inflation, that it would raise British interest rates too, one month after the ECB. Unfortunately the combination of the American sub-prime crisis, an over-leveraged home market and the final European interest rate rise, was too much to bear – the mortgage lender Northern Rock cracked and Britain itself suddenly seemed fragile too.

In a way one could say that the present credit crisis is the delayed result of the euro’s arrival. Germany was the strongest country in euroland at its inception but outsiders worried that she was still nursing a hangover from her reunification party in 1990. She was allowed to breach EU rules that stipulated that annual government deficits must not exceed 3 per cent of GDP and the ECB also promised to keep European interest rates at 2 per cent to help the German economy. This encouraged the world’s spare cash to avoid the euro and seek higher returns in the US. The Asian economies accumulated vast sums from exports and piled them into dollars. So the bankers had the bright idea of lending money to the underprivileged so they too could share in the American dream. Instead of living in dirty dope-addicted neighbourhoods they moved into detached houses, with gardens and driveways. The trouble was that the sub-prime mortgages started with low interest rates, which soon became higher. Money began to ebb away from the US attracted by rising interest rates in Europe. In 2008 the sub-prime mortgage crisis threatens to be one of the largest losses of American wealth ever seen, wiping out a generation of home wealth building.

Despite Germany’s impressive export performance in 1930/31 most people believed her protestations of poverty in the Great Depression because of the misery and unemployment of the German people. When the euro was introduced in 1999 the German economy’s health was also in question. Yet in 2003 Katinka Barysch of the Centre for European Reform wrote an article called ‘Germany – the sick man of Europe?’ which asserted that Germany with its flourishing high-tech sector was not as infirm as many made out. Once more the world’s largest exporter she was also the principal trading partner for most Eastern European countries joining the EU.

Katinka Barysch declared that what distinguished Germany – ‘from most of its peers’ – was the weakness of domestic demand. Indeed after the arrival of the euro German workers suffered years of stagnant or declining wages. Then the German government, in an admittedly pale comparison with 1930, decided to cut corporation tax and give other advantages to industry, and to raise VAT, bringing pain to the workers, in order to pay for it. Naturally, in January 2007, the German unions asked for more money to compensate them for the increase in taxes. Yet after wage increases of 4.1 per cent were agreed with Germany’s most powerful union I G Metall, the head of the German Bundesbank Axel Weber declared that wage inflation was getting out of control, there was a growth in the money supply, and the ECB needed to raise interest rates to curb it. On 18 May 2007, France’s bank chief, Christian Noyer, flatly contradicted Weber’s comments on inflation. Yet euroland interest rates were still raised to 4 per cent – with the expectation of more – causing money to pour out of the dollar into the euro and an escalation of the American sub-prime crisis. The ECB has since flooded markets with short-term money but despite the rules being bent when the euro was first introduced to aid the German economy, Bundesbank chief Axel Weber and ECB chief economist Jurgen Stark have remained deaf to pleas, which would really help the world in 2008, to bend the rules and allow ECB interest rates to fall.

If one is looking at pre-war parallels one could chart the ebb and flow of money across the Atlantic Ocean. In the late 1920s because of her strident propaganda Germany was viewed as poor and less guilty of the war in 1914, but modern historians and economists now believe her to have been primarily responsible for the Great War and by 1928 more powerful than in 1914. European money, including an unspecified amount of German cash, flowed into Wall Street in 1928/29. At the end of April 1929, with a new deal beckoning over the payment of war reparations, Germany put her interest rates up by a full 1 per cent to 7 per cent, prompting interest rate rises in Austria, Poland and Hungary. From June 1929 Germany was reported purchasing substantial quantities of gold, an alarmed France following one month later. Germany and France’s gold purchases were so large that they eventually prompted expectations of a rise in the British bank rate as all the major countries were on the Gold Standard. Money became tight and in that environment financial scandals happen. Clarence Hatry’s fraudulent empire collapsed. Soon afterwards Wall Street crashed. In essence the Wall Street crash was a political event, caused by worries whether German war reparations and debt would ever get repaid, but tight money market conditions also helped. In 2007 money in Britain and the US also suddenly became scarce. One hopes that the final parallel with the Great Depression – a stock market crash – is averted.

In 1930 Brüning had a vision of what he wished to achieve through deflation, initially to rid Germany of reparations and debt, but also to achieve a measure of re-armament and Germany’s return to what he termed a Presidential regime. No doubt he visualised the country being led by a former army officer like himself or maybe a member of the former royal family. But misery embitters people. Hitler became dictator instead.

Germany’s deflation so far is only a faint shadow of her deflation in the 1930s but we can surmise that she has aspirations. In 1994 President Clinton prophesied that Germany would be Europe’s future leader. In the Middle Ages she had been leader of the Holy Roman Empire, which encompassed much of Europe. Later, before the First World War, the Pan German League aimed at creating an empire of all the Germanic peoples under Prussian leadership, which would include all the nations in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, also Switzerland, Holland and Belgium and Romania because of her strategic position at the mouth of the Danube. The empire would be bound together first by a customs union, which would prepare the way for the creation of community-wide legal and political institutions. Eventually a Nationalstaat would come into being ‘impelled by the logic of ethnic solidarity, economic pressure, and should it prove necessary, military force’.

In the First and Second World Wars Germany became Europe’s master by driving tanks into Europe’s cities. However after the Second World War she turned into a very different country, a bastion of democracy. Later the European Union evolved but it was not viewed as Germany’s empire, either within Germany or in the rest of Europe. Although France and Germany were original members, the EU is formally run by the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and by bureaucrats in Brussels, rather than by a single state. Democracy is enshrined in the EU and the voice of each tiny country carries weight. Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that it has a dominant Franco-German axis and that Germany is the principal paymaster. So the old adage – he who pays the piper calls the tune – may eventually be appropriate even in the European Union.

So far Germany has behaved with admirable restraint but she is beginning to flex her muscles. Her huge export surpluses reputedly pay for the deficits of Ireland Greece, Italy, Spain and even France, while her own people scrimp and save. At Nice, in 2001, her call for greater weighting in the Council in view of her greater population, was opposed by France, who insisted that the symbolic parity between the two nations be maintained; then Germany hoped to secure more power and influence through the Constitution – but French and Dutch voters turned it down. However when Germany took over the Presidency of the European Union her Chancellor, Angela Merkel, declared that the time of reflection about a new form of government was over. By March 2007 the Berlin Declaration was adopted which declared the intention of all member states to have ratified a new Treaty for the government of the enlarged European Union by the 2009 elections. Beyond the Treaty, Germany, who stayed firmly in the driving seat during the discussions leading up to the Lisbon Treaty, is now alleged to have ambitions to create a superpower in Europe, with military power and control over taxation. One worries that if things do not go her way she could revert to her old idea of a Germanic empire, which would divide Europe and fragment nations.

One also frets about the future economic outlook of the European Union. A German historian recently alleged that in an economic sense the ‘Second World War amounted to a gigantic struggle between two diametrically opposed views on how to organise the future world market: Closed Blocs vs: the Open Door’. Lately talk of ‘community preference’ has mostly been blamed on the French. Yet few people know that Germany’s predatory economic policy beggared the world in the early 1930s and led to military blocs and war.

We live in changing times with the rise of India, China, Japan and the Far East and the relative decline of the world’s greatest super power, America. Germany has been a pillar of the international community since the war. With the help of the European Union and its most powerful provider of funds, Germany, the countries of the former Soviet Union in Eastern Europe are becoming richer, democratic and self-confident. Germany has a right to have an important say in the ECB to ensure that her money is well spent. Yet we live in a global economy. Power must be used with care. We must not underestimate Germany’s strength because of her citizens’ poverty or unemployment. Her deflation, and push for the ECB to adopt a high interest rate policy, besides affecting Britain and America, will slow growth for the whole of the European Union and create problems for the weakest states, whilst strengthening her relative position. How Germany will use this position is of fundamental interest and the parallels up to the present time with the 1930s experience raises cause for concern.

Lisbon Treaty will lead to fundamental change of Czech Republic as a sovereign country

2008-08-29T06:03:00.000-07:00

THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL, AUGUST 2008:

This is the finest individual opinion I have heard on the Lisbon Treaty as it passed through Europe - Ed. This is the final conclusion. For the whole report, see the August 2008 edition of the European Journal.

Following an invitation from the Czech Constitutional Court, the President of the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus, delivered an opinion that the Lisbon Treaty will bring about a fundamental change to the legal character of the European Union and the Czech Republic, not only as its Member State, but also as a sovereign country. Therefore, the Constitutional Court is facing an immense responsibility not only with respect to the present, but also the future of the Czech Republic, the 90th anniversary of whose establishment will be commemorated this year.

"As a legal participant in the proceedings before the Constitutional Court regarding the Petition of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic for an assessment of [compliance of] the Lisbon Treaty with the constitutional system, I consider a fundamental and comprehensive assessment of its content and implications by the Constitutional Court an absolutely essential prerequisite for its ratification.

The explanation of the Senate’s petition and the content of my above statement give rise to absolutely evident indications that the Lisbon Treaty constitutes a fundamental change to the Czech constitutional system and the international position of the Czech Republic. I do not consider it possible that such fundamental changes to the international position and internal functioning of the Czech Republic, which the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty will undoubtedly bring about, are made unaware, without being clearly defined and understood and without a political and social consensus on them. The Constitutional Court, as the highest legal authority of our country, is required to provide to the political representation and general public a clear and comprehensive assessment of the Lisbon Treaty in all its respects in such a way that it is possible to adopt a responsible decision on its ratification clearly and with full awareness of its implications.

The Lisbon Treaty brings about a fundamental change to the character of the European Union and the legal status of the Czech Republic not only as its Member State, but also as a sovereign country as such, something that it was until now and still is. Therefore, the Constitutional Court is facing an immense responsibility not only with respect to the present, but also the future of our country, the 90th anniversary of whose establishment we commemorate this year ..."

Mr Barroso’s illogical €2.4bn European technology idea

2008-08-29T05:21:00.000-07:00

THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL, SEPTEMBER 2008:

Technology analyst, Armand Van Dormael, writes that Commission President José Manuel Barroso’s idea to create a €2.4bn European Institute of Technology (EIT) is out of touch with the industry’s cutting-edge issues and in the end, will not yield any noteworthy results. The best we can hope for, he argues, is that the European Commission gets out of the way and lets the scientific community and the industry attempt to re-normalize the strategies and procedures of scientific research.

In February 2005, Commission President José Manuel Barroso put forward a project intended to smooth the interaction between public research organisations and industry. He proposed to create a new institution, The European Institute of Technology (EIT). The EIT would be a flagship for excellence in innovation, enabling Europe to compete with the most prestigious institutes of technology. It would give access to world-class research facilities and host top scientists. “Such a body” Barroso stated, “would act as a pole of attraction for the very best minds, ideas and wcompanies from around the world.” He envisioned that it might eventually match MIT as a platform for research partnerships between academe, industry and government. The operation would be funded from public and private sources. The project was to be launched within a year and would cost €2.4bn. The Commission pledged €308 million from its own budget, hoping to persuade the private sector to put up the remainder.

A consultation on the EIT’s mission, objectives, added value and possible structure took place in autumn 2005. Industry was kept informed, but not consulted. The proposal immediately ran into trouble and gave rise to endless debate. The League of European Research Universities took the position that the EIT was useless, unimaginative and of doubtful sustainability. The European Research Advisory Board gave notice that plans to create a US-style high-tech institute were too ambitious and warned the Commission that a “world-class research institute cannot be created top down.” Even those who were in favour had very different views on how the eventual EIT should look. In the face of such criticism, Barroso decided to change tack. Instead of one large campus, he proposed a virtual model of six Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) to be established across Europe. These innovation hubs would be joint ventures organised around strategic objectives.

The EIT gave rise to endless debate. For months, EU education ministers and MEPs kept struggling behind the scenes to settle fundamentals about funding, powers, governance and legal status. The European Parliament saw EIT as a source of overlap with the activities of the newly created European Research Council and decided to withhold its backing until the Commission announced where its money would come from. Despite the lack of support, Barroso kept pushing his plan forward. In October 2006, the Heads of State and Government, meeting in Lahti, Finland, adopted the proposal on establishing the European Institute of Technology.

The EIT will consist of two levels: an administrative council responsible for the strategic priorities and several “knowledge and innovation communities” (KICs). The communities will be overseen by a permanent governing board made up of high-profile business and scientific personnel, plus a limited support staff. Each KIC will have at least three partner organisations, based in two or more Member States. At least one of these partners must be a university and at least one a private company.

When it came to decide which country would host the headquaters, a fierce argument erupted between several governments. In June 2008, EU ministers agreed that the seat of the EIT would be located in Budapest because the city did not yet have a European institution.

The governing board has until the end of 2009 to identify, select and launch the first innovation hubs. The project faces unresolved financing problems. The projected budget for 2008-2013 is 2.36 billion, but there is no provision for this in the budget of the Commission. The EU will contribute 308 million. Business has shown no incentive to participate and has not pledged any of the private sector investment on which the project depends. Europe has no tradition of private donations to public research institutions. If all goes well, operations are expected to start within two years. Once the EIT is established, the first projects will cover climate change, renewable energy and next-generation information and communication technologies. The first KICs could see the light of day by 2010. By then, Europe should be “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economic area in the world.”

European Technology PolicyThe EIT is the latest in a series of mega-projects intended to give Europe a prominent place in the global IT industry. In the early 1950s, American mainframe computers made their appearance in Europe and immediately took control of the market. Within two decades, about 20,000 machines were installed. This raised the spectre of a technology gap and economic backwardness not only in Europe’s nascent computer industry; it would also affect the telecommunications, automotive and service industries. Each government protected its computer industry with preferential contracts, tariff walls and substantial subsidies. When the “buy national” policy proved ineffective, a consensus developed that European countries should pool their scientific capabilities.

This presented the Commission with the opportunity to propose a “European” technology policy in the new prestige field of electronics. It would serve as an antidote to the image of fraud associated with the common agricultural policy, and provide Europe’s IT industry with the basic technologies needed to resist and beat American and Japanese competition. Technology policy became the Commission’s big project. Big projects, of course, meant big money. Company lobbyists, universities, research institutes, consultants and experts of all kinds quickly learned how to play the game. Most of the funds went to the largest computer companies. The Commission’s technology planners were unaware of the fact that Silicon Valley’s startups had invented the microcomputer which had revolutionized and reshaped the industry, and created an entirely new business model of open standards, forcing IBM to join the PC market, using software provided by a startup called Microsoft.

ESPRIT was established in 1984 to promote cooperation between companies and to involve Europe in drawing up worldwide technical standards. National R&D programs would be coordinated to develop basic, non-proprietary technologies. Following EC antitrust laws, research had to be pre-competitive. Individual contractors were free to use the results and develop their own projects. The programme allowed companies and researchers to tackle R&D projects that they would not otherwise have attempted. For several years, about 3,000 engineers and scientists from 420 independent organisations worked on about 200 projects. In its first two rounds, ESPRIT ploughed 4.7 billion ecus into pre-competitive research.

The Framework Programmes (FP) are by far the most important schemes for the implementation of the joint policy on research and technology. Under Jacques Delors, technology policy became the major project of the Commission. Delors was no friend of big business, but he expected the industrial leaders to “think European” by providing them with ample subsidies. Grandiose mega-projects were drawn up in consultation with abundantly staffed working groups and panels of researchers and evaluators. But a permanent power struggle between the European Parliament, the Commission and the governments obstructed the decision-making process. Despite their obvious ineffectiveness, the scope of the Framework Programmes increased exponentially. The budget of the First FP (1984-87) was 3.7 billion ecus. The Seventh FP (2007-13) has a budget of €53 billion.

EUREKA was the third joint European development programme. Research focused on six broad scientific areas: optronics, high-speed microelectronics, large computers, artificial intelligence, high-power laser and particle beams. Financing was shared between governments and industry. EUREKA brought together about 13,400 partners. Most of them were small and medium-sized enterprises. More than 1,840 individual projects and 180 cluster projects were completed, with a budget of €9.9 billion and €10.9 billion. Currently, there are around 700 ongoing individual projects and 120 cluster projects with a budget of €1.7 billion and €2.3 billion respectively. Launched in early 2007, the European Research Council (ERC) is a funding agency for frontier research. The ERC has a budget of €7.5bn. It focuses on fundamental research in all physical, engineering, social, biological and environmental science. Investigators will be able to compete for grants. Research is run on a peer-reviewed basis. A Scientific Council directs the operations. There is no specification of research areas or themes. To assess the level of validity of each project, the Council will count the number of scientific papers published by the researchers and the number of citations they receive.

On the wrong track and against the tideThe European Union is handicapped by the unique system and the unique economic philosophies it has created. A political construct, it lacks businesslike common sense and economic logic. The amalgam of socialist statism and the invisible hand of the market has led to a dichotomy called the third way. Politicians and bureaucrats mastermind scientific research and economic development policy-making, but lack the sophisticated understanding of the ways in which science and technology interact. From the beginning, the Commission considered research as a collaborative endeavour, whereas it is inherently competitive and top secret. R&D is one of the most important and least understood elements of the Commission’s budget. The focus of the political class is on spending a percentage of GDP equal to that of the United States and Japan, with slight concern for follow-through and juste retour, and without any idea of what makes R&D’s success in these countries.

The acid test of any industrial policy is the measure of progress in creating new or better products and new sources of wealth. The outcome of three decades of European high-tech policy makes a mockery of the promise. The mind-boggling subsidies intended to make the European electronics industry globally competitive were wasted on backward research laboratories and badly managed companies. In 1984, when the Commission opened the throttle of public money, 12 European companies – large and small – were producing computers. They became accustomed to public-cash infusions and developed a dependency culture. Ten years later, they had disappeared or closed their computer division.

In a globalised economy, to be of any value, research must be world-class. The prestigious American universities are private institutions having close links with industry. China’s universities graduate 500,000 students a year with degrees in science and engineering. Japan’s universities turn out more engineering graduates than the American colleges. Compared to the US and Asia, very few European students take science subjects and maths. As a result, industry has severe difficulties to hire trained personnel, which hampers the ability grow and innovate. Near-gratuity yields a democratic access to education, but reduces it to mediocrity. European universities are packed with students who hope to settle down into a comfortable job, which is not the best incentive to develop new ideas and new products. Bright and ambitious scientists and engineers who don’t see opportunities for reward take their talent to the United States. Any new idea requires a visionary appreciation of its potential applications, followed by arduous work to achieve commercial success. In Europe, the entrepreneur who embraces new ideas is a rare breed. Technically trained people prefer a comfortable job in a solid company, rather than the risk and bother of starting a new company.

Competitiveness in industry depends on the spirit of enterprise and educational provision. The prerequisites are creative minds, capital for start-ups and for expansion, world-class research and business-friendly fiscal policies. The high-tech industry is brutally competitive. Its products tend to become obsolete within a few years. Burdened by overregulation, an anti-entrepreneurial climate and exorbitant wage and tax levels, Europe is an inhospitable place for entrepreneurs.

Scientific research, as concocted by Europe’s politicians and bureaucrats, perverts the image of science. The Commission throws money around far and wide. The real issue in scientific research is not quantity, but quality. Switzerland hosts the top university on the European continent. The University of Singapore, a country of 3.3 million inhabitants, ranks among the world’s best. The cardinal mission of the universities resides in providing scientific education and training, and - secondarily - carrying out research activities. Academic research as it is performed in Europe is out of touch with the industry’s cutting-edge issues and will not yield any noteworthy results. The best we can hope for is that the Commission gets out of the way and lets the scientific community and the industry attempt to re-normalize the strategies and procedures of scientific research. We shall then have to wait for research in Europe to become about as tractable and productive as it is in other parts of the world.

Sovereignty: Russia in Georgia and Europe in Ireland

2008-08-29T05:18:00.000-07:00

The Editor’s letter to the Belfast Telegraph, Friday 15 August 2008:

The Georgia-Russian conflict mirrors the EU’s overriding of the Irish ‘No’ vote on the Lisbon Treaty — both tensions are reducible to an attack on state sovereignty.

Ireland (with its ignored referendum result) is in the process of becoming to the European Union what Georgia will become to expansionist Russia — a ‘pseudo-sovereign’ subsidiary province absorbed within a larger state.

The crux of diplomatic discussions in the Caucasus conflict will focus on Putin’s advantage — that Europeans have no high horse from which to lecture Russia in respect of sovereign power or its sacrifice. On that point Putin and President Medvedev will be absolutely correct and will have significant negotiating force.
Jim McConalogue, The European Foundation

Lisbon Treaty should have gone the way of the dodo

2008-08-29T05:17:00.000-07:00

The Editor’s letter to the Irish Independent, Friday 8 August 2008:

I believe that under the terms of both EU law and the Irish Constitution, the Lisbon Treaty should have gone the way of the dodo. However, I also know that the EU of recent decades has become wholly undemocratic and that, in Ireland, the treaty will be forced through the Dail by Brian Cowen, without a referendum – but with a dubious ‘special deal’, promising:

(i) the heads of state and government could later decide, through subsequent European Council proceedings, to keep one Commissioner per country. This is already provided for in the treaty;

(ii) the EU will not legislate on abortion, an undertaking given already in 1991 at the time of the Maastricht Treaty;

(iii) that Ireland’s neutrality will not be undermined, which was already given in 2001 at the time of the Nice Treaty;

(iv) that decisions on tax will continue to be governed by unanimity. However, I consider the actions of the European Union to be absolutely undemocratic and believe this treaty should have been dead the moment the Irish people voted ‘No’.

Jim McConalogue, The European Foundation

A letter to the Political Editor of the Irish Times

2008-08-29T05:11:00.000-07:00

THE EUROPEAN JOUNRAL, SEPTEMBER 2008:

Following the campaign of the Irish Times under its political editor, Stephen Collins to call on the Government to ratify the Lisbon Treaty regardless of the ‘No’ vote referendum result, Professor Anthony Coughlan wrote this letter to Mr. Collins, asking why he demand such a profoundly unconstitutional and undemocratic course from our political leaders.

Dear Stephen,

In your Irish Times article you call on the Government to ratify the Lisbon Treaty regardless of the 12 June referendum result.

It is strange that a political correspondent of a major national newspaper should seek to become a partisan player in the political game in this way.

Stranger still that you should be urging such a profoundly unconstitutional and undemocratic course on our political leaders.

You are mistaken if you think that Ireland can ratify the Lisbon Treaty by Oireachtas vote without a referendum.

The Lisbon Treaty, which is the EU Constitution revamped, establishes a constitutionally new European Union, with its own legal personality for the first time, which is legally different from the present European Union that was established by the Treaty of Maastricht and which is referred to in Article 29.4 of the Irish Constitution.

The first sentence of the Constitutional Amendment which the people rejected on 12 June proposed to replace the present Maastricht-based EU by a future Federal-style Lisbon-based EU, of which we would all be made real rather than symbolical citizens for the first time.

The same name, “European Union”, would be used post-Lisbon as pre-Lisbon, but the constitutional and political character of the Union, its Member States and of us as Irish citizens would be transformed fundamentally by the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

No Oireachtas vote is constitutionally capable of doing this. With all due respect to you, it is irresponsible to be speading illusions otherwise.

The Lisbon Treaty would also abolish the European Communities other than the Atomic Energy Community which we joined in 1973, and would replace the Treaties on which they are based and which are explicitly referred to in the Irish Constitution. These references would have to be deleted also to enable the State to ratify Lisbon. No Oireachtas vote can do that either.

And there are several other reasons why the Constitution would have to be amended to enable the Lisbon Treaty to be ratified.

Your article proposes an attempt to get around the constitutional requirement, laid down in the 1986-7 Crotty judgement of the Supreme Court, that surrenders of sovereignty to Brussels in European Treaties can only be done by the Irish people in a referendum, for they are the repositories of sovereignty.

I was myself intimately involved in the Crotty case and attended every day of the three hearings of the case: the original Injunction action before Judge Donal Barrington, the High Court stage which Raymond Crotty lost, and the Supreme Court stage which he won. You may be interested to know that it was quite a close-run thing that Crotty did not win his court challenge to the constitutionality of the ratification procedure of the Single European Act on the ground that that Treaty’s central provisions entailed a transfer of sovereignty to Brussels, but on the narrower ground that the requirement to coordinate foreign policy under “European Political Cooperation” entailed such a transfer.

The late Judge Henchy was the swing judge on this point in the five-man court.

Crotty’s lawyers were reliably informed at the time by sources close to the judges that Judge Henchy was anxious to find for Crotty, but that if he did so in relation to the core elements of the Single European Act which had previously been approved by Oireachtas vote, he would effectively have been finding the country’s President at the time, the late Patrick Hillery, as having failed to refer a constitutionally dubious Bill purporting to ratify the SEA to the Supreme Court for assessment of its constitutionality.

Judge Henchy wanted to avoid embarrassing the President, so he approved the main provisions of the SEA as having been covered by the original “license” for Ireland to join a developing European Community, but he joined with the majority of the court in striking down the foreign policy provisions, which did not require Oireachtas approval, as being unconstitutional. So the Crotty judgement was a highly political one amongst the five Supreme Court judges themselves! These facts are not widely known, but I assure you they are correct.

It follows therefore that one cannot assume that the transfers of sovereignty entailed by the Lisbon Treaty would be similarly indulged by the present Supreme Court if the matter should come before it, as you implicitly propose in your article.

Judge Henchy moreover made quite clear in his own judgement in the Crotty case that if the then European Community were to move towards becoming a Political Union, a constitutional referendum would be required here to permit that. The European Union that would be established by the Lisbon Treaty – which is the 2004 EU Constitution revamped – is undoubtedly such a Political Union.

In your article you insult the No-side campaigners by saying that they were “unhampered by any allegiance to the truth”. Truly this is the pot calling the kettle black! I do not recollect you or your fellow Yes-side commentators alerting people during the referendum to the hugely important fact that the post-Lisbon EU would be constitutionally and politically profoundly different from the pre-Lisbon EU. . .

Or to the fact that we would be made real citizens for the first time of this post-Lisbon EU, owing obedience to its laws and loyalty to its authority over and above our citizens’ duty to the Irish Constitution and laws. . .

Or to the fact that in the post-Lisbon EU the Irish Government would lose the right it has at present to decide who its national Commissioner would be when we have a member on the Commission, and that this would be replaced by a right to make “suggestions” only for the incoming Commission President to decide – so replacing the present bottom-up process for appointing the Brussels Commission by a top-down one post-Lisbon . . .

Or to the fact that Lisbon proposes to restore the death penalty in Europe for the EU as a corporate entity in time of war or imminent threat of war, by providing that the post-Lisbon EU would accede to Protocol 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which permits the use of the death penalty in such circumstances, rather than to Protocol 13, which abolishes the death penalty at all times and which the individual Member States have separately acceded to. This matter has caused national outrage in Austria and some controversy in Germany, but scarcely anyone has heard about it here in Ireland.

But maybe you would dismiss that too as just another No-side “untruth”?

Yours, Anthony Coughlan

Parliament restricts European political groups

2008-08-06T02:15:00.000-07:00

News @ European Parliament. The so called house of democracy has delivered another blow to democracy. From 2009 it will be much more difficult to create a political group at the European Parliament. From then on, it will be necessary to have 25 members representing a minimum of seven countries. Several members would be denied the democratic right to integrate a group of their choice being forced to sit as non-attached members or to take part in a group which might not fully share the same convictions and views.

Richard Corbett MEP recently proposed a draft report on amendment of Rule 29 of the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure concerning the formation of political groups. The Labour MEP proposed to increase the number of MEPs necessary to form a political group which is presently set at twenty (representing 2.5 per cent of the total number of MEPs) to thirty (representing 4 per cent of the total number of MEPs in a Parliament of 750 MEPs). The European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee voted on the report on 27 May and by a majority of just one, Corbett’s proposal was rejected. All groups had voted against the idea of increasing the threshold with the exception of the EPP-ED and the PES.

Notwithstanding this rejection, Jo Leinen, the President of the Committee decided that the committee members should vote on the remaining amendments. An amendment was approved allowing a political group to continue to exist if it follows below the required threshold until the next constitutive sitting. The amended report was adopted but without the Corbett proposal to increase the threshold. In a show of protest against the vote on the threshold of political groups, ALDE, UEN, Greens, GUE and IND-DEM coordinators wrote a letter to the President of the European Parliament. They believed that the vote on the amendments was an “abuse of procedure” as it took place whilst the MEPs had already rejected the bulk of the report. Consequently, they have asked Pöttering for the report to be sent back to the committee. However, the text was brought to the plenary in the July session. Amendments to the European Parliament Rules of Procedure must be adopted by a majority of the component Members of Parliament.

A compromise was reached between most of the political groups which sets the threshold at 25 MEPs from seven countries. On 9 July the European Parliament voted to increase the threshold to create a political group. Presently, to form a political group, 20 members representing at least one fifth of the Member States (6 countries) is needed. The European Parliament has agreed to change its rules of procedure to increase the threshold to 25 MEPs (3.3 per cent of total membership), representing at least one quarter of the Member States (7 Member States). Such a move was adopted with 481 votes in favour, 203 against and 26 abstentions. Obviously, the EPP and the PES, the Parliament’s largest political groups, fully supported the increase of the threshold. The Greens, GUE and UEN groups have decided to vote in favour of the compromise as it was not as detrimental as Corbett’s proposal. The ALDE group voted against the compromise as well as the Ind-Dem which has 22 members.

An amendment was also approved in which if a group falls below the required threshold, the President of the European Parliament may allow the group to continue to exist until the end of the term if it still represents a fifth of Member States and it has been established for more than a year. The new rules will come into force when the European Parliament starts its next term after the June 2009 European elections. It seems that such amendments to the European Parliament’s rules of procedure were almost designed to target eurosceptic groups. The survival of the Independence/Democracy Group is at threat at the next European elections as it presently has 22 members. Moreover, the Europe of the Nations (UEN) group has 44 members but they represent 6 Member States therefore it might fail to meet the member state threshold in the next election. The Movement for European Reform which is presently supported by the Czech Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the British Conservative Party and the Bulgarian Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) must definitely find more support as presently a political group is composed of MEPs elected from at least six Member States and from 2009, it would be required, under the threshold, to have a quarter – which means seven Member States.

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Global airlines dispute EU emissions scheme

2008-08-06T02:14:00.000-07:00

News @ European Parliament. On 26 June, following several negotiations, the Slovenian Presidency and the European Parliament reached an agreement on a Commission proposal from 2006 for a directive aimed at bringing greenhouse emissions from air transport into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. This directive will have terrible consequences for the aviation industry especially at a time where airlines are already struggling to survive with high fuel prices. Moreover, the aviation industry is likely to pass their costs on to the consumer – therefore the price of ticket flights will probably need to rise.

The Commission has proposed to cover emissions from flights within the EU from 2011 and all flights to and from EU airports from 2012. Whereas the European Parliament and the Council agreed that the ETS should include at the same time intra-Community and intercontinental flights, the Council wanted to include airlines in the ETS in 2012 and the European Parliament has proposed the deadline of 2011. The Council wanted to allow airlines to keep emission levels at the 2004-2006 average levels after 2012 and until 2020 whereas the European Parliament has proposed a 10 per cent cut by 2011. The Council has also insisted that 90 per cent of emission permits would be distributed to airlines for free. Therefore, according to the Member States only 10 per cent of emission permits should be auctioned. However, according to the European Parliament 25 per cent of the emission permits should be auctioned. The European Parliament took the view that revenues from auctions should not be allocated by Member States to their general budget. The European Parliament has proposed that revenues from emission allowance should be used to fund research and to develop sustainable modes of transport. But according to EU Member States, environment ministers’ earmarks should not be binding as Member States should be free to decide how to use such money. As the Council has rejected the European Parliament amendments, the draft proposal has returned to European Parliament for a second reading.

On 26 June, following several negotiations, the Slovenian Presidency and the European Parliament reached an agreement on the inclusion of aviation in the European Emission Trading Scheme. The agreement was formally adopted by the European Parliament on 8 July. The European Parliament voted at second reading adopting a directive which includes aviation in the EU Emissions Trading System from 2012. Under the compromise reached all flights departing or landing in the EU, including intercontinental flights will be integrated in the ETS from 2012. The directive will apply to all airlines flying in and out of the EU, including airlines from third countries. The reduction of emissions from aviation is to be calculated on the basis of airlines’ average annual emissions between 2004-2006. In 2012 airline emissions will be cut by 3 percent therefore there will be a cap on emissions from aviation of 97 per cent of average emissions for 2004- 2006 which will be decreased to 95 per cent from 2013 hence airline emissions will be cut by 5 percent from 2013. Airlines can exceed their CO2 allowances but they will have to buy extra permits from other companies. The cap will be reviewed in light of the general review of the ETS.

Moreover, 85 per cent of the emissions permits will be allocated for free however 15 per cent of the airlines emission permits will be auctioned. Under the agreement reach is for the Member States to decide how to use the revenues generated from the auctioning of emissions allowances however such revenues should be used “to tackle climate change in the EU and third countries … to adapt to the impacts of climate change in the EU and third countries, especially developing countries, to fund research and development for mitigation and adaptation, including in particular in the fields of aeronautics and air transport, to reduce emissions through low-emissions transport, and to cover the cost of administering the scheme.” Moreover, such revenues should be also used “to fund contributions to the Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund, and measures to avoid deforestation.” Airlines whose annual emissions are less than 10,000 tonnes of CO2, humanitarian flights under a UN mandate, emergency flights, police, military flights and research flights are exempted.

The aviation industry is not pleased with such an agreement as they believe that their future business was not taken into account by the EU institutions. It is estimated that the directive could add between €3.5 billion and €7 billion to the costs of the aviation industry. According to Sylviane Lust, Director-General of the International Air Carrier Association, “Fifteen per cent auctioning in 2012 is unaffordable and unacceptable for our airlines given today’s high fuel prices and weakening demand.” The European Low Fares Airline Association (ELFAA) Secretary General, John Hanlon, has said “There is a huge risk that the legislation will impose unnecessary costs that do nothing to achieve its environmental objectives.” According to ELFAA it would be harder for airlines to invest in clean technologies as they will not have the financial means. Moreover, the US as well as Australia, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea (including their airlines) have already shown their opposition to the EU’s ETS and stressed that such move would violate EU Member State international obligations under the Convention on International Civil Aviation. The US is already considering taking legal action against the EU in the WTO. The draft directive still has to be formally approved by the Council which is very likely to accept it.

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Commission creates asylum pact with blessing from the French

2008-08-06T02:12:00.000-07:00

News @ European Commission. The European Commission has adopted a communication entitled “Policy Plan on asylum, an integrated approach to protection across the EU.” It should be recalled that the 1999 Tampere European Council decided that a common asylum policy should be implemented and a common European asylum system be set up using a two-phases approach. The aim of the first phase of a Common European Asylum System (CEAS) which ran from 1999 to 2005 was to harmonise Member States’ legal frameworks on the basis of common minimum standards. The elements of the first phase are already in place: the Reception Conditions Directive (minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers), a Directive on minimum standards in asylum procedures for granting and withdrawing refugee status, a Directive on qualification and content of refugee status and on subsidiary forms of protection and a Regulation on criteria and mechanisms for determining the State responsible for examining asylum requests. The crucial objective of the Common European Asylum System is the establishment of a common asylum procedure and a uniform status for persons in need of international protection valid throughout the EU.

In the present communication, the Commission is proposing a policy plan which defines a road map towards the creation of the CEAS. The Commission has stressed that a Common European Asylum System must provide for a single common procedure, establish uniform statuses for asylum and for subsidiary protection, increase cooperation among the Member States, provide for rules on the determination of the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application as well as solidarity mechanisms. The Commission has pointed out that several shortcomings were identified in the legislative instruments of the CEAS’s first phase – therefore according to the Commission the existing common standards are not enough and consequently it will propose amendments to the current legislation as well as new instruments to complete the second phase of the CEAS. According to the Commission the Reception Conditions Directive allows a considerable amount of discretion for Member States in several key areas. Therefore the Commission wants to amend this instrument to achieve further harmonization. The Commission has stressed that there are different asylum procedural arrangements among the Member States and that the Hague Programme as well as the TFEU call for the establishment of a common asylum procedure. The Lisbon Treaty removes the reference to minimum standards hence there will be common procedures for the granting and withdrawing of uniform asylum or subsidiary protection status.

The Commission is therefore planning to propose in 2009 amendments to the Asylum Procedures Directive which will include the establishment of a single, common asylum procedure and in this way Member States would no longer be entitled to have their own procedural arrangements. The Commission has also pointed out that the Qualification Directive has provided for minimum harmonization on the criteria for granting international protection yet it has stressed there are still differences among the Member States on the recognition of protection needs of applicants from the same countries of origin.

The Commission wants to promote solidarity in this field: it has pointed out that “Solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility” is a TFEU principle which governs the implementation of the CEAS. The Lisbon Treaty introduced a new requirement for “solidarity between Member States.” Hence, those Member States exposed to an influx of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants will be able to be assisted by the Union. The Commission has stressed that one of the CEAS’s aims is to assist Member States that due to their geographic position have to face pressures on their national asylum systems. According to the Commission, the EU has the responsibility, based on the principle of the solidarity, to find a common response to tackle the challenges faced by those Member States. The Dublin Regulation provides the criteria to establish which Member State is responsible for examining an asylum claim. Presently, asylum seekers must apply for asylum in the first EU Member State where they arrive.

The Commission wants to create a Community mechanism which would provide for temporary suspension of the Dublin rules. The Commission believes that the suspension of the Dublin system in emergency situations will lead to a more uniform burden sharing of asylum applications among the EU Member States. The Commission will propose for cases of exceptional asylum pressure, the internal re-allocation, on a voluntary basis, of beneficiaries of international protection from one Member State to another. It should be mentioned that a provision introduced by the Lisbon Treaty states “In the event of one or more Member States being confronted by an emergency situation characterised by a sudden inflow of nationals of third countries, the Council, on a proposal from the Commission, may adopt provisional measures for the benefit of the Member State(s) concerned.”

As there is no veto power and measures are adopted through the co-decision procedure, the UK has a reduced influence over the development of a common asylum policy.

Jacques Barrot, Commissioner Responsible of Justice, Freedom and Security, is not concerned with the Lisbon Treaty entering into force. According to Europolitics, he said “Lisbon did include an article on asylum, but we can act even in the framework of the present treaties.” However, the Commission has made clear, in its communication that it will propose measures to achieve the objectives set out in the TFEU. In fact, the Commission is already counting on the new legal basis provided by the TFEU.

It is no coincidence that the European Council conclusions adopted on 20 June in the area of Freedom, Security and Justice match the French priorities in this area, so French presidency success is almost guaranteed. The European Council has welcomed the abovementioned Commission communications and has underlined the need to continue with progress on the future Common European Asylum System with a view to its realisation by 2010. The European Council has endorsed the European Commission border management package and has invited the Commission to put forward proposals by the beginning of 2010 for an entry/exit and registered traveller system and legislative proposals on an electronic system for travel authorisation and on the creation of a European Border Surveillance System.

The European Council has also stated that it “[...] looks forward to the forthcoming proposal of a pact on immigration and asylum by the incoming French Presidency.” It is well known that France is drafting a European Pact on asylum and immigration. It should be pointed out that the European Commission proposals also match with the French priorities and its idea for the ‘European pact on migration and asylum.” France, at the informal meeting of justice and home affairs ministers on 7 July has revealed its ambitious six-month programme in the area of freedom, security and justice, including its European Pact on Immigration and Asylum. The main aim of the pact is to ensure better co-operation amid Member States on asylum and immigration policy meaning more harmonization on immigration and asylum matters. France has drafted the pact around five main pillars. Under the Pact, Member States should make five commitments. France has suggested that EU should organise legal immigration taking into account the capacity of each Member State to accept migrants according to their labour market needs and in the spirit of solidarity. The Blue card proposal will be the main focus under this heading. Member States would be also committed to set up effective integration policies. The second pillar concerns the control of illegal immigration mainly by returning illegal immigrants to their country of origin. The return of illegal immigrants is already covered by the recently adopted Return Directive. Nevertheless, the pact calls for the EU to conclude readmission agreements with third countries and to put in place common mechanisms for the return of illegally staying third country nationals such as joint flights. Member States would be urged not to use “general regularization for humanitarian or economic reasons, within national legislation.” The third pillar is focused on making the control of the EU external borders more effective in the spirit of solidarity. This includes measures such as strengthening Frontex powers and issuing biometric visas from 2012.

The pact reiterates the need to establish a common European asylum system. It also calls for the creation of a single EU asylum procedure. The pact’s fifth pillar intends to promote the development of the countries of immigration. Member States would be required to implement the decisions resulting from the pact. France has faced opposition from some Member States mainly from Spain which has not agreed to certain aspects; hence, French Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux has watered down his original proposal. The original plan of a compulsory “integration contract” for immigrants was abandoned. Moreover, Sarkozy was hoping to end the mass “regularizations” of illegal migrants yet, due to Spanish opposition, the strong wording calling for the ban of mass regularizations was softened. According to Brice Hortefeux, “The interior ministers gave their unanimous accord on the principles, the objectives, the presentation and the structure of the pact.” Sarkozy is expecting the immigration and asylum pact to be endorsed and officially adopted at the EU summit in October.

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Commission prepares one-size-fits-all EU immigration rules

2008-08-06T02:10:00.000-07:00

News @ European Commission. The European Commission, the French Presidency and the European Council are united on Freedom, Security and Justice policies. Under new measures proposed by the Commission, the British Government will have even less power to decide on asylum and immigration matters. On 17 June, the European Commission adopted two communications which will plan to take forward the EU common immigration and asylum policy. The Commission is expecting to obtain the endorsement of the European Council in October to both communications which will contribute to the 2009 debate on the definition of a new 5-year Programme in the Justice, Freedom and Security area. The communication “A Common immigration policy for Europe: principles, actions and tools” is planning to contribute to the development of a common immigration policy over the next few years. A common immigration policy is one of the EU’s existing priorities. The Commission has proposed common principles on which the common immigration policy should be based. However, the Commission has not limited itself to indicating principles – it has already proposed concrete action for their implementation.

According to the Commission, “immigration for economic purposes should respond to a common needs-based assessment of EU labour markets addressing all skills levels and sectors in order to enhance the knowledge-based economy of Europe, to advance economic growth and to meet labour market requirements.” In order to achieve this, Member States would be required to develop “national immigration profiles” in order to provide data on immigrant numbers as well as immigrant participation in the national labour market. The Commission also urges the Member States to increase the “effectiveness of labour-matching policies and tools”, meaning more investment in the education and training for third-country workers in order to match their skills with the needs of national labour markets. Member States would be required to invest more in measures endeavouring to bring unemployed third country nationals who are legally residing in the EU Member States into employment. The Commission also stressed that host Member States must strengthen their efforts to integrate legal immigrants and has called on the Member States to effectively apply EU law which provides third country nationals with the same treatment as EU nationals in coordinating social security schemes across the EU. The Commission has pointed out that a common immigration policy must be based on solidarity among the Member States.

According to the Commission “… no Member State can effectively control or deal with all aspects of immigration on their own and therefore decisions likely to have an impact on other Member States need to be coordinated.” Member States would no longer be entitled to determine their national immigration policies. Last February, the European Commission adopted a package on the management of the EU’s external borders aiming to set up an integrated EU policy on border management and to ensure a uniform and high level of control and surveillance (see The European Journal, April 2007 issue). In this present communication, the Commission has reiterated its wishes to extend FRONTEX powers. The Commission has suggested that the Member States should increase the use of biometrics with the aim of fighting illegal immigration. The Commission has pointed out that “Effective return measures are an indispensable component of the EU’s policy on illegal immigration.” Therefore, the Commission has asked the Member States to provide the return policy with a “genuine European dimension.” The European Commission has called for a common approach on regularization. Member States would be required to report to the Commission each year on the implementation of the common objectives and on their national immigration profiles. Based on Member States’ reports, the Commission will draft an annual report for the European Council to make a political assessment of the situation and to issue recommendations.

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EU creates sanctions for environmental crimes

2008-06-24T04:05:00.001-07:00

News @ Justice & Home Affairs Council. The Council has recently reached an agreement with the European Parliament on the Directive for the protection of the environment through criminal law (at first reading, under the co-decision procedure). According to Hartmut Nassauer, European Parliament rapporteur, “we are setting a precedent” whilst stressing that criminal penalties might be extended to other areas than protection of environment. This Directive intends to harmonise the approach of Member States in the breach of EU environmental protection rules. Presently, there is no express power conferred by the EC Treaty to the Community to adopt criminal law measures.

In 2001, the European Commission proposed a Directive on the protection of the environment through criminal law however the Council had adopted a framework decision instead. In September 2005, the ECJ ruled that the Community had the competence to adopt criminal measures to ensure compliance with environmental protection rules and annulled the framework decision. Obviously, the ECJ ruling was an important victory for the European Commission which could not wait to initiate legislation in criminal matters. In February 2007 the European Commission had put forward a proposal for a Directive on the protection of the environment through criminal law aiming at replacing the Council Framework Decision annulled by the ECJ. The Directive will apply to breaches of Community law on the protection of the environment such as the illegal transport of waste, illegal trafficking of threatened species, the significant deterioration of protected habitats, unauthorized emissions into the water, air or soil, through dangerous activities which includes the production, storage and transportation of nuclear material, or the production and placing on the market or use of ozone depleting substances. Under the Directive such behaviour will be considered as a criminal offence throughout the EU when unlawful and committed intentionally or with serious negligence.

Member States are therefore required to introduce in their national legislation criminal penalties for serious violation of Community environmental protection law committed intentionally or by seriously neglect and to introduce the necessary measures to ensure that these offences are punishable by effective, proportionate and dissuasive criminal penalties. Under the Directive, inciting, aiding and abetting of such conduct will also be considered a criminal offence. The Commission was initially aiming at harmonizing the minimum levels for fines but this was withdrawn as the ECJ ruled that the Community does not have competence to determine the type and the level of the criminal sanctions.

The Lisbon Treaty confers powers on the Union to define criminal offences and sanctions when they are necessary for the implementation of one of its policies. The Justice and Home Affairs Council gave its blessing to this Directive on 6 June. The power to determine criminal liability and to impose criminal penalties is another sovereign power which has been transferred from Member States to Brussels.

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EU Parliament seeks larger role in foreign and defence policy

2008-06-24T04:02:00.000-07:00

It is well known that the role played by the EU in the international arena would be enhanced if the Lisbon Treaty goes through. On 5 June, the European Parliament adopted two reports on the impact of the Lisbon Treaty on the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and on the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). Obviously, the European Parliament wants to have a bigger role in these areas. The European Parliament adopted by a large majority (520 votes in favour) Jacek Saryusz-Wolskin’s own initiative report on the Council’s 2006 Annual Report on CFSP. The European Parliament welcomed the “improvements” introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon regarding external action, the CFSP and the ESDP, which will become the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).

The European Parliament has stressed the necessity of improving EU political unity in order to strengthen the CFSP. Under the Lisbon Treaty, there is an overall transfer of further political power to EU level, through the new President of the European Council and the High Representative on Foreign and Security policy. All these changes would eliminate or diminish the ability of Member States to conduct their own foreign policy. The intergovernmental nature of the CFSP is maintained under the Lisbon Treaty however it increases the areas in which QMV would be applied to CFSP matters which includes decisions on proposals presented by the High Representative, all of which is unacceptable.

However, the European Parliament wants to scrap the veto on CFSP matters. According to the European Parliament, the Lisbon Treaty improves the existing CFSP arrangements but “further efforts are needed in order to streamline the decision-making process as regards foreign policy with a view to overcoming the veto power and introducing qualified majority voting.” The European Parliament has called for further transfer of power from the Member States to the Union. If the Lisbon Treaty goes through, the Union would not only have a “foreign affairs minister” but also a European external action service (EEAS), meaning a diplomatic service with delegations in several countries. The organisation and functioning of the EEAS will be established by a Council decision, acting by a QMV, on a proposal from the High Representative after consulting the European Parliament and obtaining the consent of the Commission. The European Parliament has stressed its right to be consulted on the establishment of the EEAS. Obviously the creation of the European external action service will challenge the distinction of European and national foreign policy priorities and interests. The Member States would no longer represent themselves but the Union on the international stage.

The European Parliament also adopted Helmut Kuhne’s own initiative report on the implementation of the European Security Strategy (ESS) and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) by a large majority (500 votes in favour). According to Geoffrey Van Orden MEP, Conservative Spokesman on Defence, “This report is a manifesto for an EU takeover of our armed forces – the greatest prize for the federalists and their ambition to create a state called Europe.”

The European Parliament has invited the High Representative to include in a White Paper major proposals endeavouring to improving and complementing the European Security Strategy (ESS), mainly “the definition of common European security interests and criteria for the launching of ESDP missions.” The European Parliament has also called on the High Representative “to define new targets for civilian and military capabilities (…) and to reflect on the implications of the Lisbon Treaty with regard to ESDP and proposals for a new EU-NATO partnership.”

The European Parliament has welcomed the Lisbon Treaty’s major innovations in the area of ESDP such as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, a European External Action Service, a provision on mutual defence assistance, a solidarity clause, permanent structured cooperation in the field of defence and an extension of the “Petersberg tasks.” The Common Security and Defence Policy would be further developed under the Lisbon Treaty. There would be a major transfer of power in this area from the Member States to the Union. The Lisbon Treaty would further the Union’s defence integration. UK relations with the rest of the world and NATO would be undermined. The Lisbon Treaty also introduces a provision for “permanent structured cooperation” between a group of Member States, allowing greater cooperation in the area of capabilities. The aim is to move forward in military and defence integration. It is a step towards a Single European Army. As this would not be enough, the European Parliament has asked the Member States to examine the possibility of possessing (under the terms of permanent structured cooperation, and as foreseen in the Lisbon Treaty) existing multinational forces such as Eurocorps, Eurofor, Euromarfor, the European Gendarmerie Force, the European Air Group, the European Air Coordination cell in Eindhoven, the Athens Multinational Sealift Coordination Centre and all relevant forces and structures for ESDP operations. As regards civilian crisis management and civil protection, the European Parliament has called upon the Commission to look into the possibilities for setting up of a specialised unit within the European external action service aiming to ensure a more coherent approach to civilian crisis management based on better coordination of internal EU instruments. Moreover, the European Parliament has stressed the importance of strengthening the conflict resolution civil capacity and consequently urged the establishment of an EU Civil Peace Corps for crisis management and conflict prevention. Furthermore, the European Parliament has reiterated its opinion that its is unacceptable that although the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports hits its tenth year in 2008, it is not yet legally binding. The European Parliament has stressed the need for the EU to have a leading role on strengthening the international arms control regime.

Geoffrey Van Orden has spoken against arms trade being surrendered to EU control. He has said “Britain is fortunate to possess the largest and most successful defence industry in Europe. Strategic industries and British jobs would be put at risk if the EU was allowed to bind us with more of its bureaucratic red tape.” The European Parliament has also called on the Council to assess the Battle Group concept in order to create a more extensive catalogue of available capabilities and to be in a position to promptly generate a force adequate to a mission’s circumstances. It also wants to set up within the EU Operations Centre a permanent planning and operational capability to conduct ESDP military operations. The MEPs have also proposed “to place Eurocorps as a standing force under EU command and invite all Member States to contribute to it.” Keeping in mind the training of those European forces, the European Parliament has called for a military ‘Erasmus’ programme. The European Parliament has welcomed the Commission’s proposals for a directive on defence procurement and for a Directive on intra-Community defence equipment transfers. The MEPs have stressed that the European Parliament should adopt a recommendation or resolution before the launch of any ESDP operation and have asked the Council to include in a decision authorising an ESDP operation a reference to a recommendation or resolution adopted by Parliament.

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The Commission strikes again on UK budgetary control

2008-06-24T04:01:00.000-07:00

News @ European Commission. On 11 June, the European Commission adopted a report according to Article 104 (3) of the EC Treaty, to initiate the excessive deficit procedure for the United Kingdom. The European Commission adopted the report following the UK notification, in March 2008, of a planned deficit of 3.2 per cent of GDP in financial year 2008-09, which is above 3 per cent of GDP – the Treaty reference value.

The Commission has stressed that the planned figure for 2008-09 provides evidence of the existence of an excessive deficit in the UK which was confirmed by the spring forecast. The Commission has accepted that the planned deficit is close to the reference value and has concluded that the UK’s planned excess over the deficit over the reference value cannot be qualified as exceptional within the terms of the Treaty and the Stability and Growth Pact, or temporary. Therefore the Commission has suggested that the UK is not respecting the deficit criterion established in the Treaty. Hence, the Commission has issued a warning for the UK to keep the budget deficit under the 3 per cent GDP level.

The UK is therefore under EU pressure to improve its finances. The Commission has already warned that tax cuts would further sprain public finances. Consequently, Alistair Darling might raise taxes to reduce the deficit. The initiation of the excessive deficit procedure against the UK though would not lead to financial sanctions if the UK does not follow the recommendations but it raises doubts over Alistair Darling’s management of public finances. The report will be assessed by the Ecofin Council.

On 5 June, the European Commission has also lodged a formal complaint to the ECJ against the UK for alleged failure to comply with European employment legislation relating to road transport activities. According to the Commission, the UK has not informed it of its national measures transposing Directive 2006/22/EC which regulates the controls that Member States have to carry out in order to ensure compliance with rules on driving time and rest periods. Member States were required to adopt the necessary legislation before 1 April 2007. Moreover, the Commission has also sent a reasoned opinion against the UK for alleged failure to fully transpose Directive 2005/45/EC into national law on the mutual recognition of seafarers’ certificates issued by the Member States. Member States had until October 2007 to transpose the Directive. It is aimed at encouraging mobility of seafarers within the European Union. The UK will have to adapt its national legislation on maritime transport if it does not want to find itself before the ECJ.

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US frustrated as EU Commission remains defiant in lifting chicken ban

2008-06-24T03:59:00.000-07:00

News @ European Commission. The credibility of the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) is at stake as the Commission will not be able to honour its commitments. On 13 May, Gunther Verheugen, Vice President of the European Commission and TEC chairman had promised that the Commission would put forward a proposal to lift the 1997 EU ban on the US chlorinated chickens (see The European Journal, June issue). On 28 May, the European Commission has submitted the proposal to the Standing Committee on Food Chain and Animal Health. The Commission’s Draft Regulation establishes strict rules and criteria for the use of antimicrobial substances. Operators would be required to set up controls to check the potential effects of the use of such substances. Moreover, operators are required under the Commission proposal to affix the sign of “chemical decontamination” or “treated with antimicrobial substances” on the poultry packaging. The operators are also required to rinse the poultry carcasses with potable water after treatment.

The Commission’s proposal sets a temporary authorisation of two years for the import of chickens for human consumption treated with chlorinate. Mr Verheugen has made significant efforts to work with the United States however he may have provided false hopes, as it will be very difficult for Member States to approve the proposal. At the Agriculture Council which took place on 19 May, it became clearer that the majority of the EU agriculture ministers are against the idea of authorising US poultry in the EU market. The poultry issue is among the main priorities of the TEC.

The US has already criticised the Commission’s proposal. Daniel Price, the Co-Chairman of the TEC, has said, according to Europolitics, that the Commission’s proposal “is the functional equivalent of leaving the ban in place.” According to Price, the European Commission is already undermining the TEC, adding, “The message being sent out is that if an issue is politically difficult or affects the commercial interests of local domestic constituents, it may not be appropriate for the TEC. This really is not about the poultry trade – it is about the TEC’s integrity.”

The Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health voted on 2 June to keep the ban on US poultry imports, rejecting the European Commission proposal. All the EU Member States, with the exception of the UK which has abstained, have voted to keep in place the ban on imports of poultry rinsed in chlorine. According to the comitology rules, the Commission’s proposal will go to the Agriculture Council which is very likely to reject the proposal as the EU agriculture ministers have recently shown their opposition to such measure. This is effectively a blow to the EU and US trade relations. Günter Verheugen has promised that it would work with the Member States in order to find an agreement on lifting the ban on US chickens but up until now, it has achieved the opposite. The TEC’s credibility is already at stake in achieving little in the way of removing barriers to transatlantic trade. The EU-US Summit took place on 10 June and trade tensions are set to stay rather than be sorted. The summit unsurprisingly has not brought any major developments. According to a Joint Declaration, the EU and US have welcomed the work of the Transatlantic Economic Council yet it was stressed that that in order “To fulfill the TEC's mandate of creating a barrier-free transatlantic market, it is essential that both sides follow through on their commitments ….” The US is already considering taking the issue to the World Trade Organisation. In order for the TEC to start producing results, Gunter Verheugen needs support from the EU presidency which does not seem likely during the French presidency as it is obvious that France is not willing to remove regulatory trade barriers.

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Franco-German united front against CAP reform

2008-06-24T03:57:00.000-07:00

News @ European Commission. Mariann Fischer-Boel, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, has recently unveiled the Commission’s proposals for the so-called CAP Health Check. The Commission’s proposal does very little to boost farm competitiveness, to phase out all the price support measures and to cut bureaucracy. The situation is likely to get even worse through the negotiations as several Member States such as France and Germany believe that the Commission’s proposals are too ambitious since they both want to keep the coupled payment system and market instruments. It is very likely the UK will have few or none of its demands met through the negotiation process.

CAP has been through recent reforms but it continues to be one of the most expensive EU common policies, it imposes substantial costs on developing countries as well as on EU consumers and taxpayers. Tony Blair not only gave up part of the UK rebate but there appears to be no serious CAP reform on the way. The Government has stressed, on its longer term vision for the CAP, published in 2005, that “the CAP has been estimated to be equivalent to a value added tax on food of around 15 per cent” and that “removing market price support would bring a one-off reduction in inflation of 0.9 per cent.” The European Commission has proposed to increase decoupling, strengthen rules on cross compliance, reduce market intervention mechanisms and increasing modulation. However, the Commission’s proposal to reform CAP is far from satisfactory.

The Commission has proposed further decoupling, meaning reducing the link between how much farmers produce and how much financial support they receive from the CAP with the exceptions of suckler cows, goat and sheep premia where Member States would be allowed to maintain the coupled support. Whereas the UK favour direct aid to be completely decoupled from production, several EU Member States such as France, Portugal, Germany and Romania, are not convinced by the Commission’s proposals on decoupling as they believe it will not promote production.

The Commission has pointed out that in order to strengthen the EU efforts in the field of climate change, renewable energy, water management and biodiversity, additional funding is needed. The Commission believes that “the best way of meeting them is through Rural Development policy.” Therefore, it has proposed to increase the transfer of direct payments to the Rural Development budget by 8 per cent. Modulation provides a mean to ensure the transfer of subsidy funds from Pillar 1 of the CAP (guarantee expenditure and single farm payments) to Pillar 2 (rural development and agri-environmental schemes). Some Member States are concerned that the rural development support will come at expense of market supports and subsidies.

Presently, all direct aid payments of more than €5,000 are reduced by 5 per cent and the money is transferred into the Rural Development budget. The Commission wants to make further cuts for bigger farms. It has proposed that any amount of direct payments to be granted to a farmer that exceeds EUR 5,000 shall be reduced for each year until 2012 by the following way “2009: 7%, 2010: 9%, 2011: 11%, 2012: 13%.” However, several Member States such as Germany are concerned that reducing subsidies to big farmers might lead to splits into smaller farms in order to qualify for subsidies. The Commission has also proposed to replace the present intervention systems under which farmers are able to sell stock into EU reserves if they cannot get a decent price for their produce on the market into a “genuine safety net.” It has proposed to abolish the existing intervention mechanisms for durum wheat, rice and pig meat. Intervention will be set at zero for feed grains and tendering will be introduced for bread wheat, butter and skimmed milk powder. The UK has been demanding the end of all market instruments whereas France does not want to give up market interventions. The Commission has also proposed to abolish existing rules on keeping 10 per cent of farmers’ arable land untouched.

Unsurprisingly, the Commission’s proposed reform has not pleased France and Germany which united forces to defend the present CAP. France and Germany have been arguing that CAP is needed to keep food price stability in the EU as well as to protect farmers through the import tariff system. On the other hand, the UK has been demanding serious CAP reform. France and Germany are completely against the idea of cutting farm subsidies. Mr. Darling has called for a “phasing out all elements of the CAP that are designed to keep EU prices above world market levels (such measures cost EU consumers 43 billion euros in 2006), an end to direct payments for EU farmers (which cost EU taxpayers 34 billion euros in 2006).”

Mr Seehofer, Germany’s Agriculture Minister, has said “we have to make sure that we can provide this continent with food sustainability. This cannot be done by taking away subsidies from European farmers.” Yet, Alistair Darling believes that is “unacceptable that, at a time of significant food price inflation, the EU continues to apply very high import tariffs to many agricultural commodities.” According to Michel Barnier, French agriculture minister, “The solution to the crisis is not, first of all, through free trade (…).” Mariann Fischer Boel has dismissed the French claims, saying “I am not interested in a protectionistic approach to the agricultural production in Europe (…).” Nevertheless, she has also dismissed the UK position, while saying “The market has a very important role to play, but left to itself, it will not care for our landscapes or respond to other public demands.” Moreover, she said, “This is not the time to scrap the CAP, as some have proposed.”

The EU Agriculture Minister will further discuss the Commission’s CAP health check at the Agriculture Council in June which will face opposition from several Member States. On the one hand, France and Germany defend farm subsidies while on the other hand, the UK wants to scrap them. France will be wearing the EU helmet in July and ironically the CAP reform will be debated during its presidency. France being the biggest beneficiary of CAP does not want to see a reduction on farm subsidies. The Commission’s proposals are expected to be adopted by the Council by the end of the year and come into force in 2009.

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Threat to US-EU relations by Transatlantic Economic Council

2008-05-27T04:04:00.001-07:00

The Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) was created in April 2007 at the EU-US Summit in Washington to foster transatlantic economic integration. It aims to achieve better regulation, barrier-free and secure trade, protection of intellectual property rights, and integration of financial markets although it is doubtful that it will be able to achieve such objectives. On 13 May, the TEC met for the second time. According to the US Chamber of Commerce and BusinessEurope, if all the outstanding regulatory barriers could be resolved by the TEC, that could add €6.5 billion ($10bn) to the transatlantic economic relationship in saved costs and potential market growth. The transatlantic business community are hoping that the TEC will begin to manage the bilateral tensions between the US and EU. American businessmen are particularly concerned about regulatory barriers in the cosmetics and poultry sectors. The EU’s ban on the marketing of cosmetics ingredients that were tested on animals will enter into force in March 2009 and it is becoming quite difficult for the US to meet that deadline. Moreover, the US cosmetics firms have been objecting to the EU’s REACH chemicals regulation deadline on June 2008, for registering certain chemicals used in cosmetics made outside the EU. The US believes that the deadline is almost impossible to be meet which will lead to millions of dollars in lost sales as product formulas will be prevented from being sold within the EU. The main concern of this industry is that its products would be classified as new substances therefore they must be registered with the European Chemicals Agency by 1 June 2008 however they are not entitled to the extended registration deadlines that some European companies are. Furthermore, the EU has been also calling to recognise the US accounting system since it has became too expensive for one company to settle its accounts in accordance with the other system. US business has also called for a lifting of the EU’s 11 years ban on importing US chickens that are washed in chlorine. Under the EU rules, poultry meat must be washed in water of drinking quality. According to the European Food Safety Authority there are no risks from treating poultry meat with chlorinated water yet Mariann Fischer Boel, the Agriculture Commissioner, believes that such move will upset EU farmers as importers would be allowed to meet lower standards. In the meantime, according to the Financial Times, “European poultry producers are using a chlorine-washing process on exported chicken, while the same cleaning method in the US has led to a de facto ban on American sales in the EU.” On the other hand, the US is urged to scrap its low-voltage procedure approval for electrical products which requires products to be tested in independent laboratories which, according to BusinessEurope, leads to €77 million a year in lost sales opportunities. On poultry, the Commission has promised that it will work with the Member States and the European Parliament to find an agreement on this issue, before the next TEC meeting, scheduled to take place in the autumn 2008. The Commission has also guaranteed US officials that it will “take concrete action” to make sure that trade in cosmetics is not disrupted by the REACH regulation. The Commission has said that will propose “a positive decision” on the equivalence of US accounting standards to EU rules in the course of 2008. It seems that the progress made on the TEC agenda consists only of promises. According to the joint statement “Neither side, for example, is completely satisfied that its concerns are yet being fully addressed in the TEC process.” It remains to be seen if the European Commission will be able to honour its commitments. Nevertheless, it seems that the TECs credibility is already at stake. Soon transatlantic businesses will realise that TEC will achieve nothing in removing barriers to transatlantic trade.

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Commission presents 2009 Budget

2008-05-27T04:03:00.000-07:00

On 6 May, Dalia Grybauskaité, European Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget, presented the preliminary draft of the 2009 budget, launching the negotiations on the annual budget procedure between the Parliament and the Council. 2009 will be no exception to the predictable rule of thumb: that the EU budget wastes millions of euros and pounds of taxpayer’s money. The Commission has proposed €134.4 billion in commitment appropriations, which represents 1.04 per cent of the Union’s GNI and an increase of 3.1 per cent compared to 2008. The payment appropriations are €116.7 billion, representing 0.9 per cent of the EU’s GNI and a fall of 3.3 per cent compared to the 2008 budget. Grybauskaité has explained that this decrease was due to certain payment appropriations, mainly those funding structural actions, were finalised and paid in advance in 2008 and consequently will not be paid in 2009.

Last year, the European Commission proposed that economic growth and employment would be the largest part of the Union’s 2009 budget, representing 45 per cent of the budget. Although agricultural expenditure is not the main spending it still represents almost 43 per cent of the budget. Hence, €60 billion will be allocated for growth and employment. A total €11.7 billion will be channelled into areas such as research, innovation and lifelong learning which represents a 5.5 per cent rise from 2008. For the ‘Lifelong learning programmes’ a total appropriation of EUR 935,4 million was proposed by the Commission for operational expenditure for 2009. The organisations which receive funding are the ones which promote EU integration. As Chris Heaton-Harris MEP has said “… most ‘educational’ material emanating from the EU is more like pro-integration propaganda.” The Lifelong learning programmes are a significant waste of UK taxpayers’ money. Around €57 billion will be allocated to ‘Agricultural and Rural Development. With an increase of 2.5 per cent compared to last year, €48.4 billion will be allocated to programmes to support cohesion across Europe. In 2009, around €40 billion will be allocated to the structural funds and over €9 billion for the Cohesion Fund.

The 2009 budget has been called the “green budget” as around €17 billion will be allocated to energy and climate change packages. A massive €14 billion of funds will go toward environmental targets and funding for energy objectives such as the development of sustainable energy, which demands around €2.3 billion. The spending on ‘EU as a global partner’ will be allocated €7.4 billion which represents an increase of 1.8 per cent compared to 2008. There is an increase of 1.1 per cent in the freedom, security, justice and citizenship heading budget which amounts to 1.5 billion in commitment appropriations, an 8.6 per cent rise over 2008. €839 million will be allocated to fight crime, terrorism and manage migration flows. There is a significant increase concerning security and safeguarding liberties which will rise by 32 per cent, with €90 million being spent on combating crime. €52 million will go on citizens’ programmes focusing on European culture. The Commission also wishes to see an increase of 5 per cent in the budget for administrative expenditure across all EU institutions. The Commission has therefore proposed €7.6 billion for administration. It wants to create around 250 new posts taking into account the enlargement to Bulgaria and Romania.

There is no clear added value in spending such amounts at the EU level. The EU has been spending UK taxpayer’s money on policies that clearly do not benefit them. Taxpayers are forced to spend millions of pounds on the Commission’s projects such as Galileo and the European Institute of Technology which they do not want. The UK is contributing to EU programmes that are of no benefit to British people. The UK net contributions have been increasing. Under the financial perspectives agreement reached in December 2005, Tony Blair agreed to increase the UK contribution to the EU budget for 2007-13. The UK’s 2005 net contribution was £3.6 billion, £3.9 in 2006 and according to HM Treasury European Community Finances Statement on the 2007 EC Budget the UK’s 2007 net contribution is estimated to be £4.7 billion. According to several researches in this area, the UK’s 2008/09 net contribution is estimated to be around £6.1 billion and in 2009/10 around £6.4 billion.

The Commission has not taken into account expenditure related to the Lisbon Treaty, such as new provisions for the European external action service, because the Treaty has not been ratified yet. According to the Commission, that spending will not be significant as it will mainly be covered by national governments. Instead, there will be a budget correction in due time. The Commission does not want to touch these delicate issues in order not to upset the Lisbon Treaty’s ratification. Nevertheless, the EU Member States have already started discussions on the proposed new President of the EU such as possible salary and staff. Nobody knows yet precisely what will be the job of the EU President however according to the EUobserver, the EU Member States are already talking of providing the President with “a salary of around €270,000, a chauffeured car, a housing allowance and a personal staff of around 20” which will be almost equivalent to what the President of the European Commission is getting. Another innovation of the Lisbon Treaty which will have repercussions on the budget is the change to the European Council, which will become an EU institution and therefore it will have its own budget. There is also the expenditure for the post of the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy which also needs to be covered by the budget.

The European Commission presented the preliminary draft budget for 2009 to the Ecofin Council on 14 May. The Council is planning to present a draft budget at first reading on 17 July. The EU Member States will now analyze the draft budget and they will in all likelihood, attempt to cut spending in areas where the European Parliament would like to increase it. Several MEPs are not pleased with the tight margins of the draft budget in several areas, particularly that dedicated to the Union’s external actions. According to Europolitics, Jutta Haug said that the budget for “the EU as a global partner” does not take into account everything that needs to be funded. Nevertheless, several MEPs have already shown their satisfaction with the increase in funds for the Seventh Framework Programme for Research, the Trans-European Networks and Galileo. It should be mentioned that the Lisbon Treaty amends the budget procedure conferring further powers on the European Parliament. The Lisbon Treaty abolishes the distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure, hence the European Parliament will be on equal footing with the Council. The European Parliament will be able to influence the entire budget.

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Planning the future of the euro

2008-05-27T04:02:00.000-07:00

On the tenth anniversary of the euro, the European Commission has called for better coordination of economic policies, to strengthen co-ordination of structural reform in the euro area and for a single seat in international financial institutions. On 7 May, the European Commission adopted a communication “EMU@10: successes and challenges after 10 years of Economic and Monetary Union” which assesses the first ten years of EMU highlighting its achievements while identifying the goals and challenges facing the euro area. The Commission has described the euro as “a resounding success.” The Commission has referred to the main benefits of the euro such as price stability, job creation, low interest rates, reduced costs for travellers, lower costs for businesses and increased trade. The Commission has highlighted that the “euro area has become a pole of stability for Europe and the world economy.” However the euro has not fulfilled all expectations. There were not many changes concerning economic growth have stood at around 2 per cent per year since the inception of euro which is roughly the same rate as in the previous ten years. The Commission has pointed out that “the euro area’s per capita income has stalled at 70 per cent of that of the United States.” Nevertheless, the Commission believes that “the public image of the euro does not fully reflect EMU's successful economic performance.” According to the Commission the euro is “used as a scapegoat for poor economic performances” which it believes is the “result from inappropriate economic policies at the national level.” The Commission has denied the beliefs of citizens that the euro increased prices when it was introduced. The Commission has stressed that the next decade will be marked by new global challenges which will have an impact on the EMU weaknesses such as globalization, the rising of food and energy prices, climate change and an ageing population. The Commission has put forward a three pillar agenda to address the challenges facing the EMU. The Commission has stressed that the euro area’s governance and coordination of economic policies must be improved which involves deepening as well as broadening economic surveillance arrangements to guide fiscal policy over the cycle and in the long term and, at the same time, address divergences in growth, inflation and competitiveness. The Commission has called for a deeper budgetary surveillance. The Commission believes that public debt developments in the euro-area should be closely monitored whereas “medium term budgetary objectives should be strengthened to address implicit liabilities.”

The second element of the Commission domestic strategy intends to better integrate structural policies within the coordination process in EMU. The Commission has pointed out that low growth has been more marked in Member States where structural reforms have been lagging behind and so the Commission recommends strengthening the co-ordination of structural reform in the euro area. According to the Commission, “reforms should be a top priority for EMU members.” The Commission has stressed that such measures should be addressed to remove the remaining barriers to product market integration, enhancing competition, fully implementing the Services Directive and promoting better-functioning labour markets. According to Joaquín Almunia, Commissioner responsible for Economic and Monetary Affairs, in order to achieve stronger incentives for reforms the Eurogroup should closely monitor the implementation of the specific euro area recommendations of the Lisbon Strategy. Such a recommendation would have political and economic implications. Mr Almunia has already stressed that “the Eurogroup should take a more active role in monitoring and coordinating structural reforms.” There will be further policies at EU level. It would represent a further impetus for Member States to carry out economic policies as a matter of the EU’s common concern. Moreover, the Commission has stressed that the euro area “has to play a more active and assertive role both in multilateral fora and through its bilateral dialogues with strategic partners.” The Commission is calling for the euro area “to speak with a single voice on exchange rate policies.” The Commission believes that “the most effective way for the euro area to align its influence with its economic weight is by developing common positions and by consolidating its representation, ultimately obtaining a single seat in the relevant international financial institutions and fora.” Presently, Member States still represent themselves in front of financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the G7 group. Obviously, it would be quite difficult for several Member States to accept such a suggestion, whether that be Germany, France or Italy as they do not want to lose their influence in those institutions. The third pillar of the Commission policy agenda aims to improve the EMU’s system of governance. According to the Commission, “better coordination and surveillance of national economic and budgetary policies is needed within the ECOFIN Council and the Eurogroup … in order to address imbalances and promote structural reforms that foster adjustment, stability and growth.” Further coordination of Member States’ economic policies within the Union might harm the economic interests of several Member States. Presently, there are no binding instruments for the EMU’s economic coordination. The Commission believes that better use can be made of the institutions and instruments governing the EMU in order to tackle emerging policy challenges. The Commission has called for a closer coordination between the ECOFIN and the Eurogroup, especially taking into account the expansion of the euro area. According to the Commission, the “Eurogroup should continue to serve as a platform for the deepening and broadening of policy coordination and surveillance in EMU.” The Commission has recalled that the Lisbon Treaty formally recognises the Eurogroup strengthening its role on questions affecting the functioning of EMU. Unsurprisingly, the Commission wants to play a stronger role to ensure the effective functioning of EMU. The Commission wants to promote further economic and financial integration. Moreover, it wants to enhance its role in international dialogues. The Commission has pointed out that the Lisbon Treaty provides the necessary basis to “adopt measures specific to euro-area Member States” as well as “to strengthen the coordination and surveillance of their budgetary discipline” and to set out economic policy guidelines for euro area Member States whilst ensuring that they are compatible with those adopted for the whole of the Union. The Commission is provided, under the Lisbon Treaty, with the power to issue direct warnings to a Member State, therefore it does not have to wait for the EU finance minister’s approval when Member States economic policies are not consistent with the broad guidelines or risk jeopardising the proper functioning of EMU. At the moment, the Commission wants to promote discussion on the several issues raised in this communication yet Almunia has already said “Then, in time, the Commission will come back with appropriate, concrete proposals.” The Commission suggestions will have far reaching implications for Member States’ structural, financial and economic policies and so the Commission might not achieve the level of consensus that it is hoping for between the EU institutions on further policies for the EMU.

The discussions will take place during the French EU Presidency. France has already announced that it wants to look at the eurozone governance during its presidency. In the meantime, according to the EUobserver, Dutch finance minister, Wouter Bos, has recently spoken at the Brussels Economic Forum pointing out that “high-debt states may undermine the stability of the whole monetary union.” According to Mr Bos, such Member States “will be forced by political pressure to borrow more and increase their budget deficit, with consequences for interest rates and inflation.” He believes, therefore that the “long-term chances of survival of the euro should be questioned.”

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UK to face European Commission sanctions for Government deficit?

2008-05-27T04:00:00.000-07:00

The Commission is set to send a strong political message to the UK Government on its deficit: according to the Commission’s spring economic forecast, the UK is not setting a good example of budgetary discipline. Joaquin Almunia already announced on 11 June that the Commission will put forward a proposal to open an excessive deficit procedure against the UK for breaching the 3 per cent rule on deficits.

On 28 April, the European Commission presented its spring economic forecast 2008-2009 which is marked by high inflation and low growth. The EU’s growth is expected to come down from 2.8 per cent to 2 per cent this year and to 1.8 per cent in 2009 whereas the autumn forecast had foreseen growth of 2.4 per cent. The slowdown in the eurozone is even more marked as growth in the eurozone is foreseen to fall from 1.7 per cent in 2008 and 1.5 in 2009 from 2.6 per cent in 2007. The Commission had previously foreseen rates of 2.2 per cent this year and 2.1 per cent in 2009 in the eurozone. The turmoil in the financial markets, the United States market slowdown and soaring prices of oil and raw materials are the reasons given by the Commission for “the moderation in growth.” Employment growth is predicted to slow down to 0.8 per cent this year and 0.5 per cent next year in the EU (0.9 per cent and 0.5 per cent, respectively, in the euro area). The unemployment rate is estimated at 6.8 per cent in the EU this year and 7.2 per cent in the euro area.

Even with slow growth, the Commission believes that “the EU economy is holding up relatively well thanks to sound fundamentals and is expected to create 3 million new jobs in 2008-2009.” Consumer price inflation is expected to surge temporarily in 2008 to 3.6 per cent in the EU and 3.2 in the eurozone against 2.4 per cent and 2.1 per cent respectively in 2007 due to soaring energy and food prices. The inflation is expected to come down to 2.4 per cent in 2009 and 2.2 per cent in the euro area. The Commission has projected the public deficit to deteriorate in 2008 and 2009. The 2008 overall deficit is foreseen to increase to 1.2 per cent of the GDP in the EU and 1 per cent in the eurozone but in 2009 the deficit should broadly stabilise.

According to the Commission’s spring economic forecast, the foreseen economic slowdown will also have a negative impact on the public debt of Member States. Things do not look well, in particular for the UK. The Commission has pointed out that “the significant depreciation of the pound's nominal effective exchange rate (by over 11 per cent between August and March) is likely to improve the price competitiveness of UK exports” whereas “at the same time aggravating inflationary risks in the short term.”

Moreover, the Commission envisages “a marked slowing of private consumption in 2008, driven by more restrictive borrowing conditions and a downward correction in house prices, and only a limited recovery in 2009.” The Commission has stressed that “Whilst moderate earnings growth will support private consumption, employment growth will no longer do so as it slows to almost zero over the forecast horizon.” The Commission has stated that “growth in the UK economy is expected to slow to around 1¾ per cent in 2008.”

The Maastricht Treaty has set out the reference value for government deficit at 3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). Taking into account the Commission’s opinion the Council decides, by a qualified majority, whether an excessive deficit exists establishing a deadline for effective action to be taken. If no effective action is taken, the Council may give notice to the Member State in question to take measures to reduce the deficit. Then, if no effective action has been taken in compliance with a notice, the Council may decide to impose sanctions which take the form of a non-interest-bearing deposit with the Community.

According to the Commission’s spring economic forecast, the UK as well as France are not setting an example for budgetary discipline as the Commission foresees they will breach rules on public deficit. Outside the eurozone the Member States likely to perform worst are the UK, Hungary and Romania. The UK deficit is predicted to rise from 2.9 per cent of GDP in 2007/08 to 3.3 per cent in 2008 and 2009. It should be mentioned that in September 2005, the Commission initiated the procedure against the UK based on a general government deficit of 3.2 per cent of GDP in financial year 2004/05. In 2006/07 the deficit fell further to 2.7 per cent of GDP. Last September, the UK excessive deficit situation has been corrected and the Commission has recommended to the Council to abrogate its decision on the existence of an excessive deficit in the United Kingdom.

However, Joaquin Almunia has already announced that the Commission on 11 June will put forward a proposal opening an excessive deficit procedure against the UK for running a deficit on public expenditure over revenue, of over 3 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP). However, the Council’s formal notices and sanctions do not apply to Member States which do not participate in the euro. Therefore, the launch of an excessive deficit procedure against the UK would be seen as a political embarrassment to Alistair Darling. The Commission should not interfere in UK public finances, especially taking into account the credit crunch. If the excessive deficit procedure goes through Alistair Darling might be forced to raise taxes to reduce the deficit.

The eurozone finance ministers debated on 13 May the growing deficits in different Member States which may be jeopardised as the Eurogroup aims to balance the budget. According to the Eurogroup declaration from 13 May the commitment accepted by eurozone Member States, in April 2007 (Berlin Agreement), to achieve budgetary balance by 2010 was relaxed. France, whose public deficit is estimated to rise to 2.9 per cent in 2008 and 3 per cent in 2009, was able to negotiate a delay for all eurozone Member States to eradicate their deficits by 2010. Portugal and Italy are also raising concerns. According to Europolitics, a diplomat has said “nobody believes that we will all be in balance by 2010.” Nevertheless, the Commission will launch an excessive deficit procedure against France on 2 June, one month before it takes over the EU presidency.

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A new job for Europe? Responding to national disasters

2008-05-27T03:58:00.000-07:00

The duty of civil protection is usually the responsibility of Member States yet the Commission now wants to go beyond its merely supportive role and interfere in national civil protection. The European Commission intends to interfere with Member State civil protection capabilities as well as coordinate their response to disaster. Last March, the European Commission adopted a communication with the purpose “to reinforce the EU’s disaster response capacity.” The Commission wants to put in place an integrated disaster response for the EU. It has presented an action plan with proposals for enhancing the EU’s response capacity and recommends the actions to be implemented by the end of 2008. The communication covers natural or man-made disasters as well as conflict-related emergencies which have taken place either inside or outside the EU.

Presently, there is no specific Treaty basis but the absence of legal basis on civil protection has not prevented the Union from taking action. The Community measures in this area have been adopted on the basis of Article 308 TEC (flexibility Clause) under which unanimity at the Council and consultation to the European Parliament is required. The Lisbon Treaty creates a new legal basis for civil protection which has been among the key areas where the Member States should have retained exclusive competence and the Union was only to provide a support or co-ordination role. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Cabinet Office, Tom Watson, has explained to the European Scrutiny Committee that “any such Commission proposals for action under existing instruments would be decided by the comitology procedure by qualified majority voting.” However, if the Commission puts forward proposals which alter current legislation, then unanimity is required. Under the Lisbon Treaty, it is required that the proposal pass through qualified majority voting in the Council and co-decision with the European Parliament.

The Commission believes that in order to achieve better inter-institutional cooperation itself the Council and Member States should define “multifaceted scenarios” for disaster relief operations, and deploy joint planning and operational teams to deal with particular disasters. The Commission has proposed to transform the Monitoring and Information Centre into an operational centre for European civil protection intervention.

Tom Watson believes “… that such a move would draw limited expertise away from Member States where it is most likely to be needed in an emergency, or if this led to duplication with other EU structures such as the Council’s SitCen.” Moreover, he has pointed out that “At present, the MIC does not have the skills or capacity to become itself a fully operational centre to manage disaster response activities whether within or outside the EU.”

The Commission has said in its communication that the European Parliament has urged it to put forward a proposal on a European rapid reaction force for emergencies based on the civil protection mechanisms of the Member States. The Commission wants to improve the European civil protection response capacity. It has made clear that it wishes to coordinate the Member State civil protection resources. The Commission has stressed that the response to disasters, such as floods and forest fires presently come solely from national sources. The Commission therefore wants to develop reserve resources available for European civil protection operations. It will present proposals for enhancing the European civil protection response capacity based on “a voluntary pool of key standby civil protection modules to be available for deployment at any time” and “additional reserve capacities designed to complement national responses to major disasters such as forest fires and flooding.” These proposals are likely to raise subsidiarity concerns. According to the minister, “The HMG views with caution the proposal for complementary reserve resources at EU-level” pointing out that “the Commission has neither the expert capability, nor the legal competence, nor the finance to hold such disaster response resources at present.”

It remains to be seen if the Council will back the Commission proposals. The Council is yet to deliver conclusions on the Commission’s communication.

Furthermore, on 11 March, the European Parliament adopted a report approving the mobilisation of the EU solidarity fund for an amount of €162.4 million (£110m) relating to the floods in the United Kingdom in June and July 2007. However, it has recently been exposed that the UK will receive only £31m. Timothy Kirkhope MEP has blamed it on Tony Blair, who in December 2005 renegotiated the UK rebate. Timothy Kirkhope said: “…They were very triumphant when the money was secured but they must have been well aware then that they would not be receiving anywhere close to all of it.”

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Prime Minister of Bavaria on the Sudeten Germans

2008-05-20T04:53:00.000-07:00

The Prime Minister of Bavaria has addressed a conference of the Sudeten Germans, saying that only dialogue with Prague will resolve the “problems” which still exist over the issue between Germany and the Czech Republic. Like other groups of ethnic Germans expelled from Eastern Europe after 1945, the Sudeten Germans continue to campaign for restitution of their property. They specifically attack the so-called Beneš decrees, a series of over one hundred legislative acts which provided the legal structure for the mass expropriation and expulsion which we would nowadays call ethnic cleansing. They overlook the fact that these decrees were themselves signed as a result of the executive decision taken by the Allies at Potsdam to cleanse Central Europe of Germans. The Sudeten Germans, of course, were the cause of the Munich conference in 1938, when France and Britain agreed to carve up Czechoslovakia and hand the Sudetenland to Hitler.

The fact that the Bavarian Prime Minister addressed the conference, which some 8,000 people attended, shows how closely linked the Bavarian conservatives are with the expellees. The organisation also campaigns – together with support from the Bavarian government – for other issues related to Expellees, for instance for the inclusion of the Expellees president, Erika Steinbach, in the governing council of the new Museum of Expulsion to be set up in Berlin, and for the maintenance of German language tuition in German schools in Romania, where there was a community of 250,000 ethnic Germans until 1989. Their numbers are now greatly reduced to some 100,000. [Handelsblatt, 11 May 2008]

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Most Germans want the D-Mark back again

2008-05-19T05:47:00.000-07:00

Ten years after the decision to introduce the euro, the Germans still hanker after their beloved deutsche Mark. One German out of two continues to think in terms of D-Marks, while an online poll showed 65 per cent wanting the old national currency back again. As prices rise in Germany as elsewhere, nostalgia for the old stable German currency is stronger than ever.

A poll conducted by the Federal Association of German Banks, however, finds that only 34 per cent of Germans want the D-Mark back again. Many Germans blamed the euro for price rises when it was introduced in 2001. [Die Welt, 2 Mai 2008]

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Germany: two foreign policies

2008-05-16T03:25:00.000-07:00

According to one commentator, Germany currently has two foreign policies, one conducted by the conservative Chancellor, Angela Merkel, the other conducted by the Social Democrat Foreign Minister and Vice-Chancellor, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. On her visit to Latin America, Chancellor Merkel visited only countries with pro-American governments, Steinmeier has been strengthening Germany’s links to Cuba; Steinmeier visits Moscow and refuses to meet the Dalai Lama while Merkel has aligned with George Bush and calls for the spread of democracy around the planet.

The Foreign Ministry under Steinmeier has become distinctly left wing (following the precedents set by the last Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, for whom Steinmeier worked at the Chancellery. (He was head of the Chancellor’s office under Schröder.) The Chancellor’s office, meanwhile, has become distinctly conservative. This is because the coalition agreement between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats did not require that each side recruit civil servants from the other’s political camp: as a result, they have recruited their own. (Senior civil servants in Germany have party political affiliation.) The competition between the two sides is made more acute by the possibility that Steinmeier might be Merkel’s opponent in the parliamentary election in 2009. [Andreas Rinke, Handelsblatt, 11 May 2008]

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Steinmeier calls for European army

2008-05-16T03:13:00.000-07:00

At the very moment when Irish voters are being reassured that the Lisbon treaty will not threaten their country’s cherished constitutional neutrality, the German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has spoken of the need for a European army. Addressing a conference of the Social Democratic Party’s parliamentary fraction in Berlin on 5 May 2008, Steinmeier started his speech with the old socialist greeting, “Dear Comrades” and immediately launched into the theme, saying that only a few years ago the title “Towards a European army” for a lecture would have seemed to be pure fantasy. “Today, after more than 20 civilian and military operations which we have run or are running from Macedonia to the Congo or in the Palestinian territories, it no longer sounds so distant or theoretical.” Steinmeier said that the EU could look back with pride over “15 years of common foreign and security policy” – i.e. since the ratification of the Maastricht treaty in 1993. He said that most of the operations conducted within the framework of the European Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) were civilian but added that the EU was always being reminded that military operations could not be excluded as a matter of last resort. “It is also a part of our European credibility,” he said. Steinmeier claimed that if opinion polls showed dissatisfaction with Brussels’ tendency to over-regulate the size of tomatoes or the length of bananas, Europeans wanted the EU to speak with one voice in foreign affairs.

Steinmeier said that Europe now had its famous “telephone number” – Javier Solana, the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy – but that the EU needed to go further still. He said that “a new era” would dawn with the ratification of the Lisbon treaty (recently ratified by the Bundestag). Saying that he was convinced that the treaty would enter into force punctually on 1st January 2009, Steinmeier said that it would give the Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy much more power than before, since the Representative would also be Vice-President of the European Commission and because he would have far greater resources than those currently at Solana’s disposal.

Steinmeier used the phrase “European Foreign Service” to characterise the new post, something which the British government energetically denied that Lisbon would create. “With the Lisbon treaty it will be possible for a group of states to go forward in security and foreign policy,” he said, referring to the fact that Lisbon allows subgroups of EU states to act in foreign policy as the EU without all states participating (or having a veto). Steinmeier said that France was shortly due to take over the EU presidency and that it had declared its intention to make security policy the cornerstone of its six-month stint.

Steinmeier said that France’s coming reintegration into the integrated military structures of NATO would strengthen the EU’s weight in NATO and NATO’s cooperation with the EU: the NATO summit at the end of 2009 in Kehl and Strasbourg would, he said, he a potent symbol for the Franco-German axis within the alliance. The creation of the Franco-German brigade was, he said, a nucleus for the new CFSP. He concluded his speech with a rallying cry. “We Social Democrats will definitely continue to struggle for a European army, for Europe to become a strong peace power, and against any backsliding into old thinking!” [www.auswaertiges-amt.de]

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European Commission wants to “debate” Europe

2008-05-09T08:14:00.000-07:00

It is well known that the European Commission has been attempting to deal with the citizen’s lack of trust in the EU. It has responded to the European Council’s call for a period of reflection in June 2005 after the ‘No’ votes of the French and Dutch referenda, by adopting “Plan D for Dialogue, Democracy and Debate.” Under Plan D, the European Commission co-funded six trans-national projects aimed at connecting citizens with decision makers, for a total amount of €4.5 million. These projects organised debates across the EU which has amounted to nothing else but EU propaganda.

On 2 April, the European Commission adopted a communication, “Debate Europe, building on the experience of Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate.” The Commission’s approach, it claims, will be widened and deepened in 2008 and 2009 with the intention of showing that it has learned its lesson about listening and communicating with EU citizens. The European Commission has made clear that it wants to change the idea that EU affairs “are too abstract and disconnected from the national public debate to be of interest to the citizens” and “to overcome the divide between national and European issues.” The Commission communication refers to the European Parliament elections and to the ratification and entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty and taking into account the events of 2009, there will be an increased importance in communicating with citizens in order to provide them with misleading information on the European Union.

The Commission will put forward several actions at both the national and EU level in order to promote a general and permanent debate on the future of the European Union among European citizens even though it continues to support only federal integrationist debate. ‘Debate Europe’ will hold citizens’ consultations organised by civil society in each Member State. The objective is to send the citizens’ conclusions to elected politicians, political parties and foundations. A debate between citizens and politicians will be organized to discuss the proposals contained in the citizens’ platforms. The Commission’s main aim is to increase the involvement of citizens in the EU decision making process and to provide citizens with access to information in order to enable them to contribute, it says, more actively to the debate about the European Union. The EU is seeking to involve citizens, social partners, civil society in the Union democratic life but this is misleading. Only organised citizens' groups can attain the expertise needed if they want to influence the EU in a specialised field and NGOs, citizens organizations who lobby the EU institutions are largely funded by the Commission and will therefore not be critical of the EU project. Obviously, the European Commission is not only concerned in getting citizens involved in decision making but also in making the EU more popular. According to the Commission, ‘Debate Europe’ will strengthen the Commission's endeavours to explain the added value of EU policies to citizens such as “internal market related success stories – roaming mobile charges, low cost flights, closing the gap in regional development, environmental protection and the fight against climate change.”

The Commission has also stressed that ‘Debate Europe’ will benefit from the EU regulation on political parties and foundations as “the development of European political foundations, will play an important role in involving citizens in a permanent, genuine and informed political dialogue.” However, it should be recalled that political foundations which do no support further European integration will not be able to get any EU funding.

The Commission has proposed to co-fund several civil society projects in 2008 and 2009 under ‘Debate Europe’ not only at the EU level but also at national level. ‘Debate Europe’ will have a budget of €7.2 million. Soon, the Commission will publish a call for proposal for new projects. However, the UK’s portion of the fund to be allocated under ‘Debate Europe’ will not reach those who are critical of European integration.

The European Commission has stressed that “Public support for the EU can only be built through lively and open debate and by getting citizens actively involved in European affairs.” According to Margot Wallström, the European Commission had learned a number of lessons from the no votes and from the period of reflection, it has “listening better, explaining better and going local.” It is ironic that despite this, according to a Global Vision/ICM poll 74% of those surveyed in the UK, the people still want their say on the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum yet are not being heard. A more democratic Europe has been promised. In order to achieve a democratic Union which is closer to its citizens, a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty should have been held in all Member States.

Nevertheless, despite the refusal of referendums in Europe, the Commission wants to spend €7.2 million of taxpayer’s money in engaging EU citizens in EU affairs. The European Commission is keen to promote debate on EU issues but delicate issues such as the budget reform would be left to be publicly debated after the Irish referendum. The debates are never informed and are constantly focusing on EU achievements but not on real problems. In order to not jeopardise the ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty, the so called open and informed debate would be simply focused on the EU’s popular measures so that debate of delicate issues would not be promoted. Important issues such as how the Lisbon Treaty would be implemented would not be debated in public.

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The threat of the European police force

2008-05-09T08:12:00.000-07:00

The European Law Enforcement Organisation’s (Europol) mission entails analysing intelligence information pooled from different Member States, preparing threat-assessment reports and deploying officers to serve alongside national police in multinational investigation teams. In December 2006, the Commission put forward a draft Council decision to replace the Europol Convention of 26 July 1995 with all the amendments already incorporated in the three Protocols, as well as some new provisions. Presently, the Europol Convention is amended through protocols which are then ratified by national Parliaments. Since the Europol Convention was replaced by a Council decision, national ratification is no longer required. The Commission has also proposed that Europol’s competence should not be limited to cross-border organised crime and that it should be extended to any serious cross border crime.

The Commission proposed that Europol be funded from the EU budget and not via contributions from each Member State. The Minister of State at the Home Office, Mr Tony McNulty, was initially concerned about Europol being funded from the Community budget which would lead to the UK losing influence over Europol’s budget. According to the Government, the introduction of EC staff regulations and community financing would not bring operational benefits to Europol, but it will, in fact, increase costs. The EU’s staff regulations would need to be extended to include Europol employees and so there will be an increase in running costs.

The Minister recently said to the ESC, “it would appear that the effect of applying the EC Staff Regulations to Europol (…) would result in an increase of about 4.9 per cent (€1.7 million) a year in the staff costs of Europol.” The UK’s contribution to Europol is about €9.1 million a year. According to the Minister if Europol is to be funded from the EU budget, the total cost of Europol would be greater, but the UK’s contribution would be significantly less because of abatement. The UK which initially demanded that the proposal be budget-neutral has decided to withdraw its reservations claiming that the issue was not serious enough to justify blocking a deal.

According to the Minister “the Government believes it has got as much as it is likely to get out of the negotiation as a whole. We believe we have got a good overall deal.” The Commission has proposed to apply the EC staff regulations to Europol and according to the original draft the secondment of law enforcement staff from Member States to Europol would not have been possible. Tony McNulty has explained to the ESC that the proposal has been amended in order to enable “bold posts” to continue to be filled by officers seconded from Member States’ law enforcement authorities.” The Commission has also agreed that Europol officials would not be immune from prosecution when taking part in a joint investigation team.

After 15 months of intense negotiations, on 18 April, the Justice and Home Affairs Council reached a political agreement on the draft Council decision establishing Europol. The Council still has to formally adopt the document – scheduled to take place in October. Europol will become an EU agency in 2010. It will then be subject to the Financial Regulation and the Staff Regulations of officials and other servants of the European Communities. The Europol mandate was also extended to all serious cross-border crime. Presently, Europol is solely authorised to assist Member States in preventing and combating organised crime but soon it will also be able to assist Member States in fighting terrorism and other serious crimes, even where there is no link to organised crime. The competence of Europol will be significantly increased as its remit will no longer be limited to organised crime.

With the Lisbon Treaty and the collapse of the pillars, legislation relating to Europol will be subject to the Community method. Hence the European Parliament and the Council, acting by QMV, through the co-decision procedure will adopt regulations concerning Europol’s structure, operation, field of action and tasks. The Lisbon Treaty puts forward some tasks that Europol will have in the future. Member States will no longer be able to block the further extension of Europol’s powers. Europol is developing into a European police force, able to co-ordinate, organise and even undertake investigations and operations together with the national police forces.

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European Commission’s thought police criminalise radical opinions under EU terror legislation

2008-05-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

It was reported in the European Journal Nov/Dec 2007 issue that the Commission had presented a proposal amending the Council Framework Decision 2002/475 on combating terrorism. The aim is to bring the framework decision into line with the Council of Europe Convention on the prevention of terrorism. According to the European Scrutiny Committee the principle of subsidiarity permits the EU to take action “only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States.” The ESC believes that is not essential for the EU to adopt the Framework Decision, whereas the Council of Europe has already adopted a Convention which achieves the same result.

However, according to the Minister of State for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing at the Home Office, Tony McNulty, Member States are responsible for combating terrorism but the EU “has an essential supporting role especially in establishing minimum legal standards.” The Government therefore believes that by adopting the Framework Decision, the EU “achieves a better result” than would be achieved if Member States were simply to ratify and implement the Council of Europe Convention. Moreover, the Minister has stressed that five Member States have implemented the 2005 Council of Europe Convention while the 2002 Framework Decision “became EU law and was in the process of implementation in all Member States within seven months.”

The EU Member States have taken different views on the Commission proposal which requires them to criminalise the public provocation of terrorism, terrorist training and terrorist recruitment. Under the original Framework Decision, there is an obligation to criminalise attempts of terrorism. Under the Council of Europe Convention, attempts to commit recruitment and attempts to commit training are criminalised with a reference to national law. Whereas some Member States, such as Italy, Portugal and Spain were demanding that all attempts at terrorist training and recruitment be included in the scope of the legislation, whether they are successful or not, other Member States such as Sweden, Germany and the Czech Republic believe that unsuccessful attempts should not be criminalised as this would contravene their national law. According to the Slovenian presidency, as a compromise, there will be a reference to the two types of offences but it is optional to criminalise them.

Under Article 9 of the 2002 Framework Decision “Each Member State shall take the necessary measures to establish its jurisdiction over the offences referred to in Articles 1 to 4 where: the offence is committed in whole or in part in its territory, each Member State may extend its jurisdiction if the offence is committed in the territory of a Member State; the offence is committed on board a vessel flying its flag or an aircraft registered there; the offender is one of its nationals or residents; the offence is committed for the benefit of a legal person established in its territory; the offence is committed against the institutions or people of the Member State in question or against an institution of the European Union or a body set up in accordance with the Treaty establishing the European Community or the Treaty on European Union and based in that Member State.”

The European Scrutiny Committee has stressed that it is not required under the Commission’s proposal for a public provocation to commit a terrorist offence, recruitment for terrorism and training for terrorism, to take place within the territory of a Member State. Instead, it is required that it is directed towards or results in a terrorist offence over which another Member State may assert jurisdiction. Therefore, according to the ESC, “the provision would seem to require the laws of the UK to provide for jurisdiction on an extra-territorial basis.” Tony McNulty has explained to the ESC that some Member States have supported the inclusion of rules of jurisdiction over the new offences in all the situations covered by Article 9 which would give the Framework Decision a wider scope than the Council of Europe Convention.

Other Member States have argued that taking extra-territorial jurisdiction for these offences would go too far and would not be necessary. The Government wants to keep the scope of the Framework Decision close to the Convention and therefore believes it should be optional for Member States to prescribe rules of jurisdiction. Obviously, Member States should not be obliged to adopt provisions which might lead to conflicts of criminal jurisdiction.

On 18 April, the Council has already reached a general approach on the Commission proposal from last November to amend the Council Framework Decision on combating terrorism aimed at criminalising internet use for terrorism purposes. The Framework Decision provides for rules as regard the type and level of criminal penalties and compulsory rules on jurisdiction which will be applicable to the offences. The existing framework decision will be updated in order to include public provocation to commit terrorist offences, recruitment for terrorism and training for terrorism. Moreover, inciting a terrorist act or providing instruction for making a bomb in the internet would be considered a terrorist offence. Incitement to commit terrorist acts, the training and recruitment of terrorists, will be considered among criminal acts in all EU Member States. Under the new legislation, it would be easier for law enforcement authorities to demand cooperation from internet service providers in order to identify criminals. However, as Syed Kamall MEP has said “how can we be certain it will not be misused to lock up people whose views we may disagree with but which they are entitled to air in a democratic society?”

The Member States have agreed that they are not obliged to start criminal proceedings for incitement and unsuccessful attempts to train and recruit terrorists. Some Member States have shown concerns over this proposal interference with some having national traditions of free speech. The Slovenian presidency has proposed to introduce a new provision with the aim of exempting Member States from requirements that might contradict “freedom of expression, in particularly freedom of the press”, as recognised by constitutional traditions. All Member States accepted the introduction of a new Article in the amending Framework Decision containing a paragraph on freedom of expression.

According to a compromised text of the Slovenian Presidency from 14 April, “mandatory grounds for jurisdiction will be maintained (including points (d) and (e) for the new offences, as they currently stand in the existing Framework Decision.” The ESC has held the document under scrutiny although they informed the Minister that this would not prevent him from participating in a general approach but only “on the basis that there is no requirement to criminalise attempts to commit the new offences and that the extended rules of jurisdiction in Article 9(1)(d) and (e) are made optional ….” Nevertheless, it seems that Member States would also be obliged to accept jurisdiction for offences committed for the benefit of a legal person established in their territory and offences committed against the institutions or people of the Member State in question or against an institution of the European Union located in their territory. The amending Framework Decision also provides for the terrorist-related offences to be punished by “effective, proportionate and dissuasive” sanctions. Member States are also required to ensure that criminalisation is “proportionate” to the criminal’s aims and to exclude “any form of arbitrariness and discrimination”.

The Council still has to formally adopt the agreement. The Justice and Home Affairs Council is expecting to vote on the proposal at its meeting in June. At present, unanimity is still required at the Council.

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European Commission gets a visa negotiating mandate

2008-05-09T08:05:00.000-07:00

On 13 March, at the EU-US Ministerial Troika, a “twin track” approach was agreed so that the Commission would be able to negotiate matters under EU responsibility with the US whereas EU Member States will negotiate those issues under their responsibility. There have been serious tensions between the Member States and the European Commission over the conduct of negotiations.

On 18 April, the Justice and Home Affairs Council adopted, by a QMV, a decision providing the European Commission with a mandate to start negotiations for an agreement with the USA on the Visa-Waiver Programme. The Council decision authorises the Commission, on behalf of the European Community, to open negotiations with the US on those conditions for participation in the US VWP that fall under the responsibility of the European Community. Having reached this agreement on the mandate, the EU can carry on with its “twin track” approach on visa-waiver negotiations with the US.

The US has been refusing to grant visa-free access to the EU as a whole on the grounds that it would not be able to ensure that all EU Member States meet its security requirements. The Commission has now got what it wants: a mandate to allow it to conduct the negotiations in the name of all Member States. The US would have to negotiate with the Commission the framework of an EU-wide visa waiver scheme before concluding agreements with individual Member States. The Commission has already made clear that it would not grant to the US access to the EU policy database, Schengen Information System in order to guarantee a visa-free access to the United States for all its citizens. According to Vice-President Jacques Barrot, “the Commission would not accept an agreement at all costs, above all an agreement without reciprocity.”

Up to now, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia and Malta have signed Memoranda of Understanding with the US on its Visa Waiver Program. The European Commission has been particularly concerned that Member States concluding bilateral agreements with the US would give more information about their citizens than allowed under EU rules. Therefore, the Commission has stressed that it “reserves the right to take action in accordance with the Treaty.”

Member States are required to observe the scope of the mandate and to keep the Commission informed about the negotiations content with the US. Under the mandate the Commission is entitled to negotiate in four areas. The Commission has the power to negotiate with the US on its intended Electronic Travel Authorisation scheme. The Commission will seek information on the US intention with regards to its Electronic System of Travel Authorisation (ESTA) on which there are suspicions that it will impose an obligation comparable to a visa. The Commission is also in charge of the exchange of information in the areas of migration, border management and visas.

According to Europolitics, diplomats have said that “this does not concern the contents of exchanged information, but rather the data protection provisions and a possible reciprocal reaction to any new demands.” The issues over the precise data are within the Commission’s power (data which belongs to Member States) and it would be fully defined when the US presents a finalised list of precisely which data it demands. The Commission will also deal with the strengthening of standards of travel documents as well as the issues of airport security. Even as this happens, the presence of armed air marshals falls under national competence agreements.

The Commission wants to open negotiations with the US as soon as possible. An EU delegation is due to travel to the US to open negotiations. According to New Europe, one spokeswoman from the US State department has said that “According to the US Constitution, we are supposed to talk bilaterally with other countries and I don’t know about this decision.” On the other hand, Jacques Barrot has said that the Commission wants to secure the membership of all EU Member States in the US VWP, adding that the current situation is an “injustice which gives the impression that there are two different categories of European citizens”.

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European Commission Will Not Publish Terror Objects List

2008-05-09T08:01:00.000-07:00

In 2002, the Council and the European Parliament adopted a regulation establishing common rules in the field of aviation security such as searching and checking aircraft, screening of passengers, cabin baggage, staff and diplomats. One year later, the Commission adopted a regulation laying down measures for the implementation of the common basic standards on aviation security. The Annex containing a list of the prohibited items on airplanes was not published. The Annex was amended several times.

In September 2005, Gottfried Heinrich was ordered to leave an aircraft by the security staff of Vienna-Schwechat Airport for boarding the plane with tennis rackets in his baggage which are considered prohibited items. Heinrich has argued that such treatment was unfair since he was not informed in advance that rackets were a prohibited item. However he was not allowed by the security staff to see the official list of banned items. Gottfried Heinrich has decided to bring proceedings before the Independent Administrative Chamber for the Land of Lower Austria which has referred questions to the ECJ. The referring Court has pointed out that not only States but also individuals are required to base their conduct on such regulations yet this is not possible because the Annex containing prohibited items to take into airplanes was not published in the Official Journal and is consequently not accessible to the public.

On 10 April, the Advocate General, Eleanor Sharpston, delivered a very strong opinion in the case [Case C-345/06] against the Commission’s position. Article 254 of the EC Treaty requires regulations to be published in the Official Journal of the European Union. The Advocate General believes that the publication of the Commission regulation in 2003 without its Annex is an inadequate publication which therefore does not satisfy the requirements of that article. According to the AG “An annex is an integral part of a legislative measure.” Taking a different view would allow authors of the legislative measure to avoid publication requirements by including substantive provisions in an unpublished annex. According to the AG, “That is, indeed, precisely what the Commission sought to do in the present case.” Moreover she said that, “The reader cannot ascertain the effects of the regulation without having sight of the Annex, because the Annex contains the whole substance of the regulation.” The Advocate General has deemed the Commission explanation for the lack of publication as a “fundamental absurdity.” The European Commission published in January 2004 a press release which included a detailed list of prohibited articles that passengers were not allowed to carry onto flights. Tennis racquets are not in the list of prohibited articles.

However it is impossible to know if the press release list of prohibited articles is the same of that Annex without being aware of its text. According to the AG, if the Commission was required under regulation 2320/2002 to keep the list of prohibited articles secret, it has breached such requirements when it published the press release. On the other hand, if the Commission has deemed that the list is not covered by the secrecy obligation, it should have published it in the Official Journal. Moreover, the AG believes that “it is self-contradictory to state in the preamble to regulation No 68/2004 that ‘there is a need for a harmonised list, accessible to the public’ and then to fail to place such a list in the public domain.” The AG has stressed that the Commission deliberately adopted new measures and failed to publish the annex each time, so the failure to publish the list was not accidental. The Advocate General has suggested to the Court to declare the regulation non-existent. According to the AG, the “… persistent and deliberate disregard of the mandatory publication requirements in Article 254(2) EC in respect of the whole substance of the regulation – is one whose gravity is so obvious that it cannot be tolerated by the Community legal order.” The ECJ is not bound by the Advocate General’s Opinion. It remains to be seen if the ECJ reaches the same conclusion.

The Commission has recently adopted a regulation on common rules in the field of civil aviation security and repealing regulation (EC) No 2320/2002 which was published in the Official Journal on 9 April. According to the EU spokesman on transport issues, Michele Cercone, a list "of concerns to citizens" would be published soon.

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The Lisbon Treaty: the European Foundation Analysis, Part V

2008-02-22T07:07:00.000-08:00

When UK citizens become EU citizens

2008-02-20T05:05:00.000-08:00

James McConalogue. When UK citizens become EU citizens @ CentreRight. 29/01/2008.

Are we bovvered tho?

2008-02-20T05:04:00.000-08:00

James McConalogue. Are we bovvered tho? @ CentreRight. 29/01/2008.

The withering of British law

2008-02-20T04:58:00.001-08:00

James McConalogue. The withering of British law @ CentreRight. 29/01/2008.

Lisbon Treaty creates powers for European Police Force to undertake investigations in the UK

2008-02-20T04:55:00.000-08:00

James McConalogue. Lisbon Treaty creates powers for European Police Force to undertake investigations in the UK @ CentreRight. 29/01/2008.

Under Lisbon, new EU security committee to coordinate national police practices

2008-02-20T04:54:00.000-08:00

James McConalogue. Under Lisbon, new EU security committee to coordinate national police practices @ CentreRight. 29/01/2008.

EU not united on Kosovo’s declaration of independence

2008-02-19T07:26:00.001-08:00

Kosovo announced its independence from Serbia on 17 February. The EU is not unified on the recognition of Kosovo. Whereas the UK, France, Germany and Italy are willing to recognise Kosovo as an independent state, Spain, Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia do not support Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence. They fear that Kosovo’s independence could boost separatist movements in their countries.

The General and External Relations Council on 18 February agreed on a common EU reaction of Kosovo’s proclamation of independence. Nevertheless it was very difficult to achieve a consensus since not all Member States share the same views on Kosovo’s declaration of independence. Obviously, Spain wanted a low profile EU declaration and was cautious on the wording of the General and External Relations Council Conclusions.

According to the General and External Relations Council Conclusions on Kosovo, the EU foreign ministers took note that the Kosovo declaration of independence “commits Kosovo to the principles of democracy and equality of all its citizens, the protection of the Serb and other minorities, the protection of the cultural and religious heritage and international supervision.” Moreover, the Council has stressed “that Member States will decide, in accordance with national practice and international law, on their relations with Kosovo.” Hence, the Council's conclusions avoid the states from taking a position on the recognition of Kosovo. The EU has not yet got legal personality therefore it is not allowed yet to recognise an entity seeking statehood. Hence, the capacity for state recognition is a national competence.

The EU foreign ministers have noted the EU’s commitment to the stability of the Western Balkan Region. Moreover, they have confirmed the EU’s willingness to grant Kosovo financial and administrative support mainly through the EU mission to Kosovo. Furthermore, the Council has reiterated “the EU's adherence to the principles of the UN Charter and the Helsinki Final Act, inter alia the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity and all UN Security Council resolutions” and it has stressed that “Kosovo constitutes a sui generis case which does not call into question these principles and resolutions.” The Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel has said that “The European Union has once again successfully passed the test showing its unity and adopted a common position on recent developments in Kosovo.”

However, while the EU might have agreed on a declaration taking note of the 17 February events in Kosovo, there is little unity on whether to recognise Kosovo’s independence. Although the majority of the Member States are willing to recognise Kosovo as an independent state there is no common EU recognition of Kosovo. There are six Member States which will not recognize Kosovo at least in the near future. The Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratin said “Spain is not going to recognise this unilateral declaration of independence ... because it does not consider that this respects international law.” Kosovo independence provides perhaps just one more example that there is no such thing as an EU common foreign and security policy.

UK surrenders decisions over global energy policy to EU common energy policy

2008-02-14T08:17:00.000-08:00

The new Article 176A in the Lisbon Treaty relates to the European Union’s massive push toward a harmonised common energy policy. Such a move is anti-competitive in the global marketplace of energy resources and does nothing to serve in the interests of further liberalisation of the energy market. The UK needs a truly global energy policy, not one determined and sanctioned by the EU.

The EC treaty has not previously established an EU competency on energy. However, the EU has been shaping the energy sector through its competencies with regards to the internal market, competition policy and the environment. The Union has been using its powers in other areas as the internal market and the environment to regulate energy policy issues. The 2007 Spring European Council adopted the EU Energy Action Plan for the period 2007-2009 which comprehends several priority actions concerning energy efficiency, use of renewable energies, completion of the EU’s internal market for gas and electricity. The European Council has also stressed “the need to enhance security of supply for the EU as well as for each Member State.” It has called for the “development of a common approach to external energy policy.” All of this has rested upon the presumption that the Lisbon Treaty – or the provisions which should have come into force under the original EU Constitution – would enable Member States to enact those laws.

The Lisbon Treaty introduces a new legal basis, allowing the Union to establish measures relating to energy policy. The insertion in the Lisbon Treaty specifically on energy is a huge step forward towards the common energy policy. Energy is one of the Union’s supposed “shared competences” with the Member States. The Member States will only be allowed to adopt legislation if the Union has not exercised its competence already. In brief, national governments would only be able to legislate on policy areas on which the EU has decided not to.

The Union gains the competency to direct the objectives of energy policy. Article 176 A (1) expressly states that energy policy should be carried out on the spurious grounds of a “spirit of solidarity” between Member States. The Union policy on energy aims to “ensure the functioning of the energy market, ensure security of energy supply, promote energy efficiency and energy saving and the development of new and renewable forms of energy and to promote the interconnection of energy networks.” The Lisbon Treaty allows the Union to direct the objectives for energy policy.

It is clear that Lisbon will mean that the UK would be required to supply energy to (or share energy with) another Member State in the case of a crisis. Under Article 176A (2) measures on energy shall be adopted through the “ordinary legislative procedure” (co-decision) with the Council acting by a QMV, after consultation of the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. Energy is an issue of vital national interest and the UK will not be allow to veto damaging EU laws in this area. The Union will harmonise the functioning of the energy market. The Energy policy also includes guaranteeing “security of energy supply.” The reference to solidarity is strengthened by an amendment to Article 100 stating that “… the Council, on a proposal from the Commission, may decide, in a spirit of solidarity between Member States, upon the measures appropriate to the economic situation, in particular if severe difficulties arise in the supply of certain products, notably in the area of energy." The Council will act by QMV. This was a concession to Poland which wanted guarantees that it would receive help from other Member States if their energy supplies were cut off. It is not clear what the spirit of solidarity will entail for the UK, but the UK would be required to supply energy to another Member State in the case of a crisis.

Moreover, the EU will decide how energy is produced and will promote the interconnection of energy networks. Article 176 A (2) states that such measures “should not affect the right of a member state to determine the conditions for exploiting its energy resources, its choice between different energy sources and the general structure of its energy supply, without prejudice to Article 175 (2) (c )”. This article states that decisions “significantly affecting a member state’s choice between different energy sources and the general structure of its energy supply” are to be adopted by unanimity. This is unacceptable for the UK to accept these conditions – Parliament may be refused the right to act on any decision to implement either nuclear energy solutions and even worse, dispute the sovereignty of the UK’s vast coal reserves. Even if the UK were allowed to maintain its position (which would be against the terms of this provision), it will be heavily regulated by the European Union before it could ever go ahead. Such provisions in the Treaty must be blocked, as an energy policy must be properly legislated for at Westminster.

Under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, the basic control of national energy policy is actively being transferred from Member States to the EU. The Lisbon Treaty will have a huge impact on the ability for Britain to determine its own competitive energy policy. This will prevent it of being able to guarantee flexibility to US contracts and interests in the UK, as it will for any other Member State. This will lead to huge instability in (rather than guaranteeing) the security of supply and also insecurities in the foreign policies of both the EU and the US in terms of their cooperation and agreements with oil-rich Middle Eastern countries.

In the interests of the United Kingdom, the Government must not accept those provisions on energy, their practical implications nor the right to legislate over those matters. The Government is already in urgent need – as one analyst of UK coal policy has said – of supporting privately owned industry whose retention is in the nation’s security and economic interest, supporting the implementation of less draconian environmental planning rules for sites of any proposed new mines (deep or opencast), embracing the rhetoric and policy of clean coal technology, and supporting new clean coal stations. It also has intentions, as it has made clear, to develop a new basis for nuclear power stations. All of this, then, appears to be greatly jeopardised by the fact that the Government has signed the Lisbon Treaty – built on a completely flawed anti-market European energy model which will deliver nothing but unaffordable price hikes for the voters of this country. They will not be thankful, especially knowing that the Government had been warned of this disaster before signing the Treaty.

Lisbon Treaty: “Spirit of Solidarity” used to define common energy policy

2008-02-14T08:16:00.000-08:00

Under the Lisbon Treaty, Article 100 (part of the section on economic policy) is given a new title, Difficulties in the Supply of Certain Products (Energy). It provides an unacceptably vague new statement on energy. The first paragraph removes the reference to a vote by qualified majority and adds a reference to energy, as follows: “Without prejudice to any other procedures provided for in the Treaties, the Council, on a proposal from the Commission, may decide, in a spirit of solidarity between Member States, upon the measures appropriate to the economic situation, in particular if severe difficulties arise in the supply of certain products, notably in the area of energy".

The additional sentence adds “notably in the area of energy".

Its demands are such that the basis for a common energy policy may now be decided on the spurious grounds of “a spirit of solidarity”. It is inconceivable that such abstractions will be used to define the basis for a common energy policy.

Lisbon Treaty: UK Parliament must submit to EU if and when EU acts first

2008-02-14T08:11:00.000-08:00

The Lisbon Treaty has formalised the idea that Member States competences will be limited once the Union has acted. In particular, one Article – Article 2C (TFEU) – concerns areas of shared competence between the Union and the Member States. The present areas of shared competence are not explicit in the current Treaties. Under Article 2C, the areas of shared competence will be the following: internal market, social policy, economic, social and territorial cohesion, agriculture and fisheries, environment, consumer protection, transport, trans-European networks, energy, area of freedom, security and justice, common safety concerns in public health matters, for the aspects defined the Treaty, research, technological development and space and development cooperation and humanitarian aid. Energy and space policies are new Union competences. A vast range of activity, which should be under the remit of the UK Government, will be handed over to EU control.

It is of substantial concern that the Member States will only be allowed to adopt legislation if the Union has not exercised its competence. National governments would only be able to do what the EU has decided not to. It is not a “shared competence” with the Member States but an assertion of the primacy of Union activities over those of the Member States. In this sense, it is possible to argue that these policies are the Union’s exclusive competences (and not shared competences). The Member States are not allowed to legislate in these areas if the Union decides to act. If there are severe doubts, the European Court of Justice will decide. Obviously, the ECJ will have a major role in the interpreting and deciding on the competence boundaries and it will do so in name of the uniform application and effectiveness of EU law.

If the EU exercises competence in a shared area, the Member States will simply be left unable to act. The list of areas that fall under the “exclusive competence” and the supposed “shared competence” include a substantial number of policies that will massively affect the everyday lives of the citizens within the Member States. It is unacceptable that such a provision be imposed upon UK citizens since it surrenders their sovereign right to be governed by the UK Parliament on those matters.