Eurobloat #0111 • July 2019
July was carve-up season in Brussels: the top jobs went to whoever the leaders could agree on at four in the morning, a German defence minister nobody had heard of became Commission President by a whisker, and the machine still found time to punish a company for the crime of low prices.
Folly of the Month: A Commission President elected by nine votes
On 16 July the European Parliament confirmed Ursula von der Leyen as the next Commission President with 383 votes, a grand total of nine above the 374 she needed. She had not stood in May's elections, was not the Spitzenkandidat any group had campaigned on, and was produced instead from a marathon summit haggle two weeks earlier. So the most powerful office in the Union went to a candidate the voters had never been offered, confirmed by the slimmest of margins, and then sold to us as a triumph of democracy.
1. The four o'clock stitch-up
After three days of talks ending on 2 July, EU leaders divided the Commission, Council, Central Bank and foreign-policy posts among themselves in a backroom bargain. The Spitzenkandidat process the Parliament had spent years insisting upon was quietly strangled the moment it became inconvenient.
2. A central bank for a politician
The same summit handed the European Central Bank to Christine Lagarde, a lawyer and former finance minister with no monetary-policy background and a French criminal-court negligence conviction on her record. Nothing reassures savers quite like putting a politician in charge of the printing press.
3. Fined for charging too little
On 18 July the Commission fined Qualcomm 242 million euros for "predatory pricing", that is, for selling chips too cheaply almost a decade earlier. Brussels routinely scolds firms for charging too much, so it is comforting to learn that charging too little is also a 242 million euro offence.
4. Brussels opens the Amazon file
On 17 July the Commission launched a formal antitrust probe into how Amazon uses data from the sellers on its marketplace. The investigation that would grind on for years and reshape an American company's business began, as ever, with a press release and a promise that this was all about the consumer.
5. The Like button becomes your problem
On 29 July the Court of Justice ruled in Fashion ID that any website embedding a Facebook "Like" button is a joint data controller, liable for data sent to Facebook the instant a page loads. The Union spent years building a consent regime so baroque that a single social plugin can now turn an ordinary shopkeeper into a defendant.
6. A new Parliament President, on the second go
On 3 July the Parliament elected David Sassoli, a former television presenter, as its President with 345 votes, needing a second round to get there. The chamber that lectures the world on legitimacy could not settle on its own speaker without two ballots.
7. A trade deal the farmers were never sold
On 28 June the Commission announced its "agreement in principle" with Mercosur, twenty years in the making, struck over the heads of the European farmers it most affects. On 11 July the Irish parliament passed a motion rejecting it, which is what happens when Brussels negotiates first and tells the people later.
→ rte.ie
8. No, you may not renegotiate
Boris Johnson became Prime Minister on 24 July, and the very next day Jean-Claude Juncker informed him that the Withdrawal Agreement was "the best and only agreement possible" and would not be reopened. A negotiating partner that declares its offer final, unalterable and take-it-or-leave-it is precisely the partner that made leaving look sensible.
9. The monthly box of infringement letters
On 26 July the Commission dispatched its July infringements package, referring Belgium to the Court over electricity and gas rules, Italy over radiation rules, and firing reasoned opinions at Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom over energy-efficiency transposition. Brussels writes more directives than anyone can implement, then prosecutes the members for failing to keep up.
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