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Europe
Barnier pledges "more governance and regulation" for the City
The Mail reports that newly appointed EU Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier has warned the City that it faces further regulation. In an interview on French television, Barnier said: "Faced with the exit from the crisis that we're trying to shape, faced with a new sustainable green growth model, Europe has a role to play." Asked whether that meant more regulation, he said there would be "more governance and regulation where needed".
In the interview with France 24 Barnier tried to smooth over the City's concerns saying, "I will not take orders from Paris any more than I would from London or Berlin". World Politics Review quotes Open Europe saying that Barnier's appointment was "bad news" for the City.
Meanwhile, the Irish Independent reports that European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said yesterday that the EU needed new tools to ensure authorities can intervene swiftly in case of the failure of a systemically important financial institution. In a speech to the Paris Appeals Court, he said a legal framework should be designed that should be solid enough that it is not contested by shareholders "but sufficiently flexible to give discretion to authorities".
Mail Telegraph Irish Independent France 24 World Politics Review
New study: AIFM Directive could reduce EU's growth rate by 0.2%
A new study by Europe Economics for the European Parliament claims that the proposed AIFM Directive could reduce the annual growth rate of the EU by as much as 0.2 percentage points. The assessment said the draft rules are "premature" and based on a "dearth of evidence". According to the study, one-off compliance costs for the European alternative fund management industry could be as high as €22bn - far exceeding previous estimates, including one from Open Europe which put the cost in the first year at up to €1.9 billion and around €1 billion thereafter over a ten year period.
EU rejects US and China's proposed emissions reductions;
Gordon Brown calls for EU to commit to a 30% cut in carbon emissions by 2020
The Times reports that the EU has rejected the carbon emission targets tabled by the United States and China at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The US has offered to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels, which equates to a 4 percent cut, based on 1990 levels, according to the paper. The US Environment Protection Agency said yesterday that greenhouse gases endanger human life and must be regulated, meaning that Congressional approval would not be needed for the US to sign up to any deal.
China has also offered to reduce its emissions per unit of GDP by 40-45 percent by 2020, which the EU's main negotiator Andreas Carlgren argues would result in a huge overall increase in emissions because of China's predicted 8 percent annual economic growth. The EU has unilaterally pledged to cut its emissions by 20 percent, from 1990 levels, by 2020 and by up to 30 percent if other countries made ambitious commitments. Die Welt quotes German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying, "India and China in particular must make more promises".
The Guardian reports that Gordon Brown is pushing the EU to commit to a 30% cut, saying: "We've got to make countries recognise that they have to be as ambitious as they say they want to be. It's not enough to say 'I may do this, I might do this, possibly I'll do this'. I want to create a situation in which the European Union is persuaded to go to 30%." However, he stopped short of saying the EU should increase its offer irrespective of the outcome in Copenhagen.
EUobserver reports that the Polish EU Affairs Minister Mikolaj Dowgielewicz said yesterday that Europe cannot jump up to a 30 percent reduction target at the conference because such a move can only be made following an impact assessment, as agreed by EU states in 2008. He said: "A target of reducing emissions 20 percent higher than the EU can not be decided only at the political level at Copenhagen, but must be based partly on the basis of the impact assessment that [the] European Commission must present to the European Council in March. This impact assessment should be made before [we] accept a binding agreement". The Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said: "It is existing EU policy to shift from a 20 percent to 30 percent cut in the context of an ambitious deal. We have given a promise. There will not be time for an impact assessment before [Copenhagen]. We knew there wouldn't be time when we made that promise".
UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said: "Because of the economic recession, a 30 percent cut is much more like a 20 percent cut. The costs and burdens are much more akin to what a 20 percent cut would have been a short while ago."
Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that scientists at the European Commission have cast doubt on whether biofuels could ever be produced sustainably in significant quantities, arguing that nitrous oxide emitted in making biofuel may well negate most of the carbon dioxide savings made by replacing fossil fuels. The EU Biofuels Directive requires 10% of all road transport fuel to come from biofuels by 2020.
Times Irish Independent Irish Times Guardian EurActiv Independent: Lawson FT EUobserver Guardian Die Welt Open Europe research Open Europe research 2
Tata could make £1.2 billion from ETS through closure of Corus plant
The EU Referendum blog argues that the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme may have played a role in the closure of the Corus Redcar steel plant, part of the Tata Group Europe. It suggest that, with a capacity of 3,000,000 tons of steel, closure of the plant will deliver "savings" of over 6 million tons of carbon dioxide, worth £80 million per annum at current rates but around £200 million at expected market levels.
It further argues that by "offshoring" production to India and bringing emissions down - from over twice the EU level - to the level currently produced by the Redcar plant, Tata stands to make another £200 million per annum from the UN's Clean Development Mechanism. It argues, "Indian plants being paid up to £30 a ton for each ton of carbon dixoide 'saved' by building [a] new plant, while the company which owns them also gets gets paid £30 for each ton of carbon dioxide not produced in its Redcar plant. That gives it an estimated £400 million a year from the closure of the Redcar plant up to 2012 - potentially up to £1.2 billion. And that is over and above benefitting from cheaper production costs on the sub-continent."
EU Referendum blog Open Europe research Open Europe research 2
EU in secretive talks with US on intellectual property and the internet
EUobserver reports that EU officials are secretively working on a global intellectual property treaty with industrialised countries such as the US, Canada, Australia and Japan, known as the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement (ACTA). The treaty has been presented as a way of tackling physical forgeries, such as designer handbags or pirated DVDs. But leaks reveal that it will also have a much broader scope, including the sensitive issue of intellectual copyright on the internet.
The article notes that the ACTA talks are taking place outside all existing multilateral treaty-making bodies such as the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), the UN or the WTO, making it impossible for elected politicians, media or the public to get access to official documents.
Some press reports have claimed that under ACTA customs officials could end up going through travellers' mp3 players and laptops to look for pirate files or that ISPs will be forced to spy on their customers. "I experienced the lengthy discussion about the EU's telecom package and the worry that internet users expressed about the risks of being cut off," Swedish Telecom Minister Asa Torstensson said. "It shows the importance of transparency around these negotiations. We now have a similar debate about ACTA coming up."
EUobserver Open Europe research
EU pay rise a "virtual certainty"
The Irish Times reports on the planned 3.7% pay rise for EU Commission staff, including those working in member states and further afield. The rise has to be approved by EU member states, which blocked it last week. However, the article reports that "payment of the increase is held to be a virtual certainty because the EU as employer is contractually bound to implement the findings of an annual pay review."
France defiant over excluding UK from meeting on CAP
The FT reports on yesterday's meeting of EU agriculture ministers organised by France to seek a consensus on support for a well-funded EU Common Agriculture Policy. The UK, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Malta, who all favour reform and scaling back of the CAP, were not invited to the meeting. France is holding the meeting because it wants to mobilise supporters of the CAP before negotiations kick off next year about the EU's next budgetary period from 2014 to 2020.
The article quotes French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire saying, "France is the biggest agricultural power in Europe and it is not illegitimate for it to reflect on this and associate all other member states that want a strong CAP. If the UK ever wanted to join us and sign an appeal for a strong CAP, it would be welcome."
The UK wants to phase out all market price support and all direct payments to farmers by 2020 but a majority of member states favour retaining the status quo.
Conservatives call for other nations to shoulder greater share of NATO burden
Bloomberg reports that Shadow Defence Minster Liam Fox will say today that the future of NATO is at risk unless member nations more evenly shoulder the human and financial costs of wars. Fox will call on the 28 NATO nations to pay into a central fund that would finance deployments. The article notes that the comments are aimed at pressuring Germany and France to send more troops to fight in the war in Afghanistan.
EU to take softer line on Israel over 'two state solution'
EUobserver reports that Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the Czech Republic are pushing for a softer line toward Israel in an EU statement on the Middle East. There have been reports that the EU would call for East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future Palestinian state but the latest draft no longer explicitly mentions the proposal.
Beesley: EU financial talks "put paid to any illusion that the Lisbon Treaty means more transparency"
Writing for the Irish Times' European diary Arthur Beesley argues that recent talks on financial regulation "put paid to any illusion that the Lisbon Treaty heralded a new era of transparency". He notes that, "Negotiations were held in private for more than three hours, leading to a backroom compromise. When the discussion finally went public, observers saw ritualistic congratulation among ministers before the deal was declared to be done, with unanimous support, after about nine minutes."
With 99 percent of the votes counted, reports suggest that Romanian voters have handed incumbent centre-right President Traian Basescu a second term in office.
The French National Assembly's EU Committee has published a report on the recent ruling from the German Constitutional Court on the Lisbon Treaty and the powers of the German parliament and court regarding EU policy. It argues that the interpretation by some that the Court criticised European integration or alluded to a "democratic deficit" is a misunderstanding.
The front page of the IHT reports that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk's Civic Platform Party is pushing for Poland to join the eurozone as soon as possible, but in order to do so the government must press ahead with unpopular measures, including raising the retirement age from 64 for women and 65 for men to 67 for both.
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A 'Save Herbal Medicine' campaign has been launched, calling on the Government to prevent herbal medicines disappearing from the high street when an EU ban comes into place in April 2011. The ban states that only "statutorily regulated" professionals, such as doctors, would be able to prescribe alternative remedies.
OE blog
The WSJ reports that Standard & Poor's yesterday warned the Greek and Portuguese governments over their sovereign-debt ratings, raising issues that could lead to downgrades in the future.
EUobserver reports that EU foreign affairs ministers yesterday removed restrictions against a trade agreement with Serbia, after the Netherlands put aside objections related to Belgrade's performance on war crimes probes, which had been a hurdle in its application for EU membership.
EUobserver EurActiv BBC European Voice
UK
The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has warned that the UK will drop out of the world's top 10 economies by 2015.
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