Eurobloat #0127 • November 2020
A pandemic still raging, and Brussels spent November 2020 inventing a way to dock the pocket money of member states it dislikes, drafting a scheme to read your private messages, and signing a cheese treaty with Beijing.
Folly of the Month: The EU appoints itself headmaster, and two pupils refuse to sit down
On 5 November the Council presidency and Parliament negotiators struck a deal on a "rule of law conditionality" mechanism, a tidy device for switching off a member state's funding when Brussels decides its government has misbehaved. The Commission grading national governments and pulling the purse strings is exactly the centralisation the founders swore the Union would never become. Hungary and Poland, unimpressed at being marked like schoolchildren, promptly vetoed the entire 1.8 trillion euro budget and recovery fund on 16 November, leaving the whole edifice frozen. Nothing says "ever closer union" quite like two capitals refusing to ratify it.
1. The Council quietly drafts a way into your encrypted chats
On 6 November the Council circulated a draft resolution with the soothing title "Security through encryption and security despite encryption", which proposed that industry find a way to give police "lawful access" to messages that are, by design, unreadable. You cannot break encryption only for the good guys, but Brussels would like the maths to behave anyway.
2. Amazon charged for the crime of running a shop well
On 10 November the Commission fired off a Statement of Objections accusing Amazon of using seller data, and opened a second probe into its Buy Box and Prime label for good measure. Brussels has decided that a popular American shop being popular is a matter for the competition police.
3. A "European Health Union" arrives to grade the agencies it already runs
On 11 November the Commission unveiled its European Health Union, handing beefed-up mandates to the ECDC and the European Medicines Agency. The pandemic exposed two sleepy Brussels bodies, so the cure, naturally, is more Brussels.
4. A hundred cheeses, protected in China, by treaty
On 11 November the Parliament gave consent to the EU-China geographical indications agreement, and the Council waved it through on 23 November. While lecturing the world on values, the Union sat down with Beijing to make sure nobody counterfeits Feta or Prosecco.
5. Parliament finds 15 billion euros it did not have
In its early-November plenary the Parliament voted to inflate the 2021 budget by 15 billion euros over the Commission's own proposal, for youth, health and the Green Deal. The recovery fund was not even unfrozen, but the spending plans were already growing.
6. A 789 billion euro offshore wind daydream
On 19 November the Commission published its Offshore Renewable Energy Strategy, demanding 300 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2050 at an estimated cost of nearly 800 billion euros. The figure is enormous, the bill lands on member states, and the accountability for it lands nowhere.
7. A Pharmaceutical Strategy promising to fix the rulebook Brussels wrote
On 25 November the Commission adopted its Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe, pledging a "future-proof regulatory framework" and cheaper medicines. The framework being future-proofed is, of course, the one Brussels built and then complained about.
8. An LGBTIQ Equality Strategy, with funding strings attached
On 12 November the Commission launched its first LGBTIQ Equality Strategy, complete with "legal and funding measures" and a warning to member states that EU money may depend on compliance. Social policy is a national matter, until Brussels decides to attach a chequebook to it.
9. A bailout for cod that the Common Fisheries Policy helped exhaust
The November plenary signed off support payments for Baltic crews idled by collapsing cod and herring stocks. Decades of Brussels-managed quotas helped empty the sea, and the answer is a Brussels-managed cheque to the fishermen left ashore.
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