Eurobloat #0087 • July 2017
July was the month the Commission appointed itself headmaster of Warsaw, the Parliament voted to publish everyone's tax return, and Brussels quietly paid Libyan militias to handle the migration it spends its summers lecturing other people about.
Folly of the Month: Brussels marks Poland's homework for the third time
On 26 July the Commission adopted its third Rule of Law Recommendation against Poland and, for good measure, fired off a formal notice to launch infringement proceedings over the law on ordinary courts. A directly elected national parliament passed laws, and the unelected Commission decided those laws were wrong and that it would be the one to say so. The genius of the scheme is that it never ends: this was Recommendation number three, complementary to the recommendations of July and December 2016, with the threat of Article 7 hanging over the lot. Returning power to member states is apparently a heresy that requires a quarterly sermon.
1. The Parliament invents a tax register and calls it transparency
On 4 July MEPs voted, by 534 to 98, to make large multinationals publish their tax information country by country, with the data filed in a public registry conveniently managed by the European Commission. Nothing says open competition like requiring firms to hand Brussels a fresh database to administer.
2. A trade deal timed for the photograph
On 6 July, two days before the G20 in Hamburg, the EU and Japan struck an "agreement in principle" on an economic partnership, the principle being that an in-principle deal makes a better summit backdrop than an actual one. Four years of talks were rounded off just in time for the cameras, with the awkward final chapters left for later.
3. Parliament wants Turkey's accession talks frozen, then keeps them open
On 6 July MEPs passed a resolution calling for membership negotiations with Turkey to be suspended if Erdogan's constitutional changes went through unchanged. It was non-binding, so the talks carried on regardless, leaving the EU in its favourite posture: disapproving loudly of a partner it has decided it cannot afford to actually walk away from.
4. Two infringement steps against Hungary in one day
On 13 July the Commission opened both barrels at Budapest at once: a letter of formal notice over its foreign-funded NGO law, and a reasoned opinion, the second step before court, over its higher-education law. When a national government legislates in a way Brussels dislikes, the answer is never persuasion, it is paperwork that ends in The Hague.
5. A whole new energy label, signed on 4 July
Regulation (EU) 2017/1369 of 4 July rebuilt the framework for energy labelling across the Union, repealing the old directive so the famous coloured arrows could be rescaled and a fresh product database stood up. The market apparently could not be trusted to tell shoppers which fridge uses less electricity without a Brussels rulebook to govern the sticker.
6. Outsourcing the border to Tripoli
Through July the EU-backed Italian strategy in the central Mediterranean came good: a Code of Conduct was pressed on rescue NGOs, the Libyan coastguard was funded and trained to turn boats around, and arrivals to Italy collapsed from some 23,000 in June to a few thousand by August. Stopping the boats was the right call. The tell is that Brussels will pay Libyan militias to do the border control it forbids member states from doing themselves, then look away from the conditions it has financed.
7. Glyphosate: ten more years, if only anyone could agree
On 20 July the Commission restarted talks with member states at the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed and tabled a proposal to renew glyphosate for a further ten years. The capitals could not agree, so the file simply rolled on to autumn for the first of several rounds that would end the year exactly where they began. After half a decade of process the great machine had managed to decide precisely nothing.
8. When in doubt, set up another committee
On 6 July the Parliament voted, by 527 to 73, to establish a special temporary committee on terrorism, to examine what was needed to improve anti-terror cooperation. The terrorists, one assumes, were quaking at the prospect of a fresh sub-committee and its interim report.
9. Dreaming up a eurozone finance minister
On 13 July, after a Franco-German cabinet at the Elysee, Merkel and Macron pledged closer cooperation and floated a eurozone budget and a euro-area finance minister, with Merkel allowing that "we can talk about" creating the new post. Nothing returns power to national capitals quite like a new job in Brussels to spend their money and a common budget to pool their debts.
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