Eurobloat #0089 • September 2017
September was the month the wind was supposedly in Europe's sails. In practice it meant a court telling sovereign nations they could not say no, and a Commission president asking for almost everything at once.
Folly of the Month: The court that decided "no" was not an option
On 6 September the Court of Justice threw out the case brought by Slovakia and Hungary against the scheme that forced member states to take fixed quotas of asylum seekers. The two countries had argued, not unreasonably, that deciding who settles within your own borders is a matter for your own parliament. The Court disagreed, declared the quotas proportionate, and reminded everyone that the ruling was final and not open to appeal. So a body of unelected judges in Luxembourg now instructs national capitals how many people they must admit, with fines waiting for any government that prefers to make that decision itself.
1. State of the Union, or the wish-list with no price tag
On 13 September Jean-Claude Juncker delivered his annual sermon and produced a "Roadmap for a More United, Stronger and More Democratic Union". Translated from Brussels, "more united" and "stronger" both reliably mean more powers travelling one way only, from the member states to the centre.
2. One president to rule them all
Among the wishes was the merging of the Commission and Council presidencies into a single President of the European Union. Two overlapping figureheads were apparently a waste, though nobody proposed the obvious saving of having neither.
3. Everybody into the euro
The same speech urged every remaining member state to join the single currency and floated a common finance minister to oversee it. Greece had spent the decade demonstrating how well one currency suits very different economies, and the answer offered was simply to apply it to more of them.
4. ENISA gets a permanent job for life
On 13 September the Commission unveiled a cybersecurity package making its agency ENISA a permanent fixture with more staff, more money and a new EU-wide certification framework. A temporary agency quietly becoming permanent and acquiring fresh powers is the most reliable law in Brussels, more dependable than anything the certification scheme will ever test.
5. Brussels would like a say in who buys your companies
Also on 13 September the Commission proposed a framework for screening foreign investment, handing itself a role in vetting takeovers that until now were the business of national governments. Sold as protection against foreign buyers, it conveniently installs the Commission as a permanent guest at deals it was never previously invited to.
6. The free flow of data, brought to you by a new regulation
On the very same day the Commission proposed a regulation for the "free flow of non-personal data". Only in Brussels does freedom of movement arrive in the form of a fresh rulebook telling member states they may no longer make their own rules about where data is stored.
7. The judges remind the Commission it cannot just fine at will
On 6 September the Court of Justice sent the Commission's record 1.06 billion euro fine on Intel back to the lower court, ruling that competition enforcers must actually prove harm rather than presume it. A rare moment of the institutions checking themselves, and a useful note for the next time Brussels reaches for a headline penalty against a large American firm.
8. The egg crisis meeting, only two months late
Contaminated eggs had been spreading across 26 of the 28 member states since the summer, yet the Commission did not gather ministers to discuss it until 26 September. A single market with a single set of food rules still managed to take the better part of a season to convene a meeting about poisoned breakfasts.
9. Defending the continent from inferior fish fingers
Juncker also pledged EU money to test whether food brands sell lower-quality versions in eastern member states, declaring there could be no second-class consumers. A bloc that cannot organise a timely meeting about contaminated eggs now proposes to police the recipes inside supermarket packets.
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