EU politics: in for the long-haul
Sunday 20 January 2013
 The biggest joke of the day though comes from Conservative MP Tracey Crouch, who says: "People need clarity about what it is that the government is saying because there are so many mixed messages", then adding: "One of the advantages of having a referendum is that we can have an informed debate on our future relationship". The joke is that the last thing we are going to see is an "informed debate", as this piece (headline above) illustrates. With the assistance of the legacy media – which will side with those who want to stay in the European Union – we will see torrents of such corporate propaganda, with agenda-seekers allowed free rein to peddle their wares. "The UK not only has to be part of Europe. It has to be a fundamentally active part of Europe," says Ian Robertson, global head of sales at BMW and a member of the board of the German company. "To think about the UK being outside of Europe doesn't make sense". This is not, as Kipling might have said, "fair dealing", as there is no possible justification for a claim that leaving the EU could possibly harm the economic interests of this corporate giants. If anything, for a purely nationalistic point of view, we would be far better off outside the EU and within the EFTA/EEA, re-engaging in discussions at global level. There will be plenty of other players in this game, but the one thing they will all have in common is a determination to avoid an informed debate. Mr Cameron and the part of the Party that remains under his control will be seeking to sell his "vision" of the new deal. Others will be seeking to gain what advantage they can, and none will have either the capacity or intent to tell the truth. To an extent, that is understandable. The truth is a moveable feast, the reality complex, difficult to understand, full of nuances and completely devoid of black and white. Modern, soundbite discourse does not lend itself to the exploration of complex issues, and the entertainment industry (aka media) has no feel for the subject. Another certainty is that the independent players will be ruthlessly excluded. The last thing the establishment wants is well-researched, accurate material raining on its parade, so that will be ignored. However, with five years to go before a referendum, if at all, it can't be said often enough that the long campaign has its own peculiarities. The short-lived FUD (fear-uncertainty-doubt) tactics of the europhiles will soon run out of steam, and one can tolerate only so many self-interested corporates before tedium sets in. In the longer term, we will see the renegotiation meme lose its attraction, as it drains away into the sands of reality. Mr Cameron will do his best to convince people that the renegotiation is real, but even his powers of persuasion will founder on the indifference of the "colleagues". That, above all, gives us hope. If the next referendum is to be a re-run of 1975, with a five year lead-in, we have the benefit of experience and have developed a few tricks, while the opposition seems to have learned nothing. So far, they are playing the same predictable games as last time. When it becomes obvious that Mr Cameron's renegotiation has failed, and he has nothing realistic on offer, it will be relatively easy to convince a cynical population that membership of the EU is going nowhere. As long as there is an "out" option and we have five long years to prepare, we should be confident of a victory. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 20/01/2013 |
Booker: Norway's "fax democracy"
Sunday 20 January 2013
In the legacy media, perhaps the most serious and comprehensive rebuttal of the "fax democracy" meme comes in the Booker column this week. But then, if it was going to happen, this always was the place it was going to be.
Thus does Booker's sub-head state, "Britain might exercise more influence over the European single market outside the EU than in it", building on the work in this blog, in Autonomous Mind, Witterings from Witney and Boiling Frog. Echoing our thoughts, Booker says that it's possibly just as well that David Cameron had to postpone that most-trailed speech in history, on Britain's place in "Europe". It might just have given him time to get rather better briefed on what he proposes to say than the advance leaks of his speech have suggested. Since Britain leaving the EU is the last thing Mr Cameron himself wants to see, he hopes to negotiate a new relationship with the EU, centred on our having continued free access to its single market: this is what he hopes to be able to put to the British people in a referendum, when such negotiations are completed in several years’ time (very possibly after he is no longer in office). But, as we have all pointed out before, that this shows so little understanding of the rules of the EU that it is no more than multiple wishful thinking. Under the EU's treaty rules, there is no way powers, once handed over by a country, can be given back. Such negotiations as Mr Cameron has in mind would require a new treaty, a convention and an intergovernmental conference, which his EU colleagues would never allow. This, incidentally, is a de facto situation. Some like to argue de jure, which gets you nowhere. Treaty analysis simply is not amenable to the Anglo-Saxon tradition of literal interpretation. EU Treaties mean what they are intended to mean, not what bits taken out of context mean. Anyhow, as we have also asserted many times, the only way Mr Cameron could compel the "colleagues" to negotiate would be by invoking Article 50 of the treaty, which can only be triggered by a country announcing that it wishes to leave – or "decouple" as we prefer to say. So the only way Mr Cameron could get agreement to the negotiations he wants would be by doing something he insists that he doesn't want to do. But another very important point he keeps on getting wrong is his insistence that he wouldn't want the kind of relationship with the EU enjoyed by the Norwegians, because although they have full access to the single market, as members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), they only do so at the price of having to obey rules they have no part in shaping: what is dismissively described as "fax democracy".
Mr Cameron clearly has not been properly briefed: the Norwegians in fact have more influence on shaping the rules of the single market than Britain does.
Like many other people, he hasn't grasped that the vast majority of the single market's rules are decided by a whole range of international and global bodies even higher than the EU – from the International Labour Organisation, which decides working-time rules, to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, which agrees world-wide standards on food safety and plant and animal health. On these bodies, Norway is represented in its own right, as an independent country, while Britain is only represented as one of the 28 members of the EU. A recent EFTA report shows that more than 90 percent of the laws of the single market include policy areas covered by UN or other global bodies. Norway has more influence in drafting laws originating from these sources than Britain, which often has to accept the "common position" agreed within the EU. There are numerous examples of such international "quasi-legislation", where Norway has more than once played a leading role in shaping rules which the EU members then have to obey. The EU countries are in fact more subject to "fax democracy" than Norway is. There have even been occasions when Norway has refused to obey rules that touch on its national interest, but which the British have to obey even though they are significantly damaging to us. Next week, Booker will go into all this in greater detail, because the extent to which the EU must act in subordination to these higher bodies is one of the least-understood aspects of the way it works. This is not to say that Britain should necessarily seek the same relationship with the EU as Norway, as a member of EFTA. But what it does demonstrate is that if Mr Cameron continues to talk scornfully of Norway being subject to "fax democracy", he and his advisers simply haven't taken on board one of the most important ways in which our globalised world is increasingly being run. If he persists in talking like this, concludes Booker, when he finally makes that long-awaited speech, it will be one of the main reasons why, as he wrote two weeks ago, he will fall flat on his face. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 20/01/2013 |
Media: the Grauniad strikes again
Saturday 19 January 2013
The Grauniad strikes again. What was that Leveson said about mainstream journalists having "a powerful reputation for accuracy"?
COMMENT THREAD Richard North 19/01/2013 |
EU politics: in "Europe" and ruled by Norway
Saturday 19 January 2013
When he says that we need to be members of the EU to gain access to the Single Market, Mr Cameron should be aware that this is what he is getting for our money (illustrated above). "Trade policy", says the EU Commission, "is an exclusive power of the EU – so only the EU, and not individual member states, can legislate on trade matters and conclude international trade agreements".
What Mr Cameron should also be aware of is that this has wide-ranging practical implications, the like of which have barely been spelled out in any public forum. But despite that, he still argues that we must stay in the EU, because "we need a say in the rules of that market". Take for instance, our car industry which last year produced 1.58 million cars, exporting a record amount. Much of that success, we are told, is the result of the Single Market, and if we left the EU, much of the car industry would move out of Britain – presumably because Britain no longer would have a say in making the rules. But who actually makes the rule for the car industry? Does Mr Cameron actually know? Does he realise that they are no longer made by the EU? When we actually look at where they do come from, we find our old friend UNECE looming large. Its Transport Division, based in Geneva, provides secretariat services to the World Forum for Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations (WP.29), and has been doing so for more than 50 years. By its own account, the World Forum incorporates into its regulatory framework the technological innovations of vehicles relating safety and environment impact. WP 29 was established on June 1952 as "Working party of experts on technical requirement of vehicles". The current name was adopted in 2000. As to a little bit of detail, the core of the Forum's work is based around the "1958 Agreement", known formally as "Agreement concerning the adoption of uniform technical prescriptions for wheeled vehicles, equipment and parts which can be fitted and/or be used on wheeled vehicles and the conditions for reciprocal recognition of approvals granted on the basis of these prescriptions". This was augmented by a further Agreement in 1998. As helpfully explained here, these form a legal framework wherein participating countries (contracting parties) agree a common set of technical prescriptions and protocols for type approval of vehicles and components. The UNECE instruments, produced under the Agreements, are classic "diqules". As quasi-legislation, they have no mandatory effect until converted into laws by the territorial bodies signatory to the agreements (contracting parties). Despite that, they used to be called "UNECE Regulations" or, less formally, "ECE Regulations". Since many non-European countries are now contracting parties to the Agreements, the regulations are now officially entitled "UN Regulations". Through this, each contracting party's type approvals are recognised by all other contracting parties.  There are currently 57 signatories to the Agreements, including non-EU countries such as Norway and the major vehicle manufacturing countries of Japan and South Korea. And the EU is also a part, having acceded via Council Decision 97/836/EC of 27 November 1997 and Council Decision 2000/125/EC of 31 January 2000. And now for the interesting bits. When it comes dealing with the World Forum, we see thisinteresting report. The European Commission on behalf of EU Member States, it says, seeks "continuously increase their involvement in the Geneva technical legislative process, in particular by working within WP.29 and its subsidiary bodies in order to ensure harmonisation between UNECE Regulations and EU legislation". As a result, we thus discover that the EU's own major regulations on the general safety of motor vehicles have been replaced with UN Regulations. They aren't EU regulations any more. They might have an EU label on them by the time they get to us, but they're made in Geneva, not Brussels. Dealing with UNECE, of course, is part of trade policy – part of the Single Market, so the EU takes change. Graciously, the EU Commission allows Member States take part in the preparatory work of the UNECE working parties. If it becomes obvious at this stage, the kindly EU tells us, that further discussions between experts are necessary, an informal working group may be set up within a working party with a view to making progress in the development of the Regulations. This may occur where there is a rapid development of complex new technologies. And we can even take part in these informal groups. However, when it comes finally to agreeing the standards proposed by UNECE, the Member States have to take the back seat. The European Commission, it says firmly, "exercises the right to vote in WP.29 on behalf of the EU and its 27 Member States". Thus, despite the UK having major vehicle manufacturing interests, producing its 1.58 million cars in 2012, we have no direct vote on vehicle standards. We do not have a seat at the table. Just in case you might ask, yes Norway – as a full member of UNECE - takes part in the World Forum. As an independent nation, it represents itself in the committees and votes on its own behalf. Despite having no indigenous manufacturing industry, it takes an active part in the proceedings. What a fascinating contrast that makes. The UK, as a member of the EU, with its seat at the EU table, isn't allowed to vote on technical standards for motor vehicles, where the decisions are actually made – in Geneva. We get a seat in Brussels, but no seat in Geneva where it really matters. On the other hand, Norway, which isn't a member of the EU, but is a member of the Single Market through the EEA, does get a vote in Geneva. Even though it doesn't have a car industry, it has more say in deciding on the standards to which our cars will be built than we do. That, no doubt, is why Mr Cameron wants us to stay in the European Union. COMMENT THREAD |
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