A Pointless Press Release

A press release from the Conservative MEPs has just landed in our inbox heralding Struan Stevenson's heroic defeat of the European Parliament's proposal "to call a moratorium on all deepwater oil drilling". Here is the main text:

A crude knee-jerk proposal before the European Parliament to call a moratorium on all deepwater oil drilling has been rejected thanks to an amendment by Scottish Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson.

The parliament's environment committee had proposed a full moratorium following the Gulf of Mexico incident. However, Mr Stevenson had pointed out that the UK has a two-decades old history of safety despite 315 deepwater wells having been drilled since 1974.

Fair enough, this would have been a ridiculous proposal if adopted, but what the press release doesn't say is that this is all purely theoretical - MEPs have no power to do anything of the sort! As the EP's press release states this was a purely "non-legislative resolution", which would have had no real impact whatsoever.

The EP frequently passes these types of resolutions on the latest 'hot topic', irrespective of whether it has any powers to act or even influence the debate. They are mostly a waste of time and therefore taxpayers money.

We would suggest that in future Conservative MEPs and their media teams spend more time reminding other MEPs of what they’re actually there to do rather than playing along with the game of pretending to be more important than they are.

Africa starves, Mandelson spins

Excellent piece on AFP today, describing how Peter Mandelson attempted to spin his way out of the embarrassing situation of the EU not offering any new concessions on tariff reductions at the Doha trade talks.

Mandelson yesterday ‘unveiled’ what appeared to be a more generous offer on market access to the EU, proposing to reduce farm tariffs by 60 per cent - up from the existing offer of 54 per cent. Mandelson presented his offer as "a very considerable improvement on our own part."

That was quickly dismissed by Brazil however as “mere propaganda”, with Foreign Minister Celso Amorim describing it as "meaningless... purely statistic gimmickry."

Mandelson’s position then began to unravel completely, with even fellow EU commissioner Mariann Fischer-Boel (heading up Agriculture) admitting that her colleague’s offer was "nothing new".

Next, French trade minister Anne-Marie Idrac waded in, helpfully explaining that the difference between the two figures was merely down to whether tropical products were included in the tariff cut calculations or not. "Was there new progress, new percentages? The answer is no. Peter Mandelson this morning had clarified... what technical discussions have come up with – nothing more, nothing less," Idrac said. (In the run-up to this week's negotiations, the French government had already stated very clearly that it would accept no further concessions on the European farm support regime.)

Mandelson, by this point firmly on the defensive, was forced to concede that the 60 percent proposal was actually a "reiteration" of the EU's existing position. "The more we clarify, the clearer it becomes exactly what we are offering in this round," he told journalists.

Thanks for the clarification Peter…

It would also be interesting to have some more clarity on whether the EU is still proposing that 8 per cent of its tariff lines be given special treatment - ie. a lower rate of tariff reduction compared to other goods. The EU position on so-called ‘sensitive’ goods was one of the key issues that led to the collapse of talks in 2006 (the US was calling for 1 per cent of tariff lines to be exempted). But according to Japanese reports, Tokyo and Brussels have already agreed to ‘work together’ to maintain the 8% exemption in this round of talks.

Many of the products deemed sensitive in the EU are those exported by the developing and least-developed countries. The Commission for Africa has noted that “if only two percent of agricultural tariff lines are designated as sensitive… three quarters of global welfare gains will be lost.” The US, Canada and the Cairns Group also separately analysed the EU’s proposal, in the weeks after 28 October 2006, finding that designating 8% of goods as “sensitive” would effectively block all exports of interest to developing countries in the EU market.

Unfortunately, yesterday’s farce suggests the Commission is more interested in propaganda than in proposing real pro-development solutions on trade.

Perhaps this emphasis on spin is a tactic designed to pre-empt a breakdown in the talks this week, allowing the EU to shift the blame onto other negotiating parties and divert media attention away from its own intransigence. This was exactly the strategy that was followed last time talks broke down in 2006. But failure this week would be far more serious, and would all but kill off Doha.

First draft - key points

Feral media? Feral media????

We wish it was. The reality of the media in Brussels is that the politicians have journos over a barrel.

The EU is like one of its own buildings: huge, monolithic and mirror-surfaced. Unlike in national politics you don't have so many of the internal political rivalries that lead to lovely leaks. Most people in the system tend to believe in what the EU is doing.

The EU is also very keen to try and squeeze out independent platforms. So it funds "Eur-activ" to compete with the independent EU Observer. It funds the ludicrous "Euronews" to compete (ha ha) with BBC News 24 and CNN.

There is no "official opposition", and the EU institutions have all the information - so they are the ones you need to cultivate to get ahead. We recall that one senior member of Brussels press core once wrote a ludicrously fawning piece off the back of a commission briefing. Speaking to him the next day he explained: "well, if you don't give them a good plug once in a while you just don't get anything."

So it is this evening. Journos have been waiting to pounce on the first draft of an agreement, circulated by Angela Merkel. But it is being held back. So print journalists have had to rely on bits and pieces read out to them by various sources - which is far from ideal. That gives them a horrible choice between being left behind or having to rely on official sources.

The draft sounds interesting to say the least. But not something that the UK Government would realistically sign up to. Proposals (apparently) include:

* Making the Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding by means of a reference to it in the text, and giving the UK a face-saving compromise in the form of some words about restricting its scope.

* Some people say legal personality is in, others seem to think its out.

* Having the supremacy of EU law in a protocol (surely this is just being thrown up to be shot down by Brown?)

* Using a new form of enhanced cooperation to smooth the giving up of lots of vetoes. So members wouldn't have to take part, but could not stop decisions being made.

* Keeping "the specificity of CFSP decisions" but merging the Council and Commission roles in to a single EU Foreign Minister. Changing the name of the Foreign Minister to... well, it just says "XXX" in the current text.

* Not collapsing the pillars, but perhaps fudging the issue by moving some of the third pillar into the first, so that for example the Foreign Minister might gain some right of initiative, even if the court does not get jurisdiction.

Many of these things - Charter, Legal Personality, etc - would be a disaster for Brown. We don't believe he will accept them.

The devil will be in the detail. And we’ll only find that out once our “feral” politicians stop negotiating in secret and give us a text.