Archive for April, 2009

Potential euroscepticism

Posted by Honor Mahony in EU on April 28, 2009

An anti-Lisbon treaty poster in Ireland

An anti-Lisbon treaty poster in Ireland

Euroscepticism is both hard to combat and hard to define, but its potential is growing in Europe. That was the main conclusion (or mine at least) of an interesting roundtable event on euroscepticism and communication strategies, organised by the Konrad Adenauer political foundation yesterday.

At the meeting, a clutch of *academics, EU officials and analysts tried to put their finger on the phenomenon, recently taken up a publicity notch through the attempt by Irish businessman Declan Ganley to found a pan-European party on the back of his anti-Lisbon treaty success.

One point of agreement was that euroscepticism cannot be defined as a single “entity.” It arises from a whole host of grievances be they economic, related to democracy, sovereignty or political reasons (such as the far left viewing the EU as too capitalist).

An EU official, who keeps an eye on the trends, produced a table based on two of questions from the eurobarometer on whether Europe is good thing and whether it has benefited your country.

Based on the answers of these questions,  EU citizens were divided into five categories. Hard supporters (Europe is good and it has benefited my country); Generous (Europe is good but I don’t see the benefits for my country); Egoist (Europe is bad but I see the benefits for my country); Hard opponents (negative for both questions) and the Don’t Knows.

Going by the table, the official reckons there is “great potential for euroscepticism in Europe.” For example, in Germany hard supporters account for 45 percent but 25 percent are generous, meaning they don’t see the benefits of Europe although they support it. (This was suggested as a possible reason for why the CSU is employing more anti-Europe rhetoric ahead of the June elections) and 14 percent don’t know.

In France, 34 percent are hard supporters, while 23 percent are generous and 28 percent don’t know. Italy also registered a high score in the generous (22%) and don’t know categories  (28%). Britain saw the highest hard opposition (33%) while Lisbon nay-sayer Ireland followed by Poland saw the highest hard supporters (70% and 58% respectively) of the eight countries that were sampled – all of the above plus Spain and the Czech Republic.

A Polish analyst, who spoke of the “systematic inability” to introduce checks and balances in the European Union, remarked that the era of books such as Mark Leonard’s Why Europe will run the 21st Century and Jeremy Rifkin’s The European Dream seem almost “light years away.”

A British academic said that referendums have “created more opportunities for expressing euroscepticism” and suggested that a possible “trade off” is looming in Europe, whereby the EU can be made more democratic or “legitimised” but that a halt is put on further integration.

Virtually all of the participants did not believe Ganley’s Libertas party would feature strongly in the June European elections, mainly because the Libertas brand has come to mean different things in different member states.

Some of the participants took a closer look at euroscepticism in a particular country.

Briefly:

Poland – Euroscepticism here has evolved from its roots in the accession negotiations – on issues such as milk quotas – to the current eurozone debate. Eurosceptics have been “socialised” into the mainstream system.

Britain – The Tories have created an “expectation gap” between what they promise on Europe and what they can deliver.

Denmark – A public holiday on the 5th June plus the decision to hold the European election on Sunday 7th June may result in a low turnout, possibly increasing the eurosceptic showing.

Czech Republic – Europe has taken over from Germany (Benes Decrees) as the number one issue of grievance in the same circles.

Austria – Euroscepticism is fuelled by the mass-selling anti-EU Krone newspaper. A Sunday edition brought by one of the participants did contain page after page of foaming anti-EU stories.

Answers…

Well there were not many. Most felt that because eurosceptic battles are essentially played out on national turf, there is little role for the EU to play. In addition, taking a more pro-active role would open it to accusations of “propaganda.”

But with an eye on Libertas, the participants acknowledged that the main political parties as well as the European Commission have been “too slow” and too bureaucratic to react and use new media, such as internet, youtube, blogs and email to get their own message across.

Personally, I think there is sometimes an almost frantic tendency within the pro-EU camp to try and convert everybody to the cause.  It is worth remembering that 10-15 percent of  citizens “will always be unhappy,” as the UK academic pointed out and that “contestation” is good.  To keep both sides on their toes, if for nothing else.

*Chatham House rules, so no names anywhere.

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MEPs no longer under the spotlight

Posted by Honor Mahony in EU on April 24, 2009

Well it seems that the parliamentary activities of your representative in Brussels are set to remain less than clear for a little while longer.

A brand new website detailing what MEPs get up to in the EU assembly – how often they attend plenary, whether they write reports, table questions or take part in committees – has been culled.

Just two days after going live, parlorama the work  of one Flavien Deltort, no longer exists. Instead, visiting the site will get you this doleful/cheerful (I can’t make up my mind) little message “Due to the overwhelming volume of complaints, the site is closed…”

In any case, I like the three but-we-haven’t-heard-the-last-of-this dots at the end of the sentence.

The stated aim of the website was to help citizens choose who to vote for ahead of the June elections with its pre-being-taken-down blurb pointing to the amount of power in co-legislative terms that the parliament has. Powers that are only set to increase if the Lisbon Treaty comes into force.

Mr Deltort, who did not sound particularly cowed when I spoke to him, says he took the website down because he had a number of complaints. He refused to name the complainants except to say that one was a “national political party.” He is seeking legal advice to make sure he cannot be sued and hopes to put the website back up next week.

Those complaining were unhappy with how their ranking had been worked out. One centre-right French MEP Elisabeth Morin-Chartier sent around a lengthy press release pointing out that as she only came to the parliament in mid 2007, she (and others having a shorter mandate) were “unjustly penalised.”  She also took umbrage with the fact that “invisible” work such as co-ordinating a political party’s position on a proposed EU law does not feature in the quantitative ranking.

Still, I was encouraged to hear that Mr Deltort also received several emails from MEPs (“Spanish, Greeks,  Slovaks”) asking him why the site was down and praising him for the work.

If you have not seen the site yet, and so don’t know what the fuss is about, here is an earlier posting of mine which describes it a little more.

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MEPs under the spotlight

Posted by Honor Mahony in EU on April 23, 2009

If you have ever wondered what your local MEP gets up to, if anything at all, in the European Parliament then a neat new website should help you get an idea of how much of a ‘presence’ your representative has in Brussels.

Set up by Flavien Deltort, former assistant to Italian radical MEP Marco Cappato, the website, Parlorama.com, gives you a quick and easy way of seeing how your MEP rates on plenary attendance, committee attendance and report-writing/question asking.

Arranged by country, it is easy to directly compare the performances among MEPs in one member state. The least active and most active of each country get highlighted in a thumbs-downy or starry way on the side of the page for extra and faster skewer potential.

Of course, I checked out my political fellow country men and women first and then the *Italians (always mentioned first in any tut-tut MEP-attendance sentence – yep, quite some thumbs-downing going on).

The aim of the exercise is to give each European citizen the possibility to judge the MEP they are considering voting for on the basis of their activity in parliament, says the website.  I wonder how many complaints it will get – MEPs having the tendency to take themselves awfully seriously.

Hats off to Mr Deltort, who apparently spent months trawling through the European Parliament’s official attendance figures to make the website. Check it out.

*[But perhaps the attendance record of politicians from Bella Italia will change following the June elections. Berlusconi is in the process of
picking up 30 woman celebs, models, and minor TV stars to give his party a new lift. Not known for their political experience, and already dubbed
'Berlusconi's Harem' in Italian media, these potential bright lights of the EU assembly are getting a crashcourse in EU history and
institutions. All that being a lengthy whatever-next(!)aside.]

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Libertas’ internet candidates

Posted by Honor Mahony in EU on April 22, 2009

Being anti-Lisbon remains Libertas' main strategy

Being anti-Lisbon remains Libertas' main strategy

Anti-treaty EU party Libertas has found a novel way of recruiting potential candidates to stand under its banner in the June European elections. Last month it sent it sent out an email to the people who had signed up to its movement asking them to either become a candidate or nominate someone else to be one.

The email is worth printing in full for two reasons.  Firstly, it shows the paucity of ideas behind Libertas party. Secondly, and perhaps more interestingly, it serves to underline the potential of the internet for pan-European political parties.

Brussels has been taken over by a bunch of elite, unelected, unaccountablebureaucrats. Now, after wrecking our economies, they are trying to pull off the biggest power-grab in history with the anti-democratic European Constitution (now renamed the Lisbon Treaty).

That’s what this June’s European election is all about. It’s your last chance to take Brussels back from the élite and let the people have their say. For those of us who never got a vote on Lisbon… this will be our referendum.

While the other parties rely on the same, old politicians with the same old,tired ideas… we want YOU to run. We need real people with fresh ideas, not out-of-touch élites.

That’s where you come in. Here’s your chance to become a candidate, or nominate someone you know to be a candidate, to join our movement.

So it’s that simple.

Of course, the move can backfire. The email, sent to thousands, also went to one Deidre de Burca, an Irish green politician, running in this year’s European election who sent out an press release saying she refused to become a Libertas candidate “for many reasons.”

Anita Kelly, Libertas spokeswoman, says de Burca only got the email because the signed up as a Libertas supporter on their website and “that’s how she was on the list.”

“It’s part of our internet campaign to see if any of our supporters would be interested to stand as a candidate.”

Kelly said Libertas had recruited some “very high calibre candidates” that way, but was coy about naming them, saying only that it concerned some of the UK candidates. “It’s all part of our people’s movement campaign.”

“If we are a movement of the people, how do you get in touch with people, and that’s through the internet.”

Well, it’s a crude start by Libertas but the internet is changing the nature of European politics. And Libertas, its one-dimensionality notwithstanding, has recognised this.

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EP campaign meets the EU public

Posted by Honor Mahony in EU on April 21, 2009

Poor well-meaning ideas. They come out of the EU meeting room bright, shiny and swollen with good intentions. A few days, or hours even, in the public eye and their practical manifestations are misinterpreted, derided, hijacked by cynicism and even peed on (yes literally.)

The European Parliament’s pre-election campaign with its giant posters, TV spots and roadshows has had several unplanned (I assume) confrontations with the great EU public.

Work-life balance... the picture has caused offence (Source: European Parliament)

Work-life balance... the campaign poster has caused offence (Source: European Parliament)

One of the posters asking the question: “How should we help balance family and career?” along with a picture of a laptop and baby’s bottle has got up the noses of Ireland’s Health Service Executive. The Irish Times reported the HSE’s National Breastfeeding Co-ordinator Maureen Fallon as criticising the poster for normalising formula feeding over breastfeeding. (Personally I think she’s missing the point of the poster as well as over-estimating the effect of a political billboard on such a personal decision, but anyway.)

Meanwhile, my Romanian colleague tells me that a video booth where people are supposed to go in and record a message on the EU, located in Bucharest’s main train station, is being used as a toilet. It smells horrible, she says.

LSE professor Simon Hix, recently in Brussels to stick his neck on the line and predict the results of the June elections, remarked that for the first time he noticed a European election poster in London’s Underground (good) but that he did not know what it was for (bad). It was the poster asking what kind of energy future citizens want – with symbols of nuclear, wind and solar energy. Hix said he thought it was a poster for the Greens and it was “confusing.”

Glitzy campaign that it may be, Hix was of the opinion that unless national political editors of newspapers and TV, particularly the latter, make the conscious decision to “prioritise” the European election and its issues, then “it’s not going to change turnout.” I agree.

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Just like the EU

Posted by Honor Mahony in EU on April 9, 2009

An easter egg (wikipedia)

Who put that easter egg in my garden? (source: wikipedia)

I have only recently discovered that in Belgium Easter eggs are not brought by the Easter bunny (as in my corner of the EU) or by the Osterhase (as in another part of the EU that is relevant to me) but by the Easter Bells (Cloches de Pâques).

My three-year old – as all kids do – likes things in black and white. I already tied myself in contortions over the Christmas period with explanations involving Santa Claus, St Nikolaus, whether or not they come down the chimney, and what is being celebrated on all those relevant December dates.

I feel a similar bout of equivocal statements and swathes of grey coming on this weekend with one member state parent having supplied one set of “facts”; the other member state parent another set of “facts” and the school a third.

It’s just like writing about the EU. On that note, I shall be gone for a week. Happy holidays.

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Franco-German relations

Posted by Honor Mahony in EU on April 3, 2009

French and German politicians of a very different era were on stage at the same time as their current counterparts in the London G20 summit on Thursday. Although this was a smaller stage and in Frankfurt.

A talk to mark the ten year anniversary of the euro reunited former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt and former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.

The PM addresses journalists at the close of the G20 Summit in London

The British prime minister addresses journalists at the close of the G20 Summit in London

The two men, at the height of their political power between 1974 and 1982/1 respectively, kept the Franco-German engine of the EU well-oiled.

On stage, Schmidt (b. 1918), slumbered in his seat and smoking like a rebellious teenager,  resembled a wily old lizard sitting in the sun. Watching online as I was, it looked as though he wasn’t paying a blind bit of attention as European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet, laid on the compliments thick and fast in his introductory remarks. Giscard (b.1926), you could see, was listening but looked somewhat disdainful.

It was interesting to hear them discuss Europe and its future. They speak in the way of people once in power and of a certain age do, with conviction and the knowledge that while the next generations might be doing them the courtesy of listening to them, they’re going to go ahead and do it their way anyway.

A couple of comments stood out. For me at least. Schmidt said he recalled Jean Monnet’s words while he was travelling to the Frankfurt meeting, that whatever positive or negative factors are decisive in creating the European Union, one condition is absolutely necessary “the close cooperation between the French and Germans.”

If there is no mutual trust between French and German political classes, leaders, governments, “the whole thing cannot work.”

“The present leaders must understand this,” he said. The current leaders Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Angela Merkel of Germany have frosty relations (as did their immediate predecessors), a result both of a clash between flash and down-to-earth styles and of Germany becoming more like a normal EU state – ie bolshy and EU-blaming when it suits them.

As for Giscard, he recalled touring the US before the euro was introduced to explain the process of European monetary union to the Americans. “I was received with absolute scepticism. No one expressed any confidence in the euro,” he said.

The common market would not have survived without it, he noted, with the discussion touching on what the effects of the current economic crisis would have been like without the single currency.

Giscard is still pushing his vision of a more federal Europe. He said he was not sure “how to introduce political will to give [Europe] its final structure” but promised his services if it should ever happen.

“Helmut and I are very happy to join you in 20 years if you come about it,” he joked. Although, as ever with Giscard, I am sure he was entirely serious on this point.

Asked if they ever disagreed on anything while they were leaders, Giscard pointed to Schmidt’s “smoking.” Helmut Schmidt just grinned, then added that they disagreed with Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

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A less-than-great debate

Posted by Honor Mahony in EU on April 2, 2009

Attendance was high, the microphones worked and the bar was open afterwards. That was all good. The debate, alas, was not. In fact, to call the stilted, off-topic, everything-but-policy exchange between Libertas founder Declan Ganley and Greens leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit in Brussels yesterday evening a debate would be generous.

Ganley insisted on answering virtually every question – what ever it was – with a populist let-the-people decide tinge while Cohn-Bendit struggled to get his point across and through facial contortions and exasperated sighs (though I did have sympathy at times) looked more patronising than wise.

Cohn-Bendit started with the personal attacks by questioning Ganley’s links with US military giving the Irishman the opportunity to read a not very edifying passage from Cohn-Bendit’s book (Le grand bazar). If Cohn-Bendit had stuck to political issues, I feel he could have skewered Ganley on substance (or lack of).

As it was, I think I can say that most of the audience, apart from the Libertas clutch at the back, left after the two-hour debate absolutely none the wiser about Ganley’s or Libertas’ policies. This was partly due to poor moderation on the chairman’s part (Paul Adamson from the Centre thinktank) but also, it seemed, a deliberate tactic by Ganley to not commit himself to anything at all.

Still, I am pleased there was a debate at all. For such a political city, Brussels has remarkable few head-to-head sparrings between politicians – the European Parliament offering only choreographed for-the-record comments from a pre-defined list of speakers.

I hope it will herald more. I think each political party should put forward a candidate for European Commission president and they should meet in this format to debate one another. Such debates might give people a sense for what they are voting for when it comes to the European elections. 2014 perhaps?

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