Open Europe
Fortnightly Open Europe Bulletin: 29 January 2010
MEPs vote to increase their allowances by €1,500 a month
EU opens 54 embassies across the world as Lisbon Treaty comes into force
Greek deficit endangers eurozone
News in brief
Open Europe in the news
Quote of the fortnight:
"The European institutional public sphere is largely a public discourse for elites, it is a sphere in which citizens remain uninvolved. This has in turn contributed to the EU's democratic deficit... efforts must also be made to improving the EU's transparency - particularly its financial and accounting processes - and to reducing bureaucracy by taking subsidiarity seriously."
The Right Reverend Christopher Hill, Bishop of Guildford, in a report by the Church of England's House of Bishops' Europe Panel, 15 January 2010
1. MEPs vote to increase their allowances by €1,500 a month
MEPs on the European Parliament's Budget Committee voted on Wednesday in favour of increasing MEPs' allowances for hiring assistants by €1,500 a month. They are claiming that the additional cash is needed to help them deal with the new powers awarded to the European Parliament under the Lisbon Treaty. They also voted to hire an extra 150 staff to help with their increased workload. (European Voice, 28 January)
This latest increase in MEPs' allowances will cost EU taxpayers an additional €13.3 million, and increase the European Parliament's budget to €1.6 billion this year. In total, MEPs already have around £360,000 available to them in salaries, and various allowances and expenses. (OE blog, May 2009)
In response to the vote, European Voice Deputy Editor Tim King wrote an article arguing, "For 40 years, a near-secret agreement has governed how the three main institutions of the European Union divide up administrative spending...Forty years on, it is obvious to many outside observers that the Parliament has more money than it knows what to do with." (European Voice: King, 28 January)
Separately the EP's Budgetary Control Committee published a document detailing the EP's budget in 2008/09, which reveals that the Parliament lost 54,000 sick days in 2008. It also reveals that the Parliament spent €2.3 million renovating its sports centre, €4.3million on a new visitor centre, despite the fact that it already has one, and hundreds of thousands of pounds on gas-guzzling luxury cars which emit as much as 260 CO2 g/km. It also shows that the cost of repairing the ceiling in the European Parliament's second seat in Strasbourg was €8.8 million. (Committee document)
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http://openeuropeblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/ridiculously-generous.html
2. EU opens 54 embassies across the world as Lisbon Treaty comes into force;
EU desperate to set up new diplomatic service before UK election
54 EU embassies have opened across the world since the Lisbon Treaty came into force in December 2009, without any public announcement. Embassies in Beijing, Kabul and Addis Ababa, the seat of the African Union, will be headed by ambassadors who are empowered to speak on behalf of the whole EU. (Telegraph, 22 January)
The new embassies will co-ordinate member states' bilateral missions to the countries in question and have a mandate to carry out consular work, with an EU official saying that the EU embassies "are going to be a bit more political" than the European Commission delegations that they replaced. (EUobserver, 21 January)
Controversially, the Lisbon Treaty allows the EU to determine rules on diplomatic and consular protection by qualified majority vote, meaning that Britain can now be overruled on crucial diplomatic matters, such as on how to respond to human rights abuses in a conflict-ridden country. (OE guide to the Lisbon Treaty)
There are fears that, with the EU embassies increasingly duplicating the work of national missions, member states may close their own embassies in order to save money. (Irish Times, 22 January)
Meanwhile, EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton has called on a group of advisors to help her with the establishment of the EU's new diplomatic service, the European External Action Service (EEAS), also brought in under the Lisbon Treaty. Some members of Ashton's team believe that negotiations will become bogged down if the Conservative Party wins the UK's General Election, likely to be held in May, and are therefore urging that the EEAS be fully established before then. (European Voice, 28 January)
This tight deadline has given the European Commission more power over the formation of the new service, at the expense of national governments, with an internal Commission working group set up by Commission President Barroso already at work preparing documents for Ashton's group of advisors to 'rubber stamp'. (EUobserver, 22 January)
3. Greek deficit endangers eurozone
As Greece's economic difficulties continue, fears of a eurozone break-up have reached the point where the European Central Bank has issued a legal analysis of what would happen if a country tried to leave monetary union. The analysis argued that eurozone exit would also entail expulsion from the European Union. (Telegraph: Evans-Pritchard, 29 January)
Meanwhile, a leaked European Commission paper argued that soaring public deficits in eurozone countries such as Greece are a "matter of serious concern for the eurozone as a whole" which "can weaken confidence in the euro and endanger the cohesion of the monetary union". (EUobserver, 25 January)
There are widespread reports that France and Germany are drawing up plans for bailing out Greece. This has been denied by the French and the German governments, with Germany's Economy Minister Rainer Brüderle saying that there would be "no bail-outs" for struggling debtors. (Telegraph, 29 January)
However other EU leaders have indicated that Greece would in fact receive financial support if it faced the risk of a default, with high-level EU officials saying Greece would, in the last resort, receive emergency support in one form or another. (Financial Times, 29 January)
The EU treaties prohibit national governments from taking on the financial commitments of other member states (such as assisting in closing another member state's budget deficit). However, given the political prestige that is associated with the euro, EU leaders will probably find a way to bail out Greece rather than allowing the country default on its debts - a default that would have devastating consequences for the eurozone as a whole.
Should a bail-out take place, the EU will take a massive step towards a common economic policy, since taxpayers in one country would then effectively be liable for the failures and mistakes of a government in another country (over which they have no democratic control). Such a step is likely to further frustrate European citizens already fed up with the pace of EU integration - particularly in Germany, whose taxpayers are likely to shoulder most of the burden. A June 2009 poll commissioned by Open Europe showed that 71% of Germans are against using taxpayers' money to bail out another EU country. (OE press release)
But, as we've been reminded again and again, the EU is very good at both breaking its own rules and ignoring public opinion.
Please leave your comments on our blog:
http://openeuropeblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/to-bail-out-or-not-to-bail-out-that-is.html
4. News in brief
Councils spend £5 million a year to maintain offices in Brussels. Almost all councils and development agencies in England and Wales, as well as the Local Government Associations, now have offices and permanent staff representing them in Brussels. Their operations, which have run for two decades, cost taxpayers at least £5million a year in staff and office costs alone, excluding trips to Brussels for meetings each year. The biggest spender is the Welsh Assembly, which employs 10 staff in Brussels at a cost of £880,000 a year. (Sunday Express, 17 January)
Commission floats ideas for EU-wide driving laws. The European Commission has proposed ideas for drawing up EU-wide driving laws in a new "green" campaign on motorists, as part of its Action Plan on Urban Mobility. Measures being considered include a barrage of new maximum speed limits in towns and cities. British motorists could also be forced to undertake exams in "environmentally-friendly" road skills as part of an EU-wide overhaul of driving tests. Many heavy polluting vehicles could also face restricted access to newly-declared "green zones" in urban centres. (Express, 21 January)
Commission plans to end UK opt-out from 48-hour week could cost £12bn a year. The new European Commission, due to take office on 10 February, is planning to revise the EU's Working Time Directive, which could lead to the UK losing its ability to opt-out of the 48-hour maximum working week. Open Europe research has found that the cost of the Directive to the UK economy currently stands at between £3.4 and £3.9 billion a year, and would rise to up to £12 billion a year if the opt-out were lost. (Telegraph, 25 January; Sunday Express, 17 January)
Labour and Lib Dems thwart attempt to introduce "referendum lock" on future EU treaties. The Conservatives unsuccessfully tried to make an amendment to the Government's Constitutional Reform Bill on 19 January, which would have meant that any future Treaty transferring power to the EU be subject to a referendum. The amendment was defeated by 303 votes to 183. (Conservative Home OE blog Hansard, 20 January)
5,000 Britons face eviction from homes after Court upholds ECJ ruling. The UK Court of Appeal has upheld a European Court of Justice ruling saying that a British couple in Northern Cyprus must surrender their land to its original owner Meletios Apostolides, a displaced Greek Cypriot who fled the North during the Turkish invasion. The decision has implications for around 5,000 Britons with homes on the island. (Telegraph,19 January; Metro Times 20 January)
5. Open Europe in the news
MEPs vote to give themselves more cash
29 January Express TheParliament Telegraph
Following the news that MEPs voted to increase their allowances, the Telegraph and The Parliament magazine quoted Open Europe's Stephen Booth saying: "The EU institutions are so out of touch with ordinary citizens that the prevailing culture in Brussels seems to be 'who cares, it's only taxpayers' money'".
Open Europe Director Mats Persson was quoted in the Express arguing, "MEPs already receive more than enough cash so there's no justification for this increase. If they want to be taken seriously by European taxpayers they have to cut back on their lavish habits, particularly as people continue to feel the pinch of the recession."
EU-funded think tanks defend their credibility
29 January EUobserver
Open Europe's Pieter Cleppe was quoted by EUobserver in an article reporting that 58 think-tanks will receive €6.7 million in EU subsidies this year. Pieter said, "They [the EU] are setting up their own committees claiming that these are independent think tanks when, in fact, they are cheerleaders for the EU. They do not question the EU to the extent they would if they were not being funded by it. That's the whole point of the grants."
Lisbon Treaty's "institutional chaos" leads to fight over who is the 'real' EU President
27 January Nieuwsblad TVP 25 January CEP: Cleppe
Open Europe's Pieter Cleppe was interviewed by Polish broadcaster TVP, discussing EU President Herman Van Rompuy's first weeks in office. Pieter said: "EU President Van Rompuy has not exactly been modest during his first month in office, engaging in a fight with the Spanish EU Presidency over who is the 'real' EU President, in the wake of the institutional chaos brought in by the Lisbon Treaty."
In an opinion piece for the Czech Centre for Economics and Politics think-tank, Pieter argued: "Van Rompuy doesn't want to let countries decide their own economic model. The Anglosaxon, Swedish or Eastern-European models should all disappear. In 1998, he wrote in a book: 'The Rhineland model is limited to the Benelux countries and Germany. It needs to become the model of the whole of the Union.'"
The threat to the EU's competiveness does not come from a lack of Commission powers
26 January The Parliament
Writing in The Parliament magazine, Mats Persson looked at the Spanish EU Presidency and argued: "The threat to Europe's overall competiveness arises not from a lack or binding targets or commission powers, but from over-intervention and rules that de-incentivise growth, innovation and job creation."
EU's bid to end opt-out from 48 hour week will push costs to £12bn a year
25 January Telegraph 17 January Sunday Express
Following the revelation that the European Commission is planning to revise the Working Time Directive, the Sunday Express and Telegraph both cited Open Europe's research on the Directive, which found that losing the opt-out could cost the UK economy as much as £12bn a year by 2011. Stephen Booth was quoted in the Sunday Express saying that the UK should regain control of social legislation.
The Telegraph quoted Mats Persson, warning that "Losing the opt-out would send the annual bill for this Directive through the roof...Attempts to abolish the opt-out will come back again and again until the UK has a full derogation from EU social legislation. An incoming Conservative government must make a manifesto commitment to seek a full opt-out from European employment law. Riding the fence simply won't do."
EU opens 54 embassies
22 January Telegraph
The Telegraph quoted Mats Persson saying that "Common EU embassies mean that Britain can be overruled on crucial diplomatic matters, such as on how to respond to human rights abuses in a conflict-ridden country...In order for common embassies to work, EU member states must have shared national interests. This simply isn't the case, particularly in Africa where the EU has consistently failed to act in a unified manner in the past."
'We will be followed in 100 ways'
22 January TVN24
Polish news channel TVN24 looked at the Indect project, a new surveillance technology funded by the EU, and quoted Stephen Booth describing the project as "Orwellian".
House of Commons
22 January Hansard
In a debate in the House of Commons Conservative MP for North East Bedfordshire Alistair Burt cited Open Europe's research into the cost of ten years of EU regulation, which found that the cost of regulation has tripled for the farming industry since DEFRA was formed in 2001.
Commission floats ideas for EU-wide driving tests and speeding limits
21 January Express
Open Europe was quoted in the Express following the news that the EU is planning a new 'green' campaign on motorists saying, "This illustrates that the EU simply can't stop interfering in every aspect of people's lives."
Germans say no to bailing out Greece
19 January Scotsman
An article in the Scotsman cited Open Europe's poll of German voters in June 2009, which found that 70% of Germans were against using public money to bail out other countries that have got into financial difficulties.
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