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 treaties on sharing military capacity might seem to be a step in the direction of what I profess to desire, I don’t think this latest set of developments signals such a move. Conversely, I think it is a profoundly anti-European action. Rather than put efforts into greater cooperation with other countries (including of course, France), the British and French governments have chosen to bypass the European sphere, and go for a distinctly Anglo-Franco deal. It is a retreat to the comforts of intergovernmentalism, a petty treaty of old, concluded in such a fashion, and lacking the recognition of the importance of Europe sticking together in the ever more diverse world which we now inhabit.

Photo: Creative Commons, The Prime Minister’s Office, Flickr

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.

“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.

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.

“I know very well that the stability pact is stupid, like all decisions that are rigid.”

Romano Prodi, 2002

Why, oh why did we not go for a stronger stability and growth pact?! If it could have been enforced properly, then Greece wouldn’t have been allowed to get into the state it is in, and the Germans wouldn’t have had one of their Euro worst-case-scenarios realised. I’m prompted to write this by the latest twist to appear in the tale, with Slovakia turning its contribution to Greece into an election issue. The Greek mess is one of the ultimate stress tests for the Eurozone. If the loans and horrible austerity being imposed on the, generally innocent, people who have been repeatedly lied to by their government about the economy work, then it will have passed the test; like the nuclear submarines that went to sea with sealed pressure valves though, the Eurozone shouldn’t be put through this again. Perhaps it’s time to revisit the Stability and Growth Pact, and come up with something that is more than a diplomatically negotiated name and a toothless policy.

I’ve posted on this before, and I’m still in a bit of a split mind about expansion of the EU. The problem which is blocking me from taking one view or the other is that I want to think of there being some form of common European identity, which can act as the bond that will keep European states together, and allow more integration. It’s clear that this is present in Iceland, but try as I might, I find it hard to extend this to Turkey. There is much in Turkish society to give it close links to Europe, but just as that may be the case, there is more to distance it from the cultural bond in music, art, language and society that is shared between people and states in ‘old’ Europe.

I said I was in a split mind though, and I’ve just given reasons why I think Iceland should be admitted to the EU, while Turkey shouldn’t. The other part of my mind wants to see Turkey in the EU, along with Iceland, to fulfil the idea of the EU being a way of spreading the values of human rights and democracy.

I still don’t know which argument I agree with more. I guess I have to choose between a tightly integrated cultural Europe, or a looser beacon of all things good Europe.

Little tiny disclaimer: I’m differing from European Greens policy quite a lot here, so even though there is a European Greens election banner at the top of the page, this post in no way reflects the view of the party. Oh, and think big, vote Green!