In 7 minutes or less: Frans Timmermans defends EU parliamentary democracy (videos)

Jean Claude Juncker can be proud of his wingman and 1st Vice President Frans Timmermans for defending not just his president but also parliamentary democracy at European level – and in way that you don't see every day in Strasbourg.

In less than 7 minutes, Timmermans explains what it means to work for a European Commission that is backed by an elected majority in the European Parliament. He stands the shouts from the negative fringes of eurosceptics and eurohating members of the EP, and the gets standing ovations from the positive core of the house at the end.




If I wanted to end on a less positive note, I would say that it is quite telling when the strongest and most convincing voice for the prerogatives of the (European) parliament comes from the (European) executive.

But I don't wanna end on this note, so I highlight that at the time of writing the video already has 25k+ views on the Commission website alone. Must have hit a nerve.

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Update: The video is now also on Youtube, including English subtitles (automatic translation into other languages work, too):

Berlin may tell Juncker to go but has no say in this

The Sunday Times reports that Berlin (Merkel etc.) wants Commission President Juncker to go. The problem is: Berlin has no say in this.

It's funny to read an article like the Sunday Times about some government wanting the Commission President to go but not mention once that the only institution that can do this is: the European Parliament.

Article 17.8 of the EU Treaty makes clear that

"The Commission, as a body, shall be responsible to the European Parliament. … the European Parliament may vote on a motion of censure of the Commission"

And for a motion of censure to go through (see article 234 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), it needs a 2/3 majority, after which not only the President has to resign but the Commission "as a body". Which means that even if "Berlin" wanted Juncker out, Merkel would have to organise a large majority of EP members that kicks out the whole Commission - that's pretty unrealistic.

The only other way to get rid of individual Commission members would be a clear breach of integrity (art. 245 TFEU), which would have to be decided by the Court of Justice of the EU.

It's exactly this kind of little detail that makes media reporting about EU matters – in the UK in particular but also elsewhere – create totally unrealistic expectations about what can and what cannot be done, one of the underlying problems that led to the Brexit majority followed by post-referendum chaos. 

EU Intergovernmental Conference on Wednesday

Usually, Intergovernmental Conferences to change the EU Treaties receive quite some attention of the continent.

This time, it is different:

Almost unnoticed, the Spanish EU-Council Presidency has invited to an Intergovernmental Conference on the level of Permanent Representatives (that is, the ambassadors of the EU member states) for next Wednesday, 23 June 2010, to agree on the changing of the EU Treaties to allow 18 new members of the European Parliament to officially take part in the EP's work.

The exact distribution of these 18 can be found in the respective additional protocol laid out in European Council document EUCO 11/10 (page 11).

Since this will be a Treaty change, all EU member countries will need to ratify it according to their national procedures.

In case you didn't notice...

... but a majority of the members of the European Parliament now officially thinks we are ALL potential pedophiles.

I feel insulted!

PS.: As soon as the list of MEPs who signed this declaration is public, you will ALL hear from us, be assured!

22 EU parliamentarians withdraw signatures from controversial declaration - update

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Update (17 June): It seems like the declaration has been adopted. Here it is, on the list of adopted declarations. What a disgrace!

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According to Europaportalen.se, MEPs have started to withdraw their signatures from a controversial EP declaration.

The declaration that would become an official European Parliament position if at least 369 signatures from MEPs were collected demands that search engine searches should be part of the data retention directive, all this under the pretext of the fight against pedophilia.

This declaration, if I understand correctly, would effectively mean (if translated into EU law) that every search that we do on the net would have to be stored for two years and made accessible to the security authorities if requested.

After Europaportalen.se Journalist Christian Wohlert reported about the issue last week, it became news in the UK and in Sweden and it also has been noted with concern in Germany and in France.

At least, the news coverage was successful: According to Wohlert, 22 MEPs have withdrawn their signatures so far.

Yet, there are still 309 MEPs left who think that every EU citizen is a potential pedophile and that each of our searches needed to be stored and made available if the police and other security forced wanted to know more about us - the EP at its best!

Picture: © stephenjohnbryde / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

European Parliament staff statistics by nationality and grade

Earlier this year, the Spanish EU Council Presidency has written a letter to the Secretary General of the European Parliament, Klaus Welle, asking for detailed staff statistics of the European Parliament Secretariat in the same way as the EP wants these statistics from the Council.

One month later, Klaus Welle now has presented his answer: 7652 people work for the European Parliament secretariat (there are about 3400 people working for the Council Secretariat, see here).

And here is the breakdown of total staff figures by EU country (note that also other nationalities work in the EP!) ignoring the distribution by grade (see link above for the details):

Austrian - 98
Belgian - 955
British - 382
Bulgarian - 156
Cypriot - 28
Czech - 165
Danish - 185
Dutch - 230
Estonian - 105
Finnish - 219
French - 852
German - 656
Greek - 297
Hungarian - 210
Irish - 126
Italian - 703
Latvian - 114
Lithuanian - 125
Luxembourgish - 144
Maltese - 73
Polish - 320
Portuguese - 312
Romanian - 218
Slovak - 145
Slovenian - 117
Spanish - 503
Swedish - 184

EU, terror & restricted briefings

"We should also provide more detailed information to the European Parliament, for example through restricted briefings."

"At the moment we give the US data and get assessed intelligence in return."

"Improving the effectiveness of the EUPOL Mission in Afghanistan is a particular current priority where such an integrated approach could not only improve the operation of the Mission itself, but also the beneficial impact on the EU's own security. This positive impact on internal security will help justify devoting more resources from Interior Ministries."

"EU Counter-Terrorism Strategy - Discussion paper" by Gilles de Kerchove, EU Counter-Terrorism Co-ordinator [my highlights]

Useless propaganda on EuroparlTV

I am not totally against institutional media if they fill a gap that the old and new media cannot cover right now.

But videos like the one below are exactly the kind of institution propaganda that I don't want to see.

It's coverage without journalistic distance, critical reflection or political opinions. There is no real (temporal) context, the pictures are stereotype and the commentary is totally descriptive.

An MEP who writes a blog or tweets 3-4 messages a day can produce the same information density for much less money and with much more authenticity.



The institutions shouldn't waste money on such kind of pseudo-journalism - if the MEPs want to promote themselves they shall do so with their own funds!

The EU's accession to the European Convention on Human Rights: European Parliament resolution

Last week, the European Parliament has voted on a resolution regarding the EU's accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The resolution is horrible to read (Rapporteur: Ramón Jáuregiu Atondo) and although I'm pretty interested in the subject it was no pleasure to go through the document. I will thus focus on the more practical, cooperation-related elements of the resolution.

Three paragraphs seem to be most important regarding the political interaction of the EU and the Council of Europe (paragraphs 7, 31 & 34) as a result of the EU's accession to the ECHR. The three paragraphs portray how the European Parliament sees the participation of the European Union in the working structures of the Council of Europe.

You'll find the three below; I've added links where helpful.

Let's start with para 7:

Stresses that accession to the ECHR does not make the Union a member of the Council of Europe but that a degree of participation by the Union in the ECHR bodies is necessary in order to ensure proper integration of the Union into the ECHR system and that, therefore, the Union should have certain rights in this domain, particularly:

• the right to submit a list of three candidates for the post of judge, one of whom is elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on behalf of the Union and participates in the work of the Court on a footing of equality with the other judges, pursuant to Article 27(2) of the ECHR; the European Parliament being involved either in drawing up the list of candidates in line with a procedure similar to that provided for in Article 255 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union for candidates for the position of judge at the Court of Justice of the European Union, 

• the right to attend via the European Commission, with voting rights on behalf of the EU, meetings of the Committee of Ministers when it performs its task of monitoring the execution of judgments given by the European Court of Human Rights or when it decides on the desirability of seeking an opinion from the Court and the right to be represented on the Steering Committee for Human Rights (a subsidiary body of the Committee of Ministers), 

• the right of the European Parliament to appoint/send a certain number of representatives to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe when the latter elects judges to the European Court of Human Rights;

This is para 31:

Calls, further, for the Union to accede to Council of Europe bodies such as the Committee on the Prevention of Torture (CPT), the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) and the European Commission on the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ); stresses also the need for the Union to be involved in the work of the Commissioner for Human Rights, the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR), the Governmental Social Committee and the European Committee on Migration, and asks to be duly informed of the conclusions and decisions of these bodies;

And this is para 34:

Stresses that it is important to have an informal body in order to coordinate information sharing between the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe;

Apart from these interinstitutional arrangements between the political bodies, it is also worth (and probably more important) considering the legal implications of the EU's accession to the ECHR, but I don't feel like extracting the view of the EP from the resolution.

Maybe someone with a deeper interest or knowledge of the interrelation of international courts and the interaction of different supranational legal regimes may want to take on that task. I'll be glad to link.

What remains unclear politically is how close the non-public draft Council Conclusions regarding the Commission mandate to negotiate the accession are to the European Parliament resolution and what would happen in case that there are contradiction between the two documents.

There is no answer to that question in the EP's resolution. Which is in purpose, I suppose.

PS.: More articles on the accession process in this blog can be found under the label "ECHR".

Buzek complains to van Rompuy on "Europe 2020" timeline

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).

What's the problem with 'meat glue'?

Okay, so the European Parliament has vetoed 'meat glue', but I don't really get what is the problem.

Maybe it is because I'm living a mostly vegetarian life. Or maybe it is because all the fear mongering on food stuff (GMO, meat glue, pesticides etc.) really gets on my nerves.

Force food producers to write down everything they put into and onto my food somewhere where I can read it before I buy the stuff - and then let me decide whether I want it or not.

Full stop.

PS.: But EP webeditors' idea to sell the topic on Facebook asking "A steak or a s+t+e+a+k for dinner?" was still funny.

Biden in the European Parliament: All quiet on the Western front

Joe Biden gave a 30 minutes speech in the European Parliament today.

Most of it was charming Brussels, Europe and the European Parliament, mixed with statements supporting human rights, privacy, peace and individual freedoms. But all this was intertwined with the obligatory "triple axis" as @martiadroher put it: "Security, Security, and Security".

He underlined that he wants to use Passenger Name Record (PNR) data and financial transaction data (SWIFT) to fight terrorism. He supported this with the success US authorities had in capturing the alleged Time Square terrorist thanks to PNR data (and probably other intrusive measures that are used against citizens who are not terrorists every day).

And he defended the need to be in Afghanistan, totally in line with the CIA recommendations (published by Wikileaks) on how to get more public support from Europe for this war (e.g. focus on civilian and policing aspects). His final sentence ended with the words "... and may God protect all our troops" which shows that this was his actual focus, these were the words he wanted us to be remembered: Troops, troops, troops.

It is not some God who should protect "our" troops, it should be politicians protecting them by not sending them to fight, especially not to places where you are not providing actual help for more security or democracy (Afghanistan is not peaceful at all after 9 years and Karzai is definitely not a democrat) but costing our societies so much money that one can rightfully blame these expenses as part of the debt problem that many European countries and the US are facing today.

Well, Mr Biden, that was a nice speech, but I'm not convinced, not a bit, that you actually bring the change you are advocating...!

PS: A German MEP has a picture on how Biden's speech looked from the plenary.

Update: Conor has also written about Biden's speech. Erin has reacted to the content of Biden's speech.

The disrespectful MEPs

Joe Biden, the Vice President of the United States was expected to speak at 12:00 in the plenary of the European Parliament in Brussels*.

Since Biden was late, the regular session continued for another 20 minutes, but many MEPs were already coming into the room.

But instead of paying respect to their colleagues speaking, most of them were chatting, telephoning etc. and making such a noise that it was hard to understand the speakers, even on the web live stream. Even two interventions - rather hesitant but still - of the EP session president didn't make them keep quiet.

This is an absolutely shameful behaviour, and although this will not be in the mainstream news today, European parliamentarians have lost a lot of respect in my eyes today.

This was not my parliament, this was a bunch of kiddies without education, and non of those chatting in the plenary today should ever demand that silence was to be made when he or she is speaking!!

PS: Usually the EP plenary is empty and one person is speaking, this time it was full and everybody was speaking. Both are communication disasters.

* Update: See my summary.

Comitology 2.0: Commission doesn't want parliamentary rights under Article 291 TFEU

In the Council report (page 8-9) from the recent meeting of the European Parliament Committee on International Trade (INTA) we find the true face of the EU Commission when it comes to the new parliamentary rights of the EP after the Lisbon Treaty reform (own highlight):

"A representative of the Commission explained that the proposal was aiming to simplify and make more transparent the existing four comitology procedures. He explained, that Member States could not stop an implementation measure on their own but needed a qualified majority to do so. He said that it did not seem necessary to repeat the scrutiny powers of Council and European Parliament in this Regulation."

This quote refers to the the draft proposal concerning the implementing powers of the European Commission and the related comitology procedures (Article 291 TFEU).

Ex-EP president Pöttering loves his privileges

German news report that former European Parliament president Hans-Gert Pöttering still has the right to use his car and driver.

In addition, Spiegel Online informs, the rules have been changed right when he left office and were confirmed by his former assistant Klaus Welle who is now Secretary General of the European Parliament.

It is ridiculous and shameful that worn-out politicians like Pöttering keep their privileges after just 30 month in office, costing the taxpayer thousands of Euros while demanding citizens to get their salaries and pensions reduced.

Nothing against the respectful treatment of old men, but Mr Pöttering, you should give away this car!!

(via @mteu)

Picture: Julien Frisch, taken during this event.

War & Peace

(Best if enlarged to full screen and sound turned on loud enough.)



See also: more language versions

Comitology 2.0 & meat glue: The first time - updated

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Update: According to the comment by Anonymous, the present decision is was still based on the old comitology decision, not the new one as one can read in the ALDE press release linked below.

So we still need to wait for the new powers of the EP to become effective...

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According to a press release of ALDE, the European Parliament has, for the first time, used its new Comitology powers against the Commission.

I have covered comitology and its reform in a number of recent posts. And because the EP's Environment & Health Committee (ENVI) is clever, it used the very nice issue of meat glue to make everyone aware of the fact that this reform actually happened.

Meat glue is like the Comitology itself: It is an additive you don't notice but it keeps together pieces of stuff that would otherwise fall apart. It's details are very technical and can only be understood by very few experts.

Åsa Westlund (S&D group), the MEP responsible for the coordination of this decision as the rapporteur, showed positive surprise in her blog about the support and the majority she received in the Committee for her draft resolution which concerned this quite technical draft Commission directive.

While neither in the draft Directive nor in the EP resolution there is any hint to the Comitology procedure, the ALDE press release mentioned above gives an indication that this was still the case:

This is the first time since the entry into force of the Lisbon treaty that the European Parliament has opposed implementing a so-called technical measure under the comitology procedure (delegated act) of the European Commission and the Member States.

The term "delegated act" is a hint to Article 290 TFEU (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), where in paragraph 1 we can read that

"A legislative act may delegate to the Commission the power to adopt non-legislative acts of general application to supplement or amend certain non-essential elements of the legislative act."

This means that the Commission can be given powers to decide upon certain details of EU regulation, e.g. via Council Directives, on its own. However, in paragraph 2b of Article 290 it is specified that

"the delegated act may enter into force only if no objection has been expressed by the European Parliament or the Council within a period set by the legislative act"

which seems to be the case with the "Meat Glue Directive": The Commission wanted to regulate "technical aspects" of an existing act where it had been given delegated powers and the European Parliament expresses its objection.

This power was given to the European Parliament by the Lisbon Treaty.

However, it is still unclear to me how the procedure will look like after the formal objection in the plenary of the European Parliament because the detailed regulation on Article 290 TFEU is not yet in place.

But no matter how this procedure will be, we seem to have witnessed yet another "first time" moment in the use of new legislative powers by the European Parliament after the Lisbon reform.

(Thanks to an unnamed EU official for making me aware of this story.)

Picture: © roboppy / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Lisbon Wars II: The Council, the Parliament & international trade

© tpcom / CC BY-NC 2.0

You may remember that some time ago I have covered a letter sent by the European Parliament Committee on International Trade to the Council regarding the EP's involvement in international trade affairs. I've also reported about the provocative draft response from the Council.

Below you find the changes in the text from the first draft response presented by the Spanish Presidency (the one I covered) compared to the final draft response (Update: revised version with annex) now made public after three Working Party meetings.

Dear Mr Moreira, 

I am replying on behalf of the Council to your letter dated 25 February 2010 concerning cooperation between the European Parliament and Council in the area of the European Union's Common Commercial Policy. 

As you state in your letter, the Lisbon Treaty provides for some significant changes in the area of Common Commercial Policy. These changes reinforce the democratic legitimacy of EU commercial policy and bring its the legislative procedures in this area into line with those that already apply to most other economic issues. The Council is of course ready to work together with the Parliament, within the limits established by the treaties, to ensure that these new provisions are fully and effectively implemented. 

The treaties set out the procedures governing the negotiation and conclusion of international trade agreements. While the Parliament's consent is required for the conclusion of trade agreements where Article 207 TFEU is the substantive legal base, Article 218 (7) TFEU provides for the possibility for the Council to authorise the negotiator to approve on behalf of the Union modifications to an agreement through a simplified procedure. Furthermore, Article 218 (9) provides for the establishment of positions to be adopted on the Union's behalf in a body set up by an agreement, when that body is called upon to adopt acts having legal effects. In both these cases the consent of the Parliament is not required. 

As you state, the treaties require the Commission to report regularly to both the Trade Policy Committee (TPC) and to the European Parliament on the progress of negotiations. One has also to note that In addition Article 207(3) TFEU also specifically provides for the TPC to be consulted by the Commission on the conduct of the negotiations and assist the Commission in the negotiations. 

Regarding the specific proposals which you set out in your letter, I have the following comments. 

On the issue concerning information related to the Council's preparatory bodies in the fields of Commercial Policy and Economic Cooperation, the Council is happy to provide lists of these bodies to the Parliament. The current list is annexed to this letter. As far as the frequency of meetings is concerned, these vary, but a regularly updated calendar of the meetings of all the Council's preparatory bodies can be consulted on the Council's website (details are also in the annex). In order to keep this information updated, and in order to ensure that there is the regular exchange of such practical information necessary to support the new working relationship in commercial policy, contacts between the General Secretariat of the Council and the INTA Secretariat should be intensified. The General Secretariat of the Council will also invite each presidency to notify you with the contact details of the ministers and officials who have been designated to engage with the Parliament on commercial policy. Furthermore, the General Secretariat of the Council can provide the names of the members of the Foreign Affairs Council and, to the extent possible, of the ministers responsible for trade. 

The Council shares your view on the importance of effective cooperation and dialogue between the Parliament and Council with respect to international trade agreements, while of course respecting the treaties, which do not confer powers of action on the Parliament with respect to the preparation, negotiation and monitoring of trade agreements. With regard to negotiations, the provisions of Article 207 (3) in fine apply. 

The Council recalls that the relevant minister from the rotating presidency normally appears before your committee at both the beginning and end of its period in office, and considers that this practice is positive and should continue. Furthermore, and that these contacts could be stepped up when key trade dossiers reach a crucial phase, the Council favours these political contacts being stepped up in order to facilitate greater clarity and, if necessary, convergence of positions. 

The Council is also ready to build on the existing good relations between your committee and the TPC. It considers in particular that opportunities for direct contacts, such as your recent lunch with members of the committee, will become increasingly important. The Council also favours exchanges of views between yourself (together with INTA coordinators) and the Chair of COREPER II. In general, exchanges of views and contacts with the Chair of the TPC should also become remain an important channel for reciprocal exchanges of information and scheduling of work. As far as the particular issues of meetings of the TPC are concerned, the Council holds that the current arrangements on participation should remain unchanged in order to preserve the specific prerogatives of the committee as set out in the treaties. 

The Council is also open to more wide-ranging contacts where this would be useful. It will however be for each presidency to determine the exact nature of these contacts depending on the progress on individual dossiers and on specific issues which might need to be addressed during its period in office.

The Council considers that these arrangements, taken together, should enable us to exchange information more efficiently and rapidly, thereby ensuring full and effective implementation of the new provisions on the Common Commercial Policy as introduced by the Lisbon Treaty. Since commercial policy is, by definition, directed towards our international partners, both the Council and the Parliament will wish that the new arrangements will strengthen the EU's performance in this part of the international arena. The Council looks forward to continuing its dialogue with the Parliament in this area, in particular through further contacts between yourself and the Chair of the Trade Policy Committee.

Yours sincerely faithfully,

For the President of the Council Chairman of the Permanent Representatives Committee

It is hard to judge how the discussions went on in the Council Working Party on General Affairs, but it seems to me that the final draft response is even weaker in its concessions to the European Parliament than the Presidency draft.

This is most notably underlined by the deletion of the sentence "reinforce the democratic legitimacy of EU's commercial policy" at the beginning of the letter, showing that the Council doesn't see any change in the Lisbon Treaty.

When the this letter will be approved and sent to the Parliament, it will be very interesting to see how the International Trade Committee will react...

PS.: In case I missed anything in the comparison, please tell me in the comments so I can correct it.

Public access to EU documents - A never-ending story

After having written about the 2009 report on public access to EU Council documents* and about "The Leaking Union" these days, I thought I'd just link the previous Council reports, too, and then put these into some perspective regarding the stalemate reform of public access to EU documents.

• 2002 (first annual report)
• 2003 (second annual report)
• 2004 (third annual report)
• 2005 (fourth annual report)
• 2006 (fifth annual report)
• 2007 (sixth annual report)
• 2008 (seventh annual report)

(Maybe somebody wants to take a look to see whether there are some interesting developments?)

In the meantime, the EU institutions are debating the recast of the Regulation 1049/2001 on public access to EU documents that is the basis for the above-mentioned reports. Already two years ago, in April 2008, the Commission proposed changes, but Council and Parliament have not come to an agreement (see the PRELEX dossier) until now.

Since December 2009, the entry into force of the Lisbon has changed the legal basis of the regulation and of the proposed modifications, as the Commission tells in an explanatory note from January.

The public right to access to documents is now governed by Article 15 paragraph 3 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU):

Any citizen of the Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, shall have a right of access to documents of the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies, whatever their medium, subject to the principles and the conditions to be defined in accordance with this paragraph.

General principles and limits on grounds of public or private interest governing this right of access to documents shall be determined by the European Parliament and the Council, by means of regulations, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure.

Each institution, body, office or agency shall ensure that its proceedings are transparent and shall elaborate in its own Rules of Procedure specific provisions regarding access to its documents, in accordance with the regulations referred to in the second subparagraph. [...]"

The proposal regarding the recast of the 2001 regulation is not affected, explains the Commission in its note, but since the other two institutions are unable to come to an agreement the Commission considers proposing some modifications.

I hope that there are people within the Commission, the Parliament and even the Council who are willing to bring these things forward - the Union desperately needs more transparency, in particular in the light of the initiatives to create a European public sphere.

PS: If you want to see what kind of requests for access to documents are made at the Council, you can follow this search query.

* full title: "Eigth annual report of the Council on the implementation of Regulation No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents"

The EU's accession to the European Convention on Human Rights: In the parliament

http://www.flickr.com/photos/frenchy/ / CC BY 2.0

Antoine from the ECHR Blog has assembled a number of noteworthy documents from the European Parliament and the Council of Europe on discussions about the future accession of the EU to the European Convention on Human Rights.

More on this topic on this blog under the label ECHR.