Bulletins

Open Europe bulletin: 20 April 2007

• Blair says he will sign up to new EU treaty in June – and will ditch referendum promise
• The coming campaign: how you can help
• Environmental entrepreneurs call on EU to allow green tax cuts
• Sweden ’s young political leaders call for change in government’s EU policy
• News in brief
• Open Europe in the news

1. Blair says he will sign up to new EU treaty in June – and will ditch referendum promise

Tony Blair has said that he plans to agree to draw up a new treaty to replace the rejected EU Constitution at the EU summit on 22 June .  He also went back on his promise to hold a British referendum on a new EU treaty.

In an interview with several European newspapers he was asked whether he would hold a referendum on the new treaty: “No. If it’s not a constitutional treaty, so that it alters the basic relationship between Europe and the member states, then there isn’t the same case for a referendum.” (FT, 20 April)

Europe Minister Geoff Hoon said: “What was different about the Constitutional Treaty - as the Prime Minister was making clear - was that it altered the basic relationship between the European Union and the member states, and therefore it was appropriate to have a referendum.” (BBC World at One, 20 April)

In fact, at the time Tony Blair had claimed that: “T here should be a referendum in circumstances in which there is a proposal to alter fundamentally the Government's constitutional arrangements. That is not the case with the European Convention. ”

In his interview Blair said that “We must listen to the people.” However, he immediately went on to say that the negotiations should take place in secret: “We want a modified treaty which improves the working rules of Europe.  As for the details, I am not going to negotiate them in public.” (Le Monde , 20 April)

The Prime Minister suggested that Gordon Brown would agree to this strategy, saying he expected to agree “the basic outline agreement for a treaty” at the 22 June summit, leaving the Chancellor to oversee negotiations on the fine details in the autumn and the subsequent parliamentary ratification.   Rejecting suggestions that Brown would try to unpick the deal, Blair said: “When we come to the June council we will come with the position of the government.” However the FT reported only that, “Allies of the Chancellor said he was monitoring the situation very closely”.

Blair will travel to Berlin next week to discuss tactics with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Th e key elements of Merkel’s strategy – a “two month mission” to save the Constitution – are reported to be: avoiding referendums everywhere apart from Ireland and Denmark, changing the treaty’s name, winning over the sceptical Czechs and Poles, and adding new parts to appease the 16 countries that have already ratified the Constitution. ( EUobserver 18 April, FT 20 April)

In a letter to the FT this week , Open Europe’s Chairman Lord Leach, Former Foreign Secretary Lord Owen, and Labour peer Lord Renwick criticised the Government for refusing to hold a referendum as promised.  They argued that, “Any proposed treaty containing a European Union foreign minister, a long-term EU president or a diminution of national rights to block EU legislation would be of profound constitutional importance, regardless of its name. The government should be held to its promise.” (FT 19 April)

If Gordon Brown agrees to Tony Blair’s plan to force through the new treaty without the promised referendum then he will spend the beginning of his premiership dealing with this question.   In the UK, 83% of citizens want a vote on any new treaty which gives more powers to the EU.   Will Brown really want to go out and campaign against a referendum (on Blair’s treaty) during his first, defining weeks in office?  

Links: FT FT interview Mail El Pais interview Le Monde Transcript

WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

The new treaty seems certain to be another step in the wrong direction.   From the debate in Brussels it seems likely that it will be more of the same, rather than the radical reform the EU needs.

It won’t end the EU’s unfair trade policies against developing countries.   It won’t fix the EU’s failing environmental policies.   It won’t stop the flow of crazy and costly regulations.   And it won’t sort out the EU’s chronic problems with fraud and corruption.  

But it will give unelected and unaccountable EU officials even more powers to make decisions that affect us.

As the undemocratic drive to push through the new treaty gets underway Open Europe will be pressing to make sure that people are given a say.   We will be working to make the case against the new treaty in every region.

If you would like to help please contact our Campaigns Manager:

claudia@openeurope.org.uk

2. Environmental entrepreneurs call on EU to allow green tax cuts

New research by Open Europe has found removing VAT and EU tariffs could reduce the price of some of the most important ‘green’ products, including bicycles and energy-efficient light bulbs, by up to 80%. Environmental business leaders have called on the EU to scrap its tariffs and minimum VAT requirements on green goods, in order to cut the price of environmentally friendly products.

To view the press release, click here

3. Sweden ’s young political leaders call for change in government’s EU policy

In a full page article published in Sweden’s largest newspaper Expressen this week, 50 of Sweden’s young liberal and conservative political leaders, analysts and writers - including Open Europe’s Mats Persson - came out strongly against the centre-right government’s “unwary” position on the EU.  

In Sweden, criticism of the EU has traditionally been the business of the Left. Complaints over the perceived ‘liberal bias’ of the EU’s legal framework, combined with concerns over external pressure on the ‘Swedish model’ have led many leftist politicians to take a suspicious view of the EU. For their part, Sweden’s centre-right politicians have tended to see the EU – particularly the Single Market – as a as a way to push through economic reform despite Social Democratic domination of domestic politics.

The group of 50 pointed to a generational shift in Swedish politics, arguing that “the generation of centre-right politicians who fought for Sweden’s EU membership have failed to adjust their views to an EU that is becoming increasingly concerned with regulating business and harmonising member states across ever-wider fields. Amongst the generation of centre-right politicians that grew up with the Union, however, there are now many who are critical of the way the EU is evolving.”

The group said that “In future treaty-negotiations, the Swedish government should resist any additional transfers of powers to the EU level, until the unnecessary competencies Brussels currently has in areas such as agriculture, fishery, regional and social policies are handed back to the member states.” With a new, more EU-critical generation of centre-right policy-makers waiting in the wings, it seems likely that the Swedish debate about the future of Europe is likely to move on rapidly in the near future.

4. News in brief

( i ) EU financial irregularities increase to €1bn. According to the UK National Audit Office’s annual report on financial management in the EU, the value of financial irregularities in 2005-6 rose by 5 percent to €1billion (£681million). Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons' Public Accounts Committee said, "For the twelfth year in succession, the European auditors have placed a question mark over the legality and regularity of European Community expenditure. Cleared accounts still seem a distant prospect.” Richard Bacon MP, another member of the committee, said that the UK’s EU budget contributions should be held back when auditors fail to give Brussels a clean bill of financial health. (Telegraph 18 April)

  (ii) EU Commission continued to hire Italian businessman despite OLAF investigations linking him with corruption.   A ccording to a report in German magazine Stern , the European Commission continued to hire firms belonging to Italian businessman Angelo Troiano – who was recently arrested on corruption charges (see our previous bulletin) – even after the EU's anti-fraud office OLAF had launched investigations into cases involving him in 2004.  According to EUobserver , Troiano is suspected of having played a middleman’s role in a fraud scheme in which Commission official Giancarlo Ciotti allegedly pocketed bribes in return for rewarding Troiano’s business with contracts to equip and secure Commission buildings in India and Albania.  As late as November 2006, Mr Troiano's firm ATR scooped a €1.2 million deal for equipping a kindergarten ordered by the Commission's Office for Infrastructure and Logistics Brussels (OIB), a unit falling under the responsibility of Anti-Fraud Commissioner Siim Kallas .  Meanwhile, questions are also surfacing on the details of the deal involving Commission buildings in India and Albania - which sparked the recent arrests. A Commission spokeswoman confirmed that the signing of contracts always requires "four eyes" - which suggests that at least one more Commission official apart from the arrested Giancarlo Ciotti must have seen the dubious contract with the Troiano firm. (5 April)

(iii) Whistleblower Paul van Buitenen : “things have got even worse”. In an interview with German paper Deutsche Welle this month, Paul van Buitenen MEP - the whistleblower who brought down the EU Commission in 1999 - said: “The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) has had success in combating external corruption in the member states, but it is in the internal cases where it has found problems. Working with the EU authorities makes it very difficult to proceed in an investigation... OLAF's independence exists only on paper… Every time the committee is approached about corruption, it promises to improve the situation. But then a new case arises. “

At present, he said, there are no independent mechanisms to control corruption on a European level equivalent to those existing in individual member states: “We must decide if we are to continue with the European arrangement. If we do, then we must also create these democratic structures at European level. Otherwise we should revert to allowing the national authorities and parliaments to take over the controlling functions again. But at the moment, as it stands, everything goes wrong.” And on the question of whether the situation for whistleblowers has improved, Buitenen said that, “Things have got even worse. There is now a regulation which supposedly protects so-called whistleblowers which makes officials believe that they can uncover scandals. But in reality, if one does this, they are destroyed. So the regulation does not work.” (Deutsche Welle 2 April)

Barroso calls for EU migration policy, branding national migration policies “ridiculous”. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has called for the EU to implement a common migration policy.  He said that "It is ridiculous that the EU, where free circulation of people exists, has 27 migration policies." He said that unilateral migration policies implemented in a member state have negative repercussions for other member states. ( Xinhua 14 April)

Commission rapped over Irish radio propaganda .   According to EUobserver , Ireland’s media watchdog has ruled against EU Commission radio advertising deemed to be "directed towards a political end".  Although the Commission claims the adverts were “awareness building”, regulators referred to extracts seen as overtly ‘pro-EU’, including one passage which stated: "Did you know that since 1973 Ireland has received over €55 billion from the European Union? This money has supported Irish industries, supplemented farm incomes, helped to build Ireland's motorways and allowed for the upgrading of the railway network." (4 April)

EU agrees hate crime law.   After six years of political wrangling, the EU has agreed to make incitement to racism and xenophobia a crime across the 27-nation bloc. Under the new law, offenders will face up to three years in jail for "public incitement to violence or hatred, directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin." The text avoids controversial terms such as the Holocaust and crimes under the Stalin regime.   However, the Telegraph argues that “The legislation goes beyond German or Austrian-style bans on denial of the Holocaust” and will be sufficiently weighty “to cover those people who question the official history of recent conflicts in Africa and the Balkans.” IHT EUobserver El Pais Times Guardian (20 April)

France seeks to unravel EU trade access offer to developing countries;

NGOs warn against “devastating” effect of EU proposals. This week trade campaigners demonstrated across Europe against the EU’s negotiating strategy over Economic Partnership Agreements. A group of NGOs had a letter in the Times warning against the “potentially devastating impacts these deals will have on livelihoods, in Africa in particular.”  Meanwhile the FT reported that France and other EU countries are fighting to dilute the free market access to the EU market offered to developing countries by the European Commission two weeks ago. The EU’s offer came as part of ongoing negotiations on trade preferences with the 79 countries from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP). (19 April)

EU accused of hypocrisy over carbon emissions.   Figures released on 2 April showed that the EU's carbon dioxide emissions actually grew by 1-1.5 per cent in 2006 despite the bloc's rhetoric about the need for reductions.  The data released – which covers 93% of installations covered by the EU emissions trading scheme – shows that participants emitted less than their quota of free permits, hence the rise in actual emissions. Meanwhile Commissioner Siim Kallas announced that the average emissions from the Commission’s own fleet of cars were 271 g/km in 2006.   This is more than double the 120-130 g/km limit the Commission recently proposed for newly manufactured cars in Europe.   (12 April)  

Belgian MEP claims he will “save English football” – plots breakaway “EU league” for top clubs .   In the Sunday Express this month Belgian MEP Ivo Belet – the politician behind the EU’s plan to take control of football – had an article entitled “How I can save English football”.  He began his article by joking about the poor performances of the English football team and says that “it’s not just on the pitch that the British game is struggling.  Look at the foreign vultures circling menacingly over your country’s great clubs... why is nobody in Britain doing anything to stop this? I for one will not sit back and watch this sport being wrecked.”   However, the Guardian reported that Belet’s real aim is to create a breakaway “EU league” of Europe’s top clubs.  He said, "We could have in five or 10 years a European Union super league; combined with collective selling of television rights that would be the perfect solution." (2 April)

5. Daily European press summary

Each morning Open Europe produces a summary of all the top stories from leading newspapers across Europe.   Our team of researchers and linguists search through the press from the UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Scandinavia for the latest news on the European Union.   If you would like to sign up for the service please register on our homepage :

http://www.openeurope.org.uk/

6. Open Europe in the news

Open Europe aims to bring the failures of the current EU to the attention of a wider and wider audience.    We are now appearing in the press and broadcast media several times a week. For a full summary of Open Europe’s media coverage, go to:

http://www.openeurope.org.uk/media-centre/press-coverage.aspx

Further comment and analysis can be found on our blog .

Government should be made to keep its promise to vote on EU treaty

World at One Mail Evening Standard 20 April FT 19 April BBC Mail Guardian FT Mirror BBC Five live 17 April

Open Europe Director Neil O'Brien was quoted in the Mail today saying, "This is a disgraceful attempt to wriggle out of the promise of a referendum.  Tony Blair knows that the overwhelming majority of people would vote against giving away more powers to EU officials, so now he is going to take away our right to a vote."   In an interview on the BBC World at One programme Open Europe’s Deputy Chairman Derek Scott argued that any new treaty “will shift the balance of power even more between the member states and the centre, and will make it more difficult for the UK to resist proposals that it doesn’t think are in its best interests. A majority in all member states want a referendum… The extent to which politicians are trying to dupe people is very worrying…You’ll remember that before the last election we were told that this was just a tidying up exercise – I’m afraid that that was rubbish then, and it’s rubbish now.”

Earlier in the week, Derek was quoted by the BBC, Mail, Guardian, FT and the Mirror pledging that “we intend to hold the government to its promise to hold a referendum. This isn’t going to fool anyone". Neil O’Brien also appeared on BBC Radio Five Live.

In a letter to the FT, Open Europe’s Chairman Lord Leach, Former Foreign Secretary Lord Owen, and Labour peer Lord Renwick criticised the Government for pledging to introduce a new “amending treaty” to replace the EU Constitution, without holding a referendum as promised. They argued, “Any proposed treaty containing a European Union foreign minister, a long-term EU president or a diminution of national rights to block EU legislation would be of profound constitutional importance, regardless of its name. The government should be held to its promise.”

High cost of a green light from Europe

Evening Standard Bristol Evening Post 19 April

The Evening Standard reported on our initiative to encourage the EU to scrap tariffs and VAT on ‘green’ products, noting “there [is] a tariff of 66% on the new, energy-saving bulb which comes from the Far East, which is why they cost 10 times as much as those nice old incandescent ones. Scrap the charge and VAT, says Open Europe, the free-market pressure group, and they'd cost around 66p.”

The Bristol Evening Post reported that environmental groups have supported Open Europe’s call to scrap EU taxes on "green" goods.

Open Europe poll coverage

The Portugal News European Voice 20 April Pravo Berlingske  Jerusalem Post  Investors Business Daily East Anglian Daily Times Angus Reid TV2 Politiken Jyllands-Posten   Fyens Stiftstidende  Le Figaro 5-10 April

Further results of Open Europe’s pan-European poll, showing that a majority of EU voters would favour military action against Iran in order to prevent Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons, were reported in the Jerusalem Post, Le Figaro, Czech daily Pravo , Danish dailies Berlingske , Politiken and Jyllands-Posten as well as on Instapundit . Danish TV2 also reported on the findings.

Other elements of the poll, released last month, also received coverage. In the Mail Andrew Alexander noted that our EU wide poll found a majority of voters across Europe want to take powers back from the EU and that most people in the eurozone want their old currencies back. Portuguese daily Publico reported that “ Two thirds of Portuguese are in favour of holding a referendum about the new European Union Treaty, according to a survey carried out by the TNS institute for the British think tank Open Europe”, while the Portugal News, Portugal’s national newspaper in English, reported that our poll had shown “ 60 percent of Portuguese would readily convert their euros back to escudos if they were given the choice.”

Sweden ’s young political leaders call on government to launch new EU policy and reject Constitution

Expressen 16 April

In Sweden’s largest daily paper, Expressen , Open Europe’s Mats Persson alongside 50l other young Swedish representatives of liberal and conservative organisations and political parties had a piece urging the Swedish government to launch a new EU agenda that stresses “openness, sovereignty, free trade and flexible integration”.

Court ruling on greenhouse gases boosts 'cap and trade'

Washington Times 16 April

The Washington Times ran a feature on emissions trading, quoting Open Europe’s description of the EU’s trading scheme as “an administrative nightmare”, imposing costs on the NHS whilst allowing oil firms to profit.

Is Europe worth it?

Investors Chronicle 13 April

A feature article in the Investors Chronicle reassessed the value to the UK of the EU, as it turns 50. It reported that Open Europe’s poll of heads of UK financial services companies found that 62% now believe that the costs of EU membership outweighed the benefits. The article also discusses Open Europe's recent report which found that the EU’s Financial Services Action Plan could cost the City of London £23bn.

Rebate bungle costs £116 each

The Sun 4 April

In an article in the Sun discussing the decision to give up part of Britain’s EU rebate, Open Europe Director Neil O’Brien was quoted saying, “Until now Brown has had to do things Blair’s way. Once he takes over, he must live up to his reputation and take a tough line with the EU.”"

Private Eye responds to Open Europe's 'virtual farm' analysis

Private Eye 3 April

Private Eye argued that Open Europe’s disclosure of ‘city-farmers’ claiming EU farm subsidies is actually "playing into the Commission's hands" by helping to bring the scheme into disrepute."

Carbon trading won't work

LA Times 2 April

Michael K Dorsey, assistant professor on Dartmouth College's faculty of science, had an opinion piece in the LA Times on carbon trading. Dorsey noted that “Researchers at Open Europe, an economics think tank in Britain, recently issued a report on the experiment. They concluded that the EU Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme represents ‘botched central planning rather than a real market.’ As a result, the report said, carbon trading has not resulted in an overall decline of the EU's carbon dioxide emissions."