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.

Secondly, according to Michel Barnier, the Commissioner responsible for this dossier, there is no problem of incompatibility between the draft [PDF] and the Vickers conclusions, demanding 10% core tier one capital, higher than the 7% proposed in Barnier’s draft.

Third, this is a codecision dossier and – even if the original proposal was a problem – almost the whole of the legislative procedure lies ahead. Timetable information is here, and Sharon Bowles in the EP is on the case. It seems there is some genuine confusion over the compatibility of Vickers with existing legislation (see Mervyn King’s comments here (ignore the silly story title)), but the new proposals amend the legislation currently on the statute books. So this is the chance to make sure everything is compatible.

Fourthly, the Vickers conclusions are due to be implemented in 2018, and the EU proposals according to a similar timeframe, and the timetable for the agreement of the legislation in Brussels is the next 6 months. It is not as if this all has pressing urgency.

I’m just rather surprised that – at an event earlier this morning – I heard a rather extraordinary spat between Charles Grant and a Commission official on this point, with Grant defending the Cameron line. On the basis of my efforts to look at this, documented here, I cannot see how the Cameron line is right.

(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.

Why does this matter?

When I hear the word ‘official’ it implies to me someone whose position is on the basis of appointment, whose function is bureaucratic, and whose task is to in some way be impartial. Barroso’s job as President of the Commission is none of those things. He’s a political actor and hence using the term ‘official’ to describe him is inaccurate. Doing so puts him at the level of Secretary-General of the European Commission, Catherine Day.

My discussion with AP’s journalist who wrote the piece, Don Melvin, is here. This is not a critique of Don personally, as he’s undoubtedly complying with rules from a house style, but I would argue that those rules are wrong. In EU matters, just as in any other area of politics, words matter (as I’ve previously argued).

We refer to David Cameron as British Prime Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy as French President, so it’s high time we consistently refer to Jose Manuel Barroso as President of the European Commission.

(Article updated Thursday 29th Sept due to changes in links at AP’s website. Content remains unchanged)

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?

Two options. Either it’s the European Parliament not actually passing legislation, or it’s security officials not abiding by EU law (wouldn’t be the first time).

Turns out this time it’s actually the former – the vote to which Schneier and Welt am Sonntag refer is actually a non-binding resolution of the European Parliament, i.e. it is not becoming law. Details of that can be found here. So, as it stands, there is no guarantee that passengers would have the option to not have to pass through a full body scanner. However there is devil in the detail in the EP news story:

Parliament’s vote comes just ahead of an expected decision by the Commission to allow Member States to use body scanners at airports. Parliament will have the power to overturn that decision within three months.

That sounds to me that it’s going to be through comitology, with the Regulatory Procedure with Scrutiny if the original legislation was agreed before the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force, or the new comitology procedures if not. Scouring the Commission’s webpages for details leads you to this, but not updated since 2010 and not in the Official Journal…

Aaaagggghhhh.

What a complete mess. And then people in the EU institutions wonder why citizens don’t understand what’s going on…

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?

First of all there needs to be some honesty from Ashton, ideally presented in a set-piece speech. She needs to publicly acknowledge that there are very major challenges to overcome – politically and organisationally – in European Foreign Policy. Her current approach of continually making vague yet positive statements needs to end immediately, for it is looking more ridiculous with every passing week.

Second, Ashton needs to ask for a pause of at least 6 months during which her focus must uniquely be on the administrative side of the functioning of the EEAS. The process to take basic decisions needs to be streamlined and improved, and she needs to seek some leniency from the Member States and the Commission to get the EEAS in order at an administrative level. She need not travel the world, nor make a statement on everything and anything during this period.

Third she needs to work out who she trusts, and put at least some of those people in her cabinet. As an old friend recently said to me, “Ashton, unlike people like Bildt, Stubb or even Hague hasn’t spent long nights over years and years contemplating the intricacies of foreign policy.” She hence needs to surround herself by plenty of people that have, and to trust these people and to delegate to them. This might ruffle a few feathers in national capitals who may end up not represented in her inner circle, but so be it.

Relating to the third point, Ashton needs to address the low morale and staffing disorder that currently reigns inside the EEAS. Basic systems – HR, document management, security – still do not function well enough, and while these problems dog the everyday lives of civil servants the EEAS is never going to be a success. From the top Ashton needs to foster a ‘we’re all in this together’ sort of approach.

Fourth, Ashton needs to get her communications in order, by employing a decent speechwriter, and by improving the web communications of the EEAS. Some attention to her body language, and a more sober and authoritative dress sense would also be welcome.

Fifth, her timekeeping needs to improve – an unfortunate reputation of turning up late is now well known. Of course circumstances change, but contingency plans need to be made for every eventuality or delay, and for this trust in close staff (my third point) is vital. The accusation has also been levelled at Ashton that she simply is not in Brussels enough, and not often present in the College of Commissioners. While work-life balance is important, even for Europe’s foreign minister, moving her family to Brussels might help matters.

So there, in short, is a recipe for her to improve her approach: honesty, administrative competence, staff trust, communications and time.

It strikes me there are two major problems with this.

First of all, it takes the traditional EU approach to solving problems, namely that you make a legalistic change, and political consequences flow from that. The real issue here is a lack of leadership – the European political parties could have linked the EP results to the Commission Presidency before, but dithered. The problem with legal first, leadership second, is it generates a counter-reaction – that change is being ‘foisted upon’ people (see Ashley Fox’s comments at the bottom of this Euractiv story).

Secondly, to make this change happen requires a change to the Treaty on European Union (Treaty of Lisbon). Not only does that need the unanimous approval of all EU Member States, but it would also surely trigger the UK’s referendum lock. That means the chances these proposals see the light of day are slim to none.

Don’t get me wrong – there is plenty of room for improvement in the way the EP functions – but Treaty-driven change is not the way forward just now. Duff and other advocates of genuine transnational democracy would do better to focus lobby efforts on the European political parties (backing initiatives like the PES Primary), and to push for Member States to use open lists to choose their MEPs, hence improving the quality of representation.

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.

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”.

This being Europe of course Reding is going to – in terms of headline words at least – put privacy to the fore, and the news reaction has been to focus on that. But from the main paragraph about “privacy by default” it seems that the gist of the policy will be rather different:

The “privacy by default” rule will also be helpful in cases of unfair, unexpected or unreasonable processing of data – such as when data is used for purposes other than for what an individual had initially given his or her consent or permission or when the data being collected is irrelevant. “Privacy by default” rules would prevent the collection of such data through, for example, software applications. The use of data for any other purposes than those specified should only be allowed with the explicit consent of the user or if another reason for lawful processing exists.

That doesn’t strike me as describing privacy, but actually it is about control. She’s not saying ‘everything is private to you by default’, but more ‘you need to know what social networks are doing with your data’. Which in my reading of it, sounds rather like “transparency”, the second pillar she mentions. It’s not too far from the line pursued by Jeff Jarvis who relentlessly states that control for the user must be central.

The first and fourth pillars - ”right to be forgotten” and “protection regardless of data location” – strike me as eminently sensible.

I’m not yet sure how the legislation is going to look, and expect plenty of odd statements from Reding between now and the summer, but if she keeps her focus on control and transparency, and not on privacy paranoia, then this might not turn out too badly.