The Dutch EU reform agenda - a primer

In previous we've described the Dutch as 'thought leaders' on EU reform. The Dutch Government's 'subsidiarity review' and the Tweede Kamer's report on the role of national parliaments, with its proposals for 'red', 'green' and 'late' cards, all spring to mind.

Many of these ideas were discussed at a seminar in The Hague in January, organised by the Dutch Cingendael and Brussels CEPS think tanks. A short report on the outcome of the meeting is available online and lists over 30 potential reforms to improve democratic legitimacy and accountability. Some are more concrete than others but here are a few of them:

• Give one of the European Commissioners a subsidiarity portfolio.
• Negotiate a political agreement between the Council and the Commission (possibly involving the European Parliament as well), determining certain domains or certain issues where the European institutions will refrain from further initiatives. A closely related alternative is the idea of a moratorium, agreeing not to present new proposals in a specific area for a certain period.
• Establish a separate subsidiarity court to monitor EU legislation.
• Encourage a proactive approach by EU and national legislators to prevent unintended interpretation by the European Court of Justice.
• Ensure that the European Parliament, taking advantage of its role in selecting the next Commission President, does not dictate the agenda to the Commission.
• Introduce ex post subsidiarity control on existing EU legislation to demonstrate whether subsidiarity was respected and to justify the necessity of EU legislative acts on a case-by-case basis. Both member states and the EU institutions should be involved.
• Introduce an informal ‘red card’ for national parliaments, by proposing the political agreement that the Commission will use its discretion to withdraw legislation if one-third of national parliaments raise subsidiarity objections.
• Introduce a ‘late card’, giving national parliaments the opportunity to voice their concerns at a later stage of the ordinary legislative procedure.
• Introduce a ‘green card’ for national parliaments, which would give them the option to table a joint legislative proposal if a substantial number of member states’ parliaments support it.

There are plenty of good ideas here that the Dutch government in particular has been increasingly vocal in supporting. There are many other proposals that we would throw into the mix, from reforming the EU budget by repatriating regional spending to the wealthiest member states to introducing greater legal safeguards for non-eurozone countries.

As our pan-European reform conference showed, there is growing momentum for change in the EU that extends beyond the UK.

Day 1 of the #EUReform conference: All about substance

Day one of the Open Europe / Fresh Start #EUreform conference covered an enormous amount of ground - kicking off with UK Chancellor George Osborne's widely cited "reform or decline" speech.

300 reformers eager to get on with it, and it was all about substance.

Below are some pictures from the first day.

The Rt Hon. George Osborne giving the opening keynote speech

Reform Lesson from Central and Eastern Europe: Open Europe Berlin's Nora Hesse, Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin, Estonia's Foreign Minister Urmas Paet, and former Slovakian PM Iveta Radičová

The Fresh Start MPs giving a press conference 

The breakout sessions discussed a range of ideas for how to make the EU more competitive. 

The Rt Hon. William Hague addressing the "Reformers' Reception" in the evening 

William Hague talking to a group of Swedish MPs

 

#EU reform: The status quo is not an option

Our ground-breaking EU reform conference is now imminent and, as widely trailed in today's media, UK Chancellor George Osborne will be giving the opening keynote speech.

You can join the conversation throughout the day on twitter, using the #EUreform hash tag, or follow @openeurope. Uniquely for this type of a conference, all sessions will be on the record. We call it "Open Europe rules" (as opposed to the more secretive Chatham House rules).

In a letter to today's Guardian, six leading MPs from across Europe, all attending the conference, argue:

Too often, the debate about "Europe" is based on emotional and ideological arguments, with all sides – from those who want more EU integration and those who want less – trading in hyperbole rather than engaging with substantive issues of policy. Of course we need to co-operate across borders in Europe. The question, as ever, is how. How do we square the need for cross-border action with democratic accountability? How do we live up to the promise to make decisions as close as possible to citizens? How do we make Europe really work for growth and jobs at a time when global competition is stiffening?  

Today, we are joining hundreds of parliamentarians and opinion-formers from across Europe at a unique conference in London organised by the thinktank Open Europe and the Fresh Start Project, dedicated to one question: how can we achieve EU reform? While our proposed solutions may differ, we agree on one thing: the status quo in Europe is not an option. If the EU is to thrive, it needs to embrace a series of bold reforms. Some of these will involve EU action, but where democratic and economic factors so dictate, this may also mean "less Europe". We want to replace the emotional point-scoring with a policy-based discussion about how to achieve a Europe that works better for both democracy and growth.

Gustav Blix Swedish MP (Moderate party); ranking member, committee on European Union affairs (Sweden)
Klaus Peter Willsch German MP (CDU); member, committee for economy and energy,
Germany; Deputy head of the committee on education, research and technology (Germany)
Angieszka Pomaska Polish MP (Civic Platform); Chair of the EU affairs committee in the Polish parliament (Poland)
Eva Kjer Hansen Chair of the European affairs committee (Liberal party), Danish parliament (Denmark) Andrea Leadsom MP for South Northamptonshire (Con); co-founder, Fresh Start Project; member of No 10 policy board (UK)
Dr Reinhold Lopatka Spokesperson for foreign and European affairs, Austrian People's party (OeVP); former secretary of state for European and international affairs (Austria)

Open Europe Chairman Lord Leach: We can't do nothing. Only #EUReform will work

Open Europe Chairman Lord Leach of Fairford has an article in today's Times, trailing this week's unprecedented Open Europe-Fresh Start Project pan-European Conference on #EUReform. He argues,

There will be no escaping the European question this year. The European Parliament elections in May will be followed by the selection of a new Commission, the EU’s executive arm and spiritual home for federal-minded officials. This is also the year when the Prime Minister will set out his negotiating strategy for Europe ahead of next year’s general election and the promised referendum in 2017.

Voters across the Continent will be assured by EU leaders that the euro crisis is over. It isn’t. A financial and currency crisis has simply morphed into a social and economic crisis, with youth unemployment running at 50 per cent in parts of Southern Europe. The European elections will return sceptical parties in record numbers.

These flashing warning lights illustrate voters’ deepening frustration with the status quo. An out-of-touch Brussels political elite will no doubt try to frame the debate about Europe’s future as a struggle between moderate idealists who see the EU as an end in itself, a staging post on the journey to a United States of Europe, and dangerous “extremists” who oppose it lock, stock and barrel.

That would be a grave mistake. Without radical change, the legitimacy of the EU will continue to decline in every member state. And if there is a referendum in Britain it will be so close as to leave the issue undecided and half the country feeling resentful and disenfranchised.

However, here’s the good news: as economic and democratic realities mount, the momentum for reform is growing. National politicians increasingly sense that they risk ending up on the wrong side of history if they settle for the “do nothing” option. In an unambiguous sign of the changing mood, Open Europe and the Fresh Start Project of UK MPs are this week hosting a conference for more than 250 leading politicians and opinion-formers from all 28 EU member states. Though we won’t agree on everything, we have a common mission: reform.

For years Europhiles have used conferences to set the agenda, talking to themselves about themselves. No more. For the first time, reformers are joining forces in large numbers to call for sweeping change.

This event is about substance. Beyond the simplistic ideological divide between those who want a superstate and those who want break-up, what is the most effective way to organise Europe, practically, democratically and economically?

Over two days the focus will be on competitiveness and democracy, a testing-ground for fleshing out which concrete EU reforms the Prime Minister can achieve ahead of the 2017 referendum. Our European friends will have constructive ideas of their own.

Countless statistics show how the EU is losing out in the global race. Yet it is not hard to see how to make Europe work for prosperity, rather than against it. A liberalised market, not least in services, with each country free to make its own successes and mistakes, would provide fresh competitive edge. Returning labour market laws to the domestic shop floor, dropping the centralised European management of farm subsidies and national energy policies, ending the grossly inefficient recycling of regeneration subsidies through Brussels and cutting needless regulation across the board — all these would immediately help growth and jobs.

Above all we need a new constitutional settlement to square national democracy with European co-operation. That means facing the existential question that was posed when the euro was created: what is the common cause that defines the EU? Is it the single currency, and its ideological parent “ever closer union”? Or the Single Market?

If the EU becomes a political extension of the euro, sooner or later the UK electorate will vote to leave. Yet there has been acknowledgement — from Berlin to Rome — that it is in no one’s interest to convert countries into first and second-class members, still less to sleepwalk into the exit of one of Europe’s main powers. However, in what will be a long battle, the UK needs allies. They will be worth listening to.

Gaining allies for #EUReform: Open Europe / Fresh Start Project's EU Reform Conference is drawing huge levels of interest

Advocates of 'Out' of the EU or the 'Status Quo', are fond of saying that EU reform is impossible - it suits their respective cases. They are wrong. Reform is possible, but will not happen on its own, reformers in the UK need to go out there and win allies and put forward solid thought-through proposals to make the EU more competitive and closer to voters.

This week Open Europe and the Fresh Start Project will attempt to do just that by hosting a ground-breaking conference for EU Reform in London.

It will be a landmark event - and the response to this conference has been absolutely amazing. A reminder to those who say there's "no appetite" for reform in Europe that they may be speaking too soon. There will be 300 delegates from over 30 countries debating a full spectrum of ideas on how to achieve major reform in Europe. Keynote speakers include eight ministers from across the continent, leading business people, MPs, MEPs, former heads of state and a European Commissioner.

Here are some highlights:

• A major contribution from a senior UK Minister.

• Agnieszka Pomaska, Chair of the EU Affairs Committee in the Polish Parliament, and Priti Patel MP debating EU free movement and rules on access to benefits.
• Rachida Dati MEP, Deputy President of the French UMP Party, asking if it’s time for a “realist revolution” in Europe.
• Leading German MP Klaus-Peter Willsch and former EU Commissioner and Dutch minister Frits Bolkestein discussing if, and how, powers can flow back from the EU to its member states.
• UK Europe Minister David Lidington and Irish Europe Minister Paschal Donohoe discussing the role of national parliaments with break-out sessions looking at whether national parliaments should be given veto rights over EU law.
• Maria Damanaki, European Commissioner for Fisheries, explaining why EU reform is possible using the case of the EU’s fisheries policy.
• Bruno Maçães, Portuguese Secretary of State for European Affairs, discussing how services liberalisation can be achieved in Europe.
• Serial entrepreneur Luke Johnson and Dr Daniel Mitrenga of the German Association of Family Enterprises identifying ways to cut EU regulation.
• UK Foreign Secretary William Hague addressing the “Reformers’ Reception”.
• Bulgarian Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet, and former Slovakian Prime Minister Iveta Radicova, drawing lessons on reform from Eastern and Central Europe.
• Peter Norman, the Swedish Minister for Financial Markets, looking at how the single market can work for economic recovery.
• Young reformers from across Europe setting out their ideas for change in the concluding “Future of Europe” panel.

What do we hope to achieve?One conference will not achieve #EUReform on its own, but ahead of a crucial year in Europe - with the European elections and the selection of a new European Commission - it'll be a hugely important opportunity to really delve into the kind of policies that will achieve sweeping change in Europe. It'ls also be a key testing ground for what kind of reforms David Cameron might achieve ahead of a potential 2017 EU referendum.

We have provided a platform, now lets see what the delegates make of it...