Eurobloat #0010 • February 2011
February brought us a Franco-German plan to run everyone else's economy, a fresh demand to harvest air travellers' personal data, and the opening move towards a tax that no national treasury had asked for. Spring is coming, and so is the bill.
Folly of the Month: The Competitiveness Pact, or how to run your neighbour's pension scheme from Berlin
At the European Council on 4 February, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a "Competitiveness Pact" inviting the rest of the eurozone to harmonise things that have nothing to do with Brussels: retirement ages, wage-setting, even the way national constitutions handle debt. The pitch was that closer "coordination" would calm the markets. The reality was two large capitals proposing to grade the homework of the smaller ones, and several governments said as much out loud before the coffee had gone cold. Returning power to member states would have been the cure. Instead the patient was offered more of the disease, rebranded as a pact.
1. Airlines told to hand over your name, address and credit card
On 2 February the Commission proposed an EU Passenger Name Record directive, obliging carriers to surrender each traveller's name, address, telephone number and payment details to the authorities. It was sold as a tool against serious crime, which is the standard wrapping paper for any scheme that quietly turns every holidaymaker into a database entry.
2. A new EU tax is floated, and naturally it begins with a consultation
On 22 February the Commission launched a public consultation on taxing the financial sector, the polite first step on the road to a Europe-wide financial transaction tax levied by Brussels rather than by any national treasury. The eventual proposal would skim 0.1 per cent off trades in shares and bonds and 0.01 per cent off derivatives. A tax that no member state asked for is best introduced gently, with a questionnaire, so that by the time anyone objects the principle has already been settled.
→ taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu
3. A million signatures to politely ask the Commission for permission
On 16 February Parliament and the Council adopted Regulation 211/2011, the European Citizens' Initiative. Gather a million signatures across seven countries and you earn the right to "invite" the Commission to consider proposing a law, which it remains entirely free to ignore. Participatory democracy, Brussels style.
4. The unitary patent advances by leaving most members behind
On 15 February Parliament consented to launching "enhanced cooperation" on a unitary patent, a procedure used precisely because the twenty-seven could not agree. The honest description of a club where the willing press ahead and the rest are told to catch up is a two-speed Europe, though that phrase is never printed on the letterhead.
5. Open borders meet the Arab Spring and Lampedusa pays the bill
With thousands of Tunisians landing on the tiny island of Lampedusa, Italy declared a humanitarian emergency on 12 February and asked Brussels for a Frontex patrol off the Tunisian coast. The free movement so prized in the brochures looked rather different to the government actually facing the boats, which wanted a functioning border rather than another comprehensive European plan.
6. The internet is now a pharmacy, so it must be regulated
On 16 February Parliament approved new rules against falsified medicines by 569 votes to 12, complete with safety features, traceability and, naturally, fresh powers to police online sales of medicine. Counterfeit drugs are a genuine menace; the reflex to reach first for an EU-wide control regime is the part worth noting.
7. Two nights in a hotel, courtesy of the bus regulation
On 16 February the institutions adopted Regulation 181/2011 on the rights of bus and coach passengers, granting snacks, meals and up to two nights' accommodation when a long journey is badly delayed. A continent that cannot agree a patent can, at least, legislate the catering arrangements for a late coach.
8. The 80 to 95 per cent promise nobody will be around to keep
February's Council reconfirmed the goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95 per cent by 2050, and the Commission set to work on a low-carbon roadmap to match. Setting binding-sounding targets for the year 2050 is the safest commitment in politics, since not one of the officials making it will still hold office to be asked about it.
9. Comitology, the art of supervising the people you appointed
Regulation 182/2011, adopted on 16 February, set out how member states are to "control" the Commission when it exercises its implementing powers. A whole regulation devoted to keeping an eye on the executive's executing of the laws it helped write tells you most of what you need to know about how the machine grows.
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