Eurobloat #0034 • February 2013
February brought the rarest creature in the Brussels bestiary, a budget that actually shrank, and the Commission spent the rest of the month trying to grow itself back with a financial transaction tax, a fingerprint scheme and a sermon about other people's pay.
Folly of the Month: The EU invents itself a tax
On 14 February the Commission unveiled a financial transaction tax for eleven member states under the "enhanced cooperation" procedure, a levy of 0.1 per cent on shares and bonds and 0.01 per cent on derivatives, projected to raise some 30 to 35 billion euros a year. The interesting question was never the rate but the recipient. Here was Brussels conjuring a new revenue stream of its own, a "Robin Hood" badge for the people who brought you the Common Agricultural Policy, while London and three others kept well clear. A tax invented by the institution that will spend it, levied to fund the institution that invented it, is not a tax on speculation. It is a down payment on EU own resources.
→ taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu
1. The budget that dared to shrink
On 7 and 8 February the European Council agreed the 2014 to 2020 budget at 960 billion euros in commitments, down from 994 billion, the first real-terms cut in the Union's history. David Cameron went to Brussels and came back with a smaller bill, which tells you everything about how the place normally operates.
2. A fingerprint database for your holiday
In late February the Commission presented its "Smart Borders" package, including an Entry/Exit System that would take ten fingerprints from every non-EU visitor. The bloc that cannot agree who is allowed in decided the answer was to fingerprint everybody who comes for a fortnight.
3. Brussels decides what your banker is worth
On 28 February Parliament and Council struck a deal capping bankers' bonuses at one year's salary, or two with shareholder approval. Britain, whose financial sector was the obvious target, opposed it, and the chief result was to push fixed pay upward so that the cap changed the label on the cheque rather than its size.
4. There is horse in the regulated lasagne
On 19 February agriculture ministers ordered EU-wide DNA testing of processed meat after horse turned up in beef ready-meals across the single market. Decades of labelling directives, traceability rules and harmonised standards, and the one thing the system could not trace was the animal in the package.
5. The Charter that follows you home
On 26 February the Court of Justice ruled in Åkerberg Fransson that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights bites whenever a member state is "implementing Union law", and in Melloni that EU law can override a higher national standard of protection. A quiet Tuesday in Luxembourg, a permanent expansion of where Brussels law reaches into a national courtroom.
6. A cybersecurity strategy that wants your incident reports
On 7 February the Commission proposed the Network and Information Security Directive, requiring firms in energy, transport, finance, health and assorted "internet enablers" to report security incidents to a national authority. A worthy aim, wrapped in a new EU-wide reporting machine that would take years to build and longer to justify.
7. Rescuing the carbon market from itself
On 19 February the environment committee voted 38 to 25 to "backload" 900 million carbon permits, yanking supply to prop up a price the EU's own emissions scheme had driven into the floor. The market Brussels designed needed Brussels to intervene to stop the market Brussels designed from working as designed.
8. Parliament bans the fish nobody wanted thrown back
On 6 February MEPs voted 502 to 137 to end discards under the Common Fisheries Policy. Banning the dumping of dead fish is sensible enough, though it is worth remembering whose quota rules made fishermen throw perfectly good catch overboard in the first place.
9. The forecast nobody wanted to forecast
On 22 February the Commission's winter forecast conceded the eurozone would shrink another 0.3 per cent in 2013, a recession running a year longer than promised, with unemployment heading past 19 million. Having spent the month inventing taxes and fingerprint schemes, Brussels found a moment to admit the actual economy was still going backwards.
Enjoyed this post?
Well, you could share the post with others, follow me with RSS Feeds and/or send me a comment via email.
Tags
Category:
Year: