Brussels threatens to sue Britain to let in ‘benefit tourists’

The Telegraph

Another day, another anti-EU story in The Telegraph. Normally I resist the urge to dissect articles like this, but this one is particularly annoying. The gist of the story is that the big bad bullies in Brussels want to change British (Rule Britannia, Britannia Rule the Waves!) law to encourage everyone in Europe to steal benefits from honest, hard-working, decent and down-to-earth English people.

Naturally, that isn’t quite the case. For a start, I can personally attest that, after using the direct.gov.uk benefits calculator, I am most certainly better off signing-on in Belgium, if it came to that. The simple fact is—and this has been the case from the early days of the EEC—that there is a right of free movement of workers. It is a fundamental part of having an economic and political union. Furthermore, this is a right that is implemented with several caveats, which essentially protect host member states from having to put up with, and I quote the British Work and Pensions Secretary, Ian Duncan Smith, “paying out over £2 billion extra a year in benefits to people who have no connection to our country and who have never paid in a penny in tax”.

If I want to move to, say, France, and claim benefits, without working or studying, then I wouldn’t get very far. The right to live in another member state is only valid for people who are working, studying, or capable of supporting themselves. Directive 2004/38/EC, the relevant bit of legislation on this matter, even goes as far as to say:

Persons exercising their right of residence should not, however, become an unreasonable burden on the social assistance system of the host Member State during an initial period of residence.

OJ L 158, 30.4.2004, p. 81

As far as I can tell, the £2.5 billion bill that Chris Grayling MP has claimed the UK will have to fork-out for the unwashed masses of Europe to come and watch daytime TV in Britain, is scaremongering, playing to a crowd that is already whipped up in an irrational fear of the foreign, barely informed on the truth of what the EU is, what it does, and what it is for. Mind you, the sort of comments that crop up below articles of that sort are always pretty funny. My favourite was this one from ‘rightrightright’:

Cameron will huff and puff to the camera and then go along with it, saying his usual “we can’t do anything else” which means “we don’t want to do anything else”.

It isn’t “just” benefits, it’s housing, hospital and school places, roads, the strain on power supplies, sewage systems and the inevitable encroachment upon our green spaces to provide for these utterly alien beings.  We pay, they play (and prey – not a spelling mistake).

P.S. I can’t let the paragraph on prisoners’ rights pass. How can a newspaper that claims the standing that The Telegraph claims, mix up two totally different international organisations?

The row is the latest example of Coalition ministers appearing powerless to halt the EU overturning UK policy. Last year, a European Court judgment forced David Cameron to agree to allow prisoners the vote.

Photograph used under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence. From ukhomeoffice on Flickr.

Though declared to be the winner of the much delayed (it was originally scheduled for 2005) 2010 Presidential Election, Ouatarra has, so far, only managed to take full control of the hotel in Abidjan where he is based, guarded by a significant number of UN ‘blue-helmets’, with Gbagbo refusing to hand over the reins. For the international community to do nothing in this case would be intolerable in the defence of democratic principles and the stability of West Africa. The already divided nature of Côte d’Ivoire, with a Muslim north and Christian south, and the fractious support for Gbagbo to remain in power, means that there is too much danger of an escalation of conflict in the country, and a potential return to civil war. Too many senseless acts of violence have already occurred. The question is of what should be done, and who should do it.

Though military intervention has been suggested, and arguments for it have been put forth, I would be concerned that the assessment of the resistance that will meet any foreign force attempting to oust Gbagbo is somewhat lacking.

“The mlitiary option will cause minimum loss of lives because Gbagbo is protected by a ‘rag tag’ band of soldiers. Besides, Ivory Coast does not even have a formidable air force. Neither appeasement nor sanctions is the way to force Gbagbo out of office. Sanctions will only go as far as blocking Gbagbo’s yes men from international travel.”

Tony Bello

In regionally comparative terms, the armed forces of Côte d’Ivoire are probably strong enough to pose a realistic challenge to an external force. The likelihood that a forceful intervention will be carried out, not by UN or EU forces, but by ECOWAS, enhances this problem. The capacity and experience of ECOWAS forces, when compared to those of the UN or the EU, is lesser. To act as the sole international force in an attempt to remove Gbagbo would probably mean a messy conflict, with a great degree of danger to ordinary Ivorians, caught in the middle of the fighting.

To discount military intervention and the option of doing nothing, we are left with sanctions. Though some sanctions have already been put in place, notably on cocoa exports, there is room for a more stringent set of sanctions to be enforced, especially on the part of the European Union. This solution would lessen the violent threat to civilians that military action would bring, and ultimately starve Gbagbo of the resources he needs to hold onto power. Rather than a clamour for battle, the international community (and this term includes directly neighbouring states) should seek to use every method of peaceful sanction, coupled with genuine attempts at mediation. For its part, the EU should move beyond the pointless waffle spouted by its High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton (PDF link), and seek to use its existing significant involvement in the country, and its capacity for meaningful actions, to encourage Gbagbo’s departure from office.

Photo by busy.pochi on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 licence.

“Why” you might ask, “is a greeny EU politics blog telling me to look for a piece of music I’ve never heard of, by a Colombian pop star?” Well, it is precisely that the song is not available in Britain, while it is available here in Belgium (and indeed around most of the rest of the continent). Does it not seem just a bit wrong that I can only buy this song with my Belgian bank account and address? If I try in the UK, no luck; the Dizzee Rascal infused hispanophone pop will have to wait.

Call me an idealist with a questionable taste in music, but I thought half the point of the diplomatic motorcades, Council of Ministers hoo-haas, European Commission, and all that which blights and brightens life here in Brussels, was to “establish an internal market”. If the music industry is still segmented so distinctly between countries, then surely, this cannot be called an internal market?

Now, my first instinct (once I had laboriously procured the Loca Freemasons Radio Edit), was to think that this sort of prohibition must be contrary to the treaties of the EU! How can the maintenance of strict, nationally demarcated markets for a whole industry possibly be allowed under EU law? Sadly, since it doesn’t seem that any governmental involvement to perpetuate the divisions exists, it looks like it is quite possibly legal.

But—and if it wasn’t already clear enough, from the fact that I have spent my evening with a copy of the treaties and European Court of Justice cases, that I’m a bit of a politics/legal geek, it will soon become apparent—I couldn’t leave it there.

Now, it does say in a Regulation that breaches of the rules on the internal market can be caused by people as well as governments, so there’s scope perhaps for the licensing bodies which enforce the national music market divisions to be breaking the rules. But this does all rather rely on a definition of what music is.

Not that I’m asking whether you could place a legal definition on whether the disturbingly bouffanted warblings of JedWard can be defined as constituting music; rather I mean, when I click ‘Buy’ in iTunes, what precisely am I buying? Is it a product (under one set of EU rules), or merely an intellectual property right to use and copy the music in a restricted set of circumstances (under another set of rules)?

In its terms and conditions, iTunes calls itself a service, and talks of me buying “a licence for digital content (“Products”)”. Amazon MP3 also mentions my “right to use the Digital Content”, once I’ve handed over some cash. So it sounds like, as far as the online stores are concerned, I’m buying a licence to intellectual property, which doesn’t count as buying a “good” under European law.

Thanks to this contractual nicety, the inclusion of private actions in the list of things which can cause obstacles to the internal market might not be justified in this matter (I’m certainly not  lawyer, just good at quoting case references), but assuming it is justified, would a concerted effort to segment the market for music downloads count as a violation of EU law? Well, assuming that my trashy Colombian pop download is a ‘service’, then quite possibly, yes; though the distinctions which need to be made here are far beyond me.

Of course, I’m in no position to engage a lawyer and bring a case to the ECJ, if it could even get that far (my non-lawyerlyness can’t be stressed enough), but to have a single market for media across the EU would be of massive benefit to European Citizens. Imagine not having to download pirated copies of songs by The Dø that you hear and love when listening to Studio Brussel over the Internet in the UK. Imagine being able to legitimately watch the latest episode of Come Fly With Me or Spooks when you’re sitting in a student flat in Holland.

Ok, so most Europeans don’t have quite the same cross-border tastes as me, but the prohibition on enjoying the music I want to listen to, and the films and TV programmes I want to watch has got to be as much against the principles of a single united Europe as you can get.

One solution to all this mess of barriers would be to simply ignore the idea of buying a licence for the music I listen to; plenty of people already do so, and thus free themselves of the boxing-in that media industries inflict on their customers. The thing is, I want to pay for the music I listen to. Maybe Madonna doesn’t need the few cents I send her way when buying a song, but the cost of developing, recording, and distributing music has to be covered somehow. Anyway, despite the fact I don’t sell any of it, I do produce content (this blog, my photos on Flickr, etc.), for which I appreciate my right to determine how other people can use it (most of it, but not all, is licensed under Creative Commons).

There is some hope, in that the EU has recognised the problems presented by a fragmented market in online music, but whether anything will be done… I don’t think it too likely. Maybe, whenever it eventually becomes an option, this would make a good subject of a Citizens Initiative.

If there are any legally minded people who’d care to enlighten me on the many points where I’m sure my attempts at legal thinking have gone disastrously wrong, then feel very free to use the comments section.

Finnish lake image from daneen_vol on Flickr. The Shakira statue image is in the public domain. Fishing rod image from tsmall on Flickr. Graphic  is licensed under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 2.0) which applies only to this image. The copyright to this article is reserved, and it should not be considered to be licensed as the rest of this site.

Anyway, the Duff Report was my main focus, and seems quite interesting in its proposals. I hadn’t encountered it before today, but the idea of transnational lists for the European Parliament elections is one that has been floating around for a little while. Theoretically, I like the idea, but it looks like something that would be nigh on impossible to implement, requiring as it does, a treaty change, and by extension, consent from member states, which by even more extension means national political parties voting to give up some of their control over who can be the MEP for their ideological stand-point. Andrew Duff, the rapporteur on the Electoral Act, seems to think a constitutional convention is a good idea for bringing together the proposals on the matter of pan-EU MEPs into a concrete treaty change, but his enthusiasm for it begs the question of whether he paid any attention to the rhetoric that was flying around at the time of the Lisbon Treaty’s ratification. Frankly, I can’t see a way for a Europeanising treaty change, or constitutional convention to take place for a few years at least.

It’ll be interesting to see how this one pans out though. I quite like the idea of pan-European MEPs—especially if they could represent the interests of Europeans who’ve ended up living outside their own state—and some of his other proposals are amusingly outlandish (harmonising electoral procedures/dates, votes at 16 in European elections*, making the Belgians accept noticeably fewer seats than the Dutch).

* I’m for votes at 16, but to introduce for only one election, and to try to do so in all member states at once?! Not an easy place to start.

I’m a bit surprised that Sarkozy is still pushing on, claiming support from other heads of state and government, despite the fact that he really does seem to be standing alone on this one. I suppose it shows a modicum of decency in the leaders in the EU that there have been public condemnations of the French Government’s actions, and it certainly is nice to see a Commissioner willing to publicly criticise a member state, but I can’t help but feel that it is all a bit too little, and a bit too late. I don’t want Europe to be tiptoeing around, with everyone playing diplomacy. The EU should be part of the rough and tumble of politics, just like any national capital or regional government. Maybe the next time a member state does something reprehensible—though obviously it’d be nice if whatever it was simply didn’t happen—the Commission and Parliament speak out sooner.

I could never quite bring myself to proclaim, “anyone but Barroso”, last year when the post of Commission President was being considered—what with the implications that I’d plump for Wilders or Griffin instead—, but still, I really can’t say that I think he’s any good.

When I think of Barroso, I think of the grey concrete and soulless boulevards of the European quarter of Brussels. He is a civil servant and a bureaucrat; I can’t summon any idea of what he stands for, and, perhaps more importantly, where he wants to take the EU. Maybe this could be seen as a good thing, for the EU to have a settled time to get used to its new system with Lisbon &c., but while the EU is doing the equivalent of breaking in a new pair of shoes, where does it leave public perception and opinion of the Union?

Various blogs and newspaper articles have suggested that the post-war idealism of peace in Europe, brought about by the unity between nations, is meaningless to most people of my generation. Frankly they’re right. I still think it is one very positive contribution of the European project, but it isn’t something that can motivate people to accept what is still an oddity in most people’s conceptions of what a state is, and where laws come from.

Ultimately I wasn’t surprised by Barroso’s first State of the [European] Union. It was as much of a feast of buzzwords as many have predicted, and it didn’t really seem to say anything astonishingly new or push forward a continuing vision of where the European project is going. Perhaps it will prove a worthwhile contribution to the political process of the EU, with a growing acceptance that the citizens, and thus their representatives in Parliament, are prime, with the executive reporting to them, but I have little faith that this isn’t just going to end up like the sort of mechanical and contrived show that so much of EU politics and governance manages to perform. The fact that the compulsory attendance of MEPs was discussed before, with members being infantilized by a requirement to press voting buttons to confirm their presence is perhaps testament enough to the unnatural character of such an occasion.

Image from the European Parliament on Flickr, used under a Creative Commons licence.

It’s far from a new problem. Roma people have lived around the margins of society for many decades, but the actions of Sarkozy—soon to be joined by the mayor of Rome—have increased the intensity of debate. While it is a brutal way to do so, it is perhaps good for the issue to receive much discussion. The challenge presented by Roma camps is not one of how to rid a nation of the scourge of filthy scroungers; the challenge is of how to include the people residing in those camps in the society which they are located in, how to enhance living conditions, and how to increase opportunities to find employment and to improve skills and education. Essentially, the challenge posed to European states by Roma people is the same as the challenge posed to those states by any marginalised group, regardless of its origin.

This sentiment means nothing to most people, but it is against the spirit of the Europe we have created to push a disadvantaged group out of a country or city. Rather than tiptoeing around and trying to be diplomatic, our politicians in the EU should justify the grandeur, pomp, and ceremony with which they surround themselves, and condemn the actions of any national or regional government which sees fit to try to sweep ‘the Roma problem’ under the carpet.

Anyway, with perhaps a little stutter, while I attempt to get everything settled (dealing with Belgian bureaucrats is not fun), the Thursday Briefing is back. I did have a chance to think about the content of the site though, and I plan to change the focus. This started out as an attempt at a hybrid Scottish-European-Green politics blog, but since I haven’t lived in Scotland for more than a year, I think it is time to change the focus to being a much more of a EU/Green blog. Not that I won’t ever write about Scotland or Scottish politics, but it only makes sense to focus on what I know, and that is the EU.

So, what started as a little experiment in CSS3 has now entered its second year of existence. Lets hope it can last to its third birthday.

“… 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.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9NsqO9YkYs

“The Union shall establish an internal market … It shall promote economic, social and territorial cohesion, and solidarity among Member States. It shall respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity, and shall ensure that Europe’s cultural heritage is safeguarded and enhanced.”

To me, these provisions suggest that a copyright licensing system that reinforces national borders and locks some truly fantastic content (naturally not just TV, but also music &c.) into the member states would be contrary to the principles on which the EU is built. I have a feeling it’ll take a tad more than an EBU workshop with Tom Dice and his guitar to make cross-border copyright work.