Archive for April, 2010

Well, well, well.  The Daily Telegraph on Friday reported that EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is expected to resign “within months.” According to the unnamed EU source at the heart of the story:

This particular rumour, that she plans to leave after a few months in the job, has been circulating in Brussels since early February or so. At the time, with Ashton heavily under fire for not going to earthquake-struck Haiti, it was anybody’s guess where it might have started.

The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, is running an article on the back of the Telegraph piece alleging that former EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson is behind the “whispering campaign.” This seems to have come from someone in Ashton’s circle who remarked:

“When I saw the report I immediately thought of Mandelson. It has his fingerprints all over it.”

Mandelson, who has the reputation in Britain of being a wily operator with more than his fair share of political lives, was one of those keen to get the EU foreign policy post. In the end, Ashton – a novice to diplomacy – secured it by virtue of being both from the left and a woman. An arbitrary set of criteria , arrived at due to a deal by Europe’s two main political families. (Incidentally, Mandelson seems to have a spokesperson who is as adept as his political master at issuing apparently supportive statements, which reveal themselves to be insults at second glance. “He thinks she is doing quite a reasonable job.”)

(According to the Daily Mail, Mandelson started the rumour mill because he is “planning to become the next British foreign secretary.”  )

Still, it is interesting that the report comes now just when the worst of the criticism – concerning her ability to get the job done – seems to have receded. At least from the public arena. (She secured a major victory earlier this week when member states gave the greenlight to her diplomatic service blueprint.)

At one stage in late January, early February, it seemed that barely a day would go by without a negative headline about her. (The less-than-stellar coverage was a factor both of her obvious lack of experience and the belated realisation that the Lisbon Treaty per se is not a solution to the EU foreign policy woes, but only a means to a solution.)

Personally, I have always wondered whether she would be able to stick out for the full five years. It’s a gruelling and rather thankless job – you are only as successful as the 27-strong group of big-egoed foreign policy ministers behind you allow you to be. And Ashton has previously indicated how much family life matters to her – and there is no room for that with this job.

But it would make little sense be on “the verge” of resignation as the Telegraph source suggests. The diplomatic service, which her aides say she sees as her “legacy” will likely not even be up and running for several months. If she wants to own it in terms of credit, then it needs to established and working. Only then will she be remembered as the EU’s first foreign minister.

Under the Lisbon Treaty, the High Representative has to be approved by a qualified majority of EU leaders with the agreement of the commission president. Parliament would also get a say via a hearing.

A potentially bigger shake-up, involving the merry-go-round of a wider commission re-shuffle, would mean parliament is bound to ask for a vote on the shake-down. Not a pretty prospect.

I suspect she will not resign soon but neither do I think she will last the full five years. She just does not seem to be enough of a political animal to want to do the job for so long.  I think talk of a change in the post might naturally start occurring when EU council president Herman Van Rompuy’s post is automatically up for renewal in 2012. The two posts are not linked in terms of the treaty – Ashton’s post runs through to 2014. But they have been intertwined politically by the criteria used to choose them.

Two and half years would be a respectable innings time-wise. And by then, it really will be clear whether she was ultimately up to the job. A resignation now would just mean failure. And who wants that on their CV?

How the European Parliament is in its element at the moment! Its de facto veto on the diplomatic service make-up – an issue that brings the institution within spitting distance of glamorous foreign policy – is making MEPs giddy with joy. A finger-wagging, puffed-up, here’s-my-list-of-demands, kind of joy.

The dynamics of this little power play are interesting to watch. At a debate hosted by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung last night, Poul Skytte Christoffersen, advisor to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, and Peter Tempel, head of European affairs in the German foreign ministry, laid out their views on the new EU diplomatic service (on which member states reached political agreement earlier this week.) Each finished by saying something to the effect  that they felt that they had taken many of parliament’s concerns on board and they hoped it would be enough for MEPs.

Then it was Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski’s turn.

He smiled. And in the manner of someone turning down an invitation to dance, he pronounced the proposals “not sufficient.”

First noting that parliament felt “sidelined” in discussion in recent months, he then unfurled his notes and listed a series of complaints or concerns held by the EU assembly.

Here they with some replies and/or comments.

1) Political deputies should substitute Ms Ashton rather than civil servants so they are politically accountable. This is not foreseen in the treaties. There are two legal opinions on this. One says that if something is not foreseen in the treaty it is not allowed. According to Saryusz-Wolski, a legal opinion in the EP says that what is not forbidden is allowed. (Rather handy, these opinions.) Christoffersen, for his part, said Ashton was against the service becoming too “politicised.” (Which, I assume, means they don’t want parliament playing their political family games with the appointments.)

2) MEPs want ex-ante consultation on the main decisions and basic choices of foreign policy. Interestingly, Christofferesen, threw a line to MEPs here. “We think it is a natural thing that if we are about to plan an important CFSP mission that implies important cost, that parliament has a possibility to have its say on that mission.” (Personally, I think this would most likely open the door to parliament discussion on the ethics of the mission, somewhere that I am sure member states don’t want to go.)

3) Democratic scrutiny over development/external assistance policy

4) The trade committee is worried about trade policy and how it will be represented by the delegations

5) Appointees to senior posts should be heard before parliament

6) There should be political control over military part of the structure (not bureaucratic control).

7) There should be a single line of command between the centre and the delegations. In other words, they are against a commission suggestion that the commission gives direct orders to its officials in a delegation, by-passing the head of delegations, when it concerns a commission competence.

8.) MEPs have numerous doubts about the rights of discharge and budgetary control and transparency. (Here Christoffersen noted that Ashton will accept the same degree of budget discharge as the commission. Ashton will appear before the budgetary control committee if “there are things that need correction.” But he refused to have the EAS budget being part of the commission’s budget. Ashton wants budgetary autonomy for administration, including CFSP-related personnel, fearing that otherwise every little administrative change would have to go through torturous approval route inside the commission. Everything beyond the administrative budget would be managed by the commission, including operational expenditure.)

9) Geographical balance. This should be written into the staff regulation and not just a political promise. According to Saryusz-Wolski, 16 member states are already “highly under-represented” in the external relations DG according to a system of calculation drawn up by former commissioner Neil Kinnock. (Malta has achieved 0% of its quota; Bulgaria 16%; Cyprus 16%, Luxembourg 18%, Romania 18 %, Latvia 20%, Slovakia 22%, Poland 26%, Slovenia 28% Lithuania 33%, Estonia 33%, Czech Republic 36%, Hungary 44%, Germany 70%, UK 73%, Italy 95%). Good news for the Belgians though – they are massively over-represented. Indicative targets should be set by member states and there should be a temporary fast-track for those who are under-represented.  “How representative will the High Representative be if her service is not representative?,” asked Saryusz-Wolski. Well quite. (Christoffersen: We get the message. But be patient. I paraphrase.)

Communitarisation of EU foreign policy?

Some other interesting points in the discussion. Christoffersen, for long Denmark’s ambassador to the EU, firmly refuted parliament’s charge that the EAS is shaping up to be more intergovernmental than what it replaces. Suggesting that Peter Tempel might like to “close his ears for a moment” he said that the fact that CFSP is being brought closer to the commission will soon or later mean that CFSP decisions become a part of internal decision-making structures in the commission. He also noted commission officials will eventually appear in areas such as crisis management structures. Currently, these are manned only by national experts or council secretariat officials.

On numbers. Nobody knows exactly, it seems. But Christoffersen reckons around 600-700 people from the commission (AD level); 150 people from the council secretariat (excluding military personnel); and around 300 people from member states over the next two to three years.

On timing. Recent events, such as the Russia-Ukraine gas deal, show the urgent need to have the service in place to have an assessment of its implications. Meanwhile, the EU is reminded almost daily of the importance of other powers in the world. For the record, parliament’s approach will be “constructive but putting quality of the solutions above time requirements,” said Saryusz-Wolski. So no solution before summer is expected.

Giles Merrit of Friends of Europe asked perhaps the most pertinent question of the evening – namely what will the service actually do? Who will be in charge of, say, negotiating deals on Caspian gas. Will member states step aside? So deep were the panellists into the nitty gritty of the shape of the service that the question rather flummoxed them all. Christoffersen maintained that the service would at the very least enable the EU to sell its policies better. And to ensure that the right hand is knows what the left hand is doing – i.e. ideally a third country would not be told that an anti-dumping procedure was being started against them just as the EU is hoping to secure a return agreement on illegal immigrants with the same country.

This already an excessively long posting. My apologies. But I will finish on a lighter note. I was amused by Saryusz-Wolski’s justification for the parliament’s position on the diplomatic service. “As directly elected representative of Europe, we feel the breath on our back because (citizens) want to see the foreign policy of the Union strong and legitimate.” And later “Once every five years, we go to the polls and citizens ask us questions…”

I have my doubts that accountability of the diplomatic service is high on voters’ wishlists… but still it’s a useful old  trump card to have in your pocket. Your interlocutors can’t challenge on you on it. Even if they might be cursing you privately.

Dismiss Europe’s 2020 strategy at your peril. Therein lies the solution to everything. Youth unemployment. Unemployment among the over 50s. Green jobs. A sustainable economy. Lowering CO2 emissions. General well-being. “In the 2020 strategy…” began Jose Manuel Barroso several times. If only MEPs had been creative with their questions, they would surely have found out that it could disperse volcanic ash clouds.

However, in the event the 10-year economic strategy should be found wanting, it will be member states’ fault. Indeed, all is not happiness and light between member states and the commission president. He found it “quite surprising” that some national politicians are making an “intergovernmental reading of the Lisbon Treaty.” “Quite surprising, but it is indeed happening,” he added ruminatively. Frankly, the surprise element should have long gone by now.

And later, a fairly strong statement: “I find it quite extraordinary that it was so difficult to find a solution of solidarity for Greece.” Perhaps he was speaking with his Portuguese hat on.

Thankfully the exchange was relatively ash-free. Although Iceland’s volcano, should anyone have asked (apparently visitors groups were still expected in Strasbourg despite “the travel chaos”) would have provided a neat one-off excuse for the near empty chamber. Who knows what  force majeure will befall question time next month. Still there was some ashy-ness. “I want to refer to the volcanic eruption,” started off one MEP grandly.

“Look, this volcanic problem,” said Barroso managing to make it sound like an outbreak of hives, “is certainly beyond the control of the EU institutions.”

Naturally, that qualified for most unnecessary statement of the hour. Closely followed by that of British far-right deputy Andrew Brons, who apparently felt the need to spell out that he is “not” a “euro-integrationalist.”

An Italian MEP received a lofty answer to the question about what he should tell local shoe and textile manufacturers that Europe is doing about cheaper Chinese imports. The answer, said Barroso, is not to shut borders but raise social and environmental standards in China. Barroso evidently has not been on the voters’ doorsteps for some time.

There was a brief and impassioned defence of his failure to make it to the late Polish president’s funeral. “I had great respect for President (Lech) Kaczynski. I have done everything to be present at his funeral,” he noted before moving on to the possibility of easing state aid rules for airlines.

Meanwhile British Conservative MEPs carried on their tradition  – they are admirably consistent in this – of making it sound like Britain is the only member of the EU. And certainly the only member state that counts.  Timothy Kirkhope said he hoped that the 3 million people in the UK who take advantage of the opt-outs in the working time directive would continue to be able to do so under any new proposals by the commission.

“Apart from Britain, there are also 26 other member in the European Union,” replied Barroso. It was almost a ‘so there!’ moment.

There has been a shift of power in Brussels politics of late. The economic crisis has made it clear that member states want the European Council to be where the EU’s governance decisions are taken.

The shift is to the benefit of EU council president Herman Van Rompuy and to the detriment of European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. This was starkly underlined by last month’s decision to establish a task force to look into further economic governance, including by means of treaty change, chaired by Van Rompuy.

The European Commission’s legal right of initiative to propose legislation does not change, of course. But member states are grasping at the political initiative for making laws. Van Rompuy is perfectly aware of this. So is Barroso. Look how fast the commission is drawing up its own proposals, due out on 12 May, on strengthening economic co-ordination. Proposals, it is keen to emphasize, that will be sufficient to do what’s needed and will not require a treaty change.

With Van Rompuy and Barroso squaring off, the question of an eventual merging of their roles becomes even more interesting.

UK liberal MEP Andrew Duff, a committed federalist who knows the legal workings of the EU inside out, recently wrote in the Financial Times that if the two men fail to get on, the two posts will be held by “one and the same person” by 2014.

Richard Corbett, a member of Van Rompuy’s cabinet, last month remarked at a seminar that “it will be interesting to see if these two posts are merged [in 2014].”

One Brussels insider I spoke to, who did not want to be named, reckoned the issue will already be up for debate in two year’s time, when Van Rompuy’s presidency is due for renewal.

The idea was tabled by Duff and others during the convention that drew up the European Constitution. But it was rejected on the grounds that it would make the commission president too powerful.

It would certainly change the dynamics of the EU, not least by making the commission’s legislative proposals much more tightly bound up in the political wishes of member states. For EU citizens, there would be a clearly identifiable European president. (And one less European at the G20 summits!)

There is some debate over whether it would require a treaty change. Duff reckons a convention has to be called and then a formal treaty change made (It must be said, however, that Duff is inordinately fond of conventions). Others, such as Dr Giacomo Benedetto from Royal Holloway, University of London, note that the treaty does not necessarily prohibit the merging of the two posts. It only specifies that the president of the European Council may not hold a national post.

Well, all of the above assumes that member states, not exactly in a pro-European drive at the moment, would consent to create such a such powerfully symbolic and visible post. For national leaders, I suppose, it would rather smack of purposefully reducing their own stature.

Election time in the UK. The country exercises an almost hypnotic fascination over diplomats and officials in Brussels. And the prospect of a Conservative government sends all sorts of people into a tailspin.

MEPs involved in the negotiations on the EU’s diplomatic service have been heard to mutter darkly about the need to get member states to agree on the service’s outline before the Tories get into power. (That was before the latest polls, which no longer suggest a major victory for the Tories and point to the possibility of a hung parliament.)

Even well before the election, thinkers in Brussels have been mulling over what a Conservative-led government in Britain will mean for its EU relations. A small conference organised by some members of the CEPS thinktank late last year was entitled – The Future: The Tories are Coming

Alas there were no multiple exclamation marks but still the title had the air of the apocalyptic about it. As if David Cameron might ride across the Brussels legislative landscape, single-handedly laying waste to all EU (social and employment) legislation.

I suspect that should Cameron get into power, his approach to the EU will be governed by pragmatism, rather than conviction. And he will do the minimum to keep the virulently eurosceptic parts of his party happy as well as the minimum to keep relations with Brussels on an even keel.

Still it would be quite a political feat if, on winning the election, he were to seek a return to the centre-right EPP as suggested by Antonio López-Istúriz, secretary-general of the party.

“I believe that he will make a pragmatic choice after the elections [to return to the EPP]. I do not understand how European affairs can be left to people like Dan Hannan. He was the character behind this exotic group they have built in the European Parliament,” The Times newspaper reports López-Istúriz as saying. (Dan Hannan, popular among the party base, is a firebrand Tory who is strongly eurosceptic.)

Currying favour with the anti-EU camp in his party, Cameron withdrew his MEPs with something of a dramatic flourish in 2009 in order to establish an ‘anti-federalist’ group.  ‘Exotic’ is a polite way of saying the group contains several fringe parties with   more than a passing nod to nationalism, populism, and strong social conservatism, if not outright homophobia.

The move irritated France and Germany, whose ruling conservative parties are members of the EPP. Practically it means no access to the EPP which has become hugely influential in EU decision-making. (The EPP and European Socialists stitched up the currently EU leadership between them). All EU summits are preceded by meetings of the political families, where different strategies and lines are discussed. At the very least it allows face time with other conservative leaders – including Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy. It was short-sighted of Cameron to have chosen not to be a part of this. But could he actually slink back into the EPP? And what might he give to the party base in return?

With a return anyway difficult to envisage, López-Istúriz has likely done his bit to rile the Conservative ranks with the following comments.  According to New Europe and the Independent, he said that the Conservatives would have to re-join on EPP terms and sign up to the group’s values and programme. An application to join “would not be an easy dossier” for the party.

Where is the future incentive for holding the EU’s six-month rotating presidency? It is expensive in terms of time, manpower and resources. And now, since the onset of the Lisbon Treaty, it is largely ceremonial for the national political leaders. The prime minister and the foreign minister of the presidency country have been reduced to bit players in the EU’s elaborate leadership theatre.

Previously, they could speak on behalf of the Union and showcase themselves and their country to a wider audience by hosting   summits. This partially compensated for the huge administrative and financial burden of running the presidency.

Now Herman Van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton, EU council president and foreign policy chief, have assumed these roles and most of the summiting is to take place in Brussels.

The question of what to do with the jobless PMs and FMs has not come to a head yet. Spain, as current holder of the presidency, has a special ‘transition’ status as all EU institutions try to find their feet under the Lisbon set-up. Belgium is the next presidency country. Van Rompuy is Belgian and his native country is unlikely to make any difficulties for him.

Indeed, at a recent seminar on future presidencies, one of his members of cabinet, former MEP Richard Corbett, indicated that Van Rompuy intends to clearly establish the division of powers in the second half of 2010.

“Many of the precedents will be laid down very clearly in the Belgian presidency. We will approach cruising speed in the second half of this year,” said Corbett.

It was, however, interesting to watch the evolving nature of the discussion, which was hosted by the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs and the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in late March.

Corbett started off by saying that “summits with third countries will be in Brussels” and that the future prime minister or foreign minister of a rotating presidency “won’t play a role.”

But his fellow discussants were united in saying that Van Rompuy needed to give something to the presidency country, a raison d‘etre. Or at least a reason for the expense. Antonio Missiroli, from the Brussels-based European Policy Centre, was most succinct. Van Rompuy is entitled to be “greedy” in consolidating his power until the end of the year. After this point, however, he will need to be “generous.”

Hungary takes over the presidency at the beginning of 2011. While Budapest’s reign will expose the bareness of the presidency cupboard under the Lisbon Treaty, Poland taking over later that year, is expected to be the first big test for the set-up and for Van Rompuy. Poland is a big country and considers itself one of the main EU players.

A Polish MEP present at the discussion insisted that third country summits be held in the presidency country, saying they could still be organised by Van Rompuy. The MEP spoke of the importance of the “PR aspect” of the presidency.

By the end of the discussion, Corbett conceded that a summit should “perhaps be returned” to the presidency country. A few weeks later, Van Rompuy declared: “It would be a good idea if at least one major event, such as the European Council, was held in the member state holding the rotating presidency …”

The move was interesting. It shows that Van Rompuy, who is proving to be a shrewd power operator, knows when it is prudent to make concessions. The gesture does not harm him politically and it was made before the presidency question became an issue.

The broader question of whether this is enough for the presidency country remains open however. Warsaw is likely to give the first clear answer.