Eurobloat #0103 • November 2018
November began with two leaders laying a wreath for the dead of the last continental power grab and ended with them demanding a fresh one. In between, the Commission graded Italy's homework, the Parliament reached for the upload filters, and a 585-page exit treaty showed everyone the door marked out.
Folly of the Month: A century of peace, commemorated by demanding an army
On 11 November the leaders of Europe gathered to mourn the men killed by a hundred-year-old fantasy of continental supremacy. Three days later, on 13 November, Chancellor Merkel stood in the Strasbourg chamber and told MEPs that the lesson was to build "a real, true European army", echoing Emmanuel Macron, who had floated the same idea days earlier. The continent that cannot agree a budget, secure a border or remove a single Commissioner now wishes to share a trigger finger, and the parts of the chamber that cheered loudest were the ones least likely to ever pay for it. Nothing says "never again" quite like reviving the precise instrument the day commemorates.
→ rt.com
1. Britain finds the exit, and Brussels endorses the door
On 25 November the EU27 leaders met for all of half an hour to bless the 585-page Withdrawal Agreement, with no formal vote required because the outcome was never in doubt. A member state had looked at the project, decided it would rather not, and the cathedral of "ever closer union" had to negotiate the terms of someone leaving it. The treaty is a monument to how hard the EU makes it to go.
2. Brussels marks Rome's homework and finds it wanting
On 21 November the Commission concluded that an Excessive Deficit Procedure for Italy was "warranted", after Rome had the temerity to publish a revised budget on 13 November that ignored Brussels entirely. An elected national government wrote a spending plan, and an unelected college in Brussels declared it unacceptable. The schoolmaster of Europe reaches once more for the red pen, and the pupil is a founding member.
3. The link tax and the upload filter close in
Through November the Copyright Directive ground on in trilogue, with Article 11 promising a "link tax" on anyone quoting a headline and Article 13 demanding that platforms filter their users' uploads in advance. The Commission insists this is not a filter, in the way that a net is not a net if you call it a liability framework. The internet of half a billion Europeans was being rewired to suit a handful of publishers.
→ eff.org
4. One hour to delete, or four per cent of your turnover
The terrorist-content regulation advanced this autumn, demanding that companies scrub flagged material within sixty minutes of an order from any national "competent authority", on pain of fines up to 4% of global turnover. The deadline is set for the convenience of the censor, not the accuracy of the judgement, and every platform now has a powerful reason to delete first and ask never. Speed is the enemy of due process, which is rather the point.
5. The Parliament wants more money, post-Brexit
On 14 November MEPs adopted an interim report on the 2021-2027 budget, complaining that a post-Brexit Union of 27 should not have to make do with a mere 1.3% of its income. One large net contributor was on its way out, and the response from Strasbourg was not restraint but a demand for a bigger envelope. The gravy train does not slow when a carriage is uncoupled; it simply asks the remaining passengers for more.
6. Binding targets, set in Brussels, paid for at home
The same plenary signed off the Clean Energy Package, with a binding 32% renewables target and a 32.5% efficiency target for 2030. The numbers are decided centrally and the bills land on national households, which is the modern Brussels arrangement: the ambition is European and the invoice is yours. Member states get to admire the target while paying for the miss.
7. The empire strikes the cotton bud
On 6 November trilogue talks opened on the Single-Use Plastics Directive, the grand continental project to ban straws, cotton buds, drink stirrers and plastic cutlery. A union of 500 million people, facing an army it has not built and borders it cannot hold, turned the full weight of its institutions on the humble swab. The recycling targets are admirable; the spectacle of a superstate legislating teaspoons is not.
8. Four point six million clicks, one continental muddle
Having run a summer consultation in which 4.6 million replies (3.1 million of them German) voted to abolish the clock change, the Commission spent November discovering it had no idea how to coordinate twenty-eight countries deciding which time to keep. The cure for a harmless biannual hour was a fresh harmonisation headache that the Council could not agree and would still not agree years later. Brussels found a problem in a solution that did not exist.
9. The medals and the mood music
Amid the budget rows and the army talk, the November plenary found time to award the 2018 LUX Prize for European cinema and to debate the "future of Europe" with a visiting Chancellor. The institution that struggles to audit its own accounts never struggles to hand out a trophy for the right sort of film. When the project is failing at the borders and the budget, there is always a gala to fall back on.
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