Posts Tagged European Union
My Fellow Europeans: The State of the EUnion…
Today, the Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, made his first state of the union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg (watch it here). As Ralf Grahn has already pointed out, whether he should is a point of constitutional uncertainty. Executive power in the EU does not really rest with Barroso – perhaps he should have been accompanied by Buzek, Van Rompuy and, for the rotating Presidency held by the Member States, the Prime Minister of Belgium… hold on, not certain who that is at present…
And the BBC said that the meeting of EU finance ministers today may well overshadow Barroso’s speech in any case covering issues of real importance – the economic crisis and regulation of the banking sector…
So leaving aside the issue of who should have been doing the speech, what did they say and what does it mean for EU citizens?
Firstly we should note that this speech is being given to the European Parliament, and that will affect some of the things that are said in comparison with – say- a speech given to the European Council. You’ll see what I mean later.
Second, there’s no underlying coherence to the speech – as Mary Honeyball (who was presumably there) points out, it’s a shopping list. but that’s inevitable as the EU itself is a messy sort of compromise between a lot of ideas.
We’re promised “a Europe of opportunity where those that aspire are elevated and those in need are not neglected“.
“A Europe that is open to the world and open to its people. A Europe that delivers economic, social and territorial cohesion“. I’m not entirely sure what economic, social and territorial cohesion means in practice – presumably it means that we all help each other out, spirit level style. But let’s look at what that has meant in reality.
“Our interdependence was highlighted and our solidarity was tested like never before. We have provided many of the answers needed – on financial assistance to Member States facing exceptional circumstances, on economic governance, on financial regulation, on growth and jobs“. Hmm. If I was in Germany, I’m not totally sure I’d see bailing out the Greek economy where public servants can retire in their mid-40s as solidarity – solidarity needs to work both ways and the reform needed to equalise the exceptional circumstances needs to be in place.
Did anyone bar the most ardent, foaming-mouthed Europhobe really predict “the demise of the European Union” in the financial crisis? I thought it was the Euro which was the target of most scepticism?
“The European institutions and the Member States have demonstrated leadership. My message to each and every European is that you can trust the European Union to do what it takes to secure your future“. I feel very reassured, don’t you? 
He also cited various bits of legislation that were coming forward, prompting one MEP to say it felt more like a forward work plan than a state of the union.
Barroso then turned to the economic outlook in the European Union – better than it was, with higher growth than forecast, and high unemployment sustained rather than growing. I’m guessing that “budgetary expansion played its role to counter the decline in economic activity. But it is now time to exit. Without structural reforms, we will not create sustainable growth” is essentially the idea that once we’ve used tax payers money to bail out the bits of the economy that are collapsing, we need to cut back until its sustainable.
We then got a couple of sentences referring back to the Europe 2020 agenda – “accelerate our reform agenda. Now is the time to modernise our social market economy so that it can compete globally and respond to the challenge of demography. Now is the time to make the right investments for our future“.
The demographic challenge mentioned is falling birthrates and rising retired populations. Basically, to sort this out we need to refocus our idea of work – that it’s not just about full-time, visible in the workplace jobs. If we need as many people as possible to work, then we need to be taking seriously the role that women play – in the workplace, and at home.
First of all, we can’t just assume that everyone should be in full-time paid employment, effectively farming out our childcare and other caring responsibilities to paid carers in some big societal experiment.
We can’t assume that everyone will be fit enough to work into old age.
We can’t just continue to assume that women will fill the gaps – if we’re going for real social cohesion, we need to normalise the idea that men will do some caring – for their children, their partners, their parents – just as women do. That should meant that quality jobs can be done in part-time hours rather than the assumption that working part-time means a lower level of ability. We do need to think about how we identify talent and allow demonstration of leadership so that we really can use everyone’s talents – after all if there are more female graduates than men from European universities, what’s happening to them all that’s preventing them being the majority in leadership roles too?
If Europe takes a lead in this, then I agree with Barroso that “this is Europe’s moment of truth“.
But I’m not totally convinced that this is the angle he’s coming from here…
Barroso also lists 5 key challenges for the EU in the next year:
1) dealing with the economic crisis and governance:
the proposed solution is effectively more monitoring and “true economic union” – I’ll post separately on this another day but I’m a bit concerned that punishing the banks is politically popular but not economically sensible, and a Europe-wide tax on financial transactions on top of national levies is – interesting, when banks are threatening to move out of Europe.
Don’t get me started on the “own resources” debate. Seems the European Parliament took this to mean that EU direct tax is on the cards – I predict right now that this is unlikely to go anywhere.
2) restoring growth for jobs by accelerating the Europe 2020 reform agenda:
This is where getting more women and older people into jobs is mentioned – although again policy on this neglects the wider role of people as people and not just as workers. We do this at our peril.
The numbers are interesting – 6 million people have lost their jobs across the EU this year. There are apparently 4 million job vacancies.
To put this in perspective, there are currently about 2.5 million unemployed people just in the UK (about 7.8% unemployment rate) compared with 4.6 million unemployed in Spain (unemployment rate of nearly 20%) – there are over 22% unemployed in Latvia and an Eurozone average of 10%.
So that’s a lot of jobs needed. Barroso’s solution will sensibly “be centred on skills and jobs and investment in life-long learning” – again just hope that the needs of women, who are, post-children, often working below their skills level are addressed via this approach.
I like the idea of an EU-wide vacancy list, but I’m filled with dread at the idea of an EU skills passport. Many of the things that make you good at a job are hard to quantify – as anyone who has ever tried to move between sectors will know- and we risk lowest common denominator-ing the descriptions of ourselves to fit.
I’m fascinated to know how the EU will cut SME red tape by 38 million euro, and if they succeed, whether the UK press would ever report it as it goes against the EU= bureaucracy message…
There’s a lot too about securing energy supplies and renewables. I guess I’m less worried about how it’s done (although I don’t really want to live any closer to a nuclear power station than I already do) as long as the lights stay on and the heating works in winter.
3) building an area of freedom, justice and security:
This was always going to be hard to read when France is expelling Roma and I noticed the stress on “legal migration”, but the section was remarkably short on detail.
4) launching negotiations for a modern EU budget:
Then we come to the budget, and the Budget Commissioner has already screwed any prospect of sensible debate on this issue in the UK press.
An “open debate without taboos” says Barroso?
This is the issue of European policy where all Member States are mostly about protecting their national interest. Most remeber to wrap it up as in the EU’s interest. The UK, for reasons of historic handbagging never manages to. So I really hope they unpack all the taboos, including location of the EU institutions (goodbye Strasbourg) and that more than 40% of the EU budget is still agriculture, and cuts through the l’Europe, c’est moi waffle of some others.
Yes, it should be about getting most value for our money – as long as that is in line with the priorities we most want to achieve!
And check out the warning that the budget will inevitably go up in future: “Europe offers real added value. That is why I will be pushing for an ambitious post-2013 budget for Europe” – you can call it “spending more intelligently, by looking at European and national budgets together” but that word ambitious will put the frighteners on people who see the EU as a malevolent force trying to take over national budgets rather than as a partner. Barroso even mentioned some areas where a Euro spent at European level brings more than one spent at national level: “energy interconnections, research, and development aid” – essentially cutting costs, avoiding overlap and better retrun on investment. But convincing some that even economies of scale are a good thing is sometimes a bit of an uphill struggle.
And is there a hint at job cuts in the institutions?
“Of course, part of a credible European budget is the rigorous pursuit of savings. I am looking at the administrative costs within the Commission and other Community bodies like Agencies. We need to eliminate all pockets of inefficiency“.
5) pulling our weight on the global stage:
This is the tricky one. Not that the others aren’t, but Europe still has such a way to go in this area.
I have to admit that while I like being British and feeling like people know where I’m from as I travel the world, being British is not universally popular out there. Nor is it that powerful any more. Possibly except when seeking to trade.
But the “Who do I call?” question is still not really answered. Should Clinton be calling Ashton? Von Rompuy? Barroso? Hague?
Something similar to the “Suez moment” that showed to the government of the day in the UK that it could no longer act alone internationally was felt at EU level at the Climate Change talks in Copenhagen last year.
Barroso acknowledges that “we did not help ourselves by not speaking with one voice” but that was not the whole issue.
Barroso may well be “impatient to see the Union play the role in global affairs that matches its economic weight” but ultimately the deal at Copenhagen was done without the EU. It was also done without the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and in fact without any of the member states that consider themselves big hitters.
In the end, the EU simply did not matter enough, because any deal was better than no deal at all. that said, the future belongs to the BRICs, not even to the USA in the long run. The EU is our best hope of still having some relevance.
If Barroso is serious about the EU acting internationally, then its staff need to be the very best diplomats and subject expert negotiators the Member States have to offer, especially in the Member States, possibly as seconded national experts, in the European External Action Service.
And if it is a cards-on-table discussion on how best to act internationally, then the interests of Member States, which vary, will need to be taken into account. It’s hard to tell a proud shipping nation like Greece that, say, an Austrian with only theoretical policy experience of shipping is going to lead the delegation representing them in the relevant international forum. That’s why Commission relations with Member States really matter. The EU is just not going to be able to act with authority internationally if Commission staff attempt to bludgeon Member States into certain positions that don’t necessarily reflect what they would want. Though I doubt anyone is attempting that sort of thing these days?
And if “size matters“, the issue of numbers of votes and seats are particularly important. The rush to be represented as the EU should not be at the price of every Member State’s seat and voting weight – the measure should be what we have now, not what the USA has.
As for helping other parts of the world, while all Member States have “spheres of influence” where they are more likely to focus aid, I want to see that the pan-European effort adds to this rather than muddling efforts.
I’m not clear whether Barroso’s intended extra money for the Millennium Development Goals is on top of national budgets for the MDGs or whether the EU contribution includes the member states’ contributions?
Where’s the clear, coordinated campaign of strong voices against the stoning-for-adultery in Iran?
And yes, it’s crazy that different Member States have different equipment to help with the crisis in Pakistan, but are not necessarily coordinated to get it there helpfully.
As for a Common Defence Policy: don’t we need a common outlook on world affairs first? Wasn’t that the lesson of Iraq?
I’m glad he pointed out that “Europe is not only Brussels or Strasbourg“.
However I encourage you to think on the statement “the Union will not achieve its objectives in Europe without the Member States. And the Member States will not achieve their objectives in the world without the European Union“.
While I obviously agree with the latter part of the sentence, I can’t help wondering:
- Should the EU have many objectives that are separate to those of the Member States?
- If so, where do they come from?
- How legitimate are they?
- To whom are they accountable?
- Do the EU population understand it?
Barroso rounded up with several of the www.bloggingportal.eu Barroso buzzword bingo ideas: bedding down the new institutional set-up of Europe created by the Lisbon Treaty; delivery is what counts; the Community Method (usually codecision- sorry, the Ordinary Legislative Process) is the secret of Europe’s success.
Barroso concluded his speech by saying to the European Parliament that “for Europe to succeed, the Commission needs your support“.
I slightly resent his further call for a “special relationship between the Commission and Parliament, the two Community institutions par excellence“.
If the EU is to work properly, even if the Council does do some things intergovernmentally rather than via the community method, it seems childish to pretend that it is inferior or frankly that the Commission and Parliament are more European. The EU is a combination of these methods and the Commission atempting to sideline or alienate the Council where Member State governments are represented is hardly going to endear it to already sceptical peoples.
I’m trying to take a balanced view, but actually, this part of this speech has made me a bit cross.
Look at the Twitter summaries posted by the
Europarl_EN twitter thread:
#Barroso: Majority in this House wants more Europe #SoEU (yes that is a different hashtag from the one being used for the buzzword bingo #SOTEU)
#Barroso: in a period of change: some want intergovernmental EU: I want community method #SoEU
#Barroso: People want more Europe/ support policies I have put forward #SoEU
#Barroso:On EU budget must win over public opinion about what EU budget should be used #SoEU
And this response by @Nosemonkey:
Note “win over” not “consult” RT @Europarl_EN: #Barroso:On EU budget must win over public opinion about what EU budget should be used #SoEU
Not all MEPs were uncritical of Barroso – Schultz wanted to know more about the haves and have-nots (of course, he’s the socialist group leader). Others were frankly a bit embarrassing – I mention no names.
But if most people in the European Parliament want “more Europe” then there’s a bit of a sales job to be done on why this is a good thing to the wider public. Even in economically good times, the Constitutional Treaty’s referendums way back in 2005 were not all universally and enthusiastically greeted, and few people have had a chance to have their say since then.
There’s a series of posts in the EUblogosphere at the present on eurobarometer that might give some clues as to how the EU is seen at present.
If they want “more Europe”, I’d love to know how they communicated with their constituents on that point: in the UK, Euroelection leaflets are usually about local schools and hospitals and where Europe does get a mention it tends to be from those hostile to the EU about how it will be held back or withdrawn from. I freely acknowledge that this is not the case everywhere, so what does a Europhile MEPs constituency surgery sound like?
And if this is a sign of the Parliamentary Europe that Vihar Georgiev talks about over on his blog, I think there’s a bit more discussion needed. And they certainly need a higher turnout across the EU to legitimise it.
It’s not that Barroso actually said anything so wrong in the rest of the speech. It was just a bit – predictable.
Right at the moment, it feels a bit as if there’s a State of the EU for Brussels/ Strasbourg audience and a whole other speech needed for the wider public with a bit more clear language about exactly how the EU adds value. Barroso was getting there in parts, but this appeal to the European Parliament’s ego at the end just wasn’t- right.
So the state of the EUnion is that the economy’s a bit messy but getting better, unemployment’s high but things are being done about it. While finances are in a parlous state at present, working together saves money, more money is needed in the long run, more aid is needed for the rest of the world. There’s a whole lot of debates still to be had about how things need to be done, but generally we’re all just getting on with it.
Not exactly inspiring, but then what politics is at the moment? Even Obama’s halo seems a little tarnished these days.
And what a missed opportunity to kick off the whole “My Fellow Europeans” expression for starting speeches…
Eurobleugh
image from www.nicetomeeteu.com
What’s wrong with you, you may well ask?
I’ve had a summer broadly off Euroblogging, in the main part because so little happens in Brussels in August.
I’ve also for work purposes avoided blogging on a number of EU-related issues which interest me. A necessary sacrifice.
So EU-wise my blog’s been a bit quiet recently.
The thing is, I’ve also used the time to work out a bit what I care about, what motivates me to blog. Yep, it’s my navel gazing post only a month after the majority of EU blogs went through this …
Over the last couple of years, my euroblogging has evolved to be focused on the UK’s relationship with the EU, and looking at the EU through a gender focus and faith focus. I blog irregularly as I’ve other commitments, but I hope my slightly different take is interesting for my readers. And I think overall I’m pretty happy with these things as my euroblogging USP.
I mean, I could critique the current common transport policy, the Tax Payers’ Alliance’s problems with the Trans European Networks Executive Agency, or seafarers and the ILO, but I’m not sure that would be very interesting. I’ve tried to cover my interest in transport via practical posts on HS1 instead…
I’ve never cared a lot about agriculture beyond what I can see in the fields or arrives on my plate, and much as I care about climate change I’m just not sure enough on my numbers to do in-depth critiques of these sort of things. So when I do do something in-depth, I probably do care about it, and I do know what I’m talking about. I hope.
And have put off playing with my toddler to write it.
At the moment, with the “new school term” coming, I’m getting a bit of a sinking back to school feeling.
I’m not quite sure why, but I suspect there’s an element of not feeling very inspired by politics overall at the moment.
In the UK there’s a big and actually quite exciting political experiment going on – the first coalition government in a very long time and a referendum coming on a change to a voting system that none of the political parties specifically wants.
But while the big picture is exciting, day to day life is currently a question of which public service is going to change next and what does that mean for daily life for my friends and family. And the attitude to the EU is – complicated.
And in the EU, there’s a weird sort of situation.
While the Lisbon Treaty is implemented (but hardly to public acclaim), and European External Action Service is established (and as male-dominated as we feared and expected), and the Council President is up and running (with an eye on consolidating a more wide ranging role during the Belgian Presidency of the EU), and all the little changes are put in place, I just don’t feel that there’s anything in particular to be enthusiastic about.
The euro is hanging in there, but I’m not finding discussions about greater economic governance inspiring – may be I would if the UK had been part of it and my daily life were being affected, but we’re not in “prepare and decide” mode any more, nor even “wait and see”.
And how long did it take the EU to get its act together for the people in Pakistan?
On top of that, I’m slowly realising that there’s no easy way back to Brussels in the near future. To work there again any time soon, I’d need to make some pretty serious life changes. I may not even work on EU issues soon. But that gives me more scope to blog
I’m never going to be a daily blogger, or a several-times-a-day one.
I’m fed up with feeling that unless you can give all hours of the day to something, you are ancillary to it. How on earth can any parent give 100% to anything, including their kids, and still make a difference in their other spheres of interest? Why can’t the quality of contribution count as well as quantity?
And when it’s something I do for the fun of it, to test ideas and provoke conversations, I’m certainly not buying into a set of rules of the how and when. I’m definitely a cat to herd rather than a sheep and so I guess I know I’m in good company in the euroblogging world
So I’m feeling a bit Eurobleugh.
I’m not in the mood for flannel, or theory over experience and applied example.
I want to know that it’s all worthwhile, that there really is an added value to me as a citizen in what’s going on – at all levels of decision-making.
I guess it’d be lovely to be seeing something happening that actually makes a difference for the good, rather than being the least worst option available.
So now I’ve got all that off my chest, let’s start September euroblogging with a positive attitude and see if there’s some good, persuasive arguments for what’s going on out there…
Burka bans, Brussels and bended knees
…the niqab is a feminist dilemma… and a European one…
Eurogoblin today reported that the three Presidents of the EU – Council President Van Rompuy, Commission President Barroso and Parliament President Buzek met with religious leaders from across Europe to discuss poverty and social inclusion.
Image of leaders family photo from Flickr under Creative Commons licence
What’s faith got to do with poverty and social exclusion?
While it is possible to argue that it should be the duty of all to mitigate against poverty and social exclusion, we have a choice.
Either, we say that the state should provide and by means of “fairer” or “progressive” taxation that can be spent for the good of all.
Or we say that the Big Society will provide, because as responsible citizens we should rail against and commit ourselves to the fight against poverty and social exclusion.
In most Member States the reality is somewhere between the two – the state takes some tax from us in the name of that purpose, but as it is not hypothecated we’ve no idea what percentage actually goes on these projects locally, regionally, nationally. All we do know is that a huge number of people are homeless or do not feel themselves to be part of the wider community.
And the reality is that it is often faith groups that step into the breech.
Let me give you a small and very parochial example.
I’ve spent today at the Rare Breeds Centre – a kind of farm zoo and current home of the Tamworth Two.
This was the Ashford Baptist Church toddler group outing. Some anonymous donations via the church and lift-sharing arranged by the ladies from the church who run the toddler group made it possible for a big group of us to go out for the day, with our packed lunches and have fun playing at the farm without having to pay for anything.
Now this may not sound like much, but the majority of people there don’t have holidays, don’t go for days out because incomes are low and costs when several children are involved just aren’t compatible.
In fact, most of the toddler groups in Ashford town centre are run by faith groups – not religious, in that we don’t require membership of a church to attend and we don’t “spout religion” at people who come.
But we do use the church hall, the organisers tend to be from one church or another and the children’s holiday club which is based around bible stories is advertised. There’s no obligation to attend that either. I don’t actually attend the church that runs this toddler group but I do approve of its open, inclusive approach and that it genuinely welcomes everyone, of all faiths and none.
There is a non-religious Sure Start centre, and a toddler group was started that declared that it was “an alternative to all the church-based play groups” but I can no longer find any details about it online. The situation is a little different for play schools for pre-schoolers, not least because 12-15 hours worth of state funding is available.
That’s not to mention the soup kitchens, the event organisation, the small but helpful charitable efforts that almost go unnoticed generally but help to keep heads above water.
So in these ways, we try to help with the physical needs of those around us. Jesus commands us to this - give him that asks of us our coats our shirts also. There’s no sin in being poor – although the comments about workhouses etc. on the government’s spending cuts website suggests that some people today feel there should be.
Jesus also spends a lot of the sermon on the mount talking about the poor being blessed, the meek inheriting the Earth, everybody selling their possessions, and rich men having less than a camel-through-a-needle’s chance of entering Heaven… Oh and for more on “the poor will always be with you”, see this link.
But surely it’s not just Christians that do this?
Of course not. It is just noticably Christian-dominated around here – one of the things we noticed on moving here was the huge number of churches. I’m sure in other areas of the country there are thriving synagogue toddler groups, muslim women’s get-togethers and more.
I know that charitable works are a requirement of some faiths, and that performing them is not only good for the individual but also good for the community.
But please don’t think that Christians do these things in some kind of effort to earn their place in heaven. If you read the Bible, we don’t have seven things we have to do to (nor do we have to follow the rules of the old covenant in Leviticus), that just not the Christian position.
While some parts of the church have attempted to create structures and rules to make it easier to understand actually reading the New Testament shows how hard Jesus and the early Christians worked to say – no, that’s not ever going to be enough, God forgives you, accept it and that’s it.
And so when it comes to charity, we do these things because God himself has paid the price for the sins we have commited and we want to praise him and make his world a bit better. going to church reminds us of this, because just like everyone else we find it hard to find time and hard to feel motivated all the time.
But you don’t have to be a person of faith to do this?
Of course not. Humanism is after all placing the human at the centre where others place God. But it is humankind and not the self that needs to be the centre.
And if it is hard to feel motivated without external help as a person of faith, imagine the sheer bloody self-motivation required to do it without and keep it on track and not self-serving. It would take a stronger person than me to do that.
Is there a place for faith in the EU?
But I digress.
Does religion have a place in the EU? Indubitably.
Look at the fuss about the Constitutional Treaty and whether there should be a reference to religion within it.
One religion? It is indisputable that the present Europe was shaped by the Christian faith, Catholic and Protestant, and also by the enlightenment and the freedom to question (itself part of the true nature of protestantism) from which modern atheism takes its roots.
But even as a practicing Christian I’m still not sure that the Constitutional Treaty should have had a reference to this (and at the end, the Lisbon Treaty doesn’t).
I don’t think that we can always claim that all decisions taken in a state can truly reflect the ethos on which the state evolved. To claim that we do everything in the EU on the basis of our faith/ faiths is to deny the nature of compromise by which decision-making to cover many conflicting and competing interests take place. While it’d be great to think that all the politicians and policymakers were doing as Mark Greene suggests and remembering in their work that they are a “might policymaker for God”, I’m pretty clear that the UK expenses scandal shows that it is all too easy to forget how to do the right thing.
But the future of Europe looks multifaith rather than secular.
For all that we might try to draft rules of public engagement that exclude religion, that we might ban people in public office from actually mentioning the thing that shapes, inspires and drives them, most people across the EU have some sort of belief.
This may be in something ranging from “spirituality” and the supernatural, through humanism to the deification of science or money, to agnosticism, deism, right through to following an established faith.
Human beings bend at the knee. This is not a design flaw.
How on earth can we expect decent policymaking if asking people to deny their fundamental belief systems?
And that brings me to the burka question…
Should women in the EU wear the niqab or the burka?
This is a European question in the sense that it is currently being asked all over Europe.
As Eurogoblin pointed out, the recent burqa ban overwhelmingly passed by the French parliament last week (335 votes to 1).
The Belgian lower house voted on a ban in April 2010 (note the handy BBC guide to different veils.
The Dutch were debating this as far back as 2006.
The Spanish parliament is also likely to start debating their own burqa ban this week.
And the UK? Immigration Minister Damian Green has said that any ban on religious clothing would be awfully “un-British”. And he’s right.
Freedom of the individual is a very British concept and the idea that a woman might be fined as in the Netherlands for wearing something expressing their religion is distasteful.
I’m not sure I’d want to live in a UK that imposed on me whether or not I could wear a sign of my faith outwardly, and if this is a move away from the mealy mouthed illiberalism that clamped down on it through uniform policy, sudden changes to health and safety policy and statements from the NSS.
Besides, have you been to the West End in London? This particular Nation of Shopkeepers could find itself hit in the profits if rich middle eatern visitors could not dress as the wish to shop.
So there’s no common approach.
Is the burka ban a European issue? It seems Vivianne Reding thinks not – I hear that when asked about it, she said that this was an issue for national governments and not something that she would touch with a bargepole.
But as the Commissioner for women and equality (and fundamental rights, and justice), Commissioner Reding also needs to think about the burka as a feminist issue.
And that’s a dilemma.
On the one hand, equal rights means the right not to be subjected to men’s control, nor objectified. Women should be able to work – or not to work – as much as they like, and so should men. They should be able to dress as they want to dress…
Ah.
Because what if a woman want to celebrate her faith and her devotion to her God by wearing a headscarf, a veil, a chador, burka, hijab, niqab etc. ?
What if she’s not being oppressed into it by bullying male members of her family or her husband but has chosen freely and in full knowledge of the implications of what she is doing both religious and worldly to separate herself from the world?
Surely fighting for a woman’s right to self-determinism extends to her right to cover up if she wishes too?
So these are hugely tricky issues. But we don’t live in the lyrics of “Imagine”, we live in the real world in all its messy, diverse glory.
God inspired, uplifts and makes us more than we can be by ourselves. Europe needs that to flourish, no matter what flavour that inspiration is.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The new Margaret Thatcher?
Watching the news tonight, this occurred…
One EU leader was nakedly pursuing their national interest at the press conference today. And that leader is increasingly reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher demanding her money back.
But that leader is not David Cameron.
Cameron’s speech, however unpalatable to his host, was actually very pragmatic and sensible.
Consider an analogy put to me today.
Say I have some friends who like skydiving. They invite me to join in, but I decline. And then one of them breaks her leg having jumped out that aeroplane. Should I then have to pick up her healthcare bills, and agree to change the terms of everyone’s holiday insurance policies to do so?
In any case, Treaty amendment can surely not be the most popular proposal that could be made just at the moment.
The Lisbon Treaty may not have been perfect. Like all Treaties, now it has been ratified it needs a bit of bedding down, a bit of implementing to see how that carefully compromised document actually works in practice.
After the Convention on the Future of Europe was first convened in February 2002, it took 7 long painful years to finally get a Treaty that could be ratified by all.
Surely the last thing anyone is likely to want is to have to reopen that process so soon?
And you don’t have to be that interested in politics to realise that the leader of a new type of British government, a coalition only weeks in place, with an overall Eurosceptic party behind him is highly unlikely to want to risk the whole thing falling apart over Europe.
Talking about a veto plays to Cameron’s domestic audience, true, but what he said in essence may well turn out to be what others are thinking too if they’ve been through the Treaty-making process.
As for Merckel taking a role like Thatcher, well, she does seem to be asserting an increasingly nationalistic agenda, acting unilaterally on issues that have repercussions for not just the Eurozone but the whole EU – for example the banning of shortselling yesterday.
(And the consquences of that announcement impacted more widely than that, hitting the US stock markets).
In times past, to make a big statement like “to save the Euro we need Treaty change”, you used to get the French and German leaders together, speaking as if they were truly the heart of the EU – the Franco-German motor powering the project.
Not this time.
Merckel was speaking as Germany, as the piggybank of Europe.
And going it alone is very Thatcher indeed.
Is there any likelihood that Germany might actually get that chance for Treaty change?
Well according to the press, there’s already a miniature IGC planned for June (without a Convention) to sort out the European Parliament which has a bit of a mess over voting.
If a Treaty amendment were to be opened for ”economic government” arrangements, that would presumably be the window?
But it’s not that simple. Change like that would mean prices would be extracted, whether CAP reform, power repatriation, a single seat for the European Parliament at Brussels… and that’s several years of negotiation, let alone vetoes and referendums.
It may of course be the case that enough can be done without Treaty change.
But proposals for “economic government” are likely to be contentious even if Treaty change was not a factor. Even the spring European Council steered clear of that language, instead using “economic governance” to bee clear this is not supranational government that is under discussion.
PS kudos to Christine LaGuarde for co-opting the phrase “we’re all in this together” in making her point to the BBC this evening. After the seemingly far more cordiale visit to Paris yesterday, she’s talking to the British government in its own language. Very neat.
10 random things about #myEurope
9 May is Europe Day. No one in the UK is really likely to know or care, so (as part of the bloggingportal #myeurope blogging carnival) I want to take a few short minutes to celebrate some of the things that I love in and around Europe…
1) Europe is my continent, the place where no matter what the language spoken in the place I visit, however different it is from home in terms of weather and building style, there a sense of familiarity (working out which bit of Bratislava I’d want to live in, where I’d set up my B&B in France, whether I could take that job in Brussels etc. etc.) and a sense of interconnectedness between my history and those of the people living in the other countries near mine. And yes I am aware that the common history is largely that of fighting each other in different combinations… so my Europe is partly about preventing future conflicts.
2) Oh wow, European food. Yummy things. Including but not exclusively sachertorte, Belgian chocolates, pastichio, bacon, queso de membrillo, French cheese (all of it), feta, beer, goulash, Parma ham, battered courgette flowers, crayfish, clafoutis/financier, asparagus, curries, British Beef with yorkshire pudding… I defy anyone to live in Belgium for 3 years without gaining what British diplomats call “the Brussels stone”.
3) There’s something beautiful about countries choosing to work together for a common future, not something being imposed by an outside force. Forgiving what has happened in the past, but not forgetting, and trying not to allow the memories that need to respected become a quest for future vengence.
For example, Riga has an amazing museum of occupation, heartbreaking when you see the things that you have read about a thousand times that happened all across Europe and witness by those not even two generations before my own.
4) My B&B? It’s a little near-retirement dream. But I love that if I want to set up business anywhere I want to, I can.
5) Such amazing diversity. Not just of peoples, languages, cultural traits, but look at the geography! From tundra and mountains to reclaimed land, lush green fields and pastures, to biblical dusty paths and scratchy bushes, coastlines, rivers and marshes, annual snow and wrong-sort-of-snow… Flora, fauna…
6) I gain a whole extra level of identity. I feel like a kid writing my address on an envelope my house, my road, my town, my county, my country, my continent, my world, my solar system, my universe… Being European doesn’t detract from me being British, or Kentish, or Ashfordian, it adds to it. I’m one of nearly half a billion. And that matters. In a world where climate change deals are struck by the USA, India, China, South Africa and Brazil, being at the table counts, and you don’t get to be there if you’re not big.
7) I hardly dare mention it, but I’m going to. If I want to buy strawberry jam in the shop down the road that was made in Spain, I know that the contents will be as safe for my child as strawberry jam that was made in East Sussex and will be lovely and fruity rather than filled with sawdust or plums-with-strawberry-flavouring. It has to be, or they’re not allowed to sell it here.
8) I love that it’s so easy to travel around Europe, crossing borders without tedious queuing and visas, fulfilling the quote attributed to Ernest Bevin “my policy is to be able to take a ticket at Victoria station and go anywhere I damn well please!”
9) Despite living on an island, I grew up living closer to Calais than to London, and could see France from the beach nearest to my house… and had a friend who lived on the other coast who could see that beach from hers!
10) I have posted 10 random things in a random order, some triggered by the one in front, others completely disjointed. If I was writing this list in French in the 1960s, this would be known as a stream of consciousness list! How fantastic would that be? Tres Marguerite Duras. And that itself brings back the memory of reading L’Amant for A-level French. Not my finest hour!
P.S. Write on My Europe Week, or link a post on your own blog, in the language of your choice. Twitter away under #MyEurope and #EuropeDay. Share your Europe.
They also serve… but don’t count?
Ladies and gentlemen, today’s blog is dedicated to those who cannot make a difference to the general election today.
I’m not talking about people that did not register (their fault).
Nor those who choose not to use the vote that others fought and died for them to have (and this debt is particularly great for women – yes, I would have been a suffragette).
I’m not even talking about those in safe seats (after all, if enough votes are there percentage-wise nationally then it should be impossible to claim a mandate that ignores popular support for voting reform).
And I’m not going to write more than this sentence about the scandal of our service personnel overseas who accidentally found themselves disenfranchised while on active service.
Today’s post does concern people who are effectively serving the interests of their country, but who are also exercising their rights as citizens of this country. Today there are thousands of British people abroad, in other Member States of the European Union, who, because they have been abroad for more than 5 years have lost their right to vote in UK general elections.
The official explanation is that after 5 years – and it used to be 10 years – they are not sufficiently connected to the situation in this country. And if they are so attached to living elsewhere, they can always apply to be citizens of the country where they are resident instead.
I can see that there might be something in this argument if you have, say, moved your entire family from Luton to a small village in Pakistan (although there are of course villages there where you can spend pounds). To move back to the EU for a moment, I can see that this might apply if you are living it up in the Costa del wossit, speaking English loudly at the locals and reading the Daily Mail.
But if you are a Brit directly employed by the EU institutions, the idea that you are that disconnected is… just weird.
Don’t get me wrong – on my return from Brussels I seriously considered (for about 5 minutes) a mini-memoir on recovering from expat life to be called “saying merci to London bus drivers”.
But living in Brussels, I was still intimately connected to the UK. I not only travelled home for work, and for family, I watched the BBC (proper British BBC channels, not BBC World and BBC Prime), listened to Radio 4 in the mornings, shopped at H&M and Zara – and some people even had Sky (shh!)
Nothing about my life there made me particularly want to stop being British to become a Belgian national.
But that’s also a very odd suggestion for people who are actually engaged in one level of the UK’s governance (note that’s governance, not government, euroconspiracy theorists), just as if they were a public servant in local government or civil servant.
The irony is that nationals from other EU countries can actually work in the UK civil service (except the Foreign Office, where they can only really be locally engaged at post). For them, most of their governments allow them to vote – so they are not disenfranchised by living here.
But while we pride ourselves on being the cradle of democracy it actually seems that our starting point is not being expansive with access to the vote.
Add to this the vagueries of a First Past the Post and the lack of a written constitution (where, watching Channel 4 news last night it looks as if either Cabinet Office guidance or the visceral right wing press will decide the way in which we get a new Prime Minister in the case of a hung parliament) and you begin to understand why no politician seems to care about those being left out while undertaking a role in public service at one of the UK’s constitutional political levels.
So many of us don’t understand our political set-up and the potential wider implications of disenfranchising the Brits within it in the EU institutions, which help give it legitimacy (because there are Brits, who know and understand the UK in each of the institutions).
Ignoring them gives succour to the europhobic idea that such people are somehow in it for themselves or traitors. And that sort of rubbish denies us our right to see the EU as ours, just as much as it is French, Dutch, Portuguese or Estonian.
But don’t hold your breath for this to be resolved. No government can be expected to be motivated to change legislation for just a few thousand people, and the fact that they work in the EU institutions is hardly likely to motivate a great degree of sympathy. Unless those that would benefit from the re-enfranchisement of the Costa Blanca expats might change it to get that extra support.
If you can vote, I hope you did. On the Voltaire principle of course.
Having our say in Europe – but will we get anywhere?
You may not have caught it on the main news bulletins today (though kudos to Radio 4′s World at One for covering it) but today saw the launch of the European Citizens’ Initiative.
Despite the name, which has slight Orwellian overtones in English, the policy which was introduced under the newly in force Lisbon Treaty is actually designed to increase the direct access that citizens have to the EU level.
So what do you have to do to get your idea considered by the EU? Well, the Treaty says you need:
- one million citizens;
- a third of EU countries represented amongst the million (so nine at the moment)..
But it’s not as simple as that. Today’s announcement was related to the clarification of the rules that the European Commission has just launched following several months of public consultation.
Presumably in order to stop the accusations of token representation of some countries by having one or two signed up (see the formation of the ECR Group in the European Parliament for the type of debate I’m talking about), the Commission proposes that the number of signatures from each country must be proportional to its size – “4500 for the four smallest countries up to 72,000 for the largest, Germany”. So if I’ve got, say, 60,000 Germans in amongst my million, that may be an awful lot of individualsbut not enough to count as having representation from Germany and being able to tick off Germany as a Member State where interest has been expressed?
I guess what’s trying to be overcome is the idea of having 995,000 French farmers, or British hunt supporters or Greek public servants or Danish students or whatever on board with the remaining 5000 made up from a ragbag of other people who think the idea is interesting.
But is there anything so wrong with that?
Inside a country, if one part of that country felt so strongly about a specific issue, would it really escape discussion at the national level…? Or are other Member States with more federal structures (that’s federal as it’s really meant, with decision-making at clearly defined and subsidiarity-applied levels, rather than the perjorative sense in which UK Eurosceptics tend to use it) immune to discussion issues at the wrong level of decision-making?
And in the internet age, it might actually be quite straight forward to get 4500 Cypriots interested in something (via Twitter, Facebook etc.) whereas 72,000 is a big ask for anyone – this seems a small country bias?
The Commission is proposing quite a sensible mid-way stage – “once at least 300 000 signatures from citizens in a minimum of three countries have been collected, the petition will be registered with the Commission and a decision made on whether the initiative falls within the scope of its powers. From that point, the organisers would have one year to provide the outstanding signatures”.
As Michael Mann pointed out on the radio earlier “if a million people called for Mickey Mouse to be President, we couldn’t do that as it is not within the Commission’s powers“. Quite.
The antifraud measures are likely to be the ones that cause sensitivity to this idea in the UK. We’re used to having to provide our names and addresses for petitions but without a compulsory identity card we are unlikely to have passports on us and as for handing over our National insurance number for a petition… I feel slightly incredulous! Expect to see headlines about the huge potential for identify fraud with this proposal, ironically just what the Commission are striving to avoid. If anyone publishes anything on this at all in the UK, of course.
The “who’s the money?” point is a good one though. It would not be good if this worthy intitiative became an exercise in big companies buying influence.
Finally, once all of the signatures are in place and the request meets the criteria (another is apparently being in the spirit of the EU so I guess that stops one million “federalists” fed up with UK recalcitrants getting together a proposal to kick us out? ), then the European Commission has four months “to investigate and decide to pursue legislation, launch a study or forgo further action. It will need to explain its decision publicly“.
At this point there’s a new feature of decision-making. Although the Commission is the only Institution with the right of intiative, the idea is that the “proposed rules must be approved by parliament and council”. This is not the case if, for example, the Commission has some ideas in a White Paper – those might be presented at a Council but they don’t have to be endorsed (I’m happy to be corrected on this!)
I really want to believe that the Commission are going to get some initiatives under this scheme “potentially as early as 2011″. After all the requirements are setting the bar quite high.
And I hope that there will be a technological level of support for this initiative – will there be a section of the Europa set up to enable this?
My starting point for this is the “petitions” section of the Number Ten website, the UK Prime Minister’s website named after the official residence. While most petitions tend to get an answer along the lines of “yes the government recognises that this is an important issue and is doing x about it/ which is related to it/ which is nothing really to do with it but the civil servants really hope you won’t notice”, it is important that each petition is on there from a starting point of no one except the originator being signed up to it, and can grow virally (through promotion on subject related internet forums or social media campaigns, mentions in the press, friends telling each other, bake sales etc. etc.) and that the gvernment is seen to be facilitating this.
So that’s the challenge for the Commission now – it needs to be facilitating this process and making it as easy as possible for citizens to meet the criteria, and to be seen to be doing so. If it succeeds, then it can genuinely say that it is bringing Europe closer to the people. If not, then the EU remains that thing over there that imposes things on us in the popular perception. That’s not a challenge I’d want to see end in failure.
What the EU has done for women…
Have you ever tried to find a list of what the EU has done for women?
It’s International Women’s Day today… while Sarah Brown (in this odd unelected First Lady-type position that appears to have been evolving for Prime Ministers’ wives which rankles a little when celebrating issues of women’s equality) is leading the UK events for IWD, CSW (the UN Commission on the Status of Women) is meeting in New York, and the EU is… well, let’s see.
Did you know that the European Commission had launched a Women’s Charter on Friday, in advance of IWD? Here it is.
The Charter was accompanied by a Eurobarometer survey on gender equality. Interesting for me was that, while the UK participants surveyed shared a common set of priorities with the other EU Member States for addressing gender equality, when asked which sort of organisation (NGO, EU institution, national government, or others) had done most for gender equality, only about 10% of Brits cited the EU institutions.
Not really surprising I suppose, given the UK ambivalence towards the EU and tendancy to simply bank any good thing that the EU does…
So I decided to try and help out and post a link to the Commission’s list of what the EU has done for women. I Googled the phrase (amazing how quickly that has become the first port of call for all information searches these days) but nothing came up from the Commission’s own website.
Actually, the best source of information has turned out to be the website of Arlene McCarthy MEP – from four years ago. So with apologies to Arlene (much of this is hers, but I’ve removed the party political commentary), here’s a quick list of what the EU has done for women:
1) Moving towards Equal Pay
- Equal pay for women workers: this was included in the original Treaty of Rome, the first EU Treaty in 1957
(NB this was 13 years before the UK legislation on equal pay. Given that the UK was looking at EEC membership at that point could it have been the prospect of joining the EEC that prompted the UK to adopt its legislation?) - Equal pay for work of equal value: despite the equal pay legislation, many companies classified jobs done by men and women differently, paying higher wages to men for doing jobs that actually required similar levels of skills. Many women since have won equal pay claims, some backdated years including school dinner ladies, hospital and factory workers.
(Some people still seem to think that heavy lifting and digging is “worth more” than hanging out in a warm classroom with a bunch of snotty 5 year olds… despite the fact that the latter is sometimes like an exercise in germ warfare) - Equal rights for part-time workers, better rights for agency workers: nearly half of British women workers work part-time, four in five of the part-time workforce, and about 5 million women. In the past, many women lost out but since July 2000 part-time workers have had equal rights to pro-rata paid leave, pensions, maternity rights, access to training and other company perks and benefits.
(Jolly good thing too. Ridiculous to assume that people are less capable and less clever if they have other responsibilities outside the workplace – unless the hidden job criteria is soul-selling and working all the hours God sends to the glory of the company?)
And via the Agency Workers legislation, temporary workers have more clearly defined rights too (UK rules set out here). - Minimum wage: love it or hate it, there’s no denying that when the UK opted into the European Social Chapter the biggest winners were those on the lowest pay, for whom the basic rights it guaranteed brought about the minimum wage. This is particularly important for women – 70% of low paid British workers are women (including a disproportionate number working part-time hours) and over a million British women have since benefited.
- Equal rights to a pension: Pensioner poverty is a real problem for women, many of whom were excluded from company pension schemes because they worked part-time or had career breaks to have children. EU laws prevent pension discrimination and guarantee equal rights for all to social security benefits.
2) Better rights for women as parents
- Maternity rights: About 70,000 women have babies in Britain each year, and that number is growing. The EU sets a baseline of a year working for an employer in order to get maternity rights (but UK law is actually better and the directgov website has a fantastic calculator setting out the minimum requirements in the UK).
- Parental leave: Since 2002, a new EU law means that any parent with children under 5 has the right to a minimum of 13 weeks parental leave to be taken whenever they choose over the 5 year period. That extends to 18 weeks for any parent of a disabled child under 18.
(This is ideal if you have an ill child – though I wonder what would happen if just before a child hits 5 all parents who have not used the 13 weeks unpaid leave actually took the time to go once-in-a-lifetime travelling or similar? Seems a great opportunity, but is it even possible?) - Right to return to work: I take this so much for granted that the idea that this is a new element of maternity rights law is shocking. Discrimination against pregnant women is outlawed (doesn’t mean it is not still happening though) and, importantly now, particularly in the recession, a woman’s job (but not her specific post) must be held open so she can return to a post without loss of pay or status. Many older women will remember the days when getting pregnant meant losing your job (heck, there are people that remember when as a woman you had to leave the Foreign Office when you got married! And if you read any of the Jilly Cooper short stories from the 1970s you’ll see that it was a cultural expectation among the middle classes even if it wasn’t a requirement). EU laws have put paid to that.
- Paid holidays and a shorter working week: Since 2000, workers have been given the automatic right to 4 weeks paid annual holiday, and a guaranteed at least one day off per week (which was not a given for part-time workers in sectors such as cleaning, who often only got one day off every fortnight). (How on earth do people function on less than 4 weeks holiday a year? I know it’s only 2 weeks in the USA, but when do working parents get to see their kids? And who looks after the children in the school holidays?)
And under the Working Time Directive, employees can no longer be obliged to work more than 48 hours per week, are guaranteed breaks and night shifts are restricted to 8 hours. Despite the right to work shorter British workers work the longest hours in Europe. One in eight mothers work more than 40 hours a week, 30% of fathers more than 48 hours, taking its toll on family life.
3) Protecting women
- Protection: the EU is working on legislation against Female Genital Mutilation, and Gender Based Violence as well as combating human trafficking (which is the fastest-growing criminal activity in comparison to other forms of organised crime).
- International protection: by working together on relations with third countries, in EU foreign policy and within international organisations, the EU Member States can help women in developing countries too.
4) Combating the Gender Pay Gap
If you are a fan of bus campaigns, then you might have noticed the Gender Pay Gap campaign on the buses in capital cities across the EU. But what’s it all about?
One measurement of whether equality has been achieved is the gender pay gap, that is the difference between the average pay of women and the average pay of men.
The gender pay gap can be contentious when discussed with some businesses, so it needs to be remembered that it is a crude tool and the contributing factors are (in the words of the Women and Work Commission in the UK) “complex and multi-faceted”.
But if anyone tries to tell you it only exists because women take time out of the labour market to have children or to work part-time (and that part-time jobs “ought” to be lower paid as part of a lifestyle choice being made), then its worth noting that the National Equality Panel report out this year said that new graduates in the same subject from the same university experience a statistically significant gender pay gap within three years of graduation.
So the EU has also launched a gender pay gap calculator so you can measure the inequality where you work (the UK Government Equality Office has had a methodology on their website for a year).
The new Women’s Charter promises a number of measures, legislative and non-legislative, to tackle the gender pay gap – no idea what these will actually be (but it’s worth keeping an eye on this to ensure that the measures are about valuing women and men equally, because if the drive to get the headline figure down starts to become the end in itself then we could end up with daft ideas like restricting access to part-time work which would be to the detriment of women who would lose the ability to organise their family life as they would wish…)
So the EU has actually done quite a lot to the benefit of women.
And, as the Women’s Charter indicates, there’s still more that can be done.
I come from a Member State that is at the forefront of women’s equality, even if we’re a bit embarrassed to talk about it in those terms. And even here, women are still not able to live the fulfilled lives that they should be able to if we were truly free to balance our working lives and families lives as we wished without constraints forced on us by others (e.g. availability of childcare).
So a very happy International Women’s Day to you.
And, as it is a women’s day and we’re free to do things our way, an air kiss on both cheeks and a gentle hug to each and every one of you.
Bearing gifts to the Greeks?
Or Oi! Desmond! No!
So the outcome of the emergency meeting on Greece’s financial situation was – unclear. A whole lot of commentary by the British press focusing mainly on whether:
1) Greece going bakrupt would mean the end for the Euro;
2) the British taxpayer would be bailing out Greece.
As it turns out, neither happened. Yet.
A very sensible commentary from the FT’s City editor pointed out that, in the USA, cities and states go bankrupt all the time (California did so recently) but no one talks about the US dollar collapsing as a result. It’s a big deal yes, but not a ginormous one.
But something had to be done. Whether explicitly or tacitly, Greece needed to be helped by the stronger Euro countries.
In part this is a Treaty requirement. The Treaty of Rome set out that it is desirable that the Member States regard their economic policies as a matter of common concern. As EUpedia points out, Article 103 stipulated that they should consult each other and the Commission on the measures to be taken in the light of the prevailing circumstances.
But in the end the risk of the “contagion” effect – making investing in the other Euro countries, which in turn would affect investment in economies such as ours in the UK which have such closely linked economies- meant that there was self-interest as well as altruism in acting.
So self-interest dictates that something had to be done, and it will be, probably. The agreement reached was not exactly a master piece of clarity. But it will do as a starting point and the seriousness with which it is being taken was illustrated by stern words from Angela Merckel and the brilliant commentary by an unnamed German diplomat to the effect that other Eurozone members did not want to see their economies suffer so that the Greeks could have nice lives.
image from the must-read www.mailwatch.co.uk
And will the UK have to bail out Greece?
Peter Mandelson has been in the press recently saying that “talking down” the UK economy (whether that’s -say- to international audiences, for which also read competitors at Davos, or making unflattering comparisons between the UK and Greece’s economies) and he has something of a point, not least because of the contagion effect explained above.
And it seems that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, has been robust in saying that this is a eurozone rather than an EU problem. But remember what I said about the contagion – it is not in the UK’s interests for the Euro to fail, particularly since – because of the way in which Treaties are written- we are still technically supposed to be lining up to join the Euro and therefore have a convergence plan.
I have not had a chance to read the agreement that’s emerged after the meeting, but I imagine that the text will not shut the door on whole-EU action at some unspecificed future point if the alternative was total economic collapse… and so in that way I suppose the UK taxpayer could at some future point still step in to support the Euro.
But I just can’t see how that corresponds into that headline “Now We Have to Bail Out the Euro”.
Firstly, define “now”? As far as I can see that’s an inappropriate use of the word. France and Germany, primarily, seem to be bailing out the Euro. Not Britain.
But hold on… may be this is a new pro-European “we” that I would not previously have expected from the Daily Express where the impact of the bail out on the French and German taxpayers (amongst others) is being expressed as a kind of pan-European shared pain? Somehow I suspect not…
Was this all fair on Greece? Criticism of Greece which the Prime Minister has angrily refuted covered everything from alleged lying in accounting to the fact that the retirement age for public servants in Greece is 47.
47!!! It’s currently 60 here, going to 65, but I can’t help thinking for my generation we’re going to be minimum 70 and probably til-we-drop before we can think of retiring.
And Germany – due to a low birthrate and the complete lack of childcare that resulted in women having to make a choice between being out of the labour market and having children or remaining childless in order to work – is also facing a pension crisis.
No wonder that German diplomat was so scathing… not so much Greeks bearing gifts as what must be borne by others to prop their economy up…
The Greek Prime Minister blamed the previous administration for most of the problems – that’s par for the course from most public officials facing problems.
But he also blamed the European Commission for not having kept enough of an eye out and not having stepped in if it expected problems.
Interesting stuff. That’s what some people I know would call a “Belgian” approach to the EU – if it’s hard to keep your own house in order you call for the EU to provide a solution. But to blame the Commission for not doing something it’s not supposed to do? And somthing which, if it was proposed that it should do, we’d have an issue with?
Why can’t the British press do something useful like take the Greek prime minister to task for this sort of expansionist approach to the role of the EU rather than print what turned out to be a completely untrue story? But that’s too much to expect.
Although the Daily Express did manage to put out an apology for the ludicrous “EU spouts off about our milk jugs” nonsense they published the other day… well done @EULondonRep!
my original weblog- Was I lied to and bullied over breastfeeding?
- The most moral way to give birth?
- Why hedging your bets is not good in the EU...
- Torchwood: the future and (re)birth...
- Questioning is not the same as scepticism
- Testing our commitment to Voltaire...
- Dealing with 5 new EU realities
- 'Political Shock' and making it better
- voting YES in a referendum
- When your child bites mine
- Why voting matters even when the system is complic
- European elections - what are we voting for?
- Power without responsibility, in all senses
- Back to Brussels...
- Who exactly are the EU blogging geeks talking to?
- Useless European Parliament Committees?
- Doctor Who geek in pilgrimage...
- So much Atheism? It must be a slow news day!
- Technocrat to head government of Czech Republic
- On being British...
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A 5 point guide to UK EU reporting…
Posted by rose22joh in EU, politics on 11/01/2010
The rather fabulous Mia at Cosmetic Uprise has just posted this, and therefore beat me to it on a critique of the Telegraph’s latest eurotrash.
So instead of repeating it, I offer you instead the updated version of my 5 point “guide” to the rules of UK EU reporting…
The first rule of UK EU reporting is that the most ridiculous nonsense can be published and called fact because few people know or care enough to correct it.
The second rule is that anyone that corrects it (or for that matter wants to share information about what the EU actually is and does) is “biased” or spouting “propaganda”.
The third rule is that no matter how stupid the reporting the UK public is so used to reading this sort of thing that even if proved to be false, the response is a “tut! Wouldn’t put it past them” (precisely who “them” is varies). On this basis you can pretty much write anything.
The fourth rule is that if you want to get away with doing it, take something like Treaty minutiae that MIGHT be true (e.g. build on the fact that it wasn’t clear that Barroso being appointed under Nice and the others under Lisbon was possible but that it was highly unlikely that any MS would oppose it and that’s what counts under the rules of realpolitik, or that extending the term of the current Commission in order to allow for a Treaty referendum to take place so that it was clear which set of rules the EU should be operating under is somehow scandalous…) and make it scandal. It adds another layer of patina to the already stained and damaged view of the EU in the UK.
The fifth rule of UK EU reporting is that no matter how bad, ridiculous inaccurate (and against the UK national interest?) this sort of reporting is, it will never be as bad as the comments box contents below it will be… You might need access to the rather excellent glossary from Liberal Conspiracy to understand them all though… (PS image above from the blog http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/06/no-more-eutopias.html - disagree with much there, but I think I and most broadly pro-EU bloggers would agree that it’s not a superstate as described that we’d support either. But that’s an old argument we’ll return to ad nauseum)
comments, daily Telegraph, EU, EU propaganda, Europe, European Union, online comments, online journalism, UK EU reporting
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