European Union

Committee meetings, Brussels

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Partial renewal of the membership of and entry into office of six new Members of the Court of Justice

OPINION on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the Connecting Europe Facility and repealing Regulations (EU) No 1316/2013 and (EU) No 283/2014
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Fabio Massimo Castaldo

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Committee meetings, Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Britain’s vote to leave the EU has led to a flood of books, articles, blog posts, and more than enough tweets. I know because I’ve added my own share. It includes my new textbook, Understanding Brexit: A Concise Introduction. Concise is 75,000 words and whether anyone can fully understand Brexit is a moot point. Brexit is the dominant issue in UK politics because so much is at stake. But are we – academics, writers, Leavers, Remainers, journalists, politicians, officials, businesspeople – talking and writing about it in ways that make sense? I’m reminded of how before the EU referendum there was discussion of, to borrow from the report from British Future, ‘How (not) to talk about Europe.’ It’s time we discussed ‘How (not) to talk about Brexit.’ As a start, I would like to suggest seven rules.

Rule 1: Be more specific about what it is you’re referring to when you say ‘Brexit’. 
Academics love to define things, except, it seems, when it comes to large all-encompassing terms, which is what ‘Brexit’ has become. It’s increasingly as useless as ‘globalisation,’ ‘neoliberalism,’ or ‘Europeanisation.’ Brexit can be used to summarise a series of political processes unfolding at various levels and timeframes, but we would benefit from examining and naming them more specifically. Failure to do so risks turning ‘Brexit’ into a shorthand for most of British politics.

Rule 2: Don’t let talking about Brexit drown out the rest of British politics.
Given how much it touches on, studying Brexit can be the best way to understand the contemporary UK. To a point, that is. Brexit is not British politics, only a part of it. It has, however, taken up so much of the bandwidth of British politics that one would be forgiven for thinking that it is British politics. That does a disservice to the many challenges and debates facing the UK that are largely independent of Brexit and always have been. Of course, Brexit will have an effect on so much of life in the UK, but the UK already has the powers to change such absurdities as an unelected House of Lords, the UK’s stark and growing levels of inequality, poor infrastructure spending, or the need for sustainable military capabilities. Obsessing about Brexit can be a distraction from these and other issues.

Rule 3: You cannot be neutral. Whatever you say will be part of the fight to define the narrative of Brexit. 
The fight to define the narrative of Brexit, i.e. what it was the British people meant when 52% of them who voted did so for Leave, has, whether you like it or not, been the central struggle of British politics since the referendum. Onto it have been hooked a whole host of issues ranging from choices about the UK’s political economy through to the UK’s standing in the world. This fight won’t end soon. Not only because withdrawing from the EU is not a short-term process, but because Brexit is about what sort of country the UK wants to be. This doesn’t mean everything you say has to be driven by politics. There exists a wealth of data, information and analysis which goes beyond the partisan bickering found in most outlets where the focus can be on the internal bickering of the Conservative and Labour parties. Whether it’s the plethora of EU reports on Brexit or UK parliamentary reports (never overlook the evidence sections), a lot of issues have been covered by high quality analysis that can, if we use it, create a better informed and high-quality fight.

Rule 4: Don’t assume the British people or elite understand the UK state and politics. 
In the early stages of drafting Understanding Brexit my publisher warned me not to take for granted a general reader’s knowledge of the topic. I sympathised from having taught political science for over a decade. Knowing how few people understand the EU, I included a section on the EU’s evolution, institutions and key policies. In doing so I overlooked that a lot of people in Britain, including all the way up to Ministers of the Crown, have rarely thought about or been taught about the UK state, its evolution and how it operates. If Brexit is about what type of country Britain wants to be, then that in part stems from varying levels of knowledge and satisfaction at its current setup. I’ve often found that explaining Brexit involves helping fellow Britons understand our country.

Rule 5: Recognise that the British (and you) are on a steep learning curve about the UK, the EU, and the wider modern world (especially trade).
It follows from Rule 5 that when talking about Brexit you need to take into account that many in Britain are being presented with a series of questions and debates about the country’s identity, society, political economy, trade, security, international position, constitution, legal system, sovereignty, unity, party politics and the attitudes and values that define it. Those debates long predate the vote, but the referendum and result not only brought them together but poured fresh fuel into each. And this is before we turn to the need to learn about such matters as free trade deals, tariffs, non-tariff barriers, regulatory convergence, WTO schedules and so forth. Whether it’s the British public, ministers, officials, journalists or experts, we have all been put on a steep learning curve. The process involves lots of uncomfortable questions and silences for everyone including you.

Rule 6: Remember that Brexit can bore people. A lot. 
It might have come to dominate British politics, but that does not mean Brexit excites people. Pollsters have long pointed out that the issue of Europe has rarely excited the British people. The topic only excites when it connects to issues that people do care about: immigration, the economy, housing, English identity, Scottish independence, or the NHS. For those ‘Brexhausted’ there is no sign of a let-up. The outpouring of books, articles, chapters, reports, media articles, TV programmes, conferences, assemblies, workshops, speeches, art work, plays, even poems, looks set to continue. In part this is because so much remains to be explored and discussed, not least some big questions about the UK itself. Hopes the referendum would be cathartic, settle Britain’s ‘European question’, or be a great exercise in democratic debate have been dashed by a debate and result that has instead added to existing divisions, created more questions than answers, and left Britain with a debate that often distracts from the day to day needs of the country.

Rule 7: Don’t patronise, belittle or ignore the British people. 
All sides have been doing this, including Leave. Too often I have heard Remain supporters belittle the British people for the choice made with a slim majority. That result has left some on the Remain side too willing to apologise for Britain and dismiss it as a country doomed to oblivion. It has added to a certain sense of decline and guilt about Britain’s past that has long overhung and hamstrung British pro-Europeanism. Commentators elsewhere in the EU have not helped. The UK is not the aberration some elsewhere in the EU want it to be. British Leave voters are not all peculiar, racist hangovers of Britain’s imperial past. They can and do, to a certain extent, mirror feelings found across Europe. The vote was a vivid reminder that nation states and nationalism still matter. Leave campaigners and those who have rushed to study Leave have also failed, and sometimes failed miserably to not patronise the British people.

Despite protestations to the contrary, it’s clear to all but the most ardent Leave voters that the process of withdrawal has not been going to any Leave plan because, of course, there was no plan. The rush to celebrate, sympathise with, or study the 52% who voted Leave has meant largely ignoring or taking for granted the voice and concerns of the 48% who voted Remain. That explains why Theresa May, Leave campaigners and many analysts blinded by a one-sided focus on Leave voters were shocked when in the 2017 General Election it was the votes of angry Remain voters that played a crucial part in unexpectedly depriving the Conservatives of their parliamentary majority.

This post first appeared on the Clingendael Spectator, the magazine of the Clingendael Institute.

The post Getting Brexitalk Right: 7 Rules appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

AMENDMENTS 1 - 171 - Draft report Military Mobility
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Weiss and Others
Economic policy
Advocate General Wathelet proposes that the Court of Justice should rule that the decision of the ECB establishing a programme for the purchase of government bonds on secondary markets is valid

Commission v France
Freedom of establishment
The Conseil d’État should have referred a question to the Court for a preliminary ruling concerning the interpretation of EU law, in order to determine whether it was necessary to refuse to take into account the tax incurred by a non-resident subsidiary on the profits underlying dividends redistributed by a non-resident company

Kamenova
Environment and consumers
A person who publishes a number of sales advertisements on a website is not automatically a ‘trader’

Società Immobiliare Al Bosco Srl
Area of Freedom, Security and Justice
The Brussels I Regulation does not preclude legislation of a Member State which provides for the application of a time limit for the enforcement of a preventive attachment order from being applied in the case of such an order which has been adopted in another Member State and is enforceable in the Member State in which enforcement is sought

Feniks
Area of Freedom, Security and Justice
A creditor’s action seeking to render a fraudulent disposal of property by its debtor ineffective as regards that creditor is a ‘matter related to a contract’ within the meaning of the regulation on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters

L.E.G.O.
Environment and consumers
The requirement to submit sustainability certificates imposed by Italy on intermediaries which do not take physical possession of the bioliquids which are the subject of the transaction in which those intermediaries are involved complies with EU law

I’ll be frank with you: I’ve never done a full party conference. Some fringe activities, yes, but not the whole shebang. Indeed, the nearest I’ve got is the pile of DVDs of an early 2000s UKIP conference, back when I worked more on euroscepticism (and when UKIP sold DVDs of their conference).

This is all a prelude to saying that I also don’t think that party conferences matter as much as some say.

In media terms, they are convenient staging posts in the year, with all the merits of having the key players in one place for long enough that they might let their hair down a bit. In political terms, the gathering also allows for plotting and planning.

But for European policy, conference is almost never the place to look. None of the major interventions in either Brexit or the pre-Cameroonian period came from conference, but from stand-alone speeches and events.

That’s largely because both Conservatives and Labour are split, have been split and (probably) will continue to be split on matters European. And basic party management says you don’t wash your dirty laundry when everyone’s watching.

I write this despite having marked Birmingham as one of the key staging posts to an Article 50 deal (along with Salzburg). On reflection, that was because I thought by Birmingham, Tory Chequers-rebels would have had to have made their move, rather than at the conference proper.

That they didn’t – possibly couldn’t – reflects my long-held view that May is the convenient scapegoat, carrying the UK out next March with whatever’s needed to avoid immediate disaster, only to be cast aside by critics who will point to their grumblings now as evidence of “why this was never the right way to go about it.” Why own the problem when someone else is there to carry the can for you?

It also underlines how wedded to Chequers May has become. Ironically, the range of criticism seems to have made it easier for her to bluster through her conference speech, redirecting fire at second-referendumers and connecting Brexit to a domestic project. Conference season appears to have had no appreciable impact on her policy.

This is Brussels calling

But this is not to say that policy isn’t changing.

The coming week is going to see a lot of work going into Article 50 negotiations, building up to next Wednesday’s release of a draft Political Declaration by the EU.

That work will entail movement by both sides, but also some careful framing of what is happening.

Importantly, the Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration aren’t going to embody ‘Chequers’, in the sense that the focus of the former is on the ending of the UK’s EU membership and the focus of the latter is a set of principles guiding the negotiations for a future relationship. Those principles do not necessarily – maybe even necessarily cannot – map out the specific shape of that relationship, given the incompleteness of both sides’ positions.

Thus the Article 50 ‘deal’ potentially could be sold not as ‘Chequers’, but as a stepping stone to what comes next. For all those Tory rebels and opposition parties planning to ‘vote against Chequers‘, this might come either as a nasty surprise or as a means to get themselves out of a hole (given that there’s little enthusiasm for a no-deal alternative).

With rumours of new options on the Irish dimension flying about, it is going to be in Brussels that this next stage of Brexit is going to be determined, rather than Birmingham (or even London).

This was both inevitable and necessary.

Brexit was never just about the UK, but also about the UK’s relationship with the EU. To pretend that as long as the British had worked out what they wanted, that was that, was always a foolish enterprise. Instead, it needs the involvement of both the UK and EU in finding mutually-acceptable solutions.

If that much is now better recognised by British politicians and commentators as a result of the past and coming weeks, then we should count that as an advance in our public understanding of how the EU (and Brexit) works.

Perhaps also it will underline how the contingent issue of Brexit (and it’s a huge contingency) sits within the bigger picture of the UK’s place in the world.

I’ll fall back on that trope of self-help instagram posts – “no man is an island entire of itself” – with its message that connections and context are indispensable.

And then I’ll remind you that this particular stanza finishes with the equally famous line about who the bell is tolling.

 

The post Brussels, not Birmingham appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Dicu
SOPO
A provision of national law which, for the purpose of determining the duration of paid annual leave to which a worker is entitled, does not include a period of parental leave taken by that worker complies with EU law

DRAFT OPINION on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing a European Instrument for Nuclear Safety complementing the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument on the basis of the Euratom Treaty
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Petras Auštrevičius

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

On 27 September, Members of the Committees on Foreign Affairs and Development and from the subcommittee on Human Rights met jointly for presentations of this year's nominees for Parliament's Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought. Seven personalities and several NGOs have been nominated by MEPs and political groups for Parliament's renowned human rights prize which is awarded each year in December (for details see links below).
The presentation of the nominees took place on Thursday, 27 September, 12.00-13.00 in room József Antall (JAN) 2Q2 and was webstreamed live. A shortlist of three nominees will be drawn up by a vote that will take place on 9 October.
Further information
Nominations
Meeting documents
Webstreaming
Sakharov Prize website
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will take place on Wednesday, 10 October (9:00-12:30 and 14:30-18:30) and Thursday, 11 October (9:30-12:30) in Brussels.

Organisations or interest groups who wish to apply for access to the European Parliament will find the relevant information below.

Further information
watch the meeting live
Access rights for interest group representatives
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Plenary session, Strasbourg

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AMENDMENTS 1 - 33 - Draft opinion Interim report on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027 – Parliament's position with a view to an agreement
Committee on Foreign Affairs

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