Well done Margot

Credit where credit is due.

Regular readers of this blog will know that we're not the biggest fans of the former Commissioner for Propaganda Communication, Margot Wallstrom. Margot and her office too often acted like outright lobbyists trying to promote ever closer union - including spinning facts on the Lisbon Treaty and trying to silence and slander dissenting voices - rather than civil servants charged with providing factual information (they are funded by taxpayers after all).

But Margot, who now holds a UN position - Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict - has recently done a rather principled thing. Unlike most of her former colleagues, she turned down the controversial 'transitional allowance' that Commissioners are entitled to for three years after leaving office. We've looked at this issue before, but the transitional allowance is again hitting the headlines, as it emerged that ex-Commissioners such as Charlie McCreevy and Peter Mandelson receive hefty pay-outs from the EU despite holding lucrative jobs or making money from book sales.

The allowance is worth a lot of money - for Margot it would have been up to 60% of her final annual Commission salary for three years, or the difference between her current salary and her salary as a Commissioner (€270,376).

Now, Wallstrom won't starve - having made €2,991,313 during her ten years in Brussels and with an annual pension of €113,486 - but you still have to give her credit for doing the decent thing here (given that she did turn it down for ethical reasons and not, for example, because she makes more than what she did as Commissioner in her new role, which would be a scandal in its own right).

So well done Margot - as taxpayers we salute you.

Margot Wallstrom: a failure?

A new book, to be published in Sweden today, paints a rather bleak picture of Margot Wallstrom's stint as EU Communications Commissioner. The book, written by Swedish journalist Emily von Sydow, blatantly labels Wallstrom's time in office a failure. The theme of the book reminded us of the Economist's description of Wallstrom a couple of weeks ago as "a Swede whose 'kum-bay-yah' approach grated with colleagues."

The book catalogues Wallstrom's failures, including:

One of her main responsibilities was to "sell" the EU Constitution. However, the Constitution was voted down in three seperate referendums - in France, the Netherlands and Ireland. (The scope of this failure - and Wallstrom's incapacity to respect the will of the Irish people - were conspicuously illustrated in an infamous interview with the Swede on Newsnight.)

Wallstrom was supposed to boost turn-out in the European elections. However, despite a flamboyant promotion campaign, costing taxpayers around €10 million, turnout dropped in 16 of 27 countries, as did the overall average - to an all-time low.

Her campaign to put more women in top jobs in the EU has not been "particularly succesful", according to the book.

Her proposal for more access to information and EU documents for citizens ended in failure (in fact, the proposal she came up with in the end was widely regarded as a step backwards, making it harder for citizens to access official EU documents).

Neither has Wallstrom's blog been the success story she likes to portray it as, bagging about 50,000-80,000 visitors a month, compared with the 140,000 visitors Swedish blogger HAX gets some months - blogging only in Swedish.

All in all the book goes pretty hard on Wallstrom, but also acknowledges that she hasn't had the easiest job in the world.

Still, at the end of the day Wallstrom has failed spectacuarly in her main duty: to bring the EU closer to its citizens. Altough her intentions have no doubt been good, she has ignored three referenda results and pushed through an agenda of more centralisation of powers at the EU level, against the will of most Europeans. On her watch, DG Communication has acted more and more like a political lobby group for more integration, than an objective provider of information about the EU, wading into national politcal debates and even seeking to control what is written in the media. And the fruits of her labour, the bitter taste they have left, speak for themselves.

Given that she will receive almost £1.8 million when she leaves the Commission this year, she cannot possibly be described as good value for money.

Let's hope that the next Communications Commissioner will be a lot more willing to actually listen to people. Or better still, maybe they will scrap the role altogether in the upcoming shakeup which is likely to see the more pointless posts like EU Commissioner for Multilingualism consigned to the history bin.

Wild claims

On 14 June 2009 the Irish Independent reported that Margot Wallstrom, European Commissioner for Communication, said during a visit to Dublin that the Lisbon Treaty would "encourage" affordable childcare in the EU.

A question was tabled to her in the European Parliament, by Syed Kamall MEP, asking the simple question:

"Can you please clarify which articles in the Lisbon Treaty will encourage affordable childcare in the EU?"

The question was tabled in order to deliver a response mid-September at the latest. However, having delayed this far, our Commissioner for "Communication" has, at a minute to midnight today declared her response will only be ready on 6 October, conveniently after the Irish referendum has already taken place.

So this completely unsubstantiated, nonsense claim from the politician we pay good money to communicate the Lisbon Treaty is allowed to stay just as it is, with no explanation.

We're reminded of The Economist column last week which described Wallstrom as "a Swede whose 'kum-bay-yah' approach grated with colleagues". It's grating with us a bit too.

If you haven't already checked it out you should have a look at her here on Newsnight after the last Irish referendum, when she failed spectacularly to explain what on earth people are supposed to do to reject this Treaty, since voting no is clearly not enough.

Double standards II

As the Lisbon campaign in Ireland gets into full swing things are starting to get heated.

Ireland's Defence Minister Willie O'Dea yesterday told us to butt out after we published research showing that the Irish government only managed to get 24 percent of their proposed amendments made to the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty, when it was negotiated back in 2002-2004 by Europe Minister Dick Roche. The fact is he was dead against some of the things the government is now pushing - such as a permanent EU President, a change to the voting weights, which will see Ireland lose 40% of its power to block decisions it disagrees with, and many of the important veto losses.

It seems fairly inevitable that the Government would have a pop at us for publishing facts they desperately would prefer to hide. But in light of the recent interventions from the EU Commission in the debate, it seems highly hypocritical to tell us to "butt out".

Only two weeks ago, the Commission felt the need to weigh in and rebuff claims made by the 'Farmers for No' campaign. Maybe the Irish government was too busy that day to do the rebutting itself, or maybe it wasn't considered to be up to the job by the "experts" (ha ha) occupying the corridors of DG Communication.

Other imaginative ways to use our taxes its resources to promote a Yes vote include sending EU officials into schools, to foster that all important pester power, and sending Communication Commissioner Margot Wallström to Ireland later this week to speak at various events, including the 'Lisbon Treaty Business Lunch with European Chamber of Ireland' and the 'Labour Women's Conference'. That's not to mention the appearances already seen by EU Commissioners Neelie Kroes, Magelena Kuneva and senior EU Commission official Catherine Day.

Will their salaries be included in the public cost of the 'yes' campaign?

Make your mind up

It sometimes seems amazing that the EU Commission can spend so much money on its own special department for Communications, and yet prove so spectacularly terrible at PR.

EU Communications Commissioner Margot Wallstrom has thrown her hat in the ring and responded to Open Europe's recent findings that Commissioners leaving office this year can expect in excess of £1 million in pensions and pay-offs, courtesy of EU taxpayers.

In response to questions about her own enormous (£1.8m) pay-off in an interview with Focus Information Agency, she said:

"I'd like to thank you for the possibility to respond to the series of 'clever' press releases by 'Open Europe' - a British NGO, advertising itself as a think-tank - which has been regularly publishing articles against the club of 27, containing deliberately twisted and exaggerated data. Stepping in office within the European Commission (EC) does not include talks about salaries, allowances and retirement payments. It's the Council of the European Union that decided in the matter and therefore all changes are up to it. The current rules have been around since 1967 and are open to the public."

Why is the Commissioner responsible for Communications now saying that Open Europe's figures are "deliberately twisted and exaggerated data", when the Commission has already confirmed the truth of the figures?

When the news first broke a couple of weeks ago, Commission Spokesperson Valerie Rampi said, "Open Europe did not discover anything new, it's all public and online".

Then, when confronted with the reports, Development Commissioner Louis Michel exclaimed "if that's true, I'll retire immediately." Belgian daily De Standaard went on to report that, "after consulting an assistant, the message however appeared to be accurate. This was followed by Louis Michel suddenly changing his mind, saying the compensation is completely justified: 'We are being well paid. But every morning getting up at 5 o'clock, lots of travelling, heavy files...This is a parachute but not a golden one.'"

Not only that, but as we have seen, Danish Commissioner Mariann Fischer-Boel responded to the figures saying "I'm worth all the millions."

For an organisation which spends millions of taxpayers' euros a year on its very own PR office, it is surprising how bad it is at putting out a straight line of defence.

The spokesperson was spot on - all we did was to use the publicly available data and estimate how much these people stood to receive. In fact we used the figures pretty conservatively - we reckon they're an underestimate.

The point is there really is no need to "twist" and "exaggerate" the data, because it's devastating enough on its own.

Still, at least Wallstrom didn't do a Fischer-Boel and try a "Because I'm worth it" type argument. Given the clear failure to get people to like the EU and the Lisbon Treaty - her main job - that would have been hilariously difficult to defend.

Of banking and photosynthesis

EU Communication Commissioner Margot Wallstrom’s blog is occasionally worth a read. Yesterday’s entry, ostensibly about the financial crisis, has some rather strange musings:

Can’t help thinking that the root causes of the economic crisis and the climate change crisis are very much the same : need, greed and feed.

Poor peoples’ need for housing in the US, speculators greed for quick money, bonuses and wealth in Wall Street and similar places, the willingness from the rest of the world to “feed” the American economy with loans/cheap money.

The short-range approach, the unwillingness to realise that – as with banknotes- nature can not just be endlessly reprinted or copied, the overexploitation of natural resources has led to a situation where we lose biodiversity at a scary speed – and at a very high cost. And even the golden boys working with “blanking” (speculation in ups and downs on the stock market) depend on photosynthesis to stay alive on this amazing little globe…