Indeed, quite frequently the declarations of Václav Klaus are distorted beyond recognition, just to be able to condemn them as populist and nationalist. But it remains without questions that he is an expressed opponent to a continued European integration. The debate on the goal and end of the European Union he wants to start is just an issue of minorities, also within the Czech Republic. And there is not much reason to conclude "pars pro toto" from the President to the "Czechs", their parliament or their government. However, it would also be wrong to neglect that the popularity of the Czech president consists in him being a trustworthy representative of the national interests [of the Czech Republic].
(own translation)So if there is a divide between the popular opinion and the presidential declarations, a difference in the positions of the president and the government, we might face a situation in which unclear priorities within the Czech presidency might prevent the Union from moving on. This will not bring forward the Union, it will slow down politics and policy developments. In this sense, the Euroscepticism of Václav Klaus will be a problem for all of us, no matter how europhile "the Czechs" are.
for the medium term, ... the paper version [will be kept]The legality of the electronic version will be allowed by an official electronic signature that, according to the same EC document, will be available before mid-2009.
along with the electronic version as media having legal value.
"Member States are committed to delivering by 2010, water pricing policies that provide adequate incentives to use water resources efficiently (Article 9 WFD). Some of them ([Cyprus], [Spain], [France], UK, [Portugal]) are taking actions to set tariffs that are consistent with the level of water scarcity at local level, the season and/or the level of consumption. Others (UK) are conducting reviews and assessing the effectiveness of different types of tariffs in water stress areas."These measures are part of a European Union strategy to address water scarcity within the EU.
"The challenge of water scarcity and droughts needs to be addressed both as an essential environmental issue and also as a precondition for sustainable economic growth in Europe. As the EU seeks to revitalise and reinvigorate its economy and to continue to lead on tackling climate change, the devising of an effective strategy towards water efficiency can make a substantial contribution."One of the findings in the follow-up to the 2007 report is - according to a study (part 1, part 2) carried out for the Commission in September 2007 - that
"the water saving potential is close to 40% in Europe. This requires substantial changes on the way in which water is distributed and used in order to develop water savings to the largest extent possible."However, and despite efforts within the member states, the follow-up report concludes that "a great deal still needs to be done" in order to achieve an efficient management of water resources.
"The EU must decide how much of a priority this small obscure dispute is. Arguably, it should see an opportunity here to pursue an agreement that would open up a path to Europe for both Moldova and Transdniestria and make a model of successful cooperation with the Russians. That would suit everyone, except the black-marketeers."The European Union should try to help to solve a conflict that does not appear to be a real one, and any step towards resolution will be a step towards a less divided Europe, something not only of advantage for the East but also for the Centre and the West.
The European elections of June 2009 advance with big steps, but nonetheless they don't seem to attract the masses! The estimations are announcing a quite low participation. There will thus be a double task for the political parties: make the citizens interested in the elections, and to profit from this interest, in order to politicise the Union.
The CUEJ (the "Centre universitaire d'enseignement du journalism" = "Centre for Higher Education in Journalism"), aware of these challenges, uses this opportunity to train the "cyberpens" of its upcoming journalists on a new website called "2009, le pari de l’Europe politique" ("2009, the bet of the political Europe"), devoted to the European political parties.
You can find there a lot of information about the 9 europarties, hardly known by the voters, thanks to info-graphics and other pedagogic animations.
(own translation)It is a pitty that this page is only in French. For those of you able and willing to read in French, it is worth taking a look.
The report lists measures of 20 EU member states, and if you are interested how you country is trying to interfere in private business for (mostly) symbolic reasons, have a look in the document.
- Following discussions earlier this year in the Eurogroup and ECOFIN of national frameworks regarding executive pay against the background of the Commission recommendation, a large number of Member States have strengthened legislative measures and/or codes of conducts, or plan to do so in the near future.
- In the context of national rescue packages for the financial sector, many Member States have included in their schemes provisions regarding the remuneration of executives in the concerned institutions. They aim at limiting the compensation and/or adjusting the incentive structure to limit excessive risk-taking and to gear decision-making towards longer-term profitability.
- Another focus of measures undertaken recently is on improving transparency of compensation components, in some countries disclosing up to the individual level, to give shareholders and responsible committees more information - and partly also introducing a shareholders' vote - on remuneration issues.
- Some countries have also taken action with respect to severance pay, either limiting the compensation as such or linking it to specific performance requirements.
- One country [Remark: this is Italy; JF] has revised the favourable tax regime in place for variable pay components, subjecting it to the personal income taxation.
This blog (and its famous road sweeper) is three years old now: I have posted my first two articles on 12 December 2005. On the counter, the "Coulisses de Bruxelles" now counts 1015 articles that have caused 60,700 comments. In total, 5 million page loads, and according to the counting of Libération, between 250,000 and 300,000 unique visitors every month. This makes this blog the third most read on the site of Libération, after "Secret Défense" by Jean-Dominique Merchet, also a journalist at Libération, and "Sex" (of cause...). To make a long story short: A nice success, which, as I hope, will get bigger with the European elections coming closer. But this only depends on you. Because I won't desist from this new media even though it is much more demanding than the written press. The future of journalism?
(own translation)These figures are impressive, not least because the blog is about Europe and not less because it is written in French.
On 1 May 2009, five years will have passed since the biggest enlargement of the EuropeanUnion. The Presidency will use this opportunity to reflect in the ECOFIN Council and other Council formations on the economic impact of this enlargement on the whole Union.I hope that this will be an honest assessment of what enlargement has brought to the Union, to the member states, and to the citizens.
"The Council asks the Commission to bring forward an interpretative statement, providing guidelines on the operation of Directive 2004/38/EC and any appropriate proposals to combat abuse, misuse or crime. These guidelines would reflect the Council’s Conclusions and support Member States’ efforts to safeguard their fundamental interests and prevent abuses of free movement.If this is the main isue with regard to free movement, then I feel sorry for the UK.
When the EU is the 'Norm-taker': The Passenger Name Records Agreement and the EU's Internalization of US Border Security Normsand is basically saying that the EU has imported the legal norms related to the creation of a Passanger Name Record (PNR) from the United States, which have been developed from November 2001 in the USA.
"[T]he process of internalization of border security norms present in the PNR agreement is constituted by three subsequent stages: first, an initial stage of US unilateral norm imposition, followed by rule compliance articulated as US–EU negotiations characterized by bargaining and cost–benefit calculations from both actors, and, finally, a parallel process of policy socialization by EU executive bodies, in particular the European Commission, contested by other European actors. Resistance to norm internalization within the Union has originated mainly from data protection officers and MEPs concerned about data protection and democratic accountability shortcomings"For more, I recommend reading the whole article.
Still to be discussed are questions regarding sensitive data (i.e. special health needs of passangers), the retention period for data, as well as the possible exchange of bulk data.
- [Air transport] operators are seeking the European Union's support to work towards the greatest possible harmonisation of the obligations imposed on them in order to limit the cost and the burden of legal responsibilities which they face to the minimum necessary.
- Mr Gilles de Kerchove [the EU anti-terrorism co-ordinator] relayed the views of counter-terrorism services which he had consulted. These views are that in Europe, as elsewhere in the world, PNR data are undeniably useful in the field of counter-terrorism, partly on account of the specific vulnerability of terrorists when crossing international borders and partly on account of the significant and intrinsic potential afforded by the PNR tool.
- [R]isks of discrimination, notably on ethnic or religious grounds, were eliminated by following the [Fundamental Rights] Agency's recommendations.
- A significant effort was made as regards the clarification and coherence of the data protection rules applicable, since specific rules have to be identified in the instrument, in particular to ensure that the limits imposed on the use of PNR data are strictly complied with.
- The approach of having a centralised PNR system at EU level has been rejected by a vast majority of delegations, and the Commission has refused it, particularly because of the technical complexity of such a tool which could have grave consequences for data security.
- A Passenger Information Unit (PIU) would be set up in each Member State to act as the public authority hosting the PNR database and ensuring compliance with the rules in force.
- The procedure for analysing the terrorist and criminal risk should be clearly delimited.
- The list of data to be transmitted can be reduced compared with the original proposal since it was not deemed necessary to maintain the information relating to unaccompanied minors which it contained.
- [R]igorous traceability of all access to the PNR database, all analyses and all transmissions made;
"The commission says the country is still lagging behind in many fields and EU membership is not expected to occur in the very near future."But since the Czech EU-Council presidency seems to be interested to speed up the accession process for the Western Balkan states, Montenegro could get the candidate status during next year.
Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulatorsand, after long discussions its main function seems to be to co-ordinate the national gas and electricity regulators, advise the European Commission on market regulation for this sector, and develop "non-binding frameworks". The only really interesting part of the Draft Regulation establishing the agency is § 8:
For cross-border infrastructure, the Agency shall decide upon those regulatory issues that fall within the competence of national regulatory authorities, which may include the terms and conditions for access and operational security, only:This sounds for me as if the agency would get limited power to establish regulation on its own: If national regulators cannot agree on cross-border issues, the agency can take over responsibilities after six month, clearly a supranational element and not just an advisory function.(a) where the competent national regulatory authorities have not been able to reach an agreement within a period of six months from when the case was referred to the last of those regulatory authorities; or
(b) upon a joint request from the competent national regulatory authorities.
"Our interpretation is that the commission proposes to exclude certain documents, such as documents related to the commission's own inspections. [...] The justification for this exclusion is that it would ease the workload of the commission, releasing them from the duty of assessing the documents one by one. But on the contrary, we believe that considering documents one by one is a cornerstone of this legislation. What we may lose in the end with a little bit more work, we win by having a good and sound administration"In the Green Paper "Public Access to Documents held by institutions of the European Community - A review" of the Commission this reads as follows:
"Experience has shown that the handling of requests can be burdensome. The purpose of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 being to disclose information in the public interest, the institutions have to balance the interest in disclosure against the workload entailed by the handling of a request. A situation where important resources are devoted to a limited number of voluminous, complex or otherwise burdensome requests would not be in the public interest. Therefore, it might be useful to define criteria with regard to the proportionality of access requests."I hope that Finland and Sweden will not remain the only countries who will rally against any move to restrict access to EU documents.
"For the time being, all delegations have maintained general scrutiny reservations on the proposal. [...] The Commission has meanwhile affirmed its original proposal at this stage and has maintained scrutiny reservations on any changes thereto."The European Parliament is expected to give its opinion on 29 March 2009, and within the Council a number of issues have been raised by member states that will have to be dealt with:
On 10 November 2008, the Council approved the launch of the European young officers exchange scheme, modelled on Erasmus. The aim is to develop exchanges between officers in their initial training phase, in order to reinforce the ability of the European armed forces to work together and the interoperability of forces. This initiative, which will facilitate exchanges between national training colleges, will be implemented on a national and voluntary basis, with assistance from the European Security and Defence College (ESDC).I am looking forward to "L'auberge espanole II", with young European soldiers drinking and having fun in military bases all over the continent... :-D
If she does not make any severe mistakes, her future looks very promising to me, even if her political path might be interrupted by the typical changes in political constellations that are likely to occur one day or another.Now, she seems to have made such a mistake, rejecting to run for office during the European Parliament Elections 2009. As a consequence, the French government will also not nominate her for the post of secretary of state for European affairs, recently freed by Jean-Pierre Jouyet.
At the castle [the Elysee-Palace; JF] they suppose that Yade has significantly underestimated the importance of the European Parliament, where this polyglot could have been "a star" and could have established a number of contacts that she lacks today. It is also remarked that she would not have needed to stay for a whole mandate, but that she just had to prove her capacity to stand for an elected position. However, and after all, Rama Yade might just simply remain true to herself: As reminds me one internet user, she has confirmed that she voted "No" for the Constitutional Treaty in May 2005... Not too serious for a secretary of state for European affairs.
(own translation)It is quite hard to judge from the outside which reasons have led to the decision of Rama Yade, but she does not seem to have serious backing in the French government, with France's foreign minister Kouchner saying that it was a mistake to create the post of secretary of state for human rights (the position Yade occupies today).
People wanted to know more about some aspects of the US campaign, how the Obama movement could be "exported" into Europe, some concrete ideas were presented and discussed, and the general mood was that this campaign will be an important opportunity for the PES family to present itself as the main political force in Europe.This campaign of the European Socialists will, with or without Obama, run under the PES manifesto slogan:
People first: a New direction for Europewhich is nice but lacks some fire, some energy, because it sounds very impersonal. "People first" is a typical political slogan, but it is standard, it is dry, it is lame, because it does neither directly address the people nor does it include them.
The Council of the European Union (=the member states) "INVITES Member States, incorporating as appropriate the countries associated to the FP7, to encourage a dialogue at European level with a view to the coordination of their international S&T cooperation policies and activities, as well as to facilitate consultation between interested stakeholders, including industry, in order to identify opportunities for and, where appropriate, obstacles to the development of scientific and technological cooperation activities between the European Union and the rest of the world"In other words, the member states invite themselves not to start but just to encourage a dialogue. They just facilitate consultations, they don't encourage them, and they do it just in order to identify, not to address opportunities in global scientific co-operation.
"In next year's elections, the legitimacy of your parliament, and that of the Union as a whole, is at stake."
(source)Any questions?
Conclusions on the Commission communication "Towards world-class clusters in the European Union: implementing the broad-based innovation strategy"And on Wednesday, six EU member states failed to ratify the new UN convention against cluster bombs. Maybe there was some kind of misunderstanding, and the six countries are now going to develop world-class cluster bombs...?!
I even noticed a new blogging competition yesterday run by the European Journalism Centre and a photographic competition run by the European Parliament. The subject is being raised in schools and on information tours to Brussels, in fact it is mentioned all the time.So despite nice little initiatives, the recognition of Facebook as an important mean for political communication, and several smaller communication activities in and around the web, everybody can see that there is not too much to see, maybe because nobody really offers alternatives or because the EU is simply too complicated and dull.
Even the now defunct MyParl.eu - proposed as an online political forum to facilitate exchange and debate among national parliamentarians on the future of the EU - was intended to boost interest and participation in the European elections of 2009.
And yet such steps, when you think about them, are just background: the sort of atmospheric hiss that comes over a badly-tuned loudspeaker.
These initiatives are all right in themselves and as far as they go - but really they don't go very far. They cannot disguise the awful fact that the political foreground is largely empty and silent.
"Across the board those who have come into contact with him praise his intelli-gence, dedication and political skill. They pay tribute to his almost unrivalled know-ledge of the Parliament and his devotion to work. “You could ring his office at midnight and he would still be there, working on some deal,” said one senior British MEP.Altogether, it looks as if we will get an ambitious European conservative with strong political networks and the ability to use them tactically. Which means, we will get a politician for a semi-administrative post, which can be good or bad, depending on how he uses his position.
When there are 20 equally impressive CVs applying for one position, what’s a poor HR manager to do? Now multiply that 20 by 200, and you begin to see how the job market works in Brussels.That is the food for the machine that exploits Europe's high potentials. And Linda digs through the mud of networks, internships, and the black market, and when you finished reading, you might unpack your bags and stay where you are.
For those who dream of a future of global free trade agreements, these moves - with their suggestions of trade partnerships and opening up of markets - are surely a promising sign that the EU is beginning to head in the right direction? Such partnerships could never have been negotiated (arguably imposed) by just one nation acting alone - but the collective bargaining power that the EU’s vast market has brought has given the organisation a genuinely powerful ability to broker such deals that should, in the long term, benefit everybody concerned.With 600 Million Euros, this initiative is not just a meaningless diplomatic commitment, it looks like a serious effort for an economic enlargement, like a more serious inclusion of those countries who have so far waited at the outskirts of the continent.
YES, I want anyone but Barroso as next European Commission President!I wanted to write this for weeks, but somehow I did not make it. So now, let's repeat it, let's cry it out, let's make it heard all over the place:
NO, I DON'T WANT ANOTHER TERM FOR JOSÉ MANUEL BARROSO!You may ask: Why?
Anyone but Barroso!is uniting those of us (e.g. me, Kosmopolit, Nosemonkey) who think that Europe and the European Union deserve more than just a Barroso. Maybe we do not yet deserve EUropean Obama, but we deserve definitely more than what we have today. And although we still don't know who could and should replace Barroso, we still know one thing: We don't want Barroso!
