The EU in German blogs (1): The light bulb ban

Yesterday, the German blog Duckhome published a longer article on the EU's light bulb ban.

The blogger is asking for active resistance by citizens against the goals of the directive by buying large stocks of old-fashioned light bulbs before they will be forbidden from September (i.e. the first category of high energy light bulbs):

In her kindliness, the EU that regulates everything from salad cucumber curvature to the size of condoms in the best bureaucratic manner, has decided to do something nice for the European producers of energy saving lamps. [...]

Her calculations on energy saving are absolute horseplay since the life expectancy is limited to two years, which makes these lamps very expensive, and in addition you can expect that their illegal disposal will bring a lot of mercury into the environment. [...]

But this time it is simple for the citizen. You can resist. Those who are clever buy a five year stock of 100 watt light bulbs and do the same in 2011 with other kinds of light bulbs. This is an manageable investment, and light bulbs, different to pears, do not lose value if stocked.

(own translation)

The (known) arguments brought forward by Duckhome are that a) the energy savings are only minor and that b) in the near future LEDs will become affordable and can thus replace the unnecessary switch to classical energy saving lamps.

This is the first example of the image of the EU on the national level: A regulator of little details which are already antiquated as soon as the regulation is in place.

Related articles of mine:

• 29 August 2009: The light bulb ban rage - just a symptom of the EU communication disaster

The EU in German blogs - New series

One of the lessons I have learned over the last twelve months and through these European Parliament elections:

We will have to foster transnational communication on European issues in order to create a European public sphere!

I will therefore start monitoring German blogs to see if and how they treat European issues. This will become a new series on Julien Frisch - Watching Europe titled

"The EU in German blogs"

As far as possible, I will also comment on those issues in German blogs in order to create argumentative links to European discussions or realities.

The Euroblogosphere has to become a hub for the wider European blogosphere instead of being a separate group of bloggers - and if we manage to do so, we will win as much the national blogospheres!

Euronews interview: A civic rights activist on Moldova

via codexpoliticus

A very interesting euronews interview, critical but optimistic, on a European country that has seen quite a lot of political turmoil over the last months - see the label Moldova for the coverage in this blog - and is likely to see more in the months ahead:

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.

The single peak: European Parliament elections online statistics

Florent from the European Parliament web editors is reporting about the post-electoral emptiness and the lack of interest they are experiencing now.

And it is clear: The interest in the EP elections has peaked on Sunday/Monday/Tuesday, when everyone was looking for results, and has then dropped sharply afterwards.

A very good impression of the importance of this peak gives the June statistic on the visitors to the EP 2009 election article on Wikipedia:

EUX.TV debate on EU election results

The national media have already forgotten that there have been European Parliament elections - and if they haven't, they are talking about the impact on national politics.

If you want to get more, you need to follow European media like EUX.TV which has produced a good and reflected 30 minutes long journalistic debate.

They are not just looking for simple answers, but take a first look at the election results from a mixed European and transnational perspective, which makes a show that is worth watching the whole 30 minutes, even if this is very long for the internet as the moderator Raymond Frenken closes the debate:



via New Europe on Twitter

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on the European Parliament elections

More than four minutes on the European Parliament elections on the Daily Show (from 1:40), including mocking of the European Parliament, the victory of the right, the BNP, Gordon Brown, and Berlin.

An absolute must!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2009 - Everywhere but Here Edition
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Newt Gingrich Unedited Interview

NO! to Barroso becoming the European Council's secretary

Jean Quatremer has definitely made the quote of the day regarding the future of Barroso and the European Commission in a wonderful article titled "L'équation Barroso":

"En l’obligeant à s’exprimer devant eux, Angela Merkel et Nicolas Sarkozy veulent clairement marquer la subordination de la Commission au Conseil européen qui devient ainsi officiellement son secrétariat."

For those not familiar with the beautiful French language, here the translation:

"By forcing him [Barroso, JF] to declare himself in front of them, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy are clearly highlighting the subordination of the Commission to the European Council, which will thus officially make it its secretariat."

Merkel and Sarkozy demanding a program from José Manuel Barroso means that they consider him responsible to the European Council (and to them), not to the European Parliament or to the EU citizens.

If the EP accepts Barroso, it will accept this situation and it will consequently have to work with a Commission openly being an appendix to the member states and the Council. And if it does so, it will lose power, relevance, and credibility.

MEPs have to make clear at their first session that they neither want such kind of a Commission nor such a Commission president - they have to make sure that the balance of the European institutions is not undermined by egomaniacs at the top of European member states and shifted towards more intransparency and less accountability!

So I fully share the assessment of Jean Quatremer - and also his final question:

Will our directly elected parliamentarians have the guts to stand against the European Council? - If yes, this would be a great day for the European democracy!

EuroparlTV: Group formation in the European Parliament

EuroparlTV has 2:30 minutes on group formation in the European Parliament, including MEPs defending the rebranding of PES into ASDE:

EU reduced value added tax rules: Cyprus' teeth grinding

In May, the EU Council has adopted the Directive 2009/47/EC ammending an older directive regarding EU-wide reduced rates of value added tax (VAT).

Cyprus abstained in the vote, but from a special statement recently released in an addendum to the Council minutes you can see that it did so with teeth grinding:

"Cyprus currently applies an exemption with deductibility of VAT paid at the preceding stage in respect of the supply of pharmaceuticals and foodstuffs for human consumption. The current application of zero VAT rate on these items is based on a derogation, which after renewal, expires on December 31 2010. Though we are in favour of zero VAT rate on these, in good faith and Community spirit, Cyprus refrained from specifically raising the issue of further extension. [...]

Cyprus considers that the wording of the proposed Council Directive amending Directive 2006/112/EC as regards reduced rates of value added tax should have better reflected the principles of equality and equal treatment of Member States in similar
situations. In this respect, the same derogation should have applied to Member States in similar situations allowing them to benefit from the same special arrangements provided for in Article 111(c).

Cyprus expects that an appropriate way will be found in order to accommodate its legitimate request before the expiration of the said derogation at the end of 2010."

This is yet another example of the group pressure existing within the Council, in particular on smaller states. But it is also an example on the general will to come to common solutions, even in an area that many might not see in the competence of the European Union - VAT.

As a blogger and scientist, those special statements are most valuable to understand special preferences and dynamics within the Council, probably the most intransparent of all EU institutions, so I am always glad to find them.

Because let's not forget:

Although over the last weeks we have been concentrating on the European Parliament - and we will continue, since it is the only directly elected EU body - the EU Council has much more legislative power than the EP, but we hardly understand how it's decisions are made, so it also needs much more thorough attention from our side!

(The whole legislative procedure on the directive here on Pre-Lex.)

PES becomes ASDE

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Update (17 June 2009): See new developments that indicate "ASDE" might not be the final word.
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(Via The Lobby, confirmed by Italian news sources)

In a strange move that is just done to please the Italian Partito Democratico, the PES group in the European Parliament will be re-branded into ASDE, the Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.

I think this will ruin any move to brand the term "PES" which until now was both, the name of the party and of the political group. It will make future campaigning more difficult, and it will also make it more difficult for people in the member states to recognise the differences between the parties and the politics.

Having the "Alliance" and "Democrats" in ALDE and ASDE will for sure lead to confusions and to misunderstandings, not to mention that the EPP also has an "-ED" in its parliamentary group.

This will blur the lines and the concepts, and this can only be bad for the European democracy that is already in bad shape today.

So I think the re-branding as ASDE is wrong, even if it will bring 21 additional seats to the Socialist group, wrong for the socialist group and wrong for the European Parliament in general.

Update 2: Since ASDE sounds pretty much like a UK/Ireland-based supermarket chain called ASDA, Jon Worth was again able to prove his marvellous graphical skills by bringing ASDE and ASDA together.

Update 1: Interview with PES/ASDE member Robert Goebbels on EuroparlTV

Will there ever be a "Gabon Coalition"?

Jon Worth has come up with a new term for the usage in the context of European Parliament politics:

"The Gabon Coalition".

On Twitter, we were discussing possible options for a European Parliament majority for the next European Commission president, and one possibility mentioned - although still hypothetical - was the "Gabon Coalition" formed by the EPP (colour blue), ALDE (yellow), and the Greens (colour self-evident), a combination of colours that you find on the flag of Gabon.

This discussion is linked to a similar discussion in Germany in 2005, when a hypothetical combination of the Christian Democrats (black), the Liberals (yellow) and the Greens (that never happened) was named "Jamaica Coalition".

The Gabon option is very unlikely for the European Parliament, but you never know - so please use this term whenever you combine EPP, ALDE, and Greens!

Make Guy Verhofstadt the next European Commission president!

Via Stephen and EurActiv I became aware of the fact that discussions about replacing Barroso with Guy Verhofstadt are remaining alive, even after the EPP victory at the recent EP elections.

To make things clear: Guy Verhofstadt would by far be a better Commission President than Barroso!

First, he has more profile as a convinced European than Barroso, having proposed the creation of the United States of Europe and having been endorsed by European federalists.

And second, he has made himself a name in Europe as the leader of his country, as a visible statesman who is more than just a compromise candidate as Barroso was when proposed in 2004 and which he remains until today.

We need a person that can inspire Europe, a person that has the personality to stand against the overly powerful, intransparent Council, a convinced European who is electable but more than just a political trade-off.

As a member of ELDR/ALDE and if supported by the PES and the Greens, he would have a stronger voter basis than Barroso who is only endorsed by the EPP. The question will be how the many others on the far left (GUE/NGL), on the right (e.g. the newly formed group around the British Tories) and the many so far unaligned will behave.

This is pretty unclear by now, and I can only hope that somehow there will be a coalition of the Europeans willing to make a step to the front after these elections have been two steps backwards.

So I don't see yet that Verhofstadt will get a majority but it would be more than desirable to make him replace the unbearable José Manuel Barroso!

Update: Just saw that Jon also published an article on this topic some minutes ago.

EuroparlTV: Isabelle Durant very first new MEP

The Belgian Green Isabelle Durant was the very first new MEP to register at the European Parliament, and EuroparlTV got her on camera:

Watch Nosemonkey and other EU bloggers on TV

Even though the elections are over and many might turn their backs to this topic, I recommend watching the bloggers from Nosemonkey, Shiraz Socialists, and EU Referendum discuss on BBC before and after the European Parliament elections 2009 here on Vimeo.

Commissioner Wallström blames others for EU elections fail

Right. These were European Parliament elections, so one might say that it is not the European Commission's task to get people to vote.

But it is very poor by Margot Wallströme to blame others for the failure to communicated the European Union while refusing any responsibility by her institution:

A hunt for someone to blame will also no doubt start and some will look to blame the Commission, which would be absurd. The main responsibility for persuading people to vote lies with the political parties.

The Commission has displayed more modern thinking than many others in recent years by embracing Youtube, MTV, actively engaging womens organisations etc. It has engaged people in debate and discussion and has been responsible for Plan D and Debate Europe. It is for others to learn the lessons for the next few years.

Political parties in Europe need to learn how to use modern methods of communication and campaigning and that European issues need to be a permanent part of the domestic debate.

She says the hunt for someone to blame will start soon, and she is the first to do it. Bravo!

I know she has been in a defence position over the last weeks, but this paragraph of her latest post is so disappointing because it shows that Margot does not have any ideas how to make things better. It shows that there is no strategy how to help national actors to be more aware of European politics. It shows that the attention crisis for the European Union is a crisis based on all institutions and actors involved.

But it also it shows that the Commission does not want to take any responsibility, and this is blatantly wrong.

Sorry Ms. Wallström, but this article of yours is a proof why many of us who are fans of the project called "European Union" will become more and more critical of the people handling it - and we will make ourselves heard!

Lech Walesa honoured by Berlin mayor

Yesterday, former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa has received the highest honour of the city of Berlin, the Ernst Reuter badge, from Berlin's mayor Klaus Wowereit for his outstanding role in making possible the fall of the Wall in the divided city of Berlin 20 years ago.

I had the possibility participating in the honorary ceremony, and was very curious about what Mr Walesa would say, in particular since his appearance at Libertas has been very controversial in the pre-electoral period.

Starting with his role in Solidarity, making very clear that nothing that happened later on would have happened without this movement which took away the legitimacy from the Communist Party to represent the workers, he came quickly to more recent isues.

Today he spoke very pro-European, going as far as asking to think about a "European state". He promoted common solutions for common problems like building good roads all over Europe, so that "the German Mercedes would not lose a wheel on bumpy roads".

He also pointed out that it is in the interest of Germans that there is work all over Europe, because if not, people might first stop buying German cars and, if out of work for too long, would start a new revolution which would be bad for Europe. It was important for Europe not to fall back into nationalism and discrimination of minorities.

He asked Germany to take a lead in Europe, and he said that Germans were too often not aware of their importance and lacked the chance to fulfil their role. If Germany wasn't interested, he said, Poles would be glad if Germany could hand over to them. If not, Germany would have to march ahead and help to fill words like globalisation with life.

Hadn't there been the Libertas story, his speech would have been really nice. He has a funny style of speaking, very lively and conscious of his importance ("You should invite me more often, I have so much to say."), but he doesn't speak like somebody who has grown up with doing political speeches - he sounds as if he is doing it "from the gut".

In the end, after he had given all his ideas and advice, he concluded:

"Now, that you have given me this honorary badge, you should also listen and follow to what I say."

Smiled, and left the stage.

Estonian independent candidate Indrek Tarand becomes MEP

In Estonia, which saw turnout for the EP elections almost double compared to 2004, Indrek Tarand, an independent candidate, received enough votes - 102,509 - to enter the European Parliament as one of only 6 MEPs, apparently by running an anti-party campaign:

Europe in blogs (2)

Caution: The following article could contain traces of irony or hyperbole.

Whooo, the whirlwind of the European Parliament elections 2009 has blown pretty heavily during the last days. If you've missed that, you've missed quite something.

During these days, The European Citizen did a tremendous job in the coverage of the election process, and he is absolutely worth getting linked here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. I suppose he realised that I wasn't capable of doing it, so he took over from me.

La Oreja de Europa was equally active, blogging directly from the European Parliament. 15 blog posts on the 7th of June, that is quite something. It is a shame that they are all in Spanish so nobody will understand them. Why not blogging in Maltese?!

Now that the results are in, Jan is happy that he guessed the wrong number of Greens entering the new European Parliament. What he forgot to mention is that he actually made it into the European Parliament himself, where from now on he will be called on duty by the European blogosphere whenever we need him. Bad luck!

Charlemagne partly blames MEPs for the low turnout, and, more important, criticises them for planning to do "more of the same" in the future, just on a larger scale. His simple, media-guy conclusion: Let's get rid of the EU, make it national. It's the Economist, stupid!

The Kosmopolit has set out a long agenda of things he needs to write about after these elections, and the list is long enough to keep an army of bloggers, politicians, PR people and scientists busy for the next years. But why to be overmodest when you have been nominated Best European Blog in 2008!?

Behind the Scenes is ignoring the will of the people when she questions the authority of Barroso. How dare she?! 60% abstention were a clear "YES" for José Manuel who abstained from doing anything valuable over the last five years. Non-Voters want more of that!

At Central Europe Active, Dániel sounds very surprised by the heavy victory of the right in Hungary, in particular the anti-Roma far right. He himself admits having endorsed a Roma party which only received very few votes. But he should have known better: Nobody in Europe likes Roma because many of them try to live the European dream by moving around freely - and the immobile populations are very jealous about that.

It was also a sad Sunday for British MEP and blogger Richard Corbett who will have to leave his EP office to make room for a British neo-nationalist which EU Referendum is joyfully defending. I should write some nice words about Mr Corbett because many seem to be upset, but somehow he has only marginally captured my attention and I am not the best to hold the funeral eulogy.

Maybe Nosemonkey could do it, after he spent his election night on Twitter, probably with the bottle of something he bought recently (cannot find the Tweet, sorry). Or Jon, who not surprisingly is is disappointed by the results of the left and who wants to see Martin Schulz' head roll (that is yet another Twitter story).

Before closing, we should not forget the many others who have heroically blogged about Polish winners, about the elite deserving the results, about a Libertas leader not making it into the EP, their frustration as pro-Europeans, or who have published 10 boring conclusions on the election results in the UK.

And last but not least, with tears in his eyes, PES leader Rasmussen admits the defeat and has already learned his lesson: He makes clear to everyone that European socialists and social democrats have to continue as they did. Because once you are on the way to hell, don't turn around or you'll get your back burned, too. Great job, Mr R.!

There was much more in European blogs over the last week, but that's it for now. Europe in blogs will be back soon.

(PS: The good-bye does not come without mentioning that the title of this series - "Europe in blogs" - which I came up with while being offline - was probably unconsciously influenced by "L'Europe en Blogs" of ARTE, which means exactly the same.

I knew this category before, but only during last week I remembered it and then I realised that my innovation was not very innovative. I felt very stupid then. And I still feel bad about it. I think I will have to invent another title for the category. Any idea for something short?

You see, the post-election era continues with deception, this time with me being uncreative. My apologies!)

Youth and a female President for the new European Parliament!

I see that now that the elections are over, some are already speculating who will get the best post(s).

Let me therefore be very clear:

I want a female President for the new European Parliament!

And I want that Europarlamentarians show that they have learned a lesson, and that they don't just put forward interesting women for top posts, but that they also to renew the face of the European Parliament.

Young people might not turn out to vote in satisfactory number, but maybe this is because the faces we got so far are worn-out, and their way to speak does not reach the many among us who already live Europe while don't feeling connected to the European political sphere.

What we need is the enthusiasm of a new generation, able to revive interest in the EP, able to speak European and to think global.

Dear European Parliament, dear new MEPs,

get the next generation by being the next generation, by involving the next generation - and by becoming more gender balanced, from the "bottom" to the top!