Tag Archives: European Commission

Cameron, Vickers, the EU and the recapitalisation of banks

It sounded a bit far-fetched – that the UK wants to set higher standards for its banks than the EU would allow. But these are Cameron’s words in his statement on Monday [from Hansard here]:

To those who say that we were trying to go soft on the banks, nothing could be further from the truth. We have said that we are going to respond positively to the tough measures set out in the Vickers report. There are issues about whether this can be done under current European regulations, so one of the things we wanted was to make sure we could go further than European rules on regulating the banks.

First of all this relates to regular EU law (Directives rather that Regulations actually, but definitely not in the Treaty). So whatever Cameron had or had not negotiated last week will not have impacted this.

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The idiot in Brussels

(note: video is uploaded by UKIP, so they add their own vile header to the video. Thanks for @spignal for pointing out the film)

Extraordinary ‘debate’ on Newsnight last night between Amadeu Altafaj Tardio (Ollie Rehn’s spokesperson) and Peter Oborne. Oborne repeatedly calls Altafaj Tardio ‘the idiot in Brussels’, a phrase that Paxman also uses, and Oborne is equally vile towards Richard Lambert, giving him a copy of Guilty Men.

I don’t know whether I am more annoyed by Altafaj Tardio who was just rubbish (but hell, he’s employed by Rehn, so are we remotely surprised?), Peter Oborne who was vile and offensive, Jeremy Paxman who let Oborne rant on and on, or Newsnight for having invited Oborne and Altafaj Tardio onto the programme in the first place. Oborne’s vitriol might have a place in the Daily Mail but it surely has no place on Newsnight.

[UPDATE 29.09.2011, 1500]
Bagehot Blog of The Economist has more on the story, laying the blame firmly with Paxman and the BBC. Turns out that Guilty Men is actually a new pamphlet by Oborne, taking the title of the 1940s book I (erroneously) linked to. More on Oborne’s thing behind a paywall here. Lastly, as if the BBC hasn’t had enough of Oborne, they are putting him on BBC Question Time tonight. Sigh.

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Barroso is not just ‘A senior EU official’ – he’s President of the European Commission

Have a read of this piece (see comments – link changed – a version is available here) on AP’s website about Barroso’s State of the European Union speech. It’s entitled “Top EU official seeks closer policy union” and then starts “A senior EU official called for closer political and financial unification in Europe”, before explaining Barroso’s actual job in the 2nd paragraph.

Why does this matter?

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The anatomy of a story about the European Parliament and body scanners

I saw this tweet from @Bruce_Schneier, retweeted by @EvgenyMorozov:

German Police Call Airport Full-Body Scanners Useless http://is.gd/Et4yGI
05.08.2011 12:05 via liberation_frReplyRetweetFavorite
@Bruce_Schneier
Bruce Schneier RSS

This led me to Schneier’s piece about a Welt am Sonntag article about ineffectiveness of full body scanners in airport tests in Germany. One piece in particular caught my eye:

The European parliament backed on July 6 the deployment of body scanners at airports, but on condition that travellers have the right to refuse to walk through the controversial machines.

I was told in Amsterdam that there was no option. I either had to walk through the machines, or not fly.

So then, what’s up here?

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What Cathy Ashton needs to do now


I stand accused of being a negative, complaining blogger.

I have not been a fan of Cathy Ashton’s work as the EU’s High Rep, wrote that she should go as early as January, have analysed her current predicament, and have even raised a few smiles at her expense.

While Ashton’s position might be weak and called into question in Brussels, the means to remove her – unless she resigns of her own accord – are very complicated, and would need more political capital from the European Parliament than MEPs look like they are ready to muster. Even if she were removed, the process of working out how to replace her would be a major headache.

So the likelihood is that she stays. So what should she actually do? How about some positive solutions?

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Duff’s EP reform proposals prioritise institutional change over real leadership – misguided

The Constitutional Affairs Committee of the European Parliament yesterday backed Andrew Duff‘s report (PDF here) that proposes reforms to the way MEPs are elected. Most controversial is the proposal to create a Europe-wide list of 25 MEPs, essentially a transnational list, that would give European Parliament elections a truly transnational flavour. Duff’s argument is this would make European political parties become proper campaigning bodies, and the party that wins the elections would then nominate the President of the European Commission.

It strikes me there are two major problems with this.

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The latest waste of time and money video from the European Commission


The Transport White Paper is coming to save us! Look kids, out of the window a stream of paper is going to deliver modern transport for you by 2050!

Please, please can someone tell me why the European Commission spends cash on this? The video is well produced, clearly expensive, but what’s the point? I’m an EU nerd and come across it and it tells me nothing new. It’s not even on Youtube as far as I can tell, so hence it’s not going to get a major audience (hell – even on Youtube it wouldn’t!) The question is what else could have been done with this cash… some blogger outreach about the White Paper for example? Would surely have been cheaper.

UPDATE – seems Letters from Europe beat me to it with a critique of this! Mathew Lowry also has some more odd uses of EU comms cash.

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Beyond the slogans Reding’s data protection principles aren’t too bad

EU justice Commissioner (and, very incidentally, Commissioner responsible for communications) Viviane Reding yesterday gave a speech entitled “Your data, your rights: Safeguarding your privacy in a connected world”. You can read the speech here, and there are articles from The Guardian, The Register and The Telegraph.

I’m actually surprised – the way Reding fleshes out the principles for the policy are better than I had hoped.

The speech outlines 4 pillars on which future EU data protection policy relating to social networks is going to be based. These are the “right to be forgotten”, “transparency”, “privacy by default” and “protection regardless of data location”.

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