Riga will host BEREC

As "predicted", Riga (Latvia) will host the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) (source).

Update: Here is the press release following the formal approval on Monday, 31 May 2010.

Will Latvia get BEREC? - updated

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Update (28 May 2010): Council Document 9880/10 mentioned below has been published - and, as predicted, the winner of the seat of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) is Riga, the capital of Latvia.

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The EU needs many bodies and agencies and groups and things and they need to be spread all around the Union to make it appears as if we are fair and just and equitable.

So now it looks like that on Monday there will be a decision on the seat of the Office of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), although the respective Council document (9880/10) mentioned in the agenda linked above is not even listed in the register of Council documents.

As Grahnlaw noted in December, BEREC and it's office were created by a regulation in November 2009. BEREC replaced the ERG ('European Regulators Group for electronic communications networks and services') and has been seated in Brussels so far.

From what I can see and read, Riga seems to be the only city campaigning for the seat, apparently supported by France, and so the decision might have just been between keeping it in Brussels and moving it to Riga.

But we all know how the EU works and so I'm pretty sure that on Monday we can congratulate Latvia to host yet another EU agency. Celebrations!


Picture: © an_agent / CC BY-NC 2.0 (flickr)

Waste of money

Sorry, but this procurement (Update: The Link is disfunctional now, but EUobserver journalist Leigh Philips has put up a copy of the Fundamental Rights Agency tender) is a waste of money; it is ridiculous and it is useless. Whoever had this idea and whoever decided to spend money on this should be fired.

(via @pstrempel)

Yet another Agency: The Agency for the operational management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice [supplemented]

According to the German tech news heise.de (quoting Austrian sources), Estonia is the only country applying to host the future

Agency for the operational management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice.

The Agency, which is part of a larger legislative package around the Schengen Information System (SIS) infrastructure that will see its second generation (SIS II) implemented, is not yet created; the respective proposal has been forwarded by the Commission to the Council and the Parliament on 26 June 2009 (see PRELEX).

The Council Working Group Schengen Acquis – Mixed Committee (EU-Iceland/ Norway/ Switzerland/ Liechtenstein) will discuss the issue on 9 September 2009 (agenda), and

"[m]ember States are invited to compose their delegations with expertise on both the institutional aspect of establishing rules for EU-agencies and know-how on effective IT-management".

It is unclear when the Parliament will deal with the topic.

PS.: Let me also remind in this context that there will be a massive data collection exercise at the EU/Schengen borders starting in one week.

Supplement:

I would like to share the comment by Mariya to this post, which adds some more content to the debate around this new agency:

Indeed, yet another agency with yet another long name. Stay tuned for another fancy acronym. Though nothing beats my favorite 'SISone4all'.

What I find more interesting though is the legal basis for this agency. According to the Commission, "The present package of legal instruments combines two legal instruments: a Regulation governing the first-pillar aspects of SIS II and VIS as well as EURODAC and a Decision regarding third-pillar aspects of SIS II and VIS".

It should make for an interesting battle between the Council and the EP. The proposal is also intriguing from another perspective: it is presented in a way that suggests that it is a mere technical issue and is mainly (if at all) justified in terms of efficiency. Undoubtedly, this makes it easier to sell but there is no mention of the normative consequences of such decision for, among others, data protection. Also, I would have liked to see how this is a part of a bigger strategy for the development of JHA policy. As it stands, it smacks of an attempt to introduce e-borders in the same way as the US has done.

Member states' useless fights: Where to place EU agencies

What is among the biggest and most controversial political questions in the European Union?

The Lisbon Treaty? The European Parliament elections? The next European Commission? The EU-China summit? The EU-Russia summit? The financial crisis?

No, these are minor issues, compared to the question where to place EU agencies.

This time some member states are fighting for the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators; I have reported about it in December.

And this is what I said about it in December:

"We will witness yet another fight between the member states where to place the agency [...]."

And sadly enough, I was right.

Member states, you get on my nerves with your useless fight in which you invest more time than in important policy questions!

European Union Asylum Support Office to be created

On the agenda of the last Justice and Home Affairs Council (last week; 26 + 27 February) I saw the agenda item

Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a European Asylum Support Office

I haven't heard about this initiative, so let's have a short look at it.

In 2007, the Commission issued a "Green Paper on the future Common European Asylum System". Then, in April 2008, the Council requested a more specific initiative by the Commission in this matter. And now, on 18 February 2009, the Commission has finally proposed (full proposal: COM(2009) 66 final) the setting up of the European Asylum Support Office:

The Office will support Member States in their efforts to implement a more consistent and fairer asylum policy, for example by helping to identify good practices, organising training at European level and improving access to accurate information on countries of origin. It will also be responsible for coordinating support teams made up of national experts that will be deployed at the request of Member States faced with a mass influx of asylum seekers into their territory. It will also provide scientific and technical assistance for the development of asylum policy and legislation.

The Office will be yet another agency, and is supposed to start work from 2010. Quite an optimistic timeframe, though, taking into account the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Over the first four years (2010-2013) it will cost 40 Million Euro, starting with about 5 Million in 2010 and reaching 15 Million in 2013.

Other concerned actors have already reacted: UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond expressed his organisation's approval of the initiative, which is not unimportant since the new agency will need to co-ordinate its work with the UNHCR.

Yet another agency: The Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators - supplemented

While the Court of Auditors has criticised existing agencies for their financial abuses, the Council of the European Union proposes in a Common Position issued today to establish yet another EU agency.

This one is titled:

Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators

and, 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:

(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.

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.

However, this will yet again be another agency which will cost a lot of taxpayers' money. We will witness yet another fight between the member states where to place the agency, and it risks to face the same financial criticism as others have been facing this year.

Merry Christmas, European Union!

EU budget committee criticises EU agencies

A rather critical text containing a draft Council resolution on the financing of the differenct decentralised agencies of the European Union has been forwarded to COREPER these days.

Following a report by the European Court of Auditors (Special Report No 5/2008) the draft COREPER resolution

NOTES WITH CONCERN the general findings of the Court that the audited decentralised agencies do not plan their activities adequately nor, for most of them, have at their disposal sound tools for monitoring their activities, and that the reporting of the activities and the evaluation of the results need to be improved.

The phrase "notes with concern" is rather alarming, and it looks as if the observed agencies are in quite some troubles.

According to the Court of Audiors' report these agencies are:

• the European Environment Agency;

• the European Food Safety Authority;

• the European Medicines Agency;

• the European Maritime Safety Agency;

• the European Network and Information Security Agency;

• the European Foundation for the the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions;

• the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States; and

• the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work

The executive summary of the 49 pages long report remarks that:

"IV. The agencies did not make ex ante evaluations of their programmes, nor did they draw up multiannual programming documents intended to enable them to set medium-term result and impact objectives together with performance indicators.

V. While the agencies all drew up annual work programmes, these provided little precise information concerning the resources to be allocated to the various actions and the results expected.

VI. Monitoring tools were still fairly rudimentary in most of the agencies. Information on the use made of the resources allocated to their activities was often scattered. It would be of benefit to promote to all agencies the best practice monitoring systems identified in certain of them. The Commission's role could be reviewed in this respect.

Both, the Auditors' report and the strength of the draft EU Council resolution show that the planning and execution of the work - and especially the financing - of the respective agencies of the European Union is inappropriate and needs revision.

In fact, these should be issues European media take more serious. As in this case, both the Court of Auditors' report and the planned Council conclusions are public, and I would expect the mainstream journalists to follow up on this.

But I doubt that anybody cares if the European Union is poorly organising and supervising its activities - apart from some strange Eurosceptics concentrated around a little island on the western shores of the European continent...