Thanks to very little BBC reporting on it, it wasn’t until I noticed the European Council lanyards on the other people in the pub last night that I realised that there had been a summit during the day (somehow, despite working in the centre of Europe, and dealing with EU related things all day, I manage to miss the big stuff), but with the reports today of a confrontation between Sarkozy and Barroso, I’m glad that for once we see some passion in a European summit. It’s just unfortunate that it was over the appalling treatment of European citizens.
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.
Isn’t Europe supposed to be the continent where we look after people who have fallen on hard times, and provide them with the support that they need to get back on track, and make something out of their lives? Aren’t we supposed to have the European ideals of society and working together, rather than the harsher ‘every man for himself’ attitude that prevails in some other parts of the world? I’m asking because, for the past few weeks, the ugly discrimination and marginalisation of an entire group of people has not just walked into consciousness, but has paraded its way through the media and public debate.
What a very long time it has been since I last wrote anything here on the Thursday Briefing. My failure to post has been caused by the need to devote all my time to writing a thesis and attempting to plan and execute an international move in just a fortnight (not a wholly successful endeavour). Thankfully now though, the thesis is done and graded, and as of tomorrow the stressful nightmare that is moving house will be completed, leaving me free to pursue my attempts to become a Eurocrat here in Brussels. I have a feeling that living in Brussels and working in, and around, EU politics will be nothing but good for this blog, especially as I will have enough free time to actually write stuff.
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.
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 seem to be in a digital rights mood just now, what with my last post, and a Eurovision prompted foray into the EBU and EC’s positions on cross border media (I know, only I could go from the Eurovision Song Contest to the Audio Visual Media Services Directive in only two steps). I’m far from an expert on European broadcasting rules, and regulation of AVMS (to use the wonderful Eurojargon), my specialist area being development policy, but as an avid consumer of media, gulping down content from the UK, the Netherlands, and Belgium, to name but a few, it seems crazy that the directive is limited by not creating a common market for copyright. To get boring for a second, I shall reach for my copy of the Treaty on European Union, which states in paragraph 3 of Article 3,
“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.
I’m not sure why this election didn’t inspire me to blog in the way that I did for the US presidential election. It should have, what with it being for my own country and all, but I just didn’t see any reason to break out the custom election day theme, and live-blog it all. Anyway, I thought I’d better salvage this blog’s reputation as a political blog, and write something about the “con dem nation” (entirely plagiarised from Twitter) that we seem to have pieced together.
First off, isn’t it a bit odd to see at least one member of the European Movement as a Secretary of State in a Tory dominated cabinet? Perhaps I’m just putting too much emphasis on the European side of things. Anyway, my initial reaction to the BBC News footage of Cameron was, “could’ve been worse”, followed by noting that he’d opted for a plain microphone with no lectern (call me cynical, but was this his first theatrical step as PM?).
Policy-wise though, all I can say is that this government will be bad for Britain, and bad for Europe. Like the Irish Green’s coalition with Fianna Fáil, I think the Lib Dems will end up tarnished by their senior partner, hurting their chances in future elections, and thus removing any chance for them to show that, contrary to all evidence, they have some back-bone. The proposals for a referendum on AV are pointless; AV is pointless as an alternative, because it doesn’t do what an alternative electoral system needs to do, which is make Parliament more representative of the citizens. So, well done to the Liberals for capitulating on the one thing I wanted Liberals in government to do.
More in my sphere of concern is the impact of the new government on Britain’s place in Europe, and the effect that a Eurosceptic government in one of the big states will have. The Conservative’s insistance on calling for powers to be repatriated in some areas, and trying to put a brake on other areas will probably not hurt the EU too much. It’s a big thing, and it can comfortably withstand an uncooperative government or two. It will however hurt Britain. Enough Europeans (by which I mean people involved in Euro-politics) already complain about our intransigence, and that ill will towards the UK will probably only increase. It’ll be interesting, though perhaps uncomfortable, to watch how this affects the real world.
It feels like every second conversation I hear on the radio, or see on the tv, about the UK election is focussed on immigration. Yet I’ve barely heard any discussion of the actual merits, the pros and cons of immigration. The conversation has been entirely about counting people in and, preferably in the opinion of many people it seems, out.
Being a sort of immigrant myself, and being from a family that moves around a lot, this pointless scaremongering with statistics annoys me. Right now, I’m taking advantage of the right to live in another country that is granted by the EU. I’m restricted, as is anyone working in another EU state, Polish plumbers, Greek grouters, and Romanian researchers included, from being a burden on the Dutch state. Soon, I hope to work in Brussels, paying tax to the Belgian state, and ultimately my dream is to settle in the Netherlands and take part in Dutch society, contributing my fair share, and receiving my fair share. Amongst itinerant Europeans and migrants in general, I don’t think this desire to be a contributing member of society is unusual. So why don’t we cut the repetitive statistical nonsense aimed to massage the fears of people. There are many things that immigrants do that contribute to British society, and there are many thing that British emigrants do to contribute to other countries. This isn’t where the big challenges facing society today are.
