ECI, transaction tax & the details of EU policy-making

The German and Austrian Social Democrats have decided today that they want to initiate a European Citizens' Initative (ECI) on the introduction of a financial transaction tax.

The way their press release is formulated makes it sound like they are calling for a referendum (cf. last sentence that reads: '... for that 500 million Europeans can decide over the taxation of financial market speculation'), not mentioning that all they can do with an ECI is make the Commission consider the issue.

They should also mention the timeframe of an ECI and that once they had a successful ECI, the proposal needed to be taken up by the Commission (where there is no social-democratic majority) and it had to be passed (probably according to Art. 113 TFEU) by the Council with unanimity. The European Parliament would only be consulted (if the decision was taken under Art. 113 TFEU).

And only the EU experts - those who know that the ECI regulation is not yet in place and that you cannot even start an ECI right now - will notice that the last paragraph of the press release is actually just a demand that the ECI regulation will be put in place until autumn, so that the Social Democrats can begin their ECI. For the rest of the readers this sounds like the Social Democrats demand an EU transaction tax until autumn.

And if they knew the present state of the ECI discussions, they would also know that 500 million Europeans (as formulated in the last sentence) will not decide about an ECI because the participation age for the ECI is proposed to be the election age of EU citizens which will exclude some 100 million Europeans from this agenda setting instrument. But they anyway only need 1 million signatures.

It is thus nice that the German and Austrian Social Democrats want to make use of the new democratic element given to EU citizens, but the way they treat this issue is far from realistic and thus merely a PR instrument - but the press will surely buy it.

PS.: German social democratic MEP Matthias Groote is aware of that and thus focuses on his demands regarding the implementation of the ECI which seems much more reasonable at this point.

Genetically manipulated organisms in the EU: Subsidiarity and banning

On the side of the member states, there seems to be growing opposition against the Commissions openness towards the use genetically manipulated organisms (GMOs) in agriculture.

In a note directed to all member states, Austria, so far supported by

• Bulgaria
• Cyprus
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Greece
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Malta
• Slovenia

and referring to an earlier declaration made by the Netherlands, demands the clearly defined legal right for each member state to ban GMOs:

"The legally soundest solution we envisage is a set of minor amendments to relevant EU legislation, which should introduce the right of an individual Member State to restrict or prohibit indefinitely the cultivation of authorised GMOs on its territory. The amendments could be based on the subsidiarity principle (Article 5 TEC) and the principle of unanimity for decisions on land use (Article 175 TEC). Such an “opt-out” clause could be formulated in quite straightforward legal terms and could easily be integrated into the existing legislation.

In general, I don't have anything against this approach but I also don't have anything against GMO in agriculture.

I just don't understand why we have a Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that takes the biggest share in the EU budget and then we should decide not to have a CAP in a certain field...?!

If the member states want their right to subsidiarity in agricultural policy they should scrap the CAP (in fact, they should do it anyway)!

EU Directive on the term of protection of copyright and related rights: Austrian & Italian positions

Thanks to a possible mistake by the Council secretariat, we are able to identify some member states positions on the

Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 2006/116/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the term of protection of copyright and related rights (see the full legislative procedure)

In Council document 7440/09 you can find a drafting suggestion by the Austrian delegation (10 March), under 6446/09 an Italian position (13 February).

In the documents themselves, the names of the delegations have been erased, but on the summary pages (here & here) the respective countries are mentioned by now.

See also: Revised Council compromise proposals of the draft directive from January and March.

European Parliament elections 2009 (87): The Austrian Greens and the picture language of billboards

Max Kossatz who is writing the Austrian blog Wissen belastet (English: 'Knowledge bedevils'), presents the electoral billboard of the Austrian Greens, which is based on Delacroix's "La Liberté guidant le peuple", and remarks thereupon (own translation):

Unfortunately, on the electoral billboard you don't see on what the persons are standing.

Because, in the original they are standing on dead bodies!

Not the most advantageous picture language, I might say...

The same blog also remarks that the picture language of the Austrian Social Democrats is not very European, but rather based on classical national imagery.

(via Timpo on Twitter)

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Under the category "European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

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One sentence on: Deference

Sometimes you are not sure if you are allowed not to be unhappy about someone's death.

(This is all I would like to say on this subject.)