Eurobloat #0043 • November 2013
November is when the Union does its serious accounting, so naturally it spent the month writing itself a cheque for the better part of a trillion euros, dictating the composition of private boardrooms, and informing member states that the migration they could see with their own eyes was a statistical illusion.
Folly of the Month: A 960 billion euro budget, waved through
On 19 November the European Parliament approved the long-term budget for 2014 to 2020 by 537 votes to 126: 960 billion euros in commitments, to be precise. After months of theatre about a "real-terms cut", the headline number remained vast, the rebates remained a mystery to ordinary mortals, and the gravy train was refuelled for another seven years. Note that the figure is settled before anyone has explained where the previous billions went, and that the Court of Auditors had once again declined to sign off the accounts. Seven more years, then, of a budget nobody can fully audit and nobody is held responsible for.
1. Brussels decides who sits on your board
On 20 November MEPs voted, 459 to 148, to back a directive demanding that listed companies hand 40 per cent of their non-executive board seats to women by 2020, with penalties for those who refuse. The composition of a private company in a sovereign nation is now, apparently, a matter for the Strasbourg hemicycle.
2. Free movement is sacred, your borders are not
On 25 November the Commission published a communication, "Free movement of EU citizens and their families: Five actions to make a difference", assuring member states that no government had supplied any statistical evidence that "benefit tourism" existed to any significant extent, and that they should stop fretting about it. The message to national capitals worried about their own welfare systems was, in effect: the numbers we have chosen to count say there is no problem, so do as you are told.
3. The Vilnius snub
On 21 November, days before the showcase Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius, Ukraine suspended preparations to sign its association agreement with the EU. Brussels had spent years dangling the prospect of ever-closer union eastward, only to watch Kiev calculate that a deal with Moscow paid better. The grand neighbourhood policy, it turned out, could be outbid.
4. Thirteen ways to feel better about your data
On 27 November the Commission issued its Safe Harbour report, concluding the transatlantic data deal could not continue as it was and offering thirteen recommendations to "make it safer". Having discovered, courtesy of Mr Snowden, that data sent abroad might be read abroad, Brussels responded with a list of suggestions and the firm promise of further talks.
→ fpf.org
5. The European Central Bank takes the wheel of the banks
On 3 November the regulation establishing the Single Supervisory Mechanism entered into force, setting the ECB on course to take direct supervision of the eurozone's largest banks and launching a year-long "comprehensive assessment". Another tier of authority, accountable to no national parliament, gathered to itself the power to grade the lenders of sovereign states.
6. Rates to a record low, savers to the wall
On 7 November the ECB cut its main rate to a record low of 0.25 per cent, the fifth cut under Mario Draghi, blaming stubbornly low inflation. A single interest rate for nineteen very different economies continued to do what single rates do: punish the prudent saver in one country to flatter the ledger in another.
7. Another task force for the Mediterranean
On 20 November the Commission convened the second meeting of its Task Force for the Mediterranean, set up after the Lampedusa drownings in October. The chosen remedy for a border the Union cannot control was more surveillance, more Frontex funding and a fresh acronym, Eurosur, going live in early December. The deaths continued; the working groups multiplied.
8. A medal for the cause
On 20 November the Parliament handed Malala Yousafzai its Sakharov Prize in a packed Strasbourg ceremony marking the award's 25th anniversary. The young woman was unimpeachable; the institution's enthusiasm for handing itself moments of moral grandeur, rather less so. Brussels does enjoy a ceremony in which it gets to stand near someone genuinely brave.
9. The war on the Christmas biscuit
As November turned to December, Denmark prepared to apply EU coumarin limits to its beloved cinnamon rolls, the kanelsnegle, with regulators fretting that a small child might reach the "tolerable daily intake" after a modest plateful. The same Union that cannot audit its own budget found time to calculate the safe dosage of a festive bun.
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