Tories' draft EU Referendum Bill confirms the poor state of the party

The UKIP victory in the local elections in England at the start of the month continues to make its impact felt on British politics. After former Tory ministers publicly backed withdrawal, and present Tory ministers indicated that they too would vote out if a vote was held today, Cameron has signalled that his party will publish a draft referendum bill today. As it is not coalition policy (the Liberal Democrats oppose such legislation), it will be introduced as a private member's bill, and will not be passed. The Bill is aimed at setting the referendum for 2017 as a way of "copper-fastening" the referendum so it doesn't depend so much on the outcome of the general election.

Ironically for the party whose rebels staged battles over parliamentary sovereignty in the debates over the EU Bill, the Bill would by its nature seek to bind a later parliament (though it would be for the next parliament to decide whether or not to repeal it).

This Bill confirms the poor state of the Conservative party at the moment. It continues to be rattled and drawn into civil war over the EU, even though the polls showing the +9% boost for UKIP also show a drop in support for the position of leaving the EU (though public opinion is still pretty Eurosceptic). The Conservative party is reeling over its position in the polls, but will its Eurosceptic strategy pay off for it?

It's hard to see it winning over those who have left the party to vote UKIP - this is, after all, the Prime Minister who was hailed by the Eurosceptics of his party for his decision to leave the European People's Party, for his veto of the Fiscal Pact negotiations and his speech on Europe just a few months ago. Cameron's arguably been more Eurosceptic in power - with the Liberal Democrats as coalition partners! - than Thatcher was. The splits and the infighting show the weakness of Cameron as a leader, an indiscipline of the party. Eurosceptic shifts are unlikely to win back voters from UKIP, which is now a party of protest rather than just an anti-EU party, but will probably put off centrist voters that tend to be key in winning elections.

In this vein, Henry Hill has an interesting article on how the Conservative party is dealing with its core-vote-or-centrists dilemma.

The Eurosceptic positioning throws up a strange problem: by constantly reinforcing a negative image of the EU in order to prove Eurosceptic credentials, it will be difficult to portray a renegotiation as a victory and sell the result to the British public. I think the renegotiations are unlikely to bring a major repatriation of powers - opting out the the Justice and Home Affairs area, which is practically current government policy, it a big withdrawal already, so it would have to focus on the limited social and environmental aspects of the single market. Since other Member States will not want their welfare states to be undermined by either a general reduction in standards or undercut by individual country opt-outs, only limited renegotiation is possible.

Essentially, the UK will have opted out of so much, that there's little left but the core project, making it harder for the other countries to concede further. Given the economic condition of the European economy and the previous opposition to Treaty change from the left in many countries, passing a reform of the EU that focuses on the sort of deregulation that the Conservative party seems to want would be incredibly difficult. From a position of bashing the EU and having brought back few changes before putting the deal to an In-or-Out vote, Cameron would be in a weak political position.

If Cameron really believes in his tightrope walk between Euroscepticism and EU Membership, then he's set himself a tough task. He cannot talk too specifically about what needs to be changed, either because he does not know what he wants changed, or he does not want to risk loosing on those negotiating points. He is not strong enough to resist the Eurosceptic right of his party, but the more he appeases them, the more Cameron signals both that voting UKIP affects Conservative policy and he weakens his political position when it comes to his "third way" Euroscepticism.

Europe Day 2013 - European Year of Citizens

Happy Europe Day! Although clearly the numbers of people happy with Europe have dropped sharply recently, so it's not likely that you will see many events celebrating it.


It's Europe Day in the European Year of Citizens, so it's probably appropriate to look at some of the issues surrounding EU Citizenship right now.

The European Citizens' Initiative, the big democratic innovation of the Lisbon Treaty, has come under attack recently for being too bureaucratic and inaccessible, though some ECIs have gained a lot of support - like Right2Water - or are using the ECI to push European Citizenship further with expanded political rights, such as Let Me Vote!

Speaking of citizenship and politics, after a successful campaign within the Party of European Socialists for primaries to select their candidate for Commission President for the 2014 elections, the PES has started the election run with a pretty tepid use of the primaries. Hopefully this initiative won't fade away - it could, after all, be used as an opportunity to bring party members into the debate on EU issues, and could be a good way of boosting party activity come election time.

On the legal front, EU Citizenship hasn't evolved much since the Zambrano case and the retreat of the ECJ afterwards in the McCarthy case and in subsequent other cases. I recommend the article over at European Law Blog on the European Court of Justice's approach to EU Citizenship. It can be a confusing area, with citizenship rights largely bound up in the exercise (and ability to exercise) free movement rights. A full definition of EU citizenship will likely only be decided by long years of court battles, it seems.

With all the social and economic problems confronting us today, and the difficulties in engaging with the EU and promoting change, it's hard to be in a celebratory mood from a citizen's perspective. However, with the ECI and the primaries, it's clear that there is a section of civil society out there that is trying to work for more participation and a more responsive EU. So here's to the people plugging away to make things better: that's where you see citizenship in action.

Motion for same-sex marriage fails in Northern Ireland

Over the past few months same sex marriage has been approved in England and Wales and in France, with a strong recommendation for a constitutional amendment for same sex marriage in Ireland (from the Constitutional Convention). Yesterday a motion calling for legislation on same-sex marriage was rejected in the Northern Ireland Assembly in Stormont.

The outcome was not unexpected: a similar motion had failed in October last year. However, with same-sex marriage about to become a reality in England and Wales, Sinn Féin (United Left), supported by the SDLP (S&D), the Greens and Alliance (ALDE), tabled the motion to put political pressure on the Unionist parties, the DUP (Non-Aligned) and UUP (ECR). (The biggest unionist party, the DUP, has a strongly socially conservative outlook and a religious voting base, so it was always unlikely to support the measure).

The motion was defeated by 53 to 45. Not only was it defeated by a simple majority, but the DUP presented a Petition of Concern, which under the NI Assembly’s procedural rules, triggers a community veto. This means that the motion would have needed a majority in both the Unionist and Nationalist communities to pass. The Alliance Party tabled an amendment to the motion that would have stressed the right of religion to define marriage in their own way alongside civil marriage, but this was defeated by a similar voting coalition to the motion itself.

Amnesty International has stated that legal action, perhaps before the European Court of Human Rights, over the issue is likely. The Court has previously ruled that, based on a reading of the Convention and the lack of a European consensus on the issue, same-sex marriage is not covered by theConvention. However, the Court may reverse the decision, or focus on the fact that same-sex marriage will be available to the majority of UK citizens and make a more UK/NI specific ruling.

Draft EU PNR Directive voted down at Committee Stage

The LIBE Committee of the European Parliament has shot down the draft Passenger Name Record Directive by a vote of 30-25, with the Liberal, Green and left wing groups voting against and the conservative groups for the draft law. The Directive concerned the collection of the information passengers give to airlines when booking a flight by law enforcement authorities (in the form of national "Passenger Information Units (PIUs)" that would analyse the data and pass on information to other law enforcement authorities). The data would be collected to fight terrorism and serious crime, and is a key plank of the Commission's counter-terrorism strategy.

I wrote about the PNR Directive at length last year. The information gathered covers everything from the flight to the food you order, so the authorities would be casting a wide net. There would be some rights for people to have their data corrected or deleted, but:

"However the purposes for gathering and processing the data is so wide that it’s debatable how much substance there is to these rights. For example, PIUs can use the data for general analysis work and to update and create criteria for “objective assessment criteria” to identify unknown criminals – a very wide purpose to use and process data, so PIUs could probably refuse under the Directive to erase a person’s data even if they aren’t suspected of a crime. Also, this use of objective assessment criteria means that the PNR regime is open to the profiling of individuals by law enforcement authorities, where they might be put under closer scrutiny simply because they happened to match a certain pattern of behaviour. There are no safeguards for independent external review of these objective factors (the National Supervisory Authorities don’t seem to have the power to do so), and nor has there been an assessment of the effectiveness of this method in identifying unknown criminals versus the false identification of innocent people.

[...]

 There’s also little satisfactory evidence that PNR is necessary or effective for fighting terrorism and serious transnational crime. We already have the Schengen Information System, the Visa Information System and the Carrier’s Directive (Link) permitted the use of a less invasive Advance Passenger Information system in 2004, where airlines would transfer passport information of passengers and flight arrival/destination details (rather than the whole gamut of PNR information) – but there’s been no assessment of the effectiveness of API, or whether changes in it or the other systems could provide a cheaper and less invasive alternative. The main advantage offered by PNR is presumably the detection of unknown criminals. The Commission has used crime statistics to highlight the levels of serious crime and terrorism to establish the need for further security measures to be introduced and it has also used statistics on the of PNR data in drug seizures (see its impact assessment here: PDF) Interestingly, some of these impressive PNR statistics derive from some Member States which do not currently have a national PNR regime! (Like Belgium - PDF)."

While the draft parliamentary report (by LIBE rapporteur Timothy Kirkhope [ECR Group]) clarified some issues with the original text, it did little to address the scope of both the data gathered and the purposes that it could be used for (without further restricting and defining these, it would be very difficult for the system to be held to account in that most uses for the data would be lawful and citizens would have little substance to their data rights).

The draft Directive could still go to the EP plenary, where the full European Parliament could still pass the law.

Dalligate scandal deepens in Brussels

EUObserver is reporting that a confidential and highly damaging report on OLAF’s conduct of the investigation into allegations of corruption against Health Commissioner Dalli - by OLAF's own supervisors - has been sent to the European Parliament.

The "Dalligate" scandal has been rumbling on for a few months now in Brussels. Allegations of dodgy dealings on the part of Commissioner Dalli over his upcoming tobacco legislation and the snus (oral tobacco that is legal in Sweden but banned in the rest of the EU) industry led to his resignation in October last year. Dalli denies the allegations that he asked for bribes in return for legislative changes and hitout against Commission President Barroso, who effectively forced him in to resigning. Dalli is currently facing legal action in Malta.

In 2013 the scandal took an unexpected turn, however, when it was alleged that OLAF, the anti-fraud agency that launched the investigation against Dalli and published the report that led to his resignation, broke the law by acquiring communication information illegally (such as telephone information). It also came to light that the source of information for the meeting where Dalli supposedly asked for the bribe contacted OLAF to tell them that the meeting had never taken place, but OLAF allegedly told her to not tell the public. However Green MEP José Bové was told that Gayle Kimberley, the source, had not been to the meeting, driving OLAF back into the spotlight.

Despite the uproar over the handling of the case by OLAF and its head, Giovanni Kessler, with a proposal by the European Greens that the Parliament launch its own investigation (by setting up a committee of inquiry) into how the case was conducted. However the European Parliament dropped the idea on 11th April, with the EPP, S&D and ADLE groups against an inquiry – a blow for MEPs who had been calling for Kessler to resign.

But now the confidential report by the OLAF supervisors has breathed new life into the story. As EUObserver reports:

"[The report] accuses [Kessler's] office of conducting unlawful interrogations in Malta, of intercepting a private telephone conversation, of involving the help of Maltese authorities without a proper legal basis and of overlooking or rushing checks on the legality of its actions in order to speed up the outcome.

[...]

Given the complexity of the case, his [Kessler's] hastiness calls into question whether Olaf could have fulfilled all the necessary checks on the legality of its decision and on the credibility of the accusations, the report notes.

The supervisors add that commission President Jose Manuel Barroso wanted the investigation to get top priority.

In a violation of Olaf's duty to remain independent of Barroso's people, Kessler formally designated the commission as the source of the information on the basis of which he launched proceedings.

In a further violation of Olaf procedure, he made the designation despite the fact the information actually came from Swedish Match.

The supervisors also accuse Olaf of instructing the key Dalligate witness - a Maltese-based lobbyist called Gayle Kimberley - to lie."

With such a high-profile case (and a high-profile scalp in the form of a Commissioner), the serious questions over the handling of this case is deeply damaging to OLAF. While it's important to make sure that the court proceedings in Malta aren't interfered with, it's vital that there's a proper investigation into the conduct of this case. OLAF, as the anti-fraud office, is supposed to be irreproachable, and there has to be public confidence that it is able to carry out its functions independently, and in line with the rule of law. The European Parliament has to return to the issue of setting up a committee for inquiry.

Irish President Michael D Higgin's address to the European Parliament

Today President Higgins of Ireland addressed the European Parliament on the Union and citizenship. (The President of Ireland is a ceremonial head of state that is directly elected, and, sadly, it is difficult to imagine a head of government in Europe giving such a speech today).

I recommend the speech, but to quote a few extracts:

"[T]he inspiration and the achievements of the founders of the European Union we inherit as legacy cannot be taken for granted. Today, citizens in Europe are threatened with an unconscious drift to disharmony, a loss of social cohesion, a recurrence of racism and an increasing deficit of democratic accountability in some decision making of an economic and fiscal kind. These threatening clouds hang over a Europe that in more hopeful times, chose to base its anthem, rather than on anything contemporary, on Friedrich Schiller’s poem ‘Ode to Joy’ and its musical setting by Ludwig Van Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony.

Parliaments do matter and must continue to matter. Centuries of effort have been invested by European citizens in securing the vote. It is to parliament citizens look for accountability, for strategic alternatives. If national parliaments, if the European Parliament, were to lose the capacity to deliver accountability where else might it be found? Is there an alternative that can meet the requirements of a deliberative democracy? I believe not and parliaments must draw on the resources of experience, of inherited intellectual capacity, in all its diversity and above all, from the best of contemporary intellectual work in a pluralist way.

[...]

We cannot, however, ignore the fact that European citizens are suffering the consequences of actions and opinions of bodies such as rating agencies, which, unlike Parliaments, are unaccountable. Many of our citizens in Europe regard the response to the crisis in their lives as disparate, sometimes delayed, not equal to the urgency of the task and showing insufficient solidarity with them in their threatened or actual economic circumstances.

They feel that in general terms the economic narrative of recent years has been driven by dry technical concerns; for example, by calculations that are abstract and not drawn from real problems, geared primarily by a consideration of the impact of such measures on speculative markets, rather than driven by sufficient compassion and empathy with the predicament of European citizens who are members of a union, and for whom all of the resources of Europe’s capacity, political, social, economic and intellectual might have been drawn on, driven by the binding moral spirit of a union.

[...]

Instead of any discourse that might define the European Union as simply an economic space of contestation between the strong and the weak, our citizens yearn for the language of solidarity, the commitment to cohesion, for a generous inclusive rhetoric that is appropriate to an evolving political union that is anxious to reach a future of peace, prosperity, inclusion, and in a sustainable way.

This is a serious challenge, not least because if we were to fail we run the risk of an economic crisis leading to a crisis of legitimacy for the Union. A Union that in its founding treaties is fundamentally founded on values – respect for personal dignity; freedom; democracy; equality; the rule of law and respect for human rights."

European Citizens' Initiative and Let Me Vote!

At the start of the month the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) turned one year old. The Commission has claimed it a success - Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič noted that:

"The Commission has received requests for the registration of 25 proposed citizens' initiatives, of which 16 initiatives were registered; two of these have since been withdrawn which means that we currently have 14 ongoing initiatives. The 8 initiatives that were refused did not meet the condition for registration in that they covered areas that fall outside the powers of the Commission. One request for registration is still under analysis.

Contrary to initial concerns, no – to speak with the language of the ECI Regulation – "abusive, frivolous or vexatious" ECIs have been submitted."

However the experiences of the Right2Water campaign may highlight the difficulties of running such campaigns under the "geographical balance" criteria and a variety of national rules on signature collection. As the Commissioner noted:

"So far, just one initiative, Right2Water, has managed to reach the goal of one million signatures – and well within a year, clear indication that it can be achieved with the right support and marketing. They are still collecting signatures, however, because they still need to meet the geographical balance required by the ECI regulation, and I wish them well with also reaching this target in due course."

Justin Stares has written over at Public Service Europe about the difficulties Right2Water faced:

"In Belgium, they have to give their date and place of birth plus their full address - meaning they have to write down their home country twice. If an individual fails to do so on the grounds that repetition must surely be redundant, there is a chance his or her signature will be invalidated. "If the authorities are very strict when checking our signatures then we can throw away half of them," says Sanchez. "If you write Stoke instead of Stoke-on-Trent they could say no, but there is pressure on the commission to be flexible." Requirements should be standardised across the EU, he says.

Country signature thresholds are based on a formula that produces sometimes bizarre if not outright ridiculous results: around 9,000 signatures are required in both Lithuania and Denmark, despite Denmark having a much larger population."

I'd recommend you read the full article.

The ECI legislation will be up for review in two years time. Despite the problems with the ECI, I hope people will keep campaigning and putting pressure on the Commission and European Parliament to consider their proposals. Without the pressure and voices of the campaigners, it may be difficult to push for reform of the problems with the system when the review is launched.


Stephen Spillane has highlighted on of the ECIs currently collecting signatures, Let Me Vote! This ECI is a campaign for EU citizens to be given the right to vote in the national elections of the Member State that they are resident in, giving them a voice in the policies of the country where they pay their taxes. Stephen will be looking at other ECIs over the next while too.