EPAs - time running out

Our paper on Economic Partnership Agreements is out.

There's a piece about it on Comment is Free.

Let us know what you think...

proper names part two

"A Foreign Minister who cannot be called a Foreign Minister"

- Federalist MEP Elmar Brok finds a nice way to describe the proposed High-Representative-for-Foreign-Affairs-and-Security-Policy.

Garton Ash for a referendum?

Tim Garton Ash comes out (just about) for a referendum in his piece in the Guardian this morning.

When I talk privately to pro-European friends, this is almost invariably the clinching argument: "Because we would lose it!" ...

We now face a choice of evils: either this good thing is pushed through by the established procedures of a parliamentary democracy, but without clear popular consent; or popular consent is sought in a referendum, which will probably be lost...

Which is the lesser evil? Many of my pro-European friends will jump on me for saying this, but I must admit that I rather hanker after open combat. Sound the trumpets, stiffen the sinews, and let us march out from this boggy ground. At least it would make a change from Groundhog Day.

Welcome to the campaign, Tim.

Milliband at the FAC

David Miliband is at the Foreign Affairs Committee today. Thoughts as they occur to us below:
.....

The Government has some very peculiar arguments: M says "it makes it clear for the first time that member states are in charge of foreign policy" - so what was the case before?

The reality is that the warm (and non binding) words in the "declaration" Miliband is talking about are only there as a sop to the UK because so much else is being given up.

.....

An interesting question: would Miliband have been happy to campaign for the Constitutional Treaty, as promised in the 2005 Labour manifesto?

However, in answer we are being treated to the usual blah blah – its not a single treaty, UK has lots of opt outs etc. But yes, he "stands by it."

.....

David Heathcoat Amory has picked M up on his pathetic attempt to rubbish the European Scrutiny Committee report by saying its out of date. Obviously he isn't answering the question. He talks about the "transitional" agreements in Justice and Home Affairs.

DHA is now pressing for detail on the changes in the new draft. Miliband says "there is detail now" - but he sounds jolly defensive and rightly so. Because it isn't good detail from the UK government's point of view.

Look at the new article 4a of the protocol on the UK and Ireland (on page 61 of this document).

It essentially says that in future if there are amendments to JHA legislation which the UK is opted into, then the other member states can hold a gun to the UK's head by saying that Britain will be thrown out of that piece of legislation:

If at the expiry of that period of two months from the Council's determination the United Kingdom or Ireland has not made a notification under Article 3 or Article 4, the existing measure shall no longer be binding upon or applicable to it

And indeed in future:

"The Council, acting by a qualified majority on a proposal from the Commission, may determine that the United Kingdom or Ireland shall bear the direct financial consequences, if any, necessarily and unavoidably incurred as a result of the cessation of its participation in the existing measure."

In short the opt-in arrangement has been substantially weakened - after quite a strong fightback from the more federally-minded member states. Hardly a triumph. In fact it *strengthens* the ESC's case that the "red lines" will "leak like a sieve".

.....

Miliband says, "Every single one of the rights in the Charter exists already."

This is palpable nonsense. If they were not new rights why did the Government initially spin that it had an "opt out" (before doing a u-turn)? If they are not new rights why has the Government been worried about it for the last seven years. In fact many of the rights are said in the text of explanations to be derived from documents to which the UK is not a signatory. Others are just plain new. (See our guide for more.)

.....

Wonderful forensic stuff from Gisela Stuart. Just got him to admit that people in Britain are perfectly capable of making rational decisions in referendums. He says its only the French who vote on other off topic issues.

Also (for euro-nerds) she makes the good point that even the Constitution didn't bring all the treaties together... actually the Euratom treaty stayed out. A fair quibble on a fundamentally terrible argument from the Government. Why was stapling the treaties together "legally unprecedented" anyway?

Stuart has also come back to the first point - why do we have to say "member states are in charge of foreign policy" – aren’t they anyway?

M says "its good that its clear and established... we know where we stand". Another awful argument deflates....

.....

Stuff on the timetable for ratification.

M says there isn't one yet. He will proceed "promptly" with ratification after December.

.....

It's been pointed out that the declaration on foreign policy is not legally binding.

M says declarations are "worthwhile even if they don't have legal force". Grrrr-eat.

.....

Verdict: a pretty defensive performance. Miliband better get used to it - with the election off there is going to be years of this stuff....

The Constitution lives on

Just digging through the new version of the treaty which came out today.

There are lots of little changes which will need looking at more to figure out what they mean.

But one change they should have made is missing - even in the new draft it still mistakenly talks about itself as "the Constitution" at one point (Article 188c.6).

Ooops.

A good day to bury bad news?

Curious timing...

The long awaited report of the cross-party European Scrutiny Committee on the new Constitutional Treaty is to be released next Monday for Tuesday. Perhaps the government have been spooked by signs that the members of the Committee are rather sceptical about their much vaunted "red lines". If it is going to be a bad report from the Government's point of view then at least there will be rather a lot of other news that day - with the CSR and the final build up to the election announcement.

It appears there have been lots of other shenanigans going on too. The meeting to finalise the report was supposed to happen on 19 September. But funnily enough Jim Murphy insisted at the last minute that the meeting had to be moved... funnily enough to the week of the tory conference (he was on a school trip apparently).

Nonetheless, the report does finally seem to be about to see the light of day - but only when not a single journalist will be watching.

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

Back again

The conference season is finally over. We've been at: TUC, Green, Lib Dems, Labour and the Conservatives. Its been very productive for us, but the blog has kinda died of neglect in the meantime... so as a re-starter for ten, have a look at the excellent Chris Hope's piece.

As part of a long runing row with the European Scruitiny Committee about the Government's refusal to discuss the negotiations in Brussels, Jim Murphy said the other day that the Government had signed up to the outline agreement on the revived Constitution after having seen it for the first time just forty-eight hours beforehand. Its a pretty seat-of-the-pants way to negotiate something so important.

come on Ming

Ming Campbell has called for the members of the public to write a British Constitution… and then put it to a national referendum.

That doesn't sit very easily with not holding a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty.

He says: "As a first step, a written constitution is essential to ensure that the sovereignty of the citizen is established."

This, he argued, should be partly written by members of the public chosen by a lottery, before being approved by a nationwide referendum. "

good old keith vaz

We always said he was a great guy.

Actually, while his backing for a referendum is nice to have, the ludicrous combined-in-or-out-vote-plus-general-election fudge that he is proposing isn't really fair.

The Electoral Commission has warned the Government against holding a combined poll. It has said, “We believe that referendums on fundamental issues of national importance should be considered in isolation. Cross-party campaigning on a fundamental referendum could cause significant confusion amongst the electorate if combined with normal party election campaigning. There is a risk that the dominance of the referendum issue would influence other polls to an extent that may compromise the electorate's will in those other polls” (Electoral Commission policy statement, 19 July 2004)

When the Government introduced the bill for a referendum last time round (2005) it suggested that they were minded to hold a vote on the same day: Their Regulatory Impact Assessment on the European Union Bill, said “In general, combination would be expected to produce efficiency and cost savings.” (p.3)

The question the government proposed last time was “Should the United Kingdom approve the Treaty establishing a Constitution for the European Union?”

The Electoral Commission recommended a different question to that tabled by the Government. It said: “The commission believes that it is important to refer to the name of the treaty in the referendum question. The commission notes that the proposed question is a modification of the treaty title, rather than the exact title, which is a Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe” (Business, 6 February 2005).

Fun as Vaz's suggestion is, no-one serious is likely to support a bogus in-or-out vote.

Blunkett

Interesting stuff from David Blunkett in his column today:

"The Government has a long way to go in providing a proper answer to the demands for a referendum on the new European Union treaty. And Foreign Office ministers still need to give a decisive answer to accusations the treaty is not really any different to the EU Constitution that was rejected by the voters of France and Holland. What horrifies me is the growing demand from trade unions for a nationwide ballot."

"Not because they are against the treaty but because they think we have secured too many opt-outs on rights issues and matters of "social protection".

"But most important is the need to take an entirely new look at what we want from Europe. We need a different sort of EU - not one built on someone's vision of the 1950s but a vision of what Europe should be like well into the 21st Century."

"We need to be discussing the democratic politics of the future, but so often the argument is about our fears of the non-democratic Europe of the past."

vast piles of cash for the pro euro camp

There's now a temporary website for the "European Council on Foreign Relations".

Apparently George Soros is going to spend some of the vast pile of cash he took off every single person in Britain in 1992 on promoting a single EU Foreign Policy.

They are planning offices in "Berlin, Paris, London, Madrid, Rome and Warsaw as well as a presence in Brussels and the new member states." That can't be cheap.

You can bet that one of the first priorities for their cash-rich campaign will be to assist the passage of the constitutional treaty.

It will be run by Mark Leonard, inventor of "cool Britannia" and the author of "Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century" (which was launched, with brilliant comic timing, just before the "no" votes). Presumably it will compete with his former employer, the Centre for European Reform.

It sounds like the EU great and good will turn out in force to back it.

the c word

Apparently at the lobby briefing this morning the PMOS was insisting that "our position on the Constitution has not changed".

Cue Michael Lea - "Constitution?"

Brown keeps doing it as well. The unwary observer might be left with the impression that a monumental con job was in progress. Of course that would be quite wrong...

Having your cake and eating it

In a piece on BBC online Labour’s leader in the European Parliament Gary Titley has admitted that the UK has not opted out of the Charter. But hang on - hasn't the Government just spent the last two months insisting that it has?

Titley: "The RMT is arguing that the UK has opted out of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. This is wrong. What we have done is made the wording clearer to show that the European Court should not make changes which alter or make the charter worse. "

Blair: "It is absolutely clear that we have an opt-out from both the charter and judicial and home affairs. " (Hansard, 25 June)

Titley also arrogantly claims that people “aren’t interested” in the new treaty … i.e. nothing to worry your pretty little heads about, etc.

Labour of love

The Sun reports on growing pressure for a referendum within the Labour movement.

Apparently a bunch of Labour MPs have written to Brown saying that either he needs to radically change the treaty, or give us the vote we were promised: "reform or referendum" as they put it.

There is a leader too, arguing that, "with every other EU leader confessing that this is the old EU Constitution dressed up in a flimsy new wrapper, Mr Brown is risking much by breaking his own word to the British people."

Pretty clear stuff.

they don't get it

Hmmmm... someone at BBC Online doesn't like the trade unions campaigning for a referendum.

The GMB and RMT had joined the Tories and UKIP in demanding a vote by tabling motions for the TUC annual conference.

We didn't realise that the Tories and UKIP could table motions at the TUC. Maybe they changed the rules.

More seriously, some people at the BBC seem to find it difficult to accept that unions might want to reflect the views of their membership (the polls say 88% of their members want a referendum). No no - it can't be that they are taking a principled stand, or that they have legitimate concerns about the impact of the constituiton on the economy, or public services. Instead, let's just dismiss it by saying that they are "getting into bed" with the right wing.

Memo to BBC - must try harder.

wikiscanner

Just having a first look through some results from the excellent "wikiscanner."

Someone from the European Commission has been editing the page on "byzantine bureaucracy".

Well, they would know...

Green smokescreen

The leaked paper from UK officials suggesting ways for Britain to wriggle out of EU renewable energy commitments is now up on the Guardian website.

The beginning of the document has a fascinating insight into official concerns over the contradictions in EU climate change policy:

“If the EU has a 20% GHG [greenhouse gas] target for 2020, the GHG emissions savings achieved through the renewables risk making the EU ETS redundant, and prices to collapse. Given that the EU ETS is the EU’s main existing vehicle for delivering least cost reductions in GHG, and the basis on which the EU seeks to build a global carbon market to incentivise international action, this is a major risk.

Remedies to overcome this risk will be difficult to agree or ineffective. Expanding the scope of the EU ETS to include aviation emissions would not by itself create enough demand to overcome price collapse. Tightening EU ETS caps to reflect the renewables target imply taking EU wide emission reductions beyond the 20% GHG target which would be difficult to agree in the EU. Relying on later agreement to a 30% GHG target to rescue damage to the EU ETS is risky if 30% is not realised, and if not, clarity in 2009 or so this, would be very late for redesigning the ETS or renewables target in response.”

There is clearly little expectation that the ETS on its own will provide sufficient incentives for the massive investment in renewables necessary to reach the targets – which implies that renewable use will have to be enforced by other means, probably through subsidy or regulation. If this happens, the overall scarcity of carbon credits tradable in the ETS will decline, along with the price of carbon and any resulting incentive to reduce emissions through the ETS.

The paper goes on to say that UK officials have been actively lobbying the Commission to consider the “tensions” between the EU ETS and binding renewables targets – this is clearly a major concern in Whitehall.

The leaked paper illustrates perfectly just how far politicians have managed to botch EU climate change policy. They have essentially agreed to a series of mutually contradictory policies which may play well with the media in the short term, but ultimately undermine the end objective of reducing emissions.

As argued in our last post, there’s only so long politicians can maintain this charade of using ambitious-sounding gestures on the environment to their own advantage. Reality has to eventually kick in, meaning the front page of Monday’s Guardian is probably just the beginning of a long hangover the government will have to suffer for making commitments it can’t keep.

An environmental time bomb?

Interesting piece by Andrew Bounds on the FT blog today, which makes a strong argument suggesting the EU will at some point have to make tough decisions on the binding biofuel targets leaders signed up to at the EU summit in March. Indeed, although the 10% target for biofuel use was greeted with enthusiasm by some commentators when it was agreed to, the gloss is sure to come off as the full social and environmental implications of these commitments becomes clear.

First of all, as Bounds notes, whilst EU leaders basked in the positive headlines, hugely important details of the agreement were simply kicked into the long grass for negotiation at a later date. Production, transport and processing of biofuels in itself requires a lot of energy – it’s not yet clear whether this is to be taken account of in the overall targets.

Furthermore, the tide of opinion on biofuels now seems to be turning faster than politicians expected, as the negative effects begin to be felt – food price inflation is already hitting the poor in many parts of the world, whilst deforestation to clear land for biofuel production is booming – especially in South East Asia.

Deforestation (which often involves clearance by burning) is, in environmental terms, a really big deal – despite being frequently overlooked, it is a major contributor to global warming – accounting for perhaps 20-25% of total of carbon emissions, which is more than the total from all vehicles, airplanes and ships. It is also leading to immense pressure on endangered species, such as Orang-Utangs.

The other major strand of EU policy that will feed into this debate is the effect the Emissions Trading Scheme will have. Open Europe’s recent report looks at many of the major environmental concerns associated with emissions trading, in particular the ‘import’ of vast numbers of ‘Kyoto credits’ (which act as a giant system of carbon offsets) into European carbon markets.

Reuters has a fascinating report describing how the demand for credits (which mostly comes from the EU ETS) actually creates “perverse incentives” for deforestation through encouraging project developers to fell rainforest, and then replant it in order to generate credits. These credits are then used by European firms to avoid having to reduce their own carbon emissions.

As we have long argued, EU environmental policy is often badly thought out and riddled with unintended, damaging consequences. All this makes us wonder whether the EU is sitting on an ‘environmental time bomb.’ At some point, the bubble of ambitious-sounding rhetorical green commitments will have to burst as the reality of flawed policy sets in.

Freudian slip

A couple of weeks ago Gordon Brown accidentally talked at a press conference about how he had discussed "the Constitution" with the Irish PM.

But he isn't the only one making that Freudian slip. It turns out that the Portuguese presidency of the EU have also left in a couple of references to "the Constitution" in the new text of the Constitution "Reform Treaty".

Article 4 of the "new" treaty (a.k.a. Article I-14 of the Constitution) states that "The Union shall share competence with the Member States where the Constitution confers on it a competence which does not relate to the areas referred to in Articles [I-13 and 17].

Article 188c(6) of the "new treaty (a.ka. article III-315 of the Constitution) states that: "The exercise of the competences conferred by this Article in the field of the common commercial policy shall not affect the delimitation of competences between the Union and the Member States, and shall not lead to harmonisation of legislative or regulatory provisions of the Member States insofar as the Constitution excludes such harmonisation."

Ooops.

God knows how a reference to the rejected Constitution slipped into this totally-spanking-new, never-seen-before, amending-institutional-mini-reform treaty. We blame the eurosceptics.

Miow

Richard Corbett writes that:

Shame that a couple of Labour MPs, who lost their ministerial jobs several years ago and are no doubt disappointed at not returning to ministerial office under Gordon Brown, have sought to embarrass him by calling for a referendum on the proposed EU Reform Treaty.

They made their calls in the Eurosceptic Tory press (Frank Field in the Sun and Gisela Stuart in the Sunday Telegraph), knowing that, there at least, they would obtain a headline or two. I somehow doubt Gordon will be impressed by such disloyal tactics, but there is always a danger that it might influence the odd party member, especially if they believe the nonsense that they wrote on the subject, which could well have been drafted for them by Bill Cash or UKIP.

Oooh, nasty. He goes on to say:

Frank Field even tells the outright lie that the new treaty would mean Britain giving up its seat at the UN Security Council.

Obviously, the constitutional treaty would not immediately mean "giving up our seat at the UN." But in fairness to Frank Field, in his piece he appears to be predicting that this will eventually happen, rather than saying that it will immediately happen:

It is true that in the first instance the European Foreign Secretary will be given a different title. But titles, to quote the Spanish Foreign Minister again, will be part of the wrapping. This decisive shift in power will all too quickly be followed by the EU taking Britain's seat at the UN Security Council.

And there certainly is a real problem for the Government here. The new version of the constitutional treaty states that:

"When the Union has defined a position on a subject which is on the United Nations Security Council agenda, those Member States which sit on the Security Council shall request that the High Representative be asked to present the Union's position."

Initially the UK Government (represented by Peter Hain) put down an amendment in the European Convention saying that this whole paragraph should be struck out.

Peter Hain wrote: "The UK cannot accept any language which implies that it would not retain the right to speak in a national capacity on the UN Security Council."

This was ignored, and so the UK then fell back to saying that it had to at least be changed, in order to remove the minister's seemingly automatic right to speak. In a second amendment the UK proposed a change to say that the Minister could only request to speak on its behalf.

"When the Security Council holds a meeting at which non-members of the Council are permitted to speak, and when the Union has defined a common position on a the subject of the meeting, which is on the United Nations Security Council agenda, those Member States which sit on the Security Council shall request that the Minister for Foreign Affairs may request an opportunity be asked to present the Union's position."

But again this was ignored. This automatic right to speak on issues where the Union has a common position is more significant given the simultaneous introduction of majority voting into so many areas of foreign policy in the new text.

Overall, it's pretty obvious that the Government would have preferred not to see this new power. But nonetheless, they have decided to go quietly, and avoided kicking up a fuss. Perhaps Richard Corbett will post a reply and tell us why? (Or turn on comments on his own blog?)

Only nationalist loons want a referendum

Great mad stuff from the CER's blog. It's bylined by Hugo Brady, who is a nice chap, and very bright. But the contents are barking.

"In the past, well meaning pro-Europeans and commentators have also called for a referendum in Britain on the EU, as a way of challenging the orthodoxies of the British European debate. This is wrong-headed. Yes, Gordon Brown should encourage passionate debate on Britain’s interests in Europe. But if he fails to stand firm against calls for a referendum, he risks opening a Pandora's box of obfuscation and media-fed nationalism, as well as handing a platform to fringe political forces from across the UK."

Ah yes: "Nationalist" extremists like those guys at The Economist. Hysterical "fringe" eurosceptics like, er... Jacques Delors. Dangerous people who should be denied a "platform" like Simon Jenkins at the Guardian.

Also - in fairness, it is only a majority of people in every single member state that want a referendum. The fact that 80%-90% of every social/employment group, every age group, in every region, including the voters of all the main parties, want a referendum, clearly shows that it's only nutters who want a vote.

No - you're right - its just a bunch of extremists who want a referendum...

Tories in policy shock

Blimey - this from Theresa May, talking about reforming the European Scrutiny Committee in the Commons:

"I believe that the Scrutiny Reserve should be put on a statutory basis, so that ministers are required to come before the Scrutiny Committee before negotiations at the European Council. It would therefore be impossible to override it. Ministers should have to set out their negotiating positions to the Committee, and gain its approval.

"It makes sense for this to be conducted in private, so that ministers are not put at a disadvantage in Council negotiations. The minutes of these meetings could then be made public after the negotiations are complete. This would work along similar lines to the Danish model, although the committee would need to recognise that there would be occasions on which ministers would need to be given a degree of flexibility."

It reads like they actually mean "council of ministers" rather than "European Council". If so it would reflect something that we have been arguing for (which you can find here)

It would actually give the Committeee some meaniungful power for the first time ever. It sounds boring and dry but it would actually make a huge difference - it would let parliament stop the Government from signing up to EU legislation. For example Danish ministers sometimes send text messages back to their parliament to ask if its OK for them to sign up to a particular proposal. Europhiles won't like this much. But its a really good idea.

Loathsome smugness

The pro-euro camp are all busy congratulating themselves about having fooled the public by changing the name of the constitution.

At a meeting of the Centre for European Reform yesterday EU officials discussed their strategy for adopting the EU Constitution without a referendum.

Former Italian PM Giuliano Amato said, “They decided that the document should be unreadable. If it is unreadable, it is not constitutional, that was the sort of perception. Where they got this perception from is a mystery to me. In order to make our citizens happy, to produce a document that they will never understand! But, there is some truth [in it]. Because if this is the kind of document that the IGC will produce, any Prime Minister – imagine the UK Prime Minister - can go to the Commons and say ‘look, you see, it’s absolutely unreadable, it’s the typical Brussels treaty, nothing new, no need for a referendum.’ Should you succeed in understanding it at first sight there might be some reason for a referendum, because it would mean that there is something new.”

You can listen to them all chortling about how terribly clever they are on this clip. There is a quite lot of this kind of gloating going on in the pro-euro camp at the moment. But unfortunately for them, calls for a referendum are not going to go away...

Lie watch

Jim Murphy told a whopper while being interviewed by the Lords European Union Committee this morning.

Asked about leaked legal advice for the European Scrutiny Committee which warned that the UK's "safeguards" on the Charter of Fundamental Rights would not work, he said that the advice had been written before the agreement on the new version of the constitution:

He said, “the advice given to the Commons Scrutiny Committee was on the previous Constitutional Treaty and was offered before the new treaty was agreed”

He said the advice was “an accurate assessment of the old Constitutional Treaty, but not the new treaty”

Actually, no. It was written after the agreement, and is quite specific to the new version.

Let's see if we can get a response out of Murphy on this.

Barroso on EU empire

Barroso's comments describing the EU as an "empire" are up on You Tube. Link here.

petition

If you haven't signed it then sign it now.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/EU-treaty-NON/

More hot air from the Commission

The latest from the FT on EU climate change policy:

“The fight against climate change could soon be carried into the wardrobes of the European Commission’s 11,700 male bureaucrats, as the Brussels body ponders whether to crack down on neckties during the summer months. Senior commissioners hope that tie-less officials will tolerate greater levels of heat during July and August and so, in turn, reduce the need for air-conditioning in the Commission’s 64 office buildings across Brussels.

According to a note circulated by Charlie McCreevy, the internal market commissioner, this approach has been pioneered in Japan. Mr McCreevy, who has just returned from an official visit to east Asia, wrote to his fellow commissioners late last month saying: “I noted in Japan that Prime Minister [Shinzo] Abe has given the lead in telling his ministers and civil servants not to wear ties in summertime. This allows office temperatures to be set higher and so cut down on energy use for cooling of offices…

…McCreevy argues that Brussels should examine similar steps “as a potential contribution from the Commission to reduce global warming.. The Commission estimates that its buildings emit 56,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. It believes that reducing the cooling or heating of room temperatures by just 1°C would cut emissions by 10 per cent.”

As an aside, in 2006 alone China built about 92 gigawatts of new coal-fired power generation capacity, more than the entire fleet of generating plants in the United Kingdom, adding 500 millions tons of carbon dioxide (equivalent to 5% of the world total) to the country's annual emissions.

The Commission’s latest “contribution” to fighting climate change is self evidently meaningless – which makes it all the more surprising that much of the media does not scrutinize more carefully the EU’s record on this score and still continues to run stories like this, whilst often buying into the intellectually lazy assertion that Brussels needs ‘more power’ in order to fight global warming. This has inevitably become entwined in the debate over the new EU treaty – which we are told should be seen as an essential part of this green package.

As we’ve argued many times previously, the EU has not been good news for the environment, particularly given the Union’s flagship policy in curbing greenhouse gas emissions, the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), has been, and will continue to be a total failure.

So it is not at all clear what possible good EU treaty change could do for the environment. The EU doesn’t need any more powers to fight climate change (it already has plenty in that respect). It simply needs the political will to develop policies that actually work – and that will mean far more than a change in the office dress code.

Blears calls for voters to have a say on “big choices”

In today's Guardian Communities Secreatary Hazel Blears says that voters should be given a say on “big choices". The Guardian reports that Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has announced that the Government needs to let the public vote on “big choices”.

She said “I think the world has changed. I think voting every four years and basically handing over responsibility and power to other people and then doing nothing again for four years, I think our democracy is not like that any more... My overriding belief is that people are capable of making quite complex difficult decisions, setting priorities, doing trade-offs if they are given the opportunity to do it. I have never believed in a paternalistic society that tells people what is good for them.”

Just as Gordon Brown’s new willingness to “listen and learn” does not sit well with his attempts to avoid a referendum, Blears’ drive to include people more in “big choices” will add to the pressure to let people have a say on the revised Constitutional Treaty.

Anti-referendum MPs have long argued that EU treaties are too complicated for ordinary people to understand and therefore any decision should be left to them, but Blears has blown that out of the water. Her “overriding belief is that people are capable of making quite complex difficult decisions”. In the coming months it is going to be increasingly difficult for the Government to explain why people should be allowed to vote on certain “big choices”, but not on the future of the European Union.

Europe minster grilled on the charter

Jim Murphy, the new Europe Minster, made his first appearance at the European Scrutiny Committee today. The general consensus that it wasn't too impressive. To be fair to him, the issues he was discussing - such as the revised Constitutional Treaty - are pretty complicated. But we would have expected him to have got his officials to brief him thoroughly on the really tricky points - such as the Charter - especially as the legal advice to the committee was leaked to the Telegraph.

After negotiating the new EU Constitutional Treaty Tony Blair told parliament that “Nothing in the Charter creates justiciable rights applicable to the United Kingdom.”

But the MPs on the scrutiny committee weren't convinced. They pointed out that the text of the UK's opt-out reads: “nothing in [Title IV] of the Charter creates justiciable rights applicable in the United Kingdom.”

They asked Murphy whether this meant that everything else in the Charter was justiciable in the UK? Murphy failed to answer the question.

He struggled to explain the meaning of the opt-out and failed to back up Blair’s argument that this will not be justiciable in the UK. He could only say that the Charter “doesn’t create any new rights.” He was asked over 10 times by MPs to give a straight answer “yes or no” to the question but he failed to do so –much to their irritation. Instead he repeated that “the legal advice that we have had is that this charter brings in no new rights.”

Jim Murphy’s failure to answer this question on the Charter only strengthens the growing consensus that the UK opt-out is not worth the paper it is written on. Jacques Ziller, a professor at the European University Institute in Florence, has said that the idea of one country opting out of the charter was “nonsense” and would quickly be challenged in the courts. The Guardian has reported that, former EU Justice Commissioner Antonio Vitorino has questioned the legal basis for the British opt-out and the Commission’s legal experts expect that the British opt-out will be tested in the courts.

Murphy's case wasn't helped by the fact that he was forced to defend Margaret Beckett's lie that there had not been any negotiations on the treaty until a couple of days before the summit.

He made a distinction between "discussions" and "negotiations". When it was pointed out that Government advisers had begun work on the treaty back in January he claimed that “There’s a difference between negotiation and conversation”. He argued that because no draft was on the table back then they were not negotiations.

The advisers - he said - were simply asked to "explain the UK's concerns and priorities" for the new treaty. Seemingly contradicting Beckett's definition of negotiations:

"To my mind the process of actual negotiation begins when you are invited to set out your core demands."

The MPs were not happy. Even the Labour chairman Michael Connarty - sensing he was being "had" - began ripping into him . Not the best debut performance we've ever seen.