Waiting for the Reform Treaty debate

After a long summer break I am returning back to this EU-CO-LOGIC blog with the prospect of having more to write about in the next months when the Portuguese Presidency will start new debates on the “Reform Treaty” [see EurActiv LinksDossier].
Not that I have many illusions though. The kind of fundamental changes that I am advocating (in search of an Eco-Europe) will for sure not get that much attention but I hope we can help with this blog at least to stir up the debate a bit. But to do this, I will need the help of anyone who believes to EU should re-engineer itself.
For those still not convinced of the need for serious EU reform, read the interview EurActiv did with Martin Konečný of CEE Bankwatch Network. The EU’s structural funds programmes are actually contributing to “unsustainable development”, says Konečný, and some projects are in clear contradiction with the EU’s climate change policies.

CAP “health check” or “eco-sustainability check”?

In November 2007, the European Commission is due to present its first ideas on what has been called the 2008 “health check” of the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP).

The phrase “health check” has been carefully chosen to prevent any fears that the Commission will start a new “review” of its most controversial policy area. According to CAP commissioner Fischer Boel, the main elements of the health check will be:

• to look at how well the Single Payment Scheme (SPS) is working
• to propose further moves towards more decoupling
• to propose a higher level of compulsory modulation
• to continue the work on cross-compliance

.

Say what? Maybe the Commission should start with a communication check of its farm policy first? Who the hell, except for some CAP experts and consultants, understands what all this lingo really means?

Having said this, this communication deficit of CAP is not the only problem. There is, of course, the scandal that the CAP still takes up over 40% of the EU’s budget, although the importance of the sector for our economy has gone down dramatically. In the EU’s post-2013 budget review (also foreseen for 2008), this issue will surely become one of the hottest debates.

On the other hand, what the EU’s farm policy REALLY needs is an “ecological sustainability check”. What effects will climate change and the new “energy scarcity” (peak oil, resource wars, energy nationalism) have on the EU-27’s farm policies? How will these new challenges affect the future of the EU’s CAP?

Not being a CAP expert myself, I would welcome any ideas and recommendations from my readers. How can we push for the “ecological modernisation” of the EU’s most comprehensive common policy?

Further reading:

• There are two excellent blogs dealing with the EU’s CAP (although not from an ecological angle): CAP Health Check and the Common Agricultural Policy blog.
• For a “sustainability” view on global agricultural policy, read Richard Heinberg’s lecture for the Schumacher society in October 2006.

After the summit: time for a two-vision Europe

Let’s try to cut through all the spin on the Reform Treaty which was put on the IGC rails on Saturday morning 23 June.

First of all, the compromise reached is no more and no less than the draft Constitution brought in through the backdoor. In a mockery of the two no-referenda in France and the Netherlands, EU leaders have cynically undone any citizens’ reluctance to continue with the current European project. Even if they will manage to prevent future referenda on the Reform Treaty, this contempt for European citizens will come back to haunt the EU. At least, the “elitist” leaders of the past had the guts to defend their elitism, whereas the current generation preaches “better communication” (try to read the compromise text) and “reconnecting to citizens”.

Secondly and more important, what happened in Brussels in the last three days confirms that European leaders are not interested in a long-term vision for the continent but more in bringing something home that they can sell as “their” victory (be it the Polish victory on the double majority voting, the British opt-out of the Charter, the French surprise attack on “free and undistored competition”, or the German “Merkel does it again” triumph).

What the summit has proved is that the two-speed Europe is already a reality, as Belgian former Commissioner Karel Van Miert underlined to his country’s press. French journalist Jean Quatremer makes the same evaluation in the Libération article “L’ébauche d’une Europe à deux vitesses“.

Now it is time to move on from a two-speed Europe to a “two-vision Europe” because behind all the obvious European politicking, there are two different visions on the future of the European project (which political leaders do not dare to pronounce or politicise openly). The first vision is based on the 20th century liberal competitiveness-economic growth ideology which aims to have Europe win the “battle of globalisation” without understanding that globalisation means increasing interconnectedness where there is no winning without losing in some other respect.

The second vision is one of ecological industrial modernisation of Europe which recognises the interconnectedness of globalisation and the “new scarcity” as expressed in the recent urgency of climate change and energy security policies.

The problem with the two-speed Europe or the concept of “enhanced cooperation” is that it splits up EU member states in “leaders” and “laggards” or “avant-garde” and “arrière-garde”. Maybe the two-vision Europe could overcome this problem. A Europe consisting of two groups of countries each developing cooperation along their vision might also remobilise citizens’ interest. And may the best vision win!

More interesting reading on the Reform Treaty summit:

• EurActiv: Summit seals mandate for EU ‘Reform Treaty’
• BBC News: At-a-glance: EU treaty proposals
• EU Referendum blog: The European Council “mandate” analysed
• Federal Union: The new EU Reform Treaty

The “irrelevant” EU summit

Will the European Council meeting of 21-22 June go down in history as a “new beginning” after the draft Constitution failure in France and the Netherlands? I am sure it will not.

Even if, on Friday, EU leaders manage to strike a deal on a “roadmap” to a new Treaty, what the summit will be remembered for is the unshameful politicking of men and women pretending to be “political leaders” in an effort to undo the first citizens’ resistance to an elite-led European project. The way Chancellor Merkel and her spin doctors have been trying to revive the Constitution without daring to speak its name and to make sure that never again people will be asked in referenda to express their feelings about the EU project, is likely to go into history as the “great constitution swindle”.

And then again, whatever happens, I do not think it will bring the Union much relief. Within the negotiating process, so many differences of opinion and of values have turned up that this EU can hardly be called a “Europe of values” anymore. It is only a matter of months or years before the new deal will also be unravelled.

As we have said in earlier posts, this EU is at its end and needs to re-engineer itself. Of course this will not happen with 27 members. Some of them are not ready for the new big vision. But those who really believe that the 21st century challenges need more global cooperation will have to find ways of getting out under the old ruins and start building the new eco-house. Who takes the lead? My money is on the Dutch

More interesting comments on the summit:

• EU Referendum: A gigantic, ocean-going con
• EU Referendum: We aren’t idiots

The Times has published the “full text of Mrs Merkel’s Blueprint for Europe”

Time for real political debate in Brussels

This week’s Economist has an excellent analysis of think tanks and political debates in Brussels. Its main message: “the level and quality of public debate in the EU capital are depressingly low”. I could not agree more having attended and sometimes moderated lots of the conferences or seminars where these debates should take place.

The article blames funding of the Brussels think tanks by EU institutions and corporate sponsors for the poor quality of debate and also rightly points to the fact that Brussels is a rather closed system where “the same folk must deal with each other for years, haggling their way towards policy deals”. I have once called this the “Brussels incest”, a system where anyone wanting to be influential needs to be loved by the consensus leaders in order to be taken seriously. Anyone daring to ask provocative questions during these conferences immediately risks becoming an “outsider” who needs to be shunned for the future.

As the Economist reports, Commissioner Margot Wallström (who is aware of the problem) will be proposing a plan to fund pan-European foundations to foster more political debate. The problem, says the Economist, is that these foundations will be linked to the European political parties, which are “imperfect vehicles for pushing forward debate”. Here I only agree partially. I think using these transnational political party federations could be a good idea because they are less chained by the immediate day-to-day political agenda and could therefore work on finding “the next big idea”.

The real danger lies in spreading these new foundation funds over all European political parties. Why not use the money to set up one European Debate Foundation, which could be run by representatives from all European party formations and which would organise two big events per year (just before the European Council meetings in March and December) where the “next big ideas” can be discussed? One of the “big ideas” that I would like to push (as you can expect when you read this blog) is the ecological re-engineering of the EU.

Strong climate policies do not need a new EU treaty

Do we need a new European treaty in order to save our climate? EU President Barroso certainly seems to think so.
According to today’s Financial Times, the Commission President has warned future UK prime minister Gordon Brown not to block a compromise deal on a watered-down European treaty. If the UK would fail to agree to the new compromise, it might undermine efforts to fight climate change and reach a Doha trade deal. With this threat, Barrosos is putting pressure on Mr Brown, according to the FT.
Well, I am sure that Blair’s successor is not that dumb
There was nothing in the old, failed draft Constitution, nor in the current compromise which, in any way, would make a big difference as to Europe’s ability to tackle global warming. Suddenly now for the Commission President any reference to climate change seems a good argument to use to win his power fights. What happened to the Lisbon agenda, Mr President? Where did you forget your old battlehorse?

A carbon-neutral parliament is not enough

It is amazing what media attention can do. Now that all of them have seen the green light (or is it the “inconventient truth”?), politicians are trying to compete for becoming the climate champion of the year, the “EU Al Gore”. If ever the thesis about our “spectacle” democracy needed any confirmation, we can find it in the “spectacular” way climate change (an issue known since the beginning of the 90s) has fired itself onto the political agenda.

Who would have thought one year ago that new French President Sarkozy would have a superminister for ecology? Why is even Brown becoming green?

And of course, our respected members of the European Parliament just had to wake up to the climate heat too. So, let’s create a 60-members big special committee which is going to find THE solution by travelling around the world to talk to other parliaments.

Ah, and another good idea: let’s make the European Parliament “carbon-neutral”, that will show them. So the EP Bureau is to decide on 18 June to commission some “independent external experts” to evaluate the Parliament’s carbon footprint in order to later define an action plan to reduce greenhouse gas reductions of the Brussels and Strasbourg activities.

Oops, but small problem there. The issue of the two seats is kind of a taboo and, for sure, not the competence of the MEPs themselves but of the 27 governments of the EU. So we will not measure the carbon footprint of the fact of having two seats (a study by the way which was commissioned by Green MEPs Caroline Lucas and Jean Lambert last month).

My recommendation to all my dear MEP friends: maybe the next European Parliament (the one chosen by probably one third of our voters in 2009) should declare a five-year moratorium on its normal activities and focus itself on defining a new European eco-vision? Now, wouldn’t that be something?

The missed opportunity of the 2007 Berlin Declaration

In a comment to the first post of this blog, Raymond van Ermen wrote the following:
“The Berlin Declaration celebrating the EU’s 50th anniversary is very disappointing for two reasons :
o In January 2007, President Barroso named sustainability as one of the EU’s five key values, to be enshrined in the Berlin Declaration celebrating the EU’s 50th anniversary. However, the reference was restricted to figthing climate change.
o The Declaration has not been signed by all the Member States.

1.1. Focus on Climate Change only ?

That “Climate Change” is prefered - as a EU priority - to “Sustainable Development” is a wrong signal. Indeed humanity is faced with an “evolutionary wall” resulting not of one threat (climate change) but of 3 challenges coming at the same time : climate change, the war for resources, the right to development of all with booming economies in countries as China and India. This is why the EUSDS should remain the overarching strategy.It is now in relation with the new challenges of the XXIst Century related to climate change and resource scarcity that Europe can best give itself a new “mission” ( in line with the priorities which emerged from the citizens panels organised recently by the Commission putting energy and environmental issues as top one priorities for Europe). But it should not be de-linked for the other dimensions of sustainable development. The European Union is the only entity that has defined the goal of promoting the well-being of its peoples AND working for sustainable development as an objective in its draft Constitution.

1.2. The Berlin Declaration has not be signed by everybody.

Today the risks have for name resource scarcity and war for resources. The opportunities have for name a resource efficient and low carbon economy and a well being society for all. The challenge is also to be sure that this vision is shared by the EU 27 Member States.
Contrary to what thinks the Czech President these new urgencies are neither a “Western” or a “Green” agenda against the rights to development of “new member states” and “developing countries or against “business” nor “a communist plot cooked up by the losers of the cold war”. It is a mankind imperative shared at global level by public authorities, the religious, scientific, business communities, It is - as any crisis - a risk and an opportunity (including to make profit and enhance competitiveness). It it the necessary path to help emerging economies and developing countries to “leapfrog”.

I could not agree more with Raymond. The Berlin Declaration is no more and no less than the failure of the old European elite, which is not able and willing to define the real risks to global and European prosperity.

Eco-Europe and the cities

With more than half of the world population living in mega-cities, the miracle key to opening the door of a low-carbon Europe lies in these cities. Therefore, the C40 initiative, led by London, and supported by the Clinton Foundation, probably does more for the fight against climate change and energy insecurity than all UN climate diplomacy. More on this week’s meeting of the C40 in New York can be found in The Guardian and the New York Times.
In this context, it is regrettable that the current EU architecture provides no real instruments to leverage cities’ potential contribution to a new “energy prosperity”. As long as cities are not really involved in the European Union’s governance, is this surprising? If cities would have more of a voice in EU policy-making, it would also bring citizens closer to the EU.
Maybe the architects of a new Eco-Europe architecture should think about redefining the role of the Committee of the Regions and the Council of European Municipalities and Regions? Who has any good suggestions?
Further reading:

• Sustainable cities and towns campaign
• 24-25 May: German Presidency to present Leipzig Charter on Sustainable European Cities

EU 2007: lack of vision and fear of democracy

I attended two citizens’s debates on the EU’s constitutional crisis in the last few days and got ample confirmation that we are just whistling in the dark when confronted with what is probably one of the EU’s most serious crises.
The first debate on the June 2007 roadmap (taking place in the European Parliament on 9 May) was totally dominated by two MEP “elephants” of the Constitutional debate, Jens-Peter Bonde and Inigo Mendez de Vigo. Both these “anciens” are so “locked” into the technicalities of the Constitution debate that they can no longer see beyond the horizon of their institutional logic. Their interventions, although entertaining, left me certainly on my hunger for a visionary counter-medicine to the “future-of-the-EU paralysis” that I see everywhere in Brussels and other capitals.
Fortunately, the panel also included Raymond van Ermen whose vision for a “way out of the constitutional crisis” comes close to my own ideas as set out in a recent article I wrote for Diplomatic World. But Raymond’s plea for a new “sustainability” vision of Europe did not get any serious reaction from both MEPs.
What most speakers agreed on, though, was that the German Presidency has returned to “methods of the past”, namely intergovenmental talks behind closed doors to revive the dead constitution. Did Frau Merkel ever read Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”?
The willingness (or lack of it) of European political leaders was also raised during a “European Citizens’ Consultations” meeting on 10 May. During that event, a representation of European citizens handed over the results of a Europe-wide consultation of citizens on future priorities for the EU to Commissioner Wallström and two MEPs. With her usual flair, Margot Wallström tried to keep up appearances and promised that the commission will take the “citizens report” seriously. I know that she means it but do her fellow commissioners? And does the German Presidency? It seemed to me significant that no representative of Presidency was present during the handover event.
My conclusion and recommendation: if political leaders ignore us, let’s ignore them in return. Let’s work on a new vision for Europe with a strong participatory dimension and forget about the petty institutional tinkering which they try to sell as the “future of the EU”.