Viviane Reding: The EU Commissioner for Mars

Yesterday, Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner for Justice and vice-President of the Commission, gave a speech saying she wanted to increase the EU's powers to intervene in member states where there is a "rule of law" crisis. Citing the "Roma crisis in France in summer 2010; the Hungarian crisis that started at the end of 2011; and the Romanian rule of law crisis in the summer of 2012", she said she wants to establish a "far-reaching rule of law mechanism, which would include more detailed monitoring and sanctioning powers for the Commission".

Reding also chose to cite in her speech the arrest of David Miranda at Heathrow airport by UK authorities using anti-terrorism legislation.

Reding's big idea is a treaty change to extend the reach of the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights into member states' domestic legal systems and therefore the power of the Commission to intervene. She called for:

"A very ambitious Treaty amendment – which I would personally favour for the next round of Treaty change – would be abolishing Article 51 of our Charter of Fundamental Rights, so as to make all fundamental rights directly applicable in the Member States, including the right to effective judicial review (Article 47 of the Charter). I have raised this idea already in a speech at the FIDE Congress in Tallinn in May 2012. This would open up the possibility for the Commission to bring infringement actions for violations of fundamental rights by Member States even if they are not acting in the implementation of EU law. I admit that this would be a very big federalising step. It took the United States more than 100 years until the first ten amendments started to be applied to the states by the Supreme Court."

Currently, the Charter can only be used to interpret how EU law is implemented in member states - the UK's 'opt-out'/clarification on the Charter was meant to reinforce this point in the Lisbon Treaty negotiations (that clarification hasn't really worked).

Viviane Reding has long been one of the most far-out there EU federalists but this is a fundamental and outright challenge to national governments' authority. This would be a good time for member states to remind Reding, Barroso et al what their mandate is. If member states are ever to rest back control of the EU, this sort of thing should almost become a sackable offence.

As someone put it to us in Brussels recently: every time Reding opens her mouth, Nigel Farage gains another thousand votes.

Quango unchained: The EU's subculture you've probably never heard of (but that thinks it embodies your expectations)

EU 'grassroots' engagement

Beyond the spotlight of high-profile crisis meetings of EU leaders exists a very different community. A group that can almost be likened to a sub-culture. They meet in over-sized buildings in Brussels or at conferences and hotels around Europe. You will almost certainly never have heard of them. These are the EU's committees and quangos. Some useful, some completely irrelevant.

Topping this group is the European Economic and Social Committee. If you've never come across it, don't worry - you're in an overwhelming majority and haven't really missed out on anything. The EESC exists in order to act as "a bridge between Europe and organised civil society" by acting as a point of consultation for the EU by bringing together 'representatives of civil society' - 344 from across the whole EU. In practice the majority of these are representatives of trade unions, the third sector and academia, although business people are also represented.

There's only one problem: no one actually quite knows that the EESC actually does. In recent memory, we have yet to see evidence of it actually having had a measurable effect on a single piece of EU policy. The areas it is involved with are well covered by national authorities, the Commission and the European Parliament - which for better or worse actually has some powers.

It's not that the EESC makes "bad" decisions or is actively harmful. The body - much like its cousin the Committee of the Regions - is simply completely irrelevant in terms of what is happening in the real world. And yet, it has a budget of around €130m a year.

The absence of any meaningful impact of a body like the EESC on the multiple crises plaguing the eurozone borders on being comical. We learned today that EESC has appointed a new President, Henri Malosse. He clearly has grand plans for his tenure:

"Henri Malosse is keenly aware of the disconnect between Europe and its citizens, a fact again brought home by the Greek and Cyprus crises. Convinced that one of the answers lies in a rebalancing of forces in Brussels, he wants the European Union's second assembly to do more to embody people's real expectations in areas such as job creation, combating youth alienation, protection of savings and access to health care."

Makes sense. If only the EESC got a bit more power, than we're sure that the collapsed interbank lending market would be restored over-night. A few more EESC conferences would do wonders to bring down unsustainable debt levels in the eurozone. Meanwhile, hire a few more EESC staff and the 27.2% record unemployment rate in Spain would be immediately reversed. If only the EESC could be given enough cash to  embody "real people's expectations", the EU's democratic deficit would practically be closed already. 

Some of Malousse's tweets are also something else:

@citizen_e @euromeet I support This excellent initiative to create a common european identy thanks to education ! #EESC #Windofchange 18/04
— Henri Malosse (@MalosseHenri) April 9, 2013

It's really time to put the #citizen in the engine of #UE and bring#Europe on the right tracks ! #EESC #18april #WindofChange
— Henri Malosse (@MalosseHenri) April 7, 2013

Our point? The EESC is emblematic of the EU's Achilles heel: its incredible difficulty in adapting to changing economic and political circumstances. Everyone knows that the EESC and Committee of the Regions - which together cost taxpayers around €215m - are pointless bodies. They're by-products of a long bygone era, premised on the odd principle that in order for "civil society" and "the regions" to have influence, they need their own dedicated institutions in Brussels. In spite of all of this, they remain in place, partly because they're enshrined in the EU Treaties and it therefore requires unanimity to scrap them.

As we pointed out in our dedicated report on EU quangos, several of the EU's 52 agencies suffer from similar flaws. Scrapping 10 of the least useful, and imposing efficiency savings on the rest, would save taxpayers a total of around €668m.

Not a huge amount of money in the grand scheme of things, but the symbolic value of Europe's failure to address even the most obvious examples of waste and bureaucratic inertia, speaks volumes.

Does Danny the Red need help?

Cohn Bendit... losing his mind?

A transcript of the meeting between Czech President Vaclav Klaus and senior MEPs at Prague Castle on Friday is reproduced on EUreferendum.

The exchange speaks for itself, but Bruno Waterfield correctly diagnoses the "staggering arrogance of MEPs who were, we must remember, guests in the official residence of the Czech head of state."

We've blogged on Peter Pan revolutionary Green MEP Daniel Cohn Bendit before, in particular regarding his swivel-eyed conspiracy theories on the supposed links between anti-Lisbon group Libertas and the US industrial-military complex. 'Danny the Red' remained true to this increasingly insane form during his exchange with Klaus on Friday:

I brought you a flag, which - as we heard - you have everywhere here at the Prague Castle. It is the flag of the European Union, so I will place it here in front of you.

Lisbon Treaty: I don't care about your opinions on it. I want to know what you are going to do if the Czech Chamber of Deputies and the Senate approve it. Will you respect the will of the representatives of the people? You will have to sign it.

I want you to explain to me what is the level of your friendship with Mr Ganley from Ireland. How can you meet a person whose funding is unclear? You are not supposed to meet him in your function. It is a man whose finances come from problematic sources and he wants to use them to be funding his election campaign into the European Parliament.

It's a Conspiracy! (part II)

MEPs are to investigate claims that Libertas, the Irish group that campaigned successfully against the Lisbon Treaty, is some sort of CIA-backed front.

Nostalgic student revolutionary Prominent MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit said in a statement that if these allegations are proved correct, "this would clearly show that there are forces in the United States willing to pay people to destabilise a strong and autonomous Europe. If this can happen for the treaty vote, it raises grave concerns for interference in next year’s European elections."

Apart from wondering why shadowy forces in Washington would have much interest in 'interfering' in the European Parliament elections in the first place, it struck us that cranky conspiracy theorizing is becoming a distinct trend amongst the pro-Lisbon crowd. We were reminded of claims back in June from French Europe Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet that the Irish no vote was masterminded by sinister American neocons:

"Europe has powerful enemies on the other side of the Atlantic, gifted with considerable financial means. The role of American neo-conservatives was very important in the victory of the No."

Chill out Denis

Former Europe Minister Denis MacShane has reacted to Stuart Wheeler’s call today for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

MacShane said a referendum would be:

"a feast for all the xenophobic and isolationist forces in British politics and be a major boost for the BNP, UKIP and those 'better off out' Tories who want Britain to quit Europe".

"David Cameron… would plunge Britain into the maelstrom of a feast of anti-Europeanism by campaigning to repudiate the decision of the Commons and Lords this year to ratify the Lisbon Treaty.”

"The BNP, UKIP and all other anti-European forces would join in to indulge in months of xenophobic and isolationist hysteria.”


Reading this in the office, it struck us that MacShane's increasingly fiery rhetoric could be a product of 'curry addict synodrome'.

As regular vindaloo-eaters will be aware, the hotter the curry, the less able you are to taste normal foods afterwards - meaning everything needs to be overspiced for you to taste anything at all. Perhaps MacShane just doesn't see anything out of the ordinary in using this sort of language - it's just his default mode of communication...

Weird press releases of the world unite

What kind of euro obsessive do you have to be to write a press release like this?

The Young European Federalists (JEF Europe) welcome the Commission’s Communication "Communicating Europe in Partnership" which is going to be presented on Wednesday. However, its key project, an inter-institutional agreement (IIA) on communication will not be enough. Jan Seifert, President of JEF Europe, stated: "If we really want to be serious about EU communication policy we need a constitutional base embedded in the Reform Treaty".

And how self important exactly?

More of the weirdness from planet Brussels is available here