The Thursday Briefing is a blog by Tom Redford about green things, especially if they’re political, and even more so if they are to do with Europe. What I write isn’t necessarily representative of any Green party.
Poland really knows how to set expectations! I didn’t have much hope that environmental issues and countering climate change would be high on the agenda during the Polish presidency of the Council of Ministers, but with Poland standing alone against an attempt to tighten CO2 emissions reduction targets, I guess any hope that the EU will try to up its game for the COP17 climate talks in Durban this December are pretty much scuppered.
The public rationale behind the Polish position seems to be that the country is so reliant on coal fired power stations, that a target for 50% cuts in emissions would be too strenuous for the country. Now I’m sorry, but does a whole continent really have to be held back by poor energy planning in one country?! Surely a better approach would be to work out a way for Poland to transition to renewables, and lower-carbon energy, while letting the rest of us get on with trying something (even if it isn’t much) to tackle the problem?
If there is one thing that is sure to enrage the more Eurosceptical ‘contributors’ to the debate on whether or not the EU is a good thing, then it is the prospect of Brussels levying a tax on something, whether it be financial transactions, or aviation; just look at the way that Osbourne has had to drop the reassuring word, “sovereignty” into his remarks about the outcome of the Council of Ministers meeting the other day, where the proposed Financial Transaction Tax was discussed. But giving the EU the ability to levy taxes would surely bring a major benefit to individual member states, and one which might in other circumstances be welcomed by the likes of UKIP: it would let the EU raise part of its own budget, reducing the burden on member states’ budgets. It needn’t even increase the burden on the taxed, as the newly instituted EU taxes could be raised in areas that need to be taxed more stringently (aviation providing a prime example of this), but where this is not yet the case. Nevertheless, I’m pretty certain that the likes of the Taxpayers’ Alliance in the UK, and their friends around the continent will quickly paint any proposals on that note, should they ever emerge, as the self-aggrandising Eurocrats trying to get their mitts on money they have no right to.
It might not be the best thing to start a post with, but I’ve come to a conclusion: the citizens’ initiative, currently being fleshed out by various civil servants and politicians in Brussels, is not really all that much about citizens. My conclusion has been prompted by the changes that the Council of Ministers has proposed to the draft regulation that will set out how the whole thing will work.
“… and enhances further the democratic functioning of the Union by providing inter alia that every citizen shall have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union and that not less than one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of Member States may take the initiative of inviting the European Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties.”
Extract from the proposal for a Regulation on the citizens’ initiative.
A bit of background first: the Lisbon Treaty included a provision for a citizens initiative, essentially being a petition by individual citizens to get whatever the issue at stake might be, considered by the Commission. Lisbon however, left most of the detail for later. Now is later, and the details are here.
With the current Council proposals, a minimum number of citizens (in proportion to the number of MEPs from a state), in at least one third of member states, will need to sign the initiative for it to be accepted. I don’t know about you, but I certainly would struggle as an ordinary European Citizen to pull off something like that. Even with a movement of some form behind the issue being dealt with, it’d take a lot of international coordination (I’d say more than Twitter could achieve) to get the initiative off the ground, let alone successfully submit it to the Commission. There’s also a slightly sinister provision that, “the Commission should reject the registration of proposals which would be manifestly against the values of the Union.” From a legal perspective, that’s not too controversial a statement. It means that initiatives which contradict the positive and sunny opening articles of the treaties—where all the good things the EU wants to do and thinks are important are laid down—would be dismissed without the Commission having to publish the initiative on its website, or give it any serious thought at all. From a non legalese point of view though, the language is unfortunate. Politically, it could be thrown back at the EU, for it reserving the right to dismiss things based on values that it, not the people, decides. And to citizens thinking of organising an initiative, it is as clear as mud in its meaning.
The citizens initiative, as it is being proposed now, needs someone with a fairly well developed knowledge of how the EU works. Most people don’t have that sort of knowledge about their own political systems, but they aren’t barred at the door for that ignorance. In Scotland, ordinary people (am I using that term too much now?) can start or participate in a petitions system which triggers discussion on the topics in a committee of the Scottish Parliament. Knowledge of the intricacies of this system, and a reading of the Scotland Act to determine the details of reserved and devolved powers. or the ‘values’ of Scotland, isn’t needed. An interest in a political issue (and isn’t everything political?) and an understanding of how to get people to sign a petition means that any person in Scotland can “participate in the democratic life of the” country, to borrow a few words from the Council’s suggestions.
The Citizens’ Initiative will be pretty good for some though. Lobbying groups, NGOs, and campaigning networks will love this. It offers a way to get the EU to, at the very least, think about something. This is good to some extent, but it means that it is wrong to go about thinking that having this wonderful Citizens’ Initiative helps to lessen the democratic deficit of the EU. I still support the idea of the initiative, but it is not something that many ordinary citizens will ever have a chance of using to further a cause dear to their hearts.
I’ve neglected this blog for far too long, and it’s time to restart regular blogging. So my first topic is one which I followed for a while last year: the Energy and Climate Package. Actually, it isn’t specifically about that, rather it’s about what one of the outcomes of that was meant to be.
The Commission wanted to achieve a moral high-ground with the Package. Essentially, it should have poured icy cold water on the argument that the advanced portions of the developing world shouldn’t have to act on climate change in any strenuous way, as they didn’t make the problem, and the developed world has benefited hugely from emissions of greenhouse gases. Aside from the fact that this argument for non-action can be negated by matters of self-interest for the developing world, it was a fairly good idea of the Commission to try to lead the way.
Unfortunately (or some may say, fortunately), the EU doesn’t just do what the Commission wants. MEPs and national ministers have their say too, and the Package was watered down at every stage, until a very weak piece of legislation was spat out the other end. You could say that the institutions break the legislation down like grass in a cow’s stomach. Take that metaphor where you will.
Anyway, it seems that the Commission hasn’t realised that its proposals were digested in that way, as it has apparently just urged developing nations to cut their emissions, regardless of the EU’s rather limited actions, beholden as it is to commercial interests.
Certainly, the approach to tackling climate change must be global in scale, and stronger nations must help weaker nations, but though this may be initially suggested by the Commission’s media release, it does also go on to say that:
“Up to 2020 the bulk of actions in these countries will have low costs—or even benefits—and should be financed domestically.”
To me this does not seem to be a particularly constructive way of helping very poor states to make the necessary adaptations to their economies and infrastructure that will be needed. After the diluting of the Energy & Climate Package, it seems that the EU is in a bit of a muddle over what to do. A generally pro-action Commission (though clearly not a dream Green Commission) seems held back by the more reluctant views of member states and citizens. I think this is something I’m certainly going to come back to pretty soon.
A recently published Eurobarometer poll on animal cloning reveals that 61% of respondents thought such cloning was morally wrong. When figures from individual states are viewed, Austrians were most likely to think animal cloning was morally wrong, and us British were the least likely.
I’m not entirely sure what to make of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe’s flash-based “The Changers” game, but is seems to be promoting action against climate change, so, if you can figure it out, it may be worth a look.
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the torpedo amendments to the Telecoms Package which were going to be voted on by the EP. Well, they’ve been voted on, and for the Greens opposing them, it’s a bit of good news and a bit of bad. Amendments K1 and K2, which would have allowed spyware to be added to EU citizen’s computers to prevent intellectual property infringement, and would have breached citizen’s privacy by processing the data they sent over the Internet were voted down. But H1, H2 and H3 were carried, meaning that monitoring of data can take place for security reasons, and ISPs may have to work with digital-rights-holders to prevent infringements.
It isn’t exactly the end of the world, but if the Package gets through the Council of Ministers as it stands, the Net in Europe will likely be a little less free.
