Tag: eu commission

Will the “Don’t knows” and “Won’t Votes” be the real victors in #ep2014?

by dsmooney, posted in Elections, EU, Politics

Here is a piece I wrote for the BEERG weekly newsletter just over two weeks ago. Sorry for the delay in posting this on here.  

BEERG Newsletter Issue #15, May 2nd 2014
BEERG Newsletter Issue #15, May 2nd 2014

BEERG’s Derek Mooney writes: With just three weeks to go to voting for the European Parliament elections across Europe it seems that the “don’t knows” may be the winners.

While campaigning is stepping up across Europe and despite a major push from the EU to drive up voter turnout, most polling forecasts suggest that turnout in the 2014 EU parliament elections will drop below the 46% turnout achieved in 2009, with young voters particularly disinterested in electing MEPs.

Open Europe has produced a detailed briefing paper http://goo.gl/7LndzP in which it suggests that a surge in support across the EU for populist anti-EU, anti-austerity, anti-immigrant and anti-establishment parties, could see them win up to 31% of the vote in May.

Couple this strong showing from these parties with another low turnout and, Open Europe estimates, that 74.4% of all voters across Europe will have voted against the EU, for radical change, or not bothered to vote at all. This means that only 25.6% of all eligible voters will have actually come out and voted in favour of parties that broadly support the status quo or favour or more integration.

While these status quo/centrist parties, mainly the EPP, S&D and ALDE will see their aggregate share of the vote decrease, it does not necessarily mean that they will lose their grip on Parliament. While these “fringe” parties will do well in what is widely considered a “second order” election – i.e. not that important to voters’ day to day concerns and a means of registering a protest – these parties are not a coherent group. They span the political spectrum from far left to far right and differ as much from each other as they do from the parties of the centre. The latest forecast suggests that the far right’s Le Pen and Wilders will have enough MEPs from enough member states to form a group: with approximately 38 MEPs from 7 member states.

The net impact of these divergent political trends, Open Europe suggests, is that we paradoxically end up with a more integrationist EU Parliament. It argues that moderate parties (i.e. ones that believe the EU is in need of fundamental reform) will lose out to anti EU parties and this dynamic will reinforce what it terms “the corporatist tendency” of the two main groups (the centre Right EPP and centre left S&D) to freeze out the anti-EU MEPs by binding the Parliament and Commission closer together in pushing an integrationist, Brussels-focused agenda.

The most recent PollWatch2014 prediction of the outcome of the 2014 European Parliament elections suggests that centre-right EPP group and the centre-left S&D group are neck and neck. While previous polls (such as the one I posted here recently) had indicated a slight S&D majority in the new parliament PollWatch now predicts the EPP to pull ahead – with the EPP now forecast to win 222 seats, and the S&D Group 209. Past PollWatch predictions were in the region of 98% correct

It also estimates, based on recent polling data across the EU, that the number of MEPs who could be identified as supporting free market policies is also expected to fall from 242 to 206. Amongst other this this would be bad news for David Cameron, as the incoming Parliament will effectively have a veto over some of many of the EU reforms he seeks.

Cameron’s best hope for his reforms, lies, it seems in the EU Council, but only if he can get other leaders on board and secure agreement in nominating a pro-competitiveness Commission in the autumn.

Meanwhile the candidates for the Commission Presidency had the first of their two live TV debates on EuroNews last Monday. On the podium were (pictured from left to right) the ex-Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt (for the Liberals/ALDE): the outgoing European Parliament chief Martin Schulz (from the centre-left S&D), the Greens Ska Keller MEP and the former Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker (of the centre-right EPP),

A snap online poll conducted by Europe Decides judged Verhofstadt the debate winner with 55% and placed Juncker, the current front runner for the post, last with a paltry 9%. Most commentators felt the debate was short of any firm or details proposals.

Juncker said that he wanted “a serious Europe. A Europe that doesn’t dream, but gets things done”. During the course of the debate, the former chairman of the Eurogroup that oversaw the tough bailout programmes for Greece, Ireland and Portugal, called for a legal minimum wage across the EU.

Schulz’s promised “to give back justice and fairness” and to create “a Europe of citizens not of banks and speculators” pledging to publish the Commission’s negotiating mandate on the ongoing trade talks with United States.

Verhofstadt said that the EU needed “less internal market regulation, but more common policies” arguing that “the crisis and unemployment” had turned young people against the EU.

At one point Verhofstadt said his model for Commission president was Jacques Delors, causing Martin Schulz to point out that Delors was a Socialist.

The issue of how the next Commission President would be selected also came up. As the nominees of the two largest groups, Juncker and Schulz are keen to avoid any last minute negotiations that might lead to another name entering at the last minute as a compromise.

Schulz said that stitching-up the Commission presidency via a back-room deal would reduce the elections to “a little game” while Verhofstadt said that not choosing one of the formal candidates (i.e. ones already nominated) would be “unthinkable”.

On 27 May, after the election results are known, the EU Parliament President and the group leaders in the parliament will meet together to discuss the results. Their discussions will feed into deliberations by EU government leaders who will meet later that day to decide who to nominate for Commission President.

My @beerg article on recent #eudatap developments and important comments by @seankellymep

by dsmooney, posted in EU, Fine Gael, Government, Policy, Politics

 

This is a piece I wrote for the March 14th issue of the BEERG global labour newsletter. It examines the consequences of the EU Parliament’s overwhelming vote on the General Data Protection Regulation and acknowledges the hard work and valid concerns raised by the Irish MEP Sean Kelly (EPP & Fine Gael)

BEERG Newsletter March 14th 2014
BEERG Newsletter March 14th 2014

Though it is now accepted across the EU that the Data Protection Regulation is not likely to be approved until 2015 at the earliest, the European Parliament has scheduled a debate on the legislation on Tuesday (11 March) with a full First Reading vote on it on Wednesday.

The vote comes just 10 weeks before voters across Europe go to the polls to elect the next European Parliament.

The plenary vote on Wednesday is no mere gesture, however. It is the outgoing Parliament setting out its position so that the incoming one can start negotiations with the Council of Ministers, as soon as they have adopted their position, though the timetable for the Council’s part of the process remains uncertain

It is not the European Parliament’s only debate on Data Protection this week as it is also set to approve the final report of its own inquiry into alleged mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency.

That report not only demands that the US/EU trade talks not lead to a softening of data protection standards, it also calls for the suspension of a programme to share bank transfer data with the US, and calls on member states to strengthen oversight of their intelligence services.

As mentioned earlier, the ball now lies with the member states governments via the EU’s Council of Ministers. The Justice Ministers met last week and held a policy debate on outstanding issues relating to the data protection regulation framework.

ASs the communique issued after the meeting said: “Ministers broadly supported the draft provisions as regards the territorial scope of the regulation and confirmed the understanding that international transfers of personal data to third countries should take place on the basis of key principles contained in chapter V of the draft regulation.”

It then went on to diplomatically express the ongoing delays and problems saying:

“Ministers agreed that more technical work will need to be done on important aspects of this chapter and that the question of alternative models for international data transfer will need to be studied in depth.”

“The Council confirmed that the work will continue at a technical level on the basis of the progress achieved so far on: pseudonymisation as an element of the risk-based approach, portability of personal data for the private sector and obligations of controllers and processors.”

“Whilst a majority of delegations appeared to be of the opinion that the scope of the profiling provision in the future regulation should, like the current Directive 95/46/EC, limit itself to regulating automated decision-making that has legal effects or significantly affects individuals, some other delegations pleaded in favour of specific provisions on profiling. Work at a technical level should therefore continue on that basis.”

Others involved in the process expressed their frustrations with the Council’s difficulties in reaching a consensus less delicately. Ralf Bendrath, the Green Party’s data protection expert and an adviser to the German Green MEP who is the Rapporteur who has steered the Regulation through Parliament thus far said on Twitter: “Germany again – embarrassingly – less supportive than all other member states on progress”. He went on to dismiss Germany’s observations that the issue will “need more debate” and chided them for not specifically stating their objections.

While Ministers are still a long way off reaching agreement on their draft of the Regulation, that is not to say that a great deal of technical work and progress is going on behind the scenes.

The Greek EU Presidency has been working away very assiduously in recent months with a series of DAPIX and other Data Protection officials meerting. The Greeks have also been engaging with the Italian government (it is the the next country to hold the 6 month rotating Presidency of the EU) to work out a road map for agreeing on the data protection reform swiftly.

While their original objective of agreeing on a mandate for negotiation with the European Parliament before the end of the Greek Presidency looks unlikely to be achieved, they are busily dotting all the “i”s and crossing all the “t”s they reasonably can awaiting some direction from the member states.

Meanwhile in the UK, the Liberal Democrat Junior Minister at the Justice Ministry, Simon Hughes MP, has announced a review of the criminal sanctions available for breaches of the UK’s Data Protection Act. He said the review would help the UK government “decide whether to increase the penalties as the law permits”.

Feeding into this process Pinsent Masons’ specialist in data protection law Kathryn Wynn has suggested that the government should go further than reviewing the criminal sanctions and should also consider strengthening the civil monetary penalty regime too, arguing that a previous increase in the maximum level of fine in 2010 had prompted organisations to take the issue of data protection seriously.

Using the draft EU’s General Data Protection Regulation as an example she suggests that the review take the approach envisaged there, where the level of penalty for a data breach is calculated on the basis of a percentage of their annual turnover.

So, even before it is passed, we could see the draft EU’s General Data Protection Regulation is influencing domestic legislation across Europe.

High Stakes and possible troubles Irn-Bru-ing as #ep2014 approach

by dsmooney, posted in EU, Merkel, Policy, Politics

Here is my article from this week’s BEERG Newsletter looking at mounting tensions in the race to take the EU Commission Presidency

ib_cansYou call tell that there’s an election approaching by how targeted, populist and political the press releases from MEPs become. Take the Scottish Nationalist (SNP) MEP Alyn Smith, who has suggested that Scotland consider banning Canadian-born singers Justin Bieber and Celine Dion in retaliation for Canadian authorities prohibiting several Canadian stores from selling the popular Scottish soft drink Irn-Bru. Smith justified his call, albeit tongue in cheek, by saying that between them, Bieber and Dion have produced “more sugary schmaltz” than Irn-Bru ever has.

While Smith’s demand has the virtue of humour and creativity, the same cannot be said for the political attack made by the centre-right European Peoples’ Party (EPP) on German Socialist MEP, Martin Schulz (photo) on Wednesday as reported by the EurActiv website http://www.euractiv.com.

Schulz is the outgoing President European Parliament and the likely Socialist candidate to be President of the next EU Commission

The attack centres on allegations made by the EPP that a €60,000 European Parliament contract was awarded to the wife of Sergei Stanishev, the president of the PES: Party of European Socialists. The €60,000 contract was for an information project promoting the European elections in Bulgaria.

Leading the attack for the EPP, German MEP Ingeborg Grässle claims the situation has alarm bells ringing over an “obvious” conflict of interest involving some of the most prominent figures in the European socialist family, saying “European Parliament staff under the direction of Socialist President Martin Schulz handing out a contract worth €60,000 to the wife of the European Socialist Party President – this smacks of political favours… Is Mr. Schulz using parliament funds to help his political friends?”

EurActiv reports that its sources say that Schulz is concentrating on his campaign to succeed to José Manuel Barroso as Commission President and shudders at any piece of news which could upset his plan.

The fact that the attack was led by a German MEP is significant as Grässle and Schulz’s own parties the CDU and SPD are now in a grand coalition partnership government in Germany. Expect to see and hear more political skulduggery as the May parliamentary elections approach. The stakes are high with more than just the political balance in the European Parliament to consider. As the BEERG Newsletter has reported reforms made under the EU’s Lisbon Treaty means that heads of government must take the results of the European elections “into account” when selecting the next EU Commission President.

With polls suggesting a swing to the Socialists in the May election, possible sufficient to make it the largest single group in Parliament, Schulz is well placed to become the next Commission President, however the centre right EPP group is not likely to allow this prized post slip from its grasp.

12 of the 28 heads of Government are members of the EPP, including Germany’s Angela Merkel, Spain’s Mariano Rajoy and Poland’s Donald Tusk. British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Tory Party quit the EPP in 2009.

The EPP is planning to select its candidate for the EU Commission Presidency at its Congress in Dublin on March 6th & 7th. There are four possible contenders: the Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen, the Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, the current commissioner for the internal market Michel Barnier and the former Luxembourg Prime Minister and EU veteran Jean-Claude Juncker.

The PES, whose European Parliamentary group is called the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) will hold it pre-election congress in Rome on 1 March.

ENDS

#ep2014 will bring new @Europarl_EN and new @EU_Commission

by dsmooney, posted in EU, Government, Policy, Politics

This is a piece on the 2014 EU Parliament elections and the appointment of a new EU Commission I wrote for the Jan 10th issue of BEERG‘s Global Labor Relations Newsletter

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BEERGEuropean Union: 2014 to bring a new Parliament and new Commission

Derek Mooney writes: Next May citizens across the 28 EU states will go to the polls to elect the 751 members of the next European Parliament.

Voters across the EU have tended to treat these contests as what political scientists call: “second order” elections. This usually means that voter turnout is lower than in national elections and the campaigns are often fought more on national issues rather than pan European ones. In many cases the results in each country reflect the current standing of the national government more than they do the manifestos of the European groupings.

While voting will take place during a 3 to 4 day period across the 28 member states, we can get a sense of the possible outcomes by looking at opinion polls in the eight largest EU countries (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom) as these account for around 77% of all the EU citizens entitled to vote and will elect around 64% of the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

A policy paper presented to the Notre Europe: Jacques Delors’s Institute focussing on what the political balance of power in the next European Parliament might be suggests the possibility of some major changes.

The paper features an analysis of recent opinion polls in these eight countries. It suggests a swing to the Left and Centre Left as well as major gains for protest and fringe parties on both the far left and far right.

In the outgoing parliament the EPP (Centre Right group) holds 265 seats against 184 for the Social & Democrats (Centre Left). The analysis of the polls suggests a swing to the centre left that not just closes this gap, but even reverses it. Some analysts predict that the EPP group might win 209 seats in May, four less than the S&D’s predicted 213.

The predicted changes on the margins are no less dramatic. The domestic opinion polls in France suggest that the far right Front National, led by Marine Le Pen, could become the largest French party in the elections, possibly taking 21% of the vote and increasing its number of MEPs from 3 to 17. While on the other end of the spectrum far left parties such as the Spanish Izquierda Unida (United Left) may increase its number of MEPs from 1 to 8.

Political commentators are suggesting that these advances by parties on the far left and far right, plus gains by populist protest parties like Italy’s Five Star Movement led by comedian Beppe Grillo could see them holding up to 40% of the seats in the incoming parliament.

The political zero sum gain dictates that the increased influence of these groups comes at the expense of the traditional dominance of big blocs: the EPP, the S&D and the Liberal ALDE group, leading to greater political uncertainty in the next Parliament.

This uncertainty comes at a time when the Lisbon Treaty has given an increased role and say to the European Parliament, not least in the appointment of the next European Commission especially the Commission President, which will follow the European Elections.

The Lisbon Treaty has changed the rules on the appointment of Commission President and these come into effect for the first time in 2014. Article 17 of the Treaty and the Declaration 11 annexed to it set out that the choice of the candidate for the Commission presidency will be made “taking into account the elections to the European Parliament”.

This was supposed to mean that the various pan-European EU groupings declare who their candidates for the Commission presidency will be in advance of the May parliamentary elections and set out their commission presidency manifestos. In each country candidates looking to become an MEP would indicate to which European political grouping they would affiliate indicate the Commission presidency candidate that grouping will back.

Names are being bandied about as to who might nominated by each of the main groups. The current EU Parliament President, Martin Shultz looks like being the likely nominee of the centre left S&D grouping, having already secured the backing of 20 or so centre left parties across Europe, most importantly his own German SPD and Francoise Hollande’s Socialist Party.

The EPP may opt to propose Jean Claude-Juncker, the recently defeated long serving Luxembourg Premier. Juncker’s gain maybe at the expense of his party colleague, Viviane Reding, who had previously harboured ambitions to become Commission President having served as a Vice President. Realising that that path is now closed there is some suggestion that she may step down as a Commissioner before her term expires to seek re-election as an MEP (she was previously an MEP) and seek the post of President of the Parliament. The same suggestion is being made about her French Commission colleague Michel Barnier.

But, being Europe, the practice looks like it will be very different. While MEPs want to see the power reside with them and the Commission Presidency go to the largest group (or coalition of groups) in the incoming European Parliament, national governments and leaders, most notably Angela Merkel and David Cameron, are deeply reluctant to surrender the final say to the parliament and are taking a very broad view of the phrase “taking into account the elections to the European Parliament”

While no one should be heading to the bookies to put bets on the results just yet, it is reasonable to assume that the incoming European Parliament and Commission with have a more leftish and presumably interventionist hue than the outgoing one. Given the difficulties posed to business by the outgoing centrist parliament, this cannot come as good news to business and employers across the EU.

The prospect of a more leftist Commission and parliament, coupled with the political uncertainty heralded by a phalanx of extremist parties of both left and right, could lead to some interesting and difficult times ahead.

ENDS

 

Bold Santa Claus: Can he be investigated over illegal data collection? #eudatap

by dsmooney, posted in EU

A light hearted piece, penned by a couple of us in BEERG, on the employment data aspects of data protection from the festive/end of year edition of the BEERG Newsletter 

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reding (2)The BEERG Team write:According to usually unreliable sources in Brussels, Commissioner Reding is to ask the European Parliament to investigate allegations that the head of a global enterprise operating from an unspecified Artic territory just within EU borders has been holding and using data files on a range of individuals world-wide. There are also suspicions that the enterprise may have links to the US’s National Security Agency (NSA). The company concerned has been identified as Claws Enterprises, headed by the mysterious Sanity Claws.

Commission Reding is said to have been alerted to the operations of Claws after hearing a rhyming couplet broadcast on several EU and US radio stations in recent weeks.   According to the aforementioned sources the recording said that Claws has been

       “…making a list and checking it twice / he’s going to find out who’s naughty and nice…”

Leading data protection sources informed BEERG that no information commission or data protection authority anywhere in the EU can trace any records of any non-judicial or non-policing enterprise or individual registering with them for the purpose of checking who is “naughty or nice”.

The recording is causing understandable concern in the EU capital coming so soon as it does on the heels of the Snowden revelations. The suggestion that both this enterprise and Mr Snowden are based in neighbouring Polar Regions is also causing concern and raising questions of some collusion.

Commission Reding is said to be considering immediately raising this issue as part of the EU-US Trade talks given this enterprise’s seasonal global operations, particularly the suggestion that Claws (spelling of the name to be checked) is expected to be “coming to town” soon.  Tea Party sources in the US refused to confirm or deny rumours that they are hosting a reception for Mr Claws when he gets to DC. A Tea Party spokesperson said: “We will be having an end-of-year get together. Come all ye faithful”.

Questions are now being asked if this Mr Sanity Claws will be visiting the NSA offices near Washington DC during his impending visit and what is the nature of his relationship with the NSA given the rumours that he has a team of elves and minions strategically placed across the planet. French officials have questioned as to whether Claws Enterprises are operating in conformity with the Posting of Elves Directive.

One official commented: “We suspect that some of the elves posted by Claws to France may be below the minimum height requirement for elves in France. Further, we have suspicions that they may also be working on Sundays”.

The CGT union has called an emergency meeting of its Elves and Safety Committee and says it will oppose any moves to downsize French elves.  Meanwhile, a spokesperson for UNI Global said that while they had never heard of Claws Enterprises and had no idea what they did. Nevertheless, the spokesperson called on the company to open negotiations for an International Framework Agreement. The spokesperson added that they had commissioned a leading NGO to produce a report on “poverty pay” in Elf Land. We believe that the report is provisionally entitled: “Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho our wages are too low”.

German media sources quoted Chancellor Angela Merkel saying: “Thankfully, as part of the program for government with our SPD colleagues we have just agreed a national minimum height for elves in Germany”.

Sources totally disconnected with Commissioner Reding’s office have been expressing concerns that this Sanity Claws enterprise has been gathering personal data with neither implicit or explicit written consent – either on file or online.

“Where does this leave the right to be forgotten?” said one of the sources. “We believe that the right to be completely forgotten must be applied and that these lists being held by Mr Sanity Claws and the personal information held on them must be destroyed within the next 10 days. We know that the people of the EU and the US, especially younger people, will thank us for this before the end of the month if we have our way”, they continued.

When asked if the Commission position meant that Claws should destroy his lists and not deliver presents to children on December 25th our source responded that “austerity was for life and not just for Christmas” and the sooner that children realised this the better.

Another anonymous legal source, specialising in the area of contract law and service level agreements, has told BEERG over the phone that they do not believe the specified enterprise could legally or credibly offer a reward-based service determined solely on a subjective assessment of an individual’s niceness or naughtiness. “It sounds like madness to us lawyers” they said. “We have examined the text, the content and provisions of hundreds of contracts over the years and, based on this experience, we can state with near certainty that there is no sanity clause.”

PS… since writing this piece we are hearing reports that the Commission have also learned of another enterprise holding and using unapproved personal oral hygiene data trading under the name: The Tooth Fairy.