The EU's Ceausescu moment

Here's a piece by Neil for the Irish Sunday Times

EU rules the waves

Undeterred by certain recent events which we don't talk about, the French are now proposing an EU Navy.

France eyes defence EU transport, naval moves

PARIS, June 15 (Reuters) - France will propose launching a European Union aircraft carrier group and a joint fleet of military transporters as part of efforts later this year to boost the EU military, French defence officials said.

Intriguing.

Brown gets it wrong, Cruddas gets it right

Gordon Brown is massively behind in the polls.

But suddenly he is handed a total gift. Irish voters kick out the Treaty of Lisbon.

Surely it's time to take to the airwaves, and say (with a barely surpressed smile) the treaty is dead and its now time to "move on".

That's got to be the right move surely? It's certainly what Tony Blair did after the French and Dutch votes.

But no. Broon dithers. He lets Miliband (17 and three quarters) go on TV instead and say the Government will press on regardless. Doh!



In the distance we hear Andy Coulson and Steve Hilton clinking champagne glasses, and Dave immediately takes to the airwaves to say what everyone is now thinking: Gordon Brown is "arrogant". Tony Blair, watching telly somewhere, laughs so hard that he spills his chablis.

Ughhhhhh. There is a reason this poor guy is 20 points behind in the polls.

And now, as if you needed another reminder that Labour shot itself in the foot last year by turning down the only candidate with any grasp of the real world...

From the Sunday Times:

Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham who came third in last year’s deputy leadership contest, said: “We can’t just press on relentlessly with the treaty and disrespect what the people have said.”

Sorry fellas, you missed yer chance. At this rate you will be able to try again in 2010 though.

Like a mighty wave

A great post on the Telegraph blog.

---

It is a James Larkin moment. The monument to this great Irish democrat and fighter for freedom stands on Dublin’s O'Connell Street. On it is inscribed: “Les grands ne sont grands que parce que nous sommes à genoux: Levons-nous. Ní uasal aon uasal ach sinne bheith íseal: Éirímis. The great appear great because we are on our knees: Let us rise.”

Today there are two sides in Europe: Us versus them. The progressives versus the reactionaries who believe that EU referendums should only have one answer, Yes.

The Irish have spoken, and struck a blow, for all of us, Britons, French, Dutch, all of us Europeans, who are sick of the way we are ruled. It does not have to be the way our rulers tell us it is. Once, politics was about left and right, today a new division is opening up between those accept the elite view of the world and those who demand something different.

Liberal Democrats: not democratic

Yesterday Irish voters sent a clear message to Brussels: we won’t be bullied into “ever closer union”.

And if you had any doubts left at all, the reaction from the political elite shows that the Irish people made exactly the right decision.

Since the no vote, Europe’s whole political elite has paraded in front of the cameras to say they won’t listen to Ireland.

Next week at the European Council, a coalition of the small countries: Ireland, the Czech Republic, maybe Denmark and Sweden, will call for the treaty to be dropped. But they will come under intense pressure from the big members to carry on regardless.

Surprisingly perhaps, Britain will be in the bullying posse, calling for the Treaty to go ahead. Having denied the British people a referendum on the text, Gordon Brown is intensely embarrassed by the Irish vote. Like a man caught with his pants down, Brown plans to try and hurry the Treaty through the British Parliament before next Wednesday.



We had a moment of hope last night when Ed Davey appeared on the box to say that Gordon Brown should not go ahead with ratification. But today the Lib Dems are telling journalists that they will, despite this, vote for ratification in the Lords. (which they have the votes to stop)

So there are two possibilities:

1) Nick Clegg is so weak he can't even stand up to an old woman like Shirley Williams

2) Nick Clegg is a deeply unprincipled euro-scumbag who says one thing and does another.

Dear reader - which do you think it is?

Amazing arrogance from the eurocrats

The European political class are really disgracing themselves tonight.

A small selection:

Sarkozy and Merkel: “The ratification procedure is already complete in 18 countries. We hope therefore that the other member states will persevere with the ratification process.”

"Naturally we are disappointed, it is a hard blow," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement. "Nevertheless I am convinced that we need this treaty. Therefore we are sticking with our goal for it to come into force. The ratification process must continue." (Reuters)

Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Franco Frattini said: “This is a serious blow to European construction” but “the path of European integration must not however be stopped.”

The President of the Commission, Jose Barroso said in reaction to the no vote: “The Treaty is not dead. The Treaty is alive, and we will try to work to find a solution.”

Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme: “In no case should the Union be stopped in its tracks. We need to examine the existing possibilities to assure in any case the entry into force of the Treaty and to associate Ireland with it.”

Hugo Brady, Centre for European Reform “The proeuropean consensus of yesteryear within the Irish media has been sapped from the British right-wing newspapers, in particular the tabloids which stirred up national anxieties”

Federalist MEP Andrew Duff: It was a “mad idea” to hold a referendum because is opened up the floodgates of “populism, nationalism and xenophobia”

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said : “Ireland will certainly find a way of ratifying this treaty”. (Shame on you Donald!)

Federalist MEP Richard Corbett says: "It is inconceivable that all of the others will simply say "too bad - one country has said ‘No’ to the package as it stands, so let's forget reform and stick with the current system for evermore... Nor should we accept the bleating from Eurosceptics that there is somehow something undemocratic about a new referendum."

More as they come in...

Referendum liveblog

NEW NEWS IS AT THE BOTTOM

We are going to try keep this open all day, emulating the redoubtable Richard North over at EUreferendum who is doing the same thing but doubtless doing it better.

Rumours swirl.

The euro dropped like a stricken plane after Reuters put round rumours fromt he "unofficial counts that are supposedly going on all over the place. Lots of wire copy going bananas.

Two things

Paddy power paid out on a yes last night, according to AP.

AP now saying that "Early signs point to Irish rejection of European Union treaty" off the back of rumours about unofficial counts... but all just all rumours for now.

11.35

Ohmygod whats going on?

Various Irish journos say tallies are "massive" no?

Irish Times say early counts "lean towards no"

But RTE saying picture is mixed

Our view: if they can't win convincingly even in the most pro-euro country in europe then they really are in trouble in the long term.

11.49

We just got back a new ICM poll of 1000 voters in the UK which we commissioned - on what woudld happen if there were a referndum in the UK. It woudl be a two-to-one no vote.

"If a referendum were being held in Britain, would you vote for or against the new Lisbon Treaty?"

51 No
28 Yes
20 Don't know

Full tables are here

Win or lose we say - "now give us a referednum in Britain"

11.53

Richard North says

"Looking good! And more ... and even more. Some were suggesting 60-40 to the "no" campaign, but it is looking firmer - see new updates below. The first official results from the 43 constituencies will start to come through shortly. Full results expected at 3-3.30 (BST)."

11.55

RTE now say

"Complete tallies are available from around half the constituencies - although they come with a strong warning that some of them may not be all that accurate.

Judging by those tallies, middle class constituencies like Dublin South, Dublin South East and Dún Laoghaire seem like to have a 60-40 vote in favour of Lisbon.

However the No vote is said to be ahead in Dublin North West, Dublin Central, Cork North Central and South Central, both Kerry constituencies, both Tipperary constituencies, and Galway West."

11.57

Garret Fitzgerald calling it a 55% for no

Do we trust him? No.

AP say "I do not see how we're going to claw back our position based on the numbers I'm seeing. It's going pretty much all the way of the 'no' camp," said Pat Rabbitte, former leader of the opposition Labour Party.

12.06

AFP report

Early indications Friday of results from Ireland's crunch EU referendum are "not looking good" for the "yes" campaign, Europe Minister Dick Roche told Agence France-Presse. "From what I hear it is not looking good," he said after the RTE state broadcaster reported that the "yes" vote's support was "in difficulty

David Rennie's thoughts - mainly about Cowen's position in the event of a no.

Finally some more (unofficial) numbers from MarketNews International

In two areas, Mayo (electorate 95250) and Galway East (electorate 80569), the yes camp has already conceded defeat.

In Dublin South-West, there is a report 60 per cent - 40 per cent split in favour of the No side, and this 60:40 tally is repeated in Dublin North-West, Dublin Central, and Dublin North-East.

Elsewhere in the country, tallies from Limerick West indicate a 59 per cent No vote and a 41 Yes vote.

Tipperary South tallies show 50.3 per cent Yes and 49.7 per cent No vote, while Tipperary North tallies indicate a 50:50 split.

Initial tally figures from Sligo-Leitrim suggest a 66 per cent No vote, Roscommon-South Leitrim indicates a 55 per cent No vote, while Donegal South-West (55 per cent No) and Donegal North-East (63 per cent No) are also showing an anti-Lisbon trend.

In Louth, the tally split was reported to be a 57 per cent - 43 per cent in favour of No. In Meath West and East, the split shows a 60-40 percentage advantage to the No side.

Both Kildare constituencies appear to be bucking the trend, however, with early tallies indicating a 57 per cent - 43 per cent vote in favour of Lisbon.

12.25

BROWN COMMITS ELECTORAL SUICIDE?

Mark Mardell reports that the no are winning on News 24.

He says Brown phoned Sarkozy to say that he would press ahead with ratification in the event of a NO. That would be total madness - surely? But lets not count chickens here - still think its going to be a yes.

2.15

According to http://www.referendum.ie/home/, with 16.74% of the votes counted, the No side is at 53.63% and the Yes side at 46.37%.

Call from Libertas, the Irish No campaign, a bit back.

Q: “Have you definitely won?”

A: “Absolutely”

Meanwhile, Neil has done an interview with former Europe Minister Denis MacShane on the Simon Mayo show on Radio Five Live. He is literally shaking with rage and stormed out of the studio before the end of the interview...

Dan Hannan says “the Noes have it, and have it convincingly.”

3.15

Official results at 4.

RTE say:

With results in from 28 of the 43 constituencies, the Lisbon Treaty is being beaten by a margin of 53.6% to 46.4%.

That margin is expected to tighten as more results are announced, but the result is not in doubt.

Neil has written some thoughts on what it all means for the speecie.

4.05

(THE HAGUE) - The Netherlands, which rejected the EU constitution three years ago, will continue ratifying the Lisbon treaty despite its apparent rejection by Ireland, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said Friday.

Appalling. Their own people said no by 63%

The BBC are asking how the no campaign were able to so successfully "scaremonger." Their coverage all day apart from Mardell has been extremely iffy.

4.32

Barroso said:

"The treaty is not dead"

"18 member states have already approved the Treaty... we should go on with the process."

Jackie Davis from the EPC on the BBC:

Barroso's words "reflect the view all across Europe". Presumably not in Ireland.

5.00

Czech PM Mirek Topolanek says:

"The rejection of Lisbon Treaty presents a political complication. However the European Union does have a stable legal basis, which enables the Union to continue its functioning in a standard way."

"The consequences of the ‘no’ vote and further proceeding should be discussed at the upcoming European Council meeting. I do not consider Irish vote to be less valid than the French and Dutch vote."

"The Czech Republic will continue preparing itself for the EU Presidency in the first half of 2009 as we have - from the very beginning - reckoned with both possible outcomes of the ratification process."

5.25

Final result

NO 862,145
YES 752,451

5.30

The hopeless Denis MacShane claimed on News 24 that the Treaty was defeated by Gerry Adams and the Socialist Workers Party. He has finally turned into Comical Ali.

Various Libertas people spoke next. They say they want a more democratic, more transparent Europe with less waste. Not quite what mcshameless was saying.

Whatever you say, we aren't going to listen

The UK Government would ignore an Irish no and crack on with the Treaty regardless:

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain has told European Union partners it will continue parliamentary ratification of the bloc's Lisbon reform treaty even if Ireland votes "No" in a knife-edge referendum on Thursday, a senior EU diplomat said.

The diplomat said London had reassured key partners it has "no intention to pull the plug on this", despite strong pressure from Eurosceptics demanding a British referendum or the scrapping of the ratification process.

And they are deciding how the new institutions will work behind closed doors (shhh! don't tell the voters...)

According to Bruno Waterfield:

Before setting out Dublin’s detailed and decided position on both the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the role of the “foreign minister, now called a High Representative (HR) for foreign affairs, Ireland’s EU ambassador, Bobby McDonagh, pleaded with his colleagues to keep the Irish voters in the dark.

“(We) have to remain cautious in presenting these issues (referendum)!,” the minutes record Mr McDonagh as saying.

Mr Mcdonagh then went on to set out his Government’s position – a stance that has never been debated in public and certainly not in front of the children during the Irish referendum. These words, from a secret document, have never been published.

no news is bad news (for people who want change)

There's next to nothing in the papers today about the Lords vote to deny people in Britain a referendum on the revived EU constitution.

And there was nowt on the BBC 6 or Ten o'clock news either.




Not a peep about the pompous speeches of people like Lord Kerr, who assured us that the Treaty was "no big deal".

Nothing about the disgusting behaviour of the Liberal Democrats, who really have treated the public like idiots.

In fact the whole thing passed off quite without incident. Just what the Government wanted.

closer still

Jim Allister MEP has answered the transparency initiative.

He has posted the answer on his own website for good measure.

Nice one Jim.

That makes the score:

25 FULL RESPONSES
12 PARTIAL
41 NO RESPONSE

or 47.4% ... nearly halfway there....

The (not so) great debate

The Lords debate on whether there should be a referendum is happening now.

We're watching the debate, listening to the dreary, tendentious balls being spouted by the all the ancient europhiles.

Our favourite europhile argument is that a referendum is not needed, because other governments are no longer planning to hold referendums. So that proves that the Treaty can't be significant enough to have a referendum on.

Nice one. No circularity there.

No argument is too pompous or too anti-democratic for the europhiles. God, how they would hate it if we, as well as Ireland, were having a referendum.



It's shocking how empty the Labour benches are. No doubt they will all turn up for the vote, having listened to none of the debate.

During the course of the debate, the Lib Dems have managed the stunning feat of taking three different positions on a yes or no issue. They were for a referendum at the election, abstained in the Commons, and will now vote no in the Lords.

Inded, when Shirley Williams was asked about it as an aside on the World at One today she admitted that MPs had broken their promise. But she didn't feel like that was a problem for the Lords. She said "almost every single" one of her colleagues would vote against a referendum:

Asked if that was not awkward for Mr Clegg, she told BBC Radio 4's The World at One: "

"We've discussed this at length with him. "The position in the House of Lords has been democratically reached: the Parliamentary party in the House of Lords has been consulted and they are of one mind. "Don't forget they include some of the most prominent champions of entering the European Community that ever existed and therefore they are not suddenly about to abstain on something they feel so strongly about as a matter of principle.

"In the Commons it was frankly different because there were some Members of Parliament who had precisely given their constituents a promise they would vote in favour of a referendum and felt bound by that; that is not true of any of the peers."

We think that's pretty shocking.

But will any of the broadcasters seriously cover this evening's vote? We think not.

** Update: David Owen made a very good speech - in which he quoted both Pericles and Swift. That's more like it.

cleaning up

There was a bit in the Telegraph this morning about the £86,000 pounds which Lib Dem MEPs have paid into the party.

Andrew Duff was quoted saying that, in effect, all this money has come out of their own pockets and has in no way been creamed off from their expenses.

We think a separate, more interesting question relates to the MEPs who use Cowley Street as their service provider for staff. The Indie named Andrew Duff, Fiona Hall, Bill Newton Dunn and Sarah Ludford as doing that. So you would be talking £650,000 a year, or £6.5 million over a decade. That's not small beans for a third party.



However, the party is not willing to divulge either who the money is used to employ or how much has been received. The data will not show up on the electoral commission website.

When we rang their press office their spokeswoman said those pieces of information are "not something that is a matter of public interest" and suggested that "we have been very transparent." She also pointed to Nick Clegg's recent proposal for a code of conduct.

The Lib Dem press office did however say that all such money was kept in a seperate bank account, and was spent purely of staffing costs.

That's all good, but the problem is that party leaders need to show us, rather than just tell us that they are being transparent .

It's no good in the current climate to make a speech about transparency, but then refuse to say how you are spending public funds. If Nick Clegg wants the Lib Dems to be the clean party, then he has to publish the numbers...

Getting closer

Labour MEP Claude Moraes has answered the transparency initiative. Well done Claude.

That means 46% of UK MEPs have now replied. Just a few more to go before we can start saying the refusniks are in the minority...

24 FULL RESPONSES
12 PARTIAL
42 NO RESPONSE

The "blazing saddles" strategy

Curiouser and curiouser.

The Times and the Telegraph this morning report all kinds of strange suggestions.

One is that Open Europe is part of some kind of "witchhunt" against MEPs initiated by David Cameron. Nope.

Another is the bizzare claim that people at Open Europe have "written speeches" for the Tories (nope - never have, and we are the last people they'd ask).

But the really odd suggestion seems to have come from a meeting of Tory MEPs yesterday. The argument that some of their old guard seem to be making is that if MEPs are forced to disclose more information... then loads more stories about sleaze and financial mismanagement will come out.

According to the Times: "Conservative MEPs gave warning yesterday of a “timebomb” of further damaging disclosures about their expenses when they are forced to apply Westminster-style transparency."

Er?

Shurely that's an argument for Cameron getting MEPs to publish all their details? On a practical note, if there is more to come out, it will come out sooner or later.

The whole argument seems rather like the Blazing Saddles moment where Bart puts a gun to his own head and takes himself hostage... but in real life it probably won't work so well.

cap and trade gets binned for now

Supporters of Emissions Trading in the EU always want to argue that the rest of the world is about to follow in our footsteps. So we must be doing the right thing. Yeah?

We're not so sure. There's an interesting account of the shooting down of Lieberman-Warner in the Senate in Time this week. The Sentate was largely still debating whether to "do something" and the discussion never really got to the detail stage. Even so the numbers are still a long way off a majority - really only 36-40 senators are on for it.

Wait till they actually look at the specifics of emissions trading as a particular policy to reduce emissions and those numbers will fall further.

One of the main supporting arguments for doing something (and it is fair enough) is calls to kick kick what is always described as "foreign oil".

But as McKinsey's report for the Commission points out, Emissions Trading means importing lots more foreign gas (30% in the case of the EU) because that is the swing sector in ETS. In Europe that means more dependence on Putin, and presumably for the US... Chavez?

If you want "energy security", you probably want a different policy...

---from Time---

To be fair, no one ever called Lieberman-Warner itself inevitable. Sponsored by Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican John Warner of Virginia, and taken to the floor by Democrat Barbara Boxer of California, the liberal chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the bill was never given much chance of passage. Its carbon-reduction targets were tougher than the business community wanted, but not as tough as many greens demanded. And it was complicated, even bloated — it would have raised $6.7 trillion over 40 years by auctioning global warming pollution permits, using great gobs of that money to buy off various interest groups. But it was significant just the same, because its six-month-long journey from environment and public works committee to Senate floor helped force some reluctant Senators to begin thinking seriously about the issue. Boxer calls the result "a road map [for] the next President, so he knows where are the consensus areas and where are the difficult areas."

It would have taken a truly great floor debate to begin resolving some of those difficult areas — a half dozen thorny deal-breakers (how to contain costs, what to do about China) that need to be figured out before any such bill can pass. But not much of that table setting took place last week, because the debate never made it past the partisan bickering and economic fear mongering. Lieberman-Warner was strangled in its crib, because moderate Democrats weren't ready to go this far, because Boxer and the enviros weren't willing to compromise on their core issues, and because the opponents of global warming legislation remain strong, even though their favorite old tactic, denying the science of global warming, has been all but abandoned.

Just about every Senator who spoke last week, Democrat and Republican alike, wanted to be on record saying that climate change is real and must be dealt with. But far too few were willing to debate the solutions to the crisis, because the opposition has found a new, well-fortified position. It argues that the U.S. can't adopt a cap on carbon emissions (at least not this one) because it would drive up energy prices and wreck the economy.

In fact, the Republican leadership spent last week trying to create not just a new litmus test for climate action but a new third rail for American politics: It wants any climate bill that causes the slightest increase in energy prices to be seen as a non-starter. "Any action should not raise the cost of gasoline or energy to American families," said Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, the longtime leader of the denial-and-delay crowd, and his words were echoed by many others. That's an impossible standard to meet, and if the Republicans succeed in establishing it, Congress may never get this done.

Lieberman-Warner, like any cap-and-trade bill, would increase the cost of energy derived from fossil fuels while giving clean, alternative energies an enormous boost. In other words, it would drive up gasoline prices and coal-powered electricity rates in the short term (though by smaller amounts than the doomsayers were claiming last week) while delivering far greater energy savings over the long term — by unleashing a clean energy economy that creates jobs and helps free the U.S from dependence on foreign oil.

That's a deal worth taking: a two-cent-per gallon increase in gasoline prices each year between now and 2030, according to an EPA report, in return for deep reductions in gasoline consumption. But with gasoline at $4 a gallon and rising, this was a terrible time to ask panicky voters to think about such a deal. And the Republican leaders were only too happy to exploit the high cost of energy. A G.O.P. strategy memo made public by Democratic leader Harry Reid summarized it this way: "The goal is for a theme (example: climate bill equals higher gas prices) each day, and the focus is much more on making political points than in amending the bill... or affecting policy."

Republican leader Mitch McConnell had an amendment ready that would suspend the bill if it caused gasoline prices to rise by any amount. If that amendment ever went to a vote, it would force the bill's supporters to come out in favor of higher gas prices, and the Republican TV attack ads would produce themselves. No wonder moderate Dems wanted Reid to ditch the bill. At a meeting of Senate Democratic legislative directors, on Monday, June 2 — the day the Senate took up the bill — staffers were howling that Reid and Boxer were leading their bosses into the Valley of Death, forcing debate on a bill that didn't have the votes to pass, one that Republicans would soon be calling the "Boxer Climate Tax Bill" and "the largest tax increase in history" even though it offered nearly $1 trillion in tax cuts to help people pay for rising energy costs.

Reid brought the bill to the floor despite the exquisitely bad timing because climate change is his top domestic priority and because the issue won't be any easier to debate when a gallon of gasoline costs $5 or $6. Barack Obama was busy clinching the nomination and didn't show up for the debate (neither, for that matter, did John McCain). So, for the first couple of days of the fiasco, as the Republicans deployed parliamentary delay tactics and trotted out bogus studies that "proved" the bill would wreck the economy, the story line seemed to be this: What excuse would Reid use to get this bill off the floor?

Then McConnell overplayed his hand, forcing four beleaguered Senate clerks to read the entire 492-page climate bill into the record on Wednesday night — an eight-hour ordeal that unfolded as a wild electrical storm crashed through the Washington area. Twisters touched down here and there, rain lashed the hot streets in wicked sheets, and giant lightning bolts arced through the sky near the Capitol dome. Scientists caution that no single storm can be linked to climate change, but if ever there was heavy weather sent down by angry climate Gods, this must have been it. "It should give Senators pause," said Reid, and then he filed for a procedural vote to break the Republican filibuster. He had found his way out of the Valley of Death. "McConnell sent flowers to the clerks who had to read the bill aloud," says one Democratic policy adviser. "But Reid should have sent flowers to McConnell."

The Republicans had reason to want the debate over as well. They had managed to line up in a circular firing squad, since a number of G.O.P. senators, including Mel Martinez of Florida, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, and the party's standard-bearer, John McCain, support the cap-and-trade approach if not this bill in all its details. And some Republicans find themselves in tough reelection battles in states where voters take the climate crisis very seriously — John Sununu of New Hampshire, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Gordon Smith of Oregon — and don't like being associated with delay tactics.

When Reid's procedural vote finally came, on Friday morning, 48 Senators voted to move ahead with the debate, and 36 voted against. Boxer was happy to claim that a total of 54 were in favor of moving ahead — because six absent Senators, including Obama, McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Ted Kennedy, had written letters saying they would have voted in favor had they been present. Fifty-four would have been significant — the first time a majority of Senators voted for climate action. But 48 is the number in the Congressional Record, and it only got that high because 10 moderate Democrats who would have voted against the bill cut a deal with Reid: nine of them voted for the procedural motion to help their party save face, then they published a letter explaining why they didn't support the bill.

That detail was overlooked in the cheerful post-vote statements of the green groups. But that's not surprising; it's their job to be optimistic and keep pushing and pushing and pushing. So they pointed to a hopeful sign: 10 Senators who had never before supported cap-and-trade legislation voted for Reid's attempt to move the bill forward. That was good news by any measure. But it would be a stretch to call it a sign of inevitability. This is a war, and in war, the outcome is never preordained.

Poll? ... Axed.

Interesting.

Eurotrib mentions a poll on biofuels on the Commission webpage, and the fact that 87% were against.

Heading on over it turns out that it has mysteriously disappeared. Odd that...

The "Cameron Rule"

It's always the way. Everything always happens at the same time.

So this week, quite apart from the Irish referendum on Thursday; Stuart Wheeler's Judicial Review today and tomorrow; and the Lords' vote on the referendum on Wednesday; (which will now be conveniently overshadowed by the vote on 42-day detention – news management isn’t dead); not to mention a discussion about what Conservative policy is...

...there is also the ongoing row over MEP's expenses.

The story shows no signs of running out of steam, and various broadcasters and print journalists are on the case. Though the Tory group has felt most of the heat so far, the story seems to be spreading to Lib Dem and Labour MEPs too.

So far simply refusing to say anything at all about their expenses has shielded them from the worst (see previous post). But it won’t stop journalists forever.

Our instinct is that there is a lot more to come out. The rules of the parliament are a nightmare: they neither provide any restriction on clearly immoral behaviour, nor provide MEPs who are trying to do the right thing with any clear sense of what is, or is not, OK.

We think that Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies is right: the answer is very unlikely to come from a change in the rules of the EU Parliament itself, because - as he pointed out on Newsnight - there are enough anti-reform MEPs to block real change. He points out: "The reformers are always voted down"

So perhaps the answer is his suggestion of a cross party code of conduct for at least the UK MEPs to start with.

But why would the party leaders ever sign up to such a thing? Or even propose it?

Well, given that a majority of voters now assume that politicians are "all the same" and all simply "out for what they can get", there would be a clear electoral advantage for any leader who could show that these assumptions are not true. The first mover in cleaning up could have a big advantage and force others to follow suit.

For example, if the rumors are true, Cameron's "Mr Clean" Hugh Thomas will force all Tory MEPs to name their service providers. That would put Labour under a lot of pressure to follow suit. And, as Bruno Waterfield points out, that could expose all kinds of murky goings-on.

So it's interesting that Cameron appears to have set a very high test for members of his party. Cameron said today he would "take away the whip" from any MEP found to have "broken the rules."

Now, that on its own doesn't seem to have such wide implications. Some MEP's who have been accused of abusing their expenses may well not have broken the rules of the Parliament - which are almost non-existent.

The really interesting thing is his comment on GMTV this morning - let's call it the "Cameron Rule":

"We have to be happy that everything we put in place for funding our offices is something that reasonable and practical people would look at and say: 'That's OK."

Now that is a much, much higher bar. The only real question is how high. Guido reports that some in Tory high command would quite like a "bloodbath" in Brussels.

Blimey.

Clearly, the whole MEP expenses story has a long way to go yet, and it may look very different once the dust settles. But we can't help thinking that Cameron's new "reasonable person" test may come to be very important in this whole thing.

Transparency - getting closer

The transparency initiative is inching along.

Another MEP has answered. (Martin Callanan - friendly eurosceptic conservative and northerner)

That takes us closer to having some sort of response from a majority of MEPs.

23 have responded in full. 13 have given some kind of partial response. But 43 UK MEPs still don't want to say anything about how they are spending your money.

After a rush from UKIP MEPs the scores by party are now:

GREENS
FULL RESPONSES 2
TOTAL 2

UKIP
FULL RESPONSES 5
PARTIAL 4
NONE 1
TOTAL 10

CONSERVATIVES
FULL RESPONSES 11
PARTIAL 5
NONE 13
TOTAL 29

LIB DEMS
FULL RESPONSES 3
PARTIAL 0
NO 7
TOTAL 11

LABOUR
FULL RESPONSES 2
PARTIAL 3
NO 15
TOTAL 19

Non attached & nationalist parties
FULL RESPONSES 0
PARTIAL 1
NO 7
TOTAL 8

Have a look at the full list. If your MEP hasn't answered, why not email them to ask why?

why there is no veto on trade

In an effort to buy up the votes of the Irish farmers, Brian Cowen promised to "veto" any world trade deal that threatened to cut their spending. Various Irish journos got in touch to ask whether that would even be possible under the Lisbon Treaty.

Its a complicated issue, but here is our view:

------

As a leader in Le Monde noted on Friday, Cowen’s pledge to veto the Doha round to protect Irish farmers is nothing but an “empty promise”, because “an EU member state does not have a veto right in agriculture.”

What’s absolutely clear (and not disputed) is that core trade policy is made by majority vote. Everything to do with trade in goods and almost all services are just straightforwardly a majority vote (apart from audiovisual, education and health services, and Foreign Direct Investment). The treaty brings in QMV on FDI too, and gets rid of the few remaining exemptions in services.

The European Commission notes that the treaty “will extend the scope of the trade policy to include all foreign direct investments and makes it clearly an exclusive
competence of the Union.”

Under current arrangements, in some fields both the member states and the EU can negotiate trade deals, allowing member states to have their own trade agreements alongside those of the EU as a whole. For example, various EU member states have signed a number of Bilateral Investment Treaties with other countries around the world. Exclusive competence in this area would make such bilateral agreements impossible.

To make the point clear, the Lisbon Treaty deletes the clause in the existing treaty (Article 133.5 TEC) which states that EU trade policies “shall not affect the rights of the Member States to maintain and conclude agreements with third countries”.

Trade in health and education services, currently decided by unanimity, would also be affected – under the new treaty the EU would have the same powers over these
issues that it has over trade in goods.

The only remaining opportunities to appeal to unanimity under the Lisbon Treaty are these:

“in the field of trade in cultural and audiovisual services, where these risk prejudicing the Union’s cultural and linguistic diversity”

and

“in the field of social, educational and health services, where these agreements risk seriously disturbing the national organisation of such services”

In my view this is not even an emergency brake. Unless you can prove (to the ECJ) that a trade deal which includes a health or education services element would “seriously disturb the national organisation” of those services then the default position is a decision by QMV. In other words, if you wanted to stop a QMV decision then you would have to take a massive and potentially humiliating gamble on an appeal to the ECJ – you can’t even pull an “emergency brake” in the council here.

The Commission (in their retraction of what Europe Direct previously said) said that “The new treaty would remove some of these exceptions, making more coherent and homogeneous the Union's common commercial policy (Article 207 (1) TFEU). However, the requirement for unanimity for agreements in the areas of certain key services (e.g. cultural and audiovisual, social, education and health), intellectual property rights enforcement and investment will remain in certain circumstances (Article 207 (4), second and third paragraphs, TFEU).” [my bold]

This is the nub of our disagreement. I don’t think saying that “In certain circumstances” you could appeal to the ECJ is really the same as there being a “veto” at all.

Moreover, it is not clear that any WTO deal that might emerge from Doha would even include a deal on such services, which the Commission rather blandly assumes. These would be the most controversial elements of any trade deal – and Doha is moving towards a more cut down deal for goods trade rather than an all encompassing affair like the Uruguay round which launched TRIPS and did a lot on services.

So the few remaining tethers that stop trade deals from being an exclusive community competence are being cut away with Lisbon. And it isn’t even clear that the next likely contents of the next WTO round will require unanimity - even under the current rules.

Phew!

Of course, in reality the obstacle to a WTO deal is nothing to do with there being one member state "vetoing" an ambitious offer from the EU - but a whole raft of protectionist member states with more than enough clout to block progress.

Hmmph.

On the job

Bruno Waterfield seems to have found the smoking gun in the Telegraph this morning.

"Working from home" seems to have required a new meaning in Brussels.

---

Mr Dover said: "Everyone agrees that I am not breaking any of the parliament's rules. I want to get on with my job of representing voters here in my constituency, not talking to the media about this."

He uses a family-owned company, M P Holdings Ltd, as the "service provider" for secretarial and parliamentary assistant work paid for by the parliament, currently worth more than £160,000 a year.

He declared "no financial interest" in the family-owned firm that employs his wife, Kathleen, as secretary and daughter, Amanda, as part-time parliamentary assistant. Both wife and daughter are also company directors.

Since 1999, £271,692 has been paid to the directors. In 2007, company accounts, registered in January 2008, show that the "director's emoluments" were £60,000.

Mr Dover said: "They get market rates, but they put in two or three times the number of hours – they just never stop, and I pay tribute to their hard work. Therefore I am totally innocent of any charges."

But the parliament's register of assistants shows that they are not accredited to enter or use official buildings in Brussels or Strasbourg.

As well as earning between £20,000 and £30,000 as a part-time parliamentary assistant, The Daily Telegraph has learnt that Amanda Dover, a "fully qualified secretary", works a four-day week as a travel agent in Radlett, Herts, close to her home.

Mr Dover said: "They work as and when required. A lot can be done on the internet, over the wires so to speak."

Chris Davies, a Liberal Democrat MEP who has called for reform of the expenses regime, has highlighted Mr Dover's arrangements in his campaign.

"I doubt that Den Dover has broken any parliamentary rules, but this simply highlights that there is something very wrong with the rules."

How much do MEPs cost?

With the controversy over MEPs' expenses returning to the news, we've received a few queries along the lines of 'how much can MEPs claim in total?'

We've put together the following list of the European Parliament allowances, together with salary/ pension figures. Both salary and first pension are linked to the UK rates, the rest are EU-wide:

Salary = £61,820
First pension (after ten years service) £13,750
EU Parliament contributions to second pension: £18,500
Staff = £148 761
Office costs “general expenses” = £37,881
Daily subsistence (180 days) £50,220
Travel excess = £10,000
Travel allowance = £2,316

TOTAL = £343,248 a year

They also get life and accident insurance, and private healthcare for them and their family.

There are 785 MEPs - salaries and pensions vary quite a bit depending on nationality (eg. Italian MEPs get paid far more than their British counterparts, whilst Hungarian deputies get much less), but to give a fairly rough ball-park estimate based on the UK entitlements, the total bill for the European Parliament would be £270m or €340m.

Transparency initiative update

More MEPs have responded to the Transparency Initiative.

The full details are on a speadsheet on this link.

Transparency scores on the doors broken down by party are now:

Greens 100%
UKIP 70%
Conservatives 45%
Lib Dems 30%
Labour 18%
Non-attached/
nationalist 6%

And looking at the totals that means 45% of the UK MEPs have now responded in some way shape or form... but 55% don't feel like they need to answer questions about how they spend our money. Still, a couple more MEPs have told us their answers are in the pipeline.

Full response 22
Parlial response 13
No response 43
(TOTAL 78)

Ireland are having a referendum...

...so why can't we?



People have been turning up at Irish embassies across Europe to support the no campaign and ask why they are being denied a referendum...



... and to have a few guinesses.


Direct democratic engagment is good for you.

EIT your heart out

The FT blogs that various cities around Europe are vying to host the European Institute of Technology (EIT).

The EIT is a good example of how the EU is not just the sum of its intergovernmental parts.

The motivation is one thing. As the various Governments pointed out when Barroso first proposed it, the EU already has some perfectly good universities - why not concentrate on improving them?

But the EIT is not really about technology at all. The point is really all about trying to mirror the United States, and create a common identity - "a European equivalent of MIT", as it is always described.

Having failed to stop it going ahead in the first place, the UK bleated on and on about how the EIT had to be a virtual network, rather than a physical institute in a particular place. But this was missing the point - the whole point is to have a physical institute with a little EU flag on top.

Now all that remains is a battle over the location. In recent years, as the number of EU agencies has proliferated, member states have been furiously trying to grab as much EU spending as possible - from the "Food Safety Agency" to the "European Institute for Gender Equality", pretty much everyone has a slice of the cake. For instance:

Austria

* European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA)

Belgium

* Community Fisheries Control Agency (CFCA)
* Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA)
* European Defence Agency (EDA)
* European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA)
* Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (EACI)
* Research Executive Agency (REA)
* European Research Council Executive Agency (ERC)
* Trans-European Transport Network Executive Agency (TEN-T EA)

Denmark

* European Environment Agency (EEA)

Finland

* European Chemicals Agency (ECHA)

France

* Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO)
* European Railway Agency (ERA)
* European Union Institute for Security Studies (ISS)

Germany

* European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)

Greece

* European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop)
* European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR)
* European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA)

Ireland

* European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (EUROFOUND)

Italy

* European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)
* European Training Foundation (ETF)

Lithuania

* European Institute for Gender Equality (under preparation)

Luxembourg

* Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union (CdT)
* Executive Agency for the Public Health Programme (PHEA)

The Netherlands

* The European Union’s Judicial Cooperation Unit (EUROJUST)
* European Police Office (EUROPOL)

Poland

* European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders (FRONTEX)

Portugal

* European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA)
* European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA)

Spain

* Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market – Trade Marks and Designs (OHIM)
* European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (OSHA)
* European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy (Fusion for Energy)
* European Union Satellite Centre (EUSC)

Sweden

* European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)

United Kingdom

* European Medicines Agency (EMEA)
* European Police College (CEPOL)

Quite what the point of all these institutes is another question... still, it all helps "build" Europe. Doubtless in a few years time the Foreign Office will be saying that they were in favour of it all along, and that it is further proof that "Europe is reforming and coming our way" (as it always supposedly is).

*sigh*

Ohmygod

We think Bob Piper has called it right

europropaganda

Yet more faintly off-putting EU propaganda for kids

Posters saying that their school milk has been provided by the EU.

Hmmm.

The justification for the posters?

“Experience has further shown that European Union citizens are not sufficiently aware of the role played by the Community in the school milk scheme. As a result, it should be laid down that the European Union flag must appear on the packaging. In cases where the method of distribution or substantial technical difficulties do not allow the use of individual packaging and appropriate labelling, the fact that the school milk scheme is subsidised by the European Community should be indicated in the form of a clearly visible and readable poster or sign put next to the place of distribution.”

http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodrin/milk/

Massive hypocrisy (part 188)

According to the Press Association MEPs have today voted to increase the amount of subsidies you and me pay each year to "hard-pressed" tobacco farmers. As the global credit crunch starts to bite and rising food and petrol prices hit your daily budget I'm sure you'll be as pleased as we are that more than €300 million a year of our taxes will continue to be spanked on producing a crop which killed over 500,000 people in Europe last year.

In the perverse world that is the EU, farmers are paid £5,250 a hectare to grow tobacco while wheat farmers receive £240 a hectare.

In the UK alone the NHS spends £1.5bn a year treating people with smoking related diseases and the government spends around £30m on anti-smoking education campaigns and £40m is spent helping people stop smoking. No contradictions there then...

Last year the Government claimed the EU had seen the light and that tobacco subsidies would end in 2010, but the clowns in the European Parliament have just voted to extend tobacco farmer's gravy train until at least 2012.

The issue will now go to an agriculutural ministers meeting where no doubt the UK Government will defend our interests admirably (remember that root-and-branch review of the CAP that Blair promised us in return for our rebate anybody?)

Other news just in which helps to confirm that Brussels really is on another planet: today is the launch of European Maritime Day which "will highlight the importance of the oceans and seas to Europe". This from the organisation which has admitted that its very own Common Fisheries Policy is "morally wrong" and is single handedly responsible for destroying some of the richest fishing stocks in the world?

Apparently this great day is going to be a celebrated with a "stakeholders conference" in Brussels. Hurrah! Cohibas all round...

no biofuels no cry

Blimey

Its the anti-biofuel reggae from the NGO biofuel watch.

Not sure about the tune, but the sentiment is fair enough.

having your cake and eating it

Eurofanatic Indie hack Jeremy Warner makes (or rather repeats) an intriguing argument in his column today.

Space constraints prevent me from repeating the many positives Britain has derived from enlargement that were aired at yesterday's "Business for New Europe" conference, but here's an interesting thought from one of the speakers, Lucy Neville-Rolfe, the corporate and legal affairs director at Tesco.

Just as the influx of Poles and other Eastern European workers helped fill shortages in the labour force during the upswing, they are now acting as a useful shock absorber for the labour market as the economy slows, with many deciding to return home to the higher growth eco-nomies from which they came. With luck, it may mean Britain can survive more difficult times without the usual, steep rise in unemployment.

Er... doesn't this kind of contradict the Governments previous argument that migration from eastern Europe doesn't cause unemployment? If people going home would "create" jobs then doesn't that rather suggest that them turning up probably "takes" jobs away from people here? You can't have it both ways.

Obviously if a lot of people turn up in a short space of time that is likely to create some frictional unemployment, but with a flexible economy that should clear pretty quickly. There is not a set number of jobs in the UK economy. Indeed, most migrants come here to do a specific job.

Post migration the labour market will clear with a slightly lower wage rate for unskilled workers who face more competition. The government have never really faced up to that. On the one hand the Government want to say that it increased migration hasn't reduced wages. On the other hand they say migration has “held down inflation”. Again - which is it to be?

One duff argument in the migration debate is that we "need" immigration so that immigrants will do the jobs that people in Britain won't do. This is nonsense. The UK has 7 million economically inactive people, and with a flexible economy wages will rise to the point where people will do the job. Are Brits too good to clean the bog, or take out the bins, or work on a farm? Are these jobs “only fit for Poles”? It’s a pretty dodgy argument that would probably sit better in the rhetoric of the hard right, than the liberal eeejuts that normally make this argument.

The bottom line is that the answer to unemployment is a flexible economy. The answer to low wages is to transform our utterly useless education system.

There is an argument that says migration is good because its a stealthy way to make the economy more flexible. But this is fundamentally bad politics because (a) making the economy more flexible by stealth through immigration is likely to be unpopular in the long term and (b) it discourages real reform - why sort out education or labour market regulation if we can just import skills, and circumvent labour market rules. NB India are desperately trying to phase out their "informal sector" - are we seriously trying to create one in the UK?

In the long run the growth of the economy is all about productivity and the accumulation of knowledge. It is pretty clear which policies promote growth (low tax, low regulation, effective public spending) and the real challenge is for politicians to pursue these goals in a gutsy way.

Migration probably has a marginal impact either way (and all EU migration is only a third of the total anyway). GDP per capita is probably initially lower because the same capital and land stock is divided among more people, and the people arriving are not that highly skilled or wealthy. On the other hand they are clearly entrepreneurial enough to move countries and probably working more hours than the average person in the UK.

Jeremy Warner thinks both it was great that people from the A8 came to the UK, and also it's just great that they are now going away (are they? - no-one knows). The truth, as the Lords recently pointed out, is that neither will really make much difference.

the pro-euro network in action

Should a government-funded university really be sponsoring what appears to be a highly partisan think tank?

Just asking the question...

The "global policy institute" appears to be uncritically pro-EU integration, anti-US, left leaning...

*Thought* given that this is standard fare in a lot of UK academia, maybe they actually can't see the bias...

Oh and London Met Uni also give the Federal Trust office space as well. Fairly clear whose side they are on then.