Eurobloat #0144 • April 2022
April 2022 was a busy month for a Union that cannot organise its own borders but feels ready to organise everyone else's website. The Commission appointed itself referee of the internet, buyer of gas and disciplinarian of member states, all while its border agency chief packed his desk.
Folly of the Month: Brussels declares itself sheriff of the entire internet
At two in the morning on 23 April, after sixteen hours of negotiation, the Parliament and Council shook hands on the Digital Services Act, a rulebook that hands the Commission direct supervision over the largest online platforms and the power to fine them up to six per cent of global turnover. The official line is that this protects fundamental rights, which is a curious way to describe a Brussels content desk that will grade what the rest of us are allowed to read. The same institution that cannot agree on a common asylum policy now proposes to police the speech of the entire planet, because nothing says limited government like a transnational committee deciding which posts are harmful.
1. The EU sets up a shop to buy everyone's gas
On 7 April the Commission launched the EU Energy Platform to aggregate demand and jointly purchase gas, LNG and hydrogen on behalf of the member states. Decades of lecturing capitals about free markets, and the first response to a crisis is a single Brussels purchasing counter. Nothing centralises power quite like an emergency that conveniently never ends.
2. The Court tells the EU it cannot police its own borders forever
On 26 April the Court of Justice ruled in joined cases C-368/20 and C-369/20 that a member state cannot keep reintroducing internal Schengen border controls beyond six months unless a genuinely new threat appears. Austria had quietly run checks on its southern frontier since 2015, renewing them fourteen times. A border that a country wants to control is apparently the one thing Brussels insists must be thrown open on schedule.
3. The schoolmaster reaches for Hungary's wallet
On 27 April the Commission formally triggered the rule-of-law conditionality mechanism against Hungary, the first time the budget weapon had been aimed at a member state. The trigger arrived, with impeccable neutrality, weeks after Viktor Orban won re-election. Withholding a nation's own share of the budget until it votes the right way is the sort of thing the EU calls protecting the financial interests of the Union.
4. The Court reminds Brussels it cannot hoard everyone's metadata
On 5 April the Court of Justice confirmed, in the Irish Dwyer case (C-140/20), that the general and indiscriminate retention of everyone's traffic and location data is unlawful even for fighting serious crime. A welcome ruling, and a reminder of how badly the Union itself longs to keep tabs on every message, call and movement, which is precisely the instinct it would indulge a month later with its message-scanning plans.
5. The borderless agency loses its borderless boss
On 29 April Frontex executive director Fabrice Leggeri resigned as the EU anti-fraud office OLAF closed a probe into misconduct, harassment and migrant pushbacks at the bloc's border agency. The flagship symbol of common European border management collapsed into scandal and recrimination. The lesson, as ever, is that a frontier nobody truly owns is a frontier nobody truly guards.
6. A fifth sanctions package, carefully aimed at the cheapest target
On 8 April the Council adopted its fifth package of sanctions against Russia, banning coal while leaving oil, gas and nuclear fuel untouched. Coal earns Moscow about eight billion euros a year, oil and gas vastly more, so the Union bravely cancelled the thing it could most easily replace. Geopolitical resolve is so much simpler when it does not interrupt the heating bill.
7. Brussels starts deducting fines straight from Poland's funds
Through the spring, the Commission moved to recover daily penalties from Poland by offsetting them against EU funds owed to Warsaw, the first time a member state had money clawed back this way over a court dispute. The penalty ran at a million euros a day. A union of equals, in which one of the equals helps itself to your money before you have lost the argument.
8. The Data Governance Act invents the registered altruist
In the April plenary the Parliament signed off the Data Governance Act, complete with a new category of recognised data altruism organisations that must register with the authorities to share data for the public good. Generosity, it turns out, now requires a permit and a Brussels-approved certificate. Only the EU could take the simple act of giving and turn it into a compliance regime.
9. The continent that conquered the charger
In April the Internal Market committee voted overwhelmingly to force USB-C on phones, tablets, cameras, headphones and consoles, the decisive step towards the famous common charger mandate. Half a continent of legislators, summoned to settle the grave question of which hole the cable goes in. When the history of European integration is written, the standardised socket may be its most lasting monument.
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