In a letter written 11 days ago, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek has complained that the Commission has adopted the draft Council recommendations for the Europe 2020 guidelines on economic and employment policies too late.
According to the letter, the Parliament won't be able to give its consent to the recommendations in due time and Buzek thus asks European Council President van Rompuy that the European Council should not pass them during the June summit.
Update: Here is the European Parliament press release on this subject; date: 23 April (via @mvandenbroeke).
Showing posts with label Europe 2020. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Europe 2020. Show all posts
Friday, 21 May 2010
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Germany's second chamber: Europe 2020 timetable violates Lisbon Treaty
In a freshly published press release the European Chamber of the German Bundesrat has criticised the timetable of the Europe 2020 process foreseeing a decision at the European Council on 25-26 March 2010 as violating the rights of national legislatures under the Lisbon Treaty. It also dismisses parts of the 2020 strategy as violating the Treaty.
The Bundesrat is the second chamber of the German legislative branch uniting representatives of the 16 federal states. It claims it has had less than three weeks between the formal reception of the Europe 2020 document and the European Council next week where a decision on the strategy is planned (see agenda, p.2).
What is remarkable is that the European Chamber of the Bundesrat - a body able to take constitutionally binding decisions on behalf of the Bundesrat set up to react quickly to EU developments when urgently needed - has almost never met in its history.
Thus, the fact that the European Chamber of the Bundesrat now issues a decision on behalf of the full institution shows the seriousness of the matter for the German federal states.
One has to remind that under the Lisbon Treaty, national and subnational legislatures must have eight weeks to react to European policy proposals under the subsidiarity clause, as was explained in a letter by Barroso sent to the parliaments in December.
To my knowledge, this is the first time that a national legislature is claiming that the Lisbon rules have been violated.
The question is now: How will the Commission and the European Council President react?
Update: Although the press release on the website of the Bundesrat has a time stamp from today, 17:29, the decision must have been taken yesterday because some newspapers published the story in today's printed versions.
The Bundesrat is the second chamber of the German legislative branch uniting representatives of the 16 federal states. It claims it has had less than three weeks between the formal reception of the Europe 2020 document and the European Council next week where a decision on the strategy is planned (see agenda, p.2).
What is remarkable is that the European Chamber of the Bundesrat - a body able to take constitutionally binding decisions on behalf of the Bundesrat set up to react quickly to EU developments when urgently needed - has almost never met in its history.
Thus, the fact that the European Chamber of the Bundesrat now issues a decision on behalf of the full institution shows the seriousness of the matter for the German federal states.
One has to remind that under the Lisbon Treaty, national and subnational legislatures must have eight weeks to react to European policy proposals under the subsidiarity clause, as was explained in a letter by Barroso sent to the parliaments in December.
To my knowledge, this is the first time that a national legislature is claiming that the Lisbon rules have been violated.
The question is now: How will the Commission and the European Council President react?
Update: Although the press release on the website of the Bundesrat has a time stamp from today, 17:29, the decision must have been taken yesterday because some newspapers published the story in today's printed versions.
Europe 2020 - Results of the public consultations
I have made some fun of Europe 2020 and I think that this is what this strategy deserves.
But there are those who take the topic more serious than I do, and those have participated in the public consultations regarding this strategy.
The Commission has now issued a working document giving an overview over these consultations and the demands formulated by different stakeholders.
I don't have time to go through it, but those of you paid to do so might want to take a look.
But there are those who take the topic more serious than I do, and those have participated in the public consultations regarding this strategy.
The Commission has now issued a working document giving an overview over these consultations and the demands formulated by different stakeholders.
I don't have time to go through it, but those of you paid to do so might want to take a look.
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Europe 2020 - USA 2015 - China Now?
It's not fair to compare the US and the EU system, but the world isn't fair.
While the EU thinks in 10 year terms, US president Obama has proposed a five year plan to double US exports in 5 years.
If Obama doesn't get his country on track over the next three years, he won't be re-elected. If Europe 2020 is no success, most governments and top EU-officials won't be in office anymore, and their successors will make a new plan for 2030.
And I don't talk about China, but just because re-election is not such a big topic over there...
While the EU thinks in 10 year terms, US president Obama has proposed a five year plan to double US exports in 5 years.
If Obama doesn't get his country on track over the next three years, he won't be re-elected. If Europe 2020 is no success, most governments and top EU-officials won't be in office anymore, and their successors will make a new plan for 2030.
And I don't talk about China, but just because re-election is not such a big topic over there...
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Europe 2020 - Reform the system
Europe 2.020 keeps me busy, it makes me think about EU politics - something that only happens rarely in my life.
The good thing with EU politics: Everything of political importance is dealt with by the intransparent Council or non-controllable executive agencies.
The bad thing with EU politics: MEPs can say and ask whatever they want in public. This disturbs the tranquility of technocratic politics.
The solution: The European Parliament outsources its discussions to an EU executive agency. The results are directly sent to the Council.
Nobody should ever tell that bloggers are not constructive.
PS.: The thoughts were first thought on Twitter.
The good thing with EU politics: Everything of political importance is dealt with by the intransparent Council or non-controllable executive agencies.
The bad thing with EU politics: MEPs can say and ask whatever they want in public. This disturbs the tranquility of technocratic politics.
The solution: The European Parliament outsources its discussions to an EU executive agency. The results are directly sent to the Council.
Nobody should ever tell that bloggers are not constructive.
PS.: The thoughts were first thought on Twitter.
Europe 2020 - Innovating politics?
After having watched a speech by the new European Commissioner for the Future, Ms Quingleding-Dong, about Europe 2020 for five minutes, I left Youtube.
The only questions I have to her after watching her general statements about a better world, introduced with her motto "I am doing things for real, people!!":
Will "Europe 2020" also contain the innovation of politics or will it just be a plan directed at everyone else while you continue in the same old way with the same hackneyed speeches?
PS.: If you think I cannot say something substantial on Europe 2020, please consult an earlier post on the subject.
The only questions I have to her after watching her general statements about a better world, introduced with her motto "I am doing things for real, people!!":
Will "Europe 2020" also contain the innovation of politics or will it just be a plan directed at everyone else while you continue in the same old way with the same hackneyed speeches?
PS.: If you think I cannot say something substantial on Europe 2020, please consult an earlier post on the subject.
Friday, 5 March 2010
Europe 2020 - The missing points
I was born in a socialist country, so I am no fan of 10-year plans unless they come from the European Union.
With the Lisbon Strategy, the EU has invented the internet. It has reformed its agricultural policy and made it greener, more efficient, and more fair for the rest of the world. It has become a global leader in protecting human rights. And English has become our lingua franca that every EU citizen speaks beside his mother tongue and the languages of all national minorities (including Welsh).
Despite this success, our majesty Barroso II has called from above to create a European Union 2.020 - that is more than Web 2.0 - and I feel obliged to point to three missing details in the new strategic superplan of our Union, a plan that I haven't read out of pure conviction that it must be good anyway.
1. Invent the interdrum
In 2010, only a small number of visionary politicians sees a chance to connect people via modern technology. Shocked by the dullness of digital communication tools - toys only kids and terrorists are using - they have proposed to use drums to communicate from European village to European village. If implemented through the 2020 strategy, their proposal will not only boost the European drum industry. It will also satisfy the French stick manufactures who might complain that they are disadvantaged by the billions of Euros that are invested to turn tomato plantations in Spain into eco-friendly ice-cold polar bear habitats (see next point).
However, critics say that the interdrum could enable ordinary citizens to drum with each other freely, disturbing the upper classes enjoying classical live music concerts on their 40 inch iPosters produced by Apple-Google Inc. Yet, if we put in place effective measures to control the copying and distribution of volume-controllable drums, there will be no particular danger in the emerging interdrum. To the contrary: We will finally be able to track citizens wherever they are because they will be too loud to hide.
2. Foster a modern and climate change oriented agriculture
In 2020, the earth will be so warm that polar bears will have almost disappeared from Europe if we don't do something over the next 10 years. Once trekking in large herds through our continent, the polar bear has become a vital part of the European climate compassion industry. In Copenhagen, the Union has shown its strength and global leadership potential in that regard - it deserved our compassion - and it now needs to follow up. Now the Common Agriculture Policy of the EU will have to implement its usual sound and balanced set of measures to save future-oriented products (polar bears) by first creating mountains of these products (i.e. "ice beargs") that then can be dumped into the (Arctic) sea which will make the north of Europe white again.
3. Chinese courses for all
Finally, until 2020 China will have understood how great the European Union is. They will come to copy our democratic model, the "Citizen Bureaucracy", buy our cheap manufactured and agricultural goods (sticks and polar bears) and sell their high-tech products (drum detection and supervision equipment) to us. In order not to lose them as our customers and students to the prospering region of Darfur, we all need to speak Chinese in 2020 (beside Romani and Maltese).
I know these are visionary ideas - but if we can imagine Nigel Farage being European Council President and Geert Wilders being EU Foreign Minister in 2020, why can't we also dream in other areas and formulate these dreams in a strangely bureaucratic language so that nobody can complain if they don't come true over the next 10 years?
With the Lisbon Strategy, the EU has invented the internet. It has reformed its agricultural policy and made it greener, more efficient, and more fair for the rest of the world. It has become a global leader in protecting human rights. And English has become our lingua franca that every EU citizen speaks beside his mother tongue and the languages of all national minorities (including Welsh).
Despite this success, our majesty Barroso II has called from above to create a European Union 2.020 - that is more than Web 2.0 - and I feel obliged to point to three missing details in the new strategic superplan of our Union, a plan that I haven't read out of pure conviction that it must be good anyway.
1. Invent the interdrum
In 2010, only a small number of visionary politicians sees a chance to connect people via modern technology. Shocked by the dullness of digital communication tools - toys only kids and terrorists are using - they have proposed to use drums to communicate from European village to European village. If implemented through the 2020 strategy, their proposal will not only boost the European drum industry. It will also satisfy the French stick manufactures who might complain that they are disadvantaged by the billions of Euros that are invested to turn tomato plantations in Spain into eco-friendly ice-cold polar bear habitats (see next point).
However, critics say that the interdrum could enable ordinary citizens to drum with each other freely, disturbing the upper classes enjoying classical live music concerts on their 40 inch iPosters produced by Apple-Google Inc. Yet, if we put in place effective measures to control the copying and distribution of volume-controllable drums, there will be no particular danger in the emerging interdrum. To the contrary: We will finally be able to track citizens wherever they are because they will be too loud to hide.
2. Foster a modern and climate change oriented agriculture
In 2020, the earth will be so warm that polar bears will have almost disappeared from Europe if we don't do something over the next 10 years. Once trekking in large herds through our continent, the polar bear has become a vital part of the European climate compassion industry. In Copenhagen, the Union has shown its strength and global leadership potential in that regard - it deserved our compassion - and it now needs to follow up. Now the Common Agriculture Policy of the EU will have to implement its usual sound and balanced set of measures to save future-oriented products (polar bears) by first creating mountains of these products (i.e. "ice beargs") that then can be dumped into the (Arctic) sea which will make the north of Europe white again.
3. Chinese courses for all
Finally, until 2020 China will have understood how great the European Union is. They will come to copy our democratic model, the "Citizen Bureaucracy", buy our cheap manufactured and agricultural goods (sticks and polar bears) and sell their high-tech products (drum detection and supervision equipment) to us. In order not to lose them as our customers and students to the prospering region of Darfur, we all need to speak Chinese in 2020 (beside Romani and Maltese).
I know these are visionary ideas - but if we can imagine Nigel Farage being European Council President and Geert Wilders being EU Foreign Minister in 2020, why can't we also dream in other areas and formulate these dreams in a strangely bureaucratic language so that nobody can complain if they don't come true over the next 10 years?
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