Archive for February, 2009
All, except Slovenia
Posted by: Honor Mahony in EU on February 27th, 2009
Poland has organised a get-together of central and eastern European member states at its diplomatic mission in Brussels on Sunday. It is to be a small informal conflab on the economic crisis before the big informal conflab on the economic crisis.
Every member state from the region is going. Except Slovenia. “We were not invited,” said a spokesperson sanguinely. Eurozone member Slovenia, which is not in recession and says it will not breach the 3 percent of GDP budget deficit ceiling of the euro stability pact, considers itself an economic cut above the rest of the region.
“There is no need for Slovenia to participate at the mini-summit. We, as an euro-group member, are actively involved in dealing with the crisis in the framework of EU,” Europe minister Mitja Gaspari said on Monday.
“The position of Slovenia in this framework is clearly defined, so we do not need other forms of cooperation, especially those that are not institutionally defined,” he continued.
The minister’s (sniffy) response makes an important point. The EU’s current high-level meeting spree is helping undermine the bloc’s unity towards this economic crisis.
The pre-G20 meeting Berlin last week was attended by a hotchpotch of member states – Germany, France, UK and Italy (all G7 countries); Spain and the Netherlands (there because they managed to squeeze their way into a G20 meeting late last year); the Czech Republic (by virtue of being the EU presidency country); Luxembourg (because its leader chairs the eurozone) and the European Commission.
Several other states grumbled about not being invited – although given the vagueness of the statements agreed after the meeting, it does not look like they missed much.
But splinter summits are not the way the EU should be doing things. Yet the European Commission is validating the practice by attending the Polish gathering on Sunday.
Meanwhile, EU diplomats say that France has not abandoned its idea of holding a high-level summit just for eurozone countries.
Poland has played down the significance of its Sunday gathering, saying it has regular meetings in this configuration and that originally the meeting had been planned for Warsaw and was only changed to Brussels for convenience. This is a somewhat disingenuous argument given the high-octane nature of discussion in the EU at the moment.
No misbehaving presidents?
In a probable boost for the gravitas and unity of both of Sunday’s summits however, the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, is not coming.
Klaus’ well-known eurosceptic views and staunch defence of more market deregulation is unlikely to have given rise to a conciliatory discussion around the table.
But who needs Klaus for a bit of controversy when the EU has Nicolas Sarkozy? The French president’s bullish and unrepentant defence of moves to protect this country’s car industry means the summit will anyway get off to a prickly start.
Brussels tries to make itself heard
Posted by: Honor Mahony in EU on February 25th, 2009
It’s like waiting for a bus. For ages there is none. And then suddenly several arrive at once. So it was on Wednesday at the European Commission. A stupendous nothingness for some weeks as the EU’s internal market teeters under the weight of national aid packages, then several announcements at the same time.
All of the commission’s bigwigs were on the Brussels stage at one point or another today – commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso and his colleagues in charge of industry, competition, internal market and economic affairs.
The raft of proposals – on regulating the financial system, coping with toxic assets and the correct application of state aid rules – are a sign that the commission is trying to wrest back control of the economic crisis discussion after weeks of being upstaged by member states.
They are to feed into an emergency summit on Sunday where EU leaders are supposedly to discuss how not to fall into a protectionist spiral.
But will member states tread the EU line? So far, they have issued a rash of national measures. Brussels is currently examining plans to rescue the domestic car industries in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Sweden and the UK to see if they breach state aid rules.
Industry commissioner Guenter Verheugen warned there is a “dark cloud” hanging over Europe while his fellow commissioners again stressed the importance of upholding the principles of the free market.
However, pre-summit discourse has not been very encouraging. French president Nicolas Sarkozy was once again sounding the protectionist bell but this time at an EU level in response to US protectionism. Despite its efforts, the commission may not be able to make itself heard among the cacophony of national voices.
On being frank
Posted by: Honor Mahony in EU on February 24th, 2009
Dancing House in Prague
Does the Czech Republic have the most difficult EU presidency ever? It certainly looks that way. Just what country would choose to be saddled with the twin pressures of trying to keep the lid on economic nationalism and on French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Even before it took over running the EU on 1 January, Prague’s starting point was enough to bring big member states out in a rash of prejudicial hives. It is small, new, ex-communist and has not ratified the latest EU treaty.
In addition, it virtually had to wrestle the EU presidency from Paris, which clearly thought it should carry on.
But Prague is going about this whole six-month presidency business with something of a sledgehammer.
Usually, small country presidencies suffer for their lack of political weight but make up for it by being discreet and running a tight ship. Large countries swagger more but have the clout to get people around the table.
The Czech EU presidency however has been a marvel of indiscretion. Czech leader Mirek Topolanek can be counted on to offer an opinion – usually controversial – on the burning topic of the moment.
His public spat with French president Nicolas Sarkozy over protectionism was extremely damaging, even if Sarkozy’s comments that French car companies should not set up in countries such as the Czech Republic were provocative.
Topolanek also had harsh words about eurozone countries telling an online chat discussion on the official presidency website that euro members were “deforming” their own rules by allowing increased spending.
He has more than once criticised the EU Lisbon Treaty as being no better than the current Nice Treaty and given his full support to a controversial speech by Czech president Vaclav Klaus criticising the EU’s democratic deficit and comparing the bloc with the Soviet Union.
Most recently, following a meeting of the EU’s six richest member states in Berlin on Sunday, he told reporters that there were big divergences in the views of France, UK, Germany and Italy on how to approach the financial crisis.
And while there is something commendable about being frank, there are good times and bad times to be so blunt. As current EU presidency country and during a time of unprecedented economic crisis for the European Union, a little more discretion is called for.
It would also mean that it would be easier to believe that the Czech Republic will be able to forge a consensus on the problems facing Europe as Topolanek has claimed he wants to do.
The European Parliament’s hour of entertainment
Posted by: Honor Mahony in EU on February 19th, 2009
The stage was set. He of no-EU-flag-on-my-castle fame was in town and the European Parliament was prepared to quiver with moral outrage. Vaclav Klaus, Czech EU president and dependable supplier of anti-EU commentary, is the politician Europe-loving MEPs love to hate.
He started off gently enough. He “appreciated” being in the European Parliament. The Czech Republic would celebrate 5 years of EU membership in May with “dignity.” “There is no alternative to European Union membership.”
Then he gave them something to make them sit up in their sits. Do you really think, he asked them, that every decision you take absolutely needs to be decided here and not closer to the people.
A mutinous silence from most of the floor.
Mr Klaus continued unperturbed and upped the criticism. He said it is a mistake that European Union integration is “a dogma that cannot be criticised.” He then compared the European Union with the Soviet Union, referring to the EU as a centrally-planned, state-run economy.
The European Parliament, he went on, suffers from the fact that unlike in other parliamentary democracies there is no opposition, no section of the house that is against the government as in a member state.
The Lisbon treaty would make this even worse, and lead to even “greater alienation” from the people. This appeared to be the straw that broke the back of some listening MEPs. There was a sudden uprising and several walked out in a huff.
The timing was unfortunate though. It did more to underline Mr Klaus’ point about the importance of debating alternative views in the house than look like an action of principle. Never mind.
A final tribute to the merits of free trade and liberalism and then he left, surrounded by a fog of disapproval.
Except from the back of the room. MEPs from the eurosceptic end of the political spectrum sit mainly at the back of the House. They were grinning delightedly, clapping enthusiastically and hurrahing with gusto. They even gave him a standing ovation. It is rare for them to get a speaker they consider one of their own addressing the whole house and they lapped it up.
So whether you agreed with Mr Klaus or not – his comparison of the EU with the Soviet Union was unworthy - it was for European Parliament standards highly entertaining. Is it possible that Wednesday morning contained more action in one hour than in several years previously?
There were walkouts, booing, hurrahing, a (tiny) bit of repartee and a controversial speech. It was all enough to make the parliament interesting. Even Parliament chief Hans-Gert Poettering was animated.
Treading the thin Pact line
Posted by: Honor Mahony in EU on February 18th, 2009
The European Commission has the almost impossible task of trying to maintain the credibility of the Stability and Growth Pact without exciting a nationalist backlash among member states as they grapple with widening budget deficits.
So even as monetary affairs commissioner Joaquin Almunia on Wednesday was firing the first warning shot across the bows of all those countries that are breaching the euro rules – France, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Malta and Spain – he was in same breath trying to control how the message came across.
“During the recession, the pact is not about sanctions. Please don’t explain to the citizens that to implement the pact today is about sanctions.”
On Ireland, for which a massive budget deficit of 11 percent of GDP is forecast this year, Mr Almunia pointed out that the excessive deficit procedure is not about being “against” a country. On Greece: “What we are saying to the Greek authorities is … please step up consolidation now” and later: “it is not the Commission that is putting pressure on the Greek economy… but the markets.”
He repeatedly stressed that the pact – binding members of the eurozone to keep their budget deficits under 3 percent of GDP – would be implemented in a “judicious” way. Sending a pre-emptive warning to governments, he reminded them that they had agreed in December that the pact should remain the “cornerstone” of the bloc’s fiscal framework.
But the almost daily stream of bad news due to the economic downturn makes December, and that promise, appear aeons ago.
Mr Almunia put the commission’s cards on the table. He said it would be “wrong” not to implement the pact during this crisis and it would be a “disaster for the European economy” if it loses credibility.
So the ball is back in member states’ court. They already changed the rules in the back in the relatively halcyon days of 2005 to accommodate France and Germany. But what now? Reactions to the commission’s assessments over the coming days and weeks (it will assess the remaining 10 member states towards the end of this month) will be indicative of whether Brussels will be able to keep a lid on this crisis and keep the pact with some semblance of credibility.
Germany’s treaty angst
Posted by: Honor Mahony in EU on February 17th, 2009
The judges raised profound questions about what statehood means.
With the Irish looking more inclined to vote yes in a second referendum, the biggest threat to the EU’s Lisbon Treaty may yet come from Germany.
A hearing at the country’s constitutional court last week was remarkable for the scepticism the prospect of further EU integration raised among the panel of eight judges examining the treaty.
They were looking into a claim by centre-right MP Peter Gauweiler and a group of leftist deputies that the treaty is anti-democratic, and therefore anti-constitutional, because it undermines the power of the national parliament.
The course of the two-day hearing saw the judges raise profound questions about what statehood means and what powers are essential to the definition of a state. The focus was on police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, the area where the Lisbon Treaty makes the greatest integrative steps.
Some of the judges felt that criminal law is an area that defines a state’s relations with its people. One asked whether the continued transferral of power to the common EU level really means more freedom for European Union citizens.
Rather aptly, the first part of the hearing fell on the same day as a ruling from the European Court of Justice, in which it dismissed attempts by Ireland to get the EU’s data retention law repealed on the grounds that it had been made on the wrong legal basis.
The judgement had been keenly awaited in Germany where its own court is examining whether the law – allowing storage of telephone and internet data – for up to two years is anti-constitutional.
Ireland wanted the law to be made under the justice and home affairs pillar – therefore maintaining EU states’ right of veto. But the EU court said the European Commission was entitled to make the propoal because it concerned the good-functioning of the bloc’s internal market.
The well-being of the internal market is guaranteed in the EU treaties. But it is such a catch-all phrase that it concerns, or can be made to concern, just about any policy area and is often used by the court to justify its decisions. This is grist to the mill of those who say that the EU is constantly evolving to take on more powers without properly consulting its citizens. And indeed the ruling featured in the second day of the hearing on the Lisbon Treaty, brought up by Mr Gauweiler’s legal team.
Most importantly, the hearing gave a much-needed airing to an interesting to debate on evolving relations between member states and Brussels – a discussion that is normally hijacked by the extreme ends of the pro- and anti- EU camps.
Of course, if the court were to strike the treaty down, it would almost certainly be a fatal blow. But there was already speculation in German papers last week that the judges – due to deliver their verdict in May or June – may ask the Bundestag to tack on certain provisos when passing the Lisbon Treaty into law.
When in doubt, call a summit
Posted by: Honor Mahony in EU on February 12th, 2009
EU leaders give a series of contradictory ‘door-step’ quotes to waiting journalists
In times of crisis, the European Union has a habit of calling emergency summits. Its recent history is littered with them. Now, it is to have one on the threat of protectionism in Europe. It will take place on 1 March.
The shadow of a return to economic nationalism has certainly raised tensions among member states. The Czech Republic and France have had a high-profile and not particularly dignified slanging match concerning Paris’ proposals to help its car sector.
But the problem with hastily convened summits with a ‘we-must-do-an-undefined-something’ feeling about them is that they tend to highlight how Europe is not actually dealing with the issue at hand.
Informal summits, as this one will be, are particularly open to this charge. They are usually one-day meetings and not bound by the necessity to agree a list of formal conclusions. What tends to happen is that before the meeting, EU leaders give a series of contradictory ‘door-step’ quotes to waiting journalists. During the meeting, spokes persons from member states who did not think the meeting was a good idea, are at hand to say they are not sure what the point of the meeting is.
After the meeting, leaders do a bit of grandstanding for the national gallery in front of domestic press. The country in charge of the EU, at the moment the Czech Republic, does its best to put a glossy spin on things – cue talk of “fruitful discussions” – and then everybody goes home, safe in the knowledge that have been seen to be doing something.
It will be interesting to see if this one manages to break the mould. In any case, it will take great skill by the Czech Republic to make sure that the 1 March meeting does not descend into a France-bashing fest as leaders line up to condemn Paris’ state aid to its car sector. The EU is already damaged by the rift between its presidency country and one of its biggest member states, a lacklustre summit will only compound the feeling that the bloc is floundering in the face of this economic crisis.
