Booker: of Norway and other things
Sunday 28 July 2013
 The second story picks up on some of the issues that we rehearsed, with Booker telling his readers that: "Doomsayers who say we can't leave the EU have their own agenda". The crucial thing about the whole piece is that the sub-heading tells us: "Norway and Switzerland are outside the EU, but enjoy full access to the single market. We could too". This is something we need to repeat, again and again, until the message finally sinks in. Then, of course, we get the flood of comments telling us that Norway and Switzerland have to implement all the EU single market regulations and have no say in their making. But we can address these issues as well and, by the time we have finished, the naysayers will have nowhere to go. And each time Booker raises these subjects, we get a little close to our goal. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 28/07/2013 |
Brexit: lex specialis
Saturday 27 July 2013
 Less helpful is a letter from Prof. Stephen Bush, who tells us that the Article 50 procedure could "drag on for years", in which event it would be "far better" for Britain internally to repeal the European Communities Act 1972 and externally to proceed according to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). Prof. Bush is a nice enough man and he means well, but one groans inwardly at his intervention – another one which fails completely to address the realities of the post-Lisbon Treaty world. The trouble is that, with the advent in that Treaty of a formal procedure for leaving the EU – as in Article 50 – this displaces the provisions of any general treaty such as the VCLT. The reason for this is the doctrine of Lex specialis, stated in full as, Lex specialis derogat legi generali. What this means is that, where a specific provision in law exists, it takes precedence over law which only governs general matters. Thus, as long as there is Article 50, it must be used in preference to the VCLT. Although Prof. Bush seems to be unaware of this, the doctrine is well established in international law. It features, for instance, in Art. 2 of the Annex 2 of the "WTO Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes", where it is stated that "special or additional rules and procedures should be used where possible". We see it also take a prominent part in UN treaty law, which has special relevance in allowing general law to be taken into account when applying specific law. In other words, the specific law works within the framework set by the general law, but in making determinations, the specific law is the primary measure applied. Elsewhere, we see multiple references to Lex specialis in EU law, evidence that the doctrine is recognised and routinely applied, and would therefore be applied to treaty law. So it is that, when we come to leave the EU, we will be dealing with Art. 50. Only in the event of demonstrably bad faith by the "colleagues" could we then invoke the Vienna Convention, but the circumstances would be truly exceptional. Lex specialis will be the norm. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 27/07/2013 |
EU politics: employment without frontiers
Saturday 27 July 2013
 Under the headline, "UK jobs being advertised across the EU at taxpayers' expense, it emerges", theTelegraph strap-line tells us: "More than 800,000 UK jobs are being offered to workers across the European Union, it has been disclosed", thus "revealing" the presence of an EU Commission website that has been around for ages. This is the EURES website, the front end of the Commission's European Employment Services, an organisation which was actually established in 1993 by Commission Decision 93/569/EEC, then working under the legal mandate of Regulation 1612/68. Currently, it also relies on Commission Decision 2003/8/EC. Thus, while the Telegraph is strutting its stuff and the Daily Mail is getting worked up about Brussels, "offering British firms cash 'bribes' of almost £1,000 a time to take on foreign workers", this really has been going on for an awful long time. The only thing that makes it news is that the legacy media has only just noticed the website. However, what we actually see from Commission Staff Working Document SWD(2012) 100 final, published last year, is that there is much more depth to this than a mere website. In fact, EURES objectives were defined in 1968 in the Regulation (EEC) No 1612/68. For the record, it stipulated that: the central employment services of the Member States shall co-operate closely with each other and with the Commission with a view to acting jointly as regards the clearing of vacancies and applications for employment within the Union and the resultant placing of workers in employment.EURES, says the Commission working document, is in effect European network between the European Commission and the Public Employment Services of the EEA Member States (the EU Member States plus Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein) and partner organisations. Switzerland, it is interesting to see, also takes part in EURES. What is getting the legacy media over here worked up, though, is that of the 1,488,898 jobs advertised on the website, 814,349 are from the United Kingdom, while France advertises a mere 48,626, Italy 11,854 and Denmark just 196. The comment, though, may be more than a little overheated. The website represents only a tiny fraction of EURES activity, as the legislative website shows. Not least, it acts as a "portal", so that those looking for jobs abroad can go to the national sites in the country of interest, as here with the Polish government site. Thus, some countries prefer to keep their own websites as the focus rather than use the EU facility. Then, EURES itself is only one small part of the European Employment Strategy, with the real work going on in the "EURES Coordination Office", which now works to the EURES Charter, adopted in November 2010. Relying on Article 46 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, it carries out a huge range of activities. The Commission itself is less than impressed with the EURES website, noting that the June 2010 Special Eurobarometer survey on "Geographical and labour market mobility" found that whilst twelve percent of 'Europeans' had heard of the EURES site, only two percent had actually used it. This, the Commission dryly observed, "is rather low when considering that 34 percent of 'Europeans' think that their chances of finding a job abroad are better than in their own countries while close to one European in five envisages working abroad in the future". Moreover, with only 25,000 employers registered and an estimated 150,000 job placements/recruitments per year, EURES, it concluded, "has not yet realised its full potential". What the Commission hopes will make the difference is Regulation (EU) No 492/2011 of 5 April 2011, on the freedom of movement for workers within the Union. This stresses, among other things, that freedom of movement constitutes a fundamental right of workers and their families, and thus seeks to ensure that all Member States obey their "obligations". These include affirming the right of all workers in the Member States to pursue the activity of their choice within the Union, facilitating the mobility of labour. And the attainment of this objective, the Commission sternly reminds Member States, "entails the abolition of any discrimination based on nationality between workers of the Member States". What our newspapers are looking at today, therefore, is just the tip of the iceberg, one tiny part of a core EU policy that is embedded in the heart of the treaties. The website, effectively, is just the fluff. What really matters is the policy behind it, of which – as always – our legacy media is blissfully ignorant. The real agenda is the single European labour market. The European Employment Strategy states that action is needed to promote geographic labour mobility in order to achieve a labour market in Europe – the underlying purpose of which is European political integration. And to avoid that, we have to leave the EU. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 27/07/2013 |
Sunday, 28 July 2013
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