Nothing to do with Europe

Colin Powell has joined the list of people saying Iraq is a "civil war".

He isn't the only one. Foreign Policy are listing who is, and isn't using "the c word".

The whole thing is becoming a bit of a shibboleth - like the use of "disproportionate" during the war in Lebanon in the summer. Egged on by the Indie the Conservatives said it, but Blair refused to.

Not sure how far the word games really take us... rather more pressingly, Hot Air picks up on the news that the Saudis are considering using their own "oil weapon" against Iran if things get messier still, and are going to get (even) more deeply involved in Iraq anyway.

What a mess. One thing's for sure - in the future UK politicians are going to have to spend more time thinking about hard-edged foreign policy issues and less time worrying about their inner tosser.

Chirac's NATO swansong

The NATO summit, which has just finished, will almost certainly be Jacques Chirac's last as French President. True to form he has been the centrepeice of attention, causing offence, blocking proposals, and generally making a nuisance of himself:

• First of all he annoys the Latvians by inviting over his mate Vladimir Putin to Riga to celebrate his 74 th birthday. He didn't come in the end but Le Figaro noted that it would have been the first visit by a Russian leader to the Baltics since 1991 and was seen as “a real provocation” by France which had "brought a cold chill" to the country.
  
• He then provoked a bust-up with the Americans by attempting to block plans for partnership agreements with countries like Australia, Japan and New Zealand. Curiously he argued that NATO shouldn't "reward troop providers". Instead Chirac called for NATO to give Iran a greater role in the rebuilding of Afghanistan.
  
• To be even-handed Chirac then annoyed his Central European counterparts by dismissing their pet plan to increase NATO's role in energy security.

Political summits will certainly be less colourful without Chirac's remarks about British food and refusal to listen to speeches in English. On the other hand, with Le Bulldozer gone a little more might get done...

The news Today, oh boy

Rule number one of journalism. The only thing the media likes nearly as much as a top Tory totty scandal is a story about... the media.

Hence Michael Grade's decision to leave the BBC to join ITV being headline news on the Today programme this morning.

By quickly looking at this morning's Today schedule we can see that:

Michael Grade was the lead story with 16mins of featured coverage.

The NATO summit was the second most important story with 11 featured mins.

The Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations were of no importance and were not worthy of a feature.

Playing the game

Now you too can wield terrifying power... by taking part in the "be an MEP" internet game.

(expenses not included)

In or out?

Interesting argument over on Sinclair's blog about the EU.

35 hour week? Non merci

Does long-term support for the euro have wider effects on your mental health?

Ask John Gummer.

We assume its just another "Polly Toynbee is greater than Churchill" moment. But is that strategy getting a bit old now?

Fantasy migration manager

Two interesting papers here and here from National Institute for Economic and Social Research, on the effect of migration within Europe.

Also an interesting factoid: 11.6 per cent of 25-34 year olds in the UK have arrived since 1997. (some of them are in the OE office)

Interestingly, NIESR are much more pessimistic about unemployment than the Home Office. In their modelling experiment 500,000 people arriving in the UK over five years (rather slower than the real rate so far) is predicted to cause unemployment to rise by 0.4 - 0.5%





Meanwhile in Poland: "There is likely to be a decline in the unemployment rate during the first five years after the emigration shock and productivity growth would increase over this period, as employment declines more rapidly than the capital stock can adjust so the capital–labour ratio rises markedly, albeit largely temporarily."

The Commission strikes back

More from the EV:

Commission and UK officials have confirmed that next week the Director-General for Regional Policy Graham Meadows will write to the UK authorities highlighting weak audit controls over spending in 2005 by payment agencies in England. The UK will have six weeks to convince the Commission that it has taken appropriate steps to address the shortcomings. But if it fails to do so, the Commission can suspend payments until the problems are resolved.

The structural funds problems come on top of difficulties with Common Agricultural Policy payments. The UK’s Rural Payments Agency, which administers the EU’s single payments scheme is in disarray. The UK’s National Audit Office warned last month that errors and procedural mistakes were likely to lead the European Commission to disallow substantial amounts of EU funding, forcing the UK government to foot the bill.

...The warning on structural funds will be a further embarrassment for the British government which this week announced strengthened audits of how it spends EU funds, following similar pledges by the Dutch and Danish governments.

Message - if you are going to mess with the Commission, you shouldn't be surprised when they mess with you.

EU democracy in action

This week's European Voice has a cracking interview with the man behind Nicolas Sarkozy's mini-treaty proposals on the EU Constitution - French MEP Alain Lamassoure. His comments speak for themselves:

"He told European Voice that the premise for Sarkozy’s approach is that any
attempt to relaunch the institutional reforms “could not be allowed to fail”.
This meant that EU leaders had to agree not to hold a referendum on a next text,
except in Ireland. The constitution would not be renegotiated as such but there
would be an agreement to retain the “heart of the constitution” on which there
had been a strong consensus... As this would be only an ordinary treaty, there
would be no need to “annoy the people” with another referendum, he said."

"The MEP said UK Prime Minister Tony Blair had received the ideas “with
interest” which increased the need to proceed fast with the plans. He said that
contacts with Blair’s likely successor, Finance Minister Gordon Brown, had been
“more complex”."

"Lamassoure rejected the suggestion that Sarkozy was proposing a
technocratic fix to a political problem, saying that the mini-treaty would give
more power to EU citizens. “But in order to do that, we have to go via national
parliaments,” he said. “It’s not a way to contradict the people.”"

We love the idea that in order to give people a say in the EU it's first necessary to take away their right to a say. They're determined not to let anyone get in the way of their plans - not even Gordon Brown...

The spirit of ’68 lives on at LSE

Extraordinary scenes at the London School of Economics last night. Peter Sutherland, ex-EU Commissioner and Chairman of BP, was physically stopped from giving a long-scheduled public speech on European foreign policy by a handful of undergraduates wielding “Out Sutherland!” banners. They blockaded the stage and refused to move, to the almost violent frustration of the audience, eventually forcing the lecture to be given elsewhere, almost an hour behind schedule.

Sutherland has recently been appointed Chair of the LSE Council and it seems not everyone is happy about it, on the grounds of BP’s environmental record, and a feeling that “big business” is in danger of jeopordising the LSE’s “social science and Fabian origins.” Someone has posted photos of the protest here.

Eventually, in his long-coming speech Sutherland talked about the need for a “stronger and more integrated Europe”, arguing that single member states cannot be “effective or even relevant” acting alone on the world stage. His justification? “Eurobarometer polls across Europe, including the UK, highlight strong support for “more Europe” in foreign and security policy.”

Only yesterday we suggested that the Commission uses its Eurobarometer polls as a propaganda tool to justify new integrationist policies, as it emerged that it had delayed releasing a poll which found a drop in support for a common EU energy policy. On the pretext that “European citizens clearly expect the Union to use its substantial influence to protect and promote their interests”, he argued for QMV in foreign policy-making, an EU foreign minister, the creation of a European diplomatic services, a legal personality for the EU, and the end of the rotating Presidency role in foreign affairs – all elements of the rejected EU Constitution.

The whole tone of Sutherland’s speech – the undemocratic, press-on-regardless mentality – was just as much a throwback as the protesting students.

Hug a Hoonie (he needs it)

Poor old Geoff Hoon. It seems that hardly a week goes by without him suffering another humiliation. It all began with the cabinet reshuffle in May. According to Dominic Lawson, Hoon was confident he would be moving back up the ministerial ladder. The night before the local elections - Lawson tells us - Hoon was interviewed by David Dimbleby on the imminent reshuffle:

"Will you be standing by your phone, Mr Hoon?" Instead of the studiedly modest
response that one would expect to such a question, Hoon replied: "I suspect I'll
be doing rather more than that. I suspect I'll be heading for Downing Street in
the morning." The smug smile accompanying that gratuitous remark suggested to
the other guests in the studio that Mr Hoon was in line for a promotion."

But it wasn't to be. According to the press reports at the time, Blair initially promised him a new department for Europe to ease the blow of his demotion from Leader of the House, only to go back on his word before the end of the day was out.

In his first major Commons debate in his new role he had to listen to William Hague predicting that he would become "Junior Under-Secretary for paperclips in no time".

Margaret Beckett seemed to confirm Hague's prediction by barring him from answering Commons' questions on his own portfolio, suggesting that he answer on Northern Uganda instead, or better still not bother to turn up...

Open season on Hoon now seems to be in full swing. The Sun informed us that his officials have changed his nickname from Buff(Hoon) to Odd-job. Tory MP Keith Simpson tabled a parliamentary question asking "What is the point of Geoff Hoon?". And Shadow Europe Minister Graham Brady is investigating how much it cost for Hoon to change the plaque on his door to add to "Minister for Europe" the rather desperate rider, " - Attending Cabinet".

Summing it up in the Times today Anne Treneman wrote:

I began to concentrate on the lonely figure of Geoff Hoon, sitting on the
front bench. You may remember that he had a spat with Mrs Beckett and so now he
is the Minister for Europe who isn’t allowed to talk on Europe. As I understand
it, he is now piloting our transport strategy with Kazakhstan. Yesterday he
clutched a binder that held, I presume, his children’s homework.

It's probably this seeming shortage of friends that has driven Hoon to become the Cabinet's foremost leakmeister. Perhaps David Cameron needs to come up with some kind of new strategy for socially excluded people in Westminster...

Those numbers again...

The Government has released the latest quarterly update of the numbers of Eastern European workers who have registered to work in the UK since 2004. The figures generated headlines in this morning's papers. Most focused on the overall level of migration, but the Express led with the revelation that Eastern European migrants have made nearly 55,000 successful benefit claims in the UK since EU enlargement.

We’ve had a look at the numbers and there are some interesting results. It's now widely known that the Government hugely underestimated the number of people that would come to the UK after enlargement. But it’s also becoming clear that their claims on the numbers claiming benefits are wrong by at least a factor of 10.

As we've written before, in 2004 the Government promised to put in place a system which would stop EU migrants coming to the UK to claim benefits. Only a month ago they told Parliament that this had been successful; the proportion of Eastern European migrants claiming benefits was "under 1%".

For the first time yesterday the Government published figures for the number of repeat applications to the Worker Registration scheme – which gives us a more accurate (and lower) total number of people who have worked in the UK. If we divide the update figure on welfare claims by the new lower total we get a ratio of benefit claims of one in six or 16% of A8 migrants drawing benefits in the UK. The proportion claiming is also rising at quite a rate. So far this year 45% of migrants have made successful claims for welfare payments. We have said it before – but what we want is people free to move around to work, not to claim benefits.

Meanwhile in Brussels

The FT diary this morning mentions that:

David Cameron is finally slipping over to Brussels next month. The Tory leader who has studiously avoided the E word since taking charge, has realised that an aspiring party of government eventually has to admit that the European Union exists.... Cameron's path is being smoothed this week by Oliver Letwin. Letwin is the first senior Tory to visit Brussels since the attempt to pull their troops out of the centre-right European People's party in the European Parliament. He will dine with MEPs tomorrow and launch a set of five strategy groups to come up with a European policy.

Apparently the strategy groups the FT mentioned are a way to connect the tory MEPs to their policy review. Appa the five groups are going to be run by the tory MEPs and will be doing stuff on:

• Economic reform
• The EU budget, CAP, and waste
• Democracy promotion / global human rights
• Quality of life and the environment
• The EU institutions
  

Not sure what to make of it. It probably makes sense for them to try and link up more with their MEPs - our impression is that it's very easy for MEPs to get stranded out of the Westminster loop (and thus never called by hacks) while on the other hand quite a lot of MPs don't really know that much about what goes on in Brusssels. Should be interesting to see what they come up with.

Dinner with Putin

EU ministers are having dinner with Putin on Friday. Presumably Sushi is off the menu.

The Poles won't enjoy it very much either. As the blog of the Finnish EU Presidency points out - they are coming under a lot of pressure to agree an EU-Russia framework treaty - which they are currently blocking for various reasons, at least until Russia agrees to open up its pipeline system to other countries.

The EU says everyone has to negotiate together with Russia to get a better deal. The Poles ask why pipleines are routed around their country, and say that its them that suffers when Russia cuts off the gas and it's minus 20c outside. Fair point?

Give a man a fish

Oxfam New Zealand report on the EU's negotations to access Pacific fishing grounds.

Sounds like the EU might do for Fiji and other developing countries what they have already done for Grimsby, Hull and other fishing towns here:

This could result in domestic fishing being curtailed, or ... being reduced while EU access continues. In theory this should not be possible as EU policy only provides for access to ‘surplus’ stocks, and this access would be subject to the regional management bodies. Experience in Africa, however, suggests that EU boats have often competed directly with local fishers and have overfished until the point of fishery collapse.

Speak up

Dull press releases of the world unite. The European Movement is planning to launch a new "Speak up Europe" campaign later in the week, as part of the EU's ridiculous "plan D for democracy" initiative.

According to the blurb, as a symbol of their passionate desire to reach out to real people they are going to be working with lots of other groups:

One of the strong elements of the Speak up Europe campaign is also the extensive partnership supporting it. A large international partnership was involved in the planning and will subsequently take care of the implementation: European Movement International (EMI), Fondation EurActiv, Young European Federalists (JEF), Union of European Federalists (UEF) and European Students' Forum (AEGEE).

In other words - Brussels loons talking to other Brussels-based acronym-loving loons.

Just slightly annoying that we have to pay for them to come up with this rubbish.

In Committee

We're just back from giving evidence to the Home Office select committee. They're doing an inquiry on the future of the Hague Programme - the EU's ten year plan to harmonise member states' criminal and civil legal systems.

The MPs on the Home Office Committee are off to Brussels later in the week and seem very interested in the whole issue of better scrutiny of EU law - which is a bit of a joke at the moment in the UK, despite the best efforts of the MPs on the relavent committees.

We wish them luck - the EU's powers over home affairs have grown amzingly quickly in recent years. The only thing the Hague Programme is really comparable with is the single market programme in the 1980s - it is enormous.

The Blair government seem to be hoping to ride the tiger and hoping to steer the whole thing in a direction they can live with. But given the sheer number of controversial measures in the pipeline - that may not be do-able.

Meanwhile, the Enviroment committee have got the Environment Agency to fess up that the EU's Emissions Trading System isn't working. Responding to questions from the Committee this morning, the Environment Agency was unable to name any individual case in which a firm had reduced emissions as a result of the scheme, saying “it’s not clear whether we’re seeing any environmental benefits as yet”.

The Committee alluded to the fact that the ETS had cost businesses £500m so far, and then asked whether the ETS has had any tangible effect in reducing carbon emissions. Pressed further on this the people from the Agency said “we have not been aware of any significant impact”.

The Committee then went on to cite Open Europe’s research on the costs of complying with the ETS for the NHS. The Agency expressed concern over “the proportionality of allocations” and admitted that including smaller activities in ETS may not be appropriate: “There is a case for changing what’s in it…excluding smaller activities”, arguing that excluding such activities from the ETS would have a “negligible” effect on the levels of emissions. Asked whether they agreed that the allocation of carbon emissions has been "inherently irrational” the Agency said “we can only agree with that”.

Make it fair

We’ve launched a petition on the new downing street site to ask the PM to end Europe's unfair trade barriers against developing countries, and scrap the CAP.

Some facts:

• Getting rid of global trade barriers could raise African GDP by up to 6%, lifting tens of millions of people out of poverty. (Oxford Economics 2005)


• If Africa could regain just an additional 1% share of global trade, it would earn $70 billion more in exports each year – several times more than the whole region currently receives in foreign aid. (Commiussion for Africa 2005)


• Despite trade preferences, developing countries still face higher trade barriers in practice than rich. Poor countries with a GDP per capita of under £5,000 a year face an applied EU tariff of 5% on average, while rich countries with a per capita income of over £15,000 a year face a tariff of just 1.6%. (GTAP database v.6)
  
  

This is a good cause, and the online form takes about 15 seconds to fill in. Please do forward it on. Or even link to this post.

Please help us at least match the numbers wanting to replace the national anthem with ‘Gold’ by Spandau Ballet...

She's not Blair, and he's not Thatcher

Groan.

Horribly superficial article on French politics by Martin Kettle in the Guardian.

"Royal also won because she represents a general break from the failed past. This is most obvious in her gender and her nice smile."

Great analysis.

She may as yet be extremely unspecific about how she intends to achieve her goals, but there is no missing the recognition that things must change... Royal's acceptance speech yesterday spoke of modernisation, individual choice, respect, justice with order, and even "education, education, education".

Kettle talks about:

Royal's neo-Blairite concoction of economic flexibility, cultural liberalism and reducing social exclusion.

In contrast to:

Sarkozy's neo-Thatcherite cocktail of tax cuts, big-bang institutional upheavals and tough law-and-order.

Hang on a minute. Sarko might be tough on banlieues - but he certainly isn't a Thatcherite. In a speech just last week he said that globalisation was "the cause of the protest vote and the rallying of increasingly large parts of the population to protectionist arguments." He said, "Europe needs protection. The word protection does not frighten me." He went on to say that the high euro needed to be brought down to save European companies. Hardly Iron Lady territory.

Sarko also proposed a European import tax on pollution, which would include taxing imports from third countries and which would be used to finance research in clean energy sources. He said, "There is no reason why we should have to respect the environment when we are in competition with countries and businesses which don't respect environmental rules at all."

Nor is Royal really a Blairite. That tag has been stuck on her mainly by her opponents.

So far Sego has said that “the banking system gets rich at the expense of the poor”, and called for looser monetary and fiscal policies.

According to the Economist on Friday, Royal will campaign on a programme of calling for a increase in government spending of 32%. Even the FT think that she is "firmly grounded in the tradition of French socialism of the 1990s."

The joy of opt-outs

A paper for the Swedish Government says the forthcoming Rome III regulation - intended to harmonise laws on divorce - could see Iranian divorce rules applied in European courts in future.

Britain and Ireland are using their opt-outs to bail out of the plan.

Balls to the euro

People have said for a long time that Brown would look for ways to reposition Labour on Europe, and even for ways to outflank the Tories.

There are a couple of straws in the wind this weekend. The Guardian this morning has Ed Balls' speech to the Institute of Chartered Accountants today, in which he will say that the EU's failure to sign get its accounts signed off for twelve years is a "dissapointment" and an "annual embarassment." He'll argue that: "By giving national parliaments greater opportunity to scrutinise how EU funds are managed I believe we can help give taxpayers the reassurances they rightly expect".

Mr Balls will tell MPs that in future parliament will be given an annual statement on all EU budget spending within the UK, which will be checked by the National Audit Office. He will use tomorrow's debate in Brussels on the 2007 budget to urge other member states to follow suit, arguing that they should show they can account properly for how money is spent and strengthen their controls against fraud. The Netherlands and Denmark are understood to be considering similar plans.

The Treasury have also been briefing that 'Gordon hasn't got enough credit for stopping us joining the euro' for a while. In Scotland on Sunday Brown's people up the ante a bit by (sort of) hinting that he would never join the euro:

"Gordon has made it clear, repeatedly, that this will be decided on the economics," a Treasury source said last night. "He has always harboured doubts over whether the time would ever be right to enter. This was last looked at three years ago and I don't see us getting any closer now. I think Gordon's going to be happy to kick this way past the long grass for as long as he's around."

This is all interesting stuff - but hardly revolutionary so far. Maybe the most interesting thing about Brown's positioning is that having marched himself up the hill as a sceptic, he will be in a very different dynamic to Blair when negotiating in Brussels.

When Blair was defeated on a particular issue it was easier for him to get some kind of face saving-agreement and then go out and sell it as if it were his own idea. He was happy (at least while high in the polls) to position himself as our "most pro-European PM ever", and to cover up the extent to which the UK was outvoted.

If Brown is going to position himself as a sceptic, things will be very different. In broad terms 'standing up to' the EU more will take him closer to the average voter. But on the other hand it means that there are no excuses if things go wrong. That's when we will know which way he is really going to jump.

Boring but important

The Commons European Scrutiny Committee has published a report today on the EU Commission's proposal to move criminal justice and policing into the first pillar of the EU's treaties. This would almost certainly abolish the UK's veto over things like a new proposal on rights for suspects in custody and the creation of harmonised criminal laws across the EU. It would also make the ECJ Britain's highest criminal court, giving it the power to decide our substantive criminal law.

Reading the conclusions of the report I feel sorry for the clerks who - you sense - really want to rip into the proposal, but are required to be more balanced than they would like to be. Nonetheless, despite the necessary "on one hand and on the other", they still produce a pretty tough conclusion:

"it appears to us that the proposal to use the passerelle does not offer significant gains for the UK."

We couldn't agree more. The report goes on to argue that if the proposal went ahead:

"the present certainty about the existence of the means to protect the UK's interests would be replaced by uncertainty and risks."

This report follows on from an in-depth analysis by the House of Lords on ths issue. The Commons Home Affairs Committee is also about to begin an investigation into the proposal. I would guess that just like the Commons EU committee they will be just as opposed to attempts by the EU to reduce their role in deciding what constitutes a criminal offence and how it should be punished on behalf of their voters.

One final observation - the EU Scrutiny Committee reports that the Government told them that the proposals are a non-starter and that the debate around the proposal is "over".

Sounds like wishful thinking to us... Any bets on how long it will take before the Government has to eat its words?

Massive massive cynicism

If you were wondering whether the government's "strategy" of making green issues the new rationale for the EU was driven by (a) massively cynical politics or (b) genuine heartfelt environmentalism, wonder no more.

This from Milliband on the CER site:

For my generation, the pursuit of peace cannot provide the drive and moral purpose that are needed to inspire the next phase of the European project. The environment is the issue that can best reconnect Europe with its citizens and re-build trust in European institutions. The needs of the environment are coming together with the needs of the EU: one is a cause looking for a champion, the other a champion in search of a cause.

Tory Europe row - or not?

Francis Maude has written to Tim Mongomerie to say that the Conservatives are thinking about changing the way they select people for the next European elections.

"There is some preliminary thinking going on about whether any changes are needed."

The implcit message in the letter is that they would centralise control if they felt that there was a chance that there might be a messy campaign to get rid of incumbent europhile MEPs (who are still - amazingly - the majority of the tory group).

"How do we avoid these selection processes from becoming divisive and acrimonious? Of course there will be differences in the various candidates’ stance towards the EU, and it’s right that those making the choices are fully aware of the candidates’ views. But there is a big prize for the Party in this process being conducted in a manner that is open and honest, while remaining civilised and courteous. I suspect that this is not really to do with the exact details of the process. I guess it’s more about how we all behave".

You can see why the tory leadership have the fear. Last time round a couple of sitting MEPs got dumped, but only a few. But now (1) Conservative activists have become much more sceptical about the EU; (2) the europhile MEPs have done more do wind up the membership - particularly with their behaviour over the EPP issue; and (3) internet based grassroots activity has the potential to focus anger into an effective campaign against the incumbents.

Add to that the liklihood that the euro elections are likely to fall at roughly the same time (summer '09) as the general, and that Brown will be keen to see if he can trigger some kind of tory euro row, and you have a cause for Maude's concern.

Its not totally inconcievable that the leadship would think about some kind of radical tightening of control. Taking away people's votes altogether might be a step too far. But some kind of tight A-list approach might serve the second purpose of heading off a sceptical 'decapitation' campaign against europhile incumbents.

In fact there might even be some people who would relish the idea of trying to impose "a list that looks like Britain" (no bad thing) in the teeth of sceptical opposition. The tories haven't said yet whether the a-list will be extended to the euro elections - there will be pressure to do so, and why not kill two birds with one stone?

However, that strikes me as a nuclear option. Maude says that:

"we can all therefore simply decide for ourselves that we will take shared responsibility, to coin a phrase, for making this a process that enhances rather than damages our Party’s reputation."

Which is a totally fair point. The Republican right did themselves no favours with their 90s witchhunts. In translation it sounds like Maude means: "If people who were a bit innefective were to get deselected without triggering an embarrising row, that would be one thing. If things got nasty, that would be another."

Can the tories find a way to make the election process work for them? One mild reform might be simply to allow postal voting (at the moment party members have to turn up to a hustings to get a say). That would probably strengthen the incumbents because of the name-recognition factor. Some of the tory MEPs like Dan Hannan call for open primaries to select the candidates - arguing that people who can reach to the uncoverted are likely to be the most effective candidates for them.

There might be something in that, and - as the Conservatives' own leadship election showed - a bit of controversy is not necessarily a bad thing for a party. If tory members really don't feel represented by their MEPs - wouldn't it be better for them to get some they can support, rather than voting for someone else later?

Our mirror image...

...have a new blog.

Hey! It looks like a negative of ours!

http://centreforeuropeanreform.blogspot.com/

The CER are interesting - and just down the street from us. Charles Grant (its current Director) and Ben Hall (now at the FT) are the people most responsible for Blair's Europe policy. We wrote about the formation (and collapse) of their policy of a bit ago.

...stick a tail on it and call it a weasel

According to Mannekin Pis cunning EU leaders are planning to include large chunks of the EU Constitution in the Berlin Declaration next March.

The idea is that EU leaders will pay lip service to the "largely rhetorical" preamble to the Constitution and its other "declaratory flourishes". This would then clear the way to push through the more "practical" changes - such as creating an EU Foregin Minister and EU President - in a mini-treaty.

They basically think voters are like tiny children - they hope that if they cut it up into small enough pieces we'll swallow it.

Iranian Ju-jitsu

The IAEA have found plutonium and more enriched uranium in Iran.

Red faces? No way - in fact it's surely time for them to complain to the UN about Israel.

All this stuff makes the Indie's ludicrous front page yesterday (about whether we should have annual or multi-annual carbon emission targets) - look a wee bit irrelevant.

Hoon's Cantona moment?

Elaib picks up on the existential crisis of Europe Minister Geoff Hoon.

It's all very left bank. Reminds us of Guy Debord's answer to the question "What is situationism?"

The trouble with being a bridge...

Ben Brogan picks up on John Hulsman's controversial speech at our dinner the other night.

They're giving up

Aha - now Geoff Hoon is telling people in Strasbourg that the much vaunted 'controls' on Bulgarian and Romanian workers will be lifted after a year. This comes after the Home Office did a screaming u-turn and halved the number of legal places, after a fight with some farmers.

Can we officially declare it a joke policy yet?