Eurobloat #0142 • February 2022
February was the month the Commission discovered that words mean whatever it needs them to mean, starting with the word green and ending, as ever, with the word more.
Folly of the Month: Gas and nuclear are now officially green, by decree
On 2 February the Commission approved in principle a Complementary Climate Delegated Act that classifies certain gas and nuclear projects as environmentally sustainable. For years Brussels lectured everyone that a taxonomy was needed precisely so that nobody could rebrand inconvenient things as green, and then it rebranded gas and nuclear as green. The mechanism is the truly instructive part: not a law debated in any parliament, but a delegated act the Commission can wave through and dare the co-legislators to block within a scrutiny window. The label changed; the carbon did not.
1. The court confirms Brussels may dock your pocket money
On 16 February the Court of Justice dismissed the challenges brought by Poland and Hungary and upheld the regulation tying EU funds to a "rule of law" test the Commission itself administers. The institution that writes the rules, judges compliance and holds the purse was told by the institution it shares a city with that this is all perfectly fine. Member states now attend Brussels as pupils, and Brussels keeps the report cards.
2. Forty-three billion euros to make chips Europe forgot how to make
On 8 February the Commission unveiled the European Chips Act, a plan to throw 43 billion euros of public and private money at semiconductors in the hope of doubling the EU's share of world production. The same Brussels that spent two decades regulating industry into the arms of Asian fabs now proposes to buy its way back with subsidies and a "crisis response mechanism" that would let it commandeer factory output. Industrial policy by the body that engineered the deindustrialisation.
3. Every firm must now police its entire supply chain
On 23 February the Commission proposed the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, obliging companies to identify and prevent adverse human rights and environmental impacts across their global value chains. In practice a European firm becomes legally responsible for the conduct of suppliers it does not own in countries it does not govern, on pain of liability at home. A compliance industry is born; the suppliers carry on exactly as before.
4. The Data Act, or how to make your kettle a public resource
Also on 23 February the Commission tabled the Data Act, promising fair access to the data your devices generate. Tucked inside is a power for public bodies, the Commission and even the European Central Bank to demand private data in "exceptional" circumstances such as a public emergency, a category Brussels has never once found hard to declare. Sold as user freedom, drafted as a standing claim on everyone's information.
5. A hundred and fifty billion euros, announced at Africa
At the EU-African Union summit in Brussels on 17 and 18 February, leaders unveiled an Africa-Europe Investment Package worth 150 billion euros. The figure was not new money so much as existing money relabelled as "Team Europe", a phrase that lets the Commission take credit for spending the member states were doing anyway. Migration was the unspoken subject, the cheque the unspoken answer.
→ csis.org
6. A quarter of a million euro fine for a cookie banner
On 2 February the Belgian data protection authority, acting for regulators across the EU, fined IAB Europe 250,000 euros and ruled that the consent framework behind most of the continent's cookie pop-ups breaches the GDPR. So the very mechanism Brussels demanded everyone bolt onto every website is itself unlawful, and the answer will be more banners, not fewer. The only people inconvenienced remain the citizens clicking "accept" forty times a day.
7. Parliament discovers spyware, demands an inquiry into spyware
On 15 February MEPs debated the cyber-surveillance of journalists, lawyers, prosecutors and politicians by EU governments using Pegasus and similar tools, and pressed for a full committee of inquiry. It is a fine thing to be alarmed that member state agencies are reading citizens' messages. It would be a finer thing if the same Parliament were not simultaneously entertaining client-side scanning proposals that would read everyone's messages by design.
8. Twenty candles for the euro
In February's Strasbourg session, with Christine Lagarde in attendance, Parliament marked the twentieth anniversary of euro notes and coins. Two decades of a single currency stretched across economies that have nothing in common except the inability to leave it, celebrated by the institutions that built it. The cake was federal; the bill, as always, went to the south.
9. Your next battery must come out, by order
On 10 February Parliament's environment committee adopted its position on the Batteries Regulation, demanding that portable batteries in phones and gadgets be designed for easy removal and replacement. The aim is sensible enough; the method is Brussels deciding by statute how every manufacturer on Earth must engineer a product, then congratulating itself for empowering the consumer it spent the previous decade burying in mandates.
Enjoyed this post?
Well, you could share the post with others, follow me with RSS Feeds and/or send me a comment via email.
Tags
Category:
Year: