Daniel Hannan MEP

For English-speaking blog readers who love to engage in debate as much as read the postings by the author, Daniel Hannan MEP runs a very stimulating show on the UK's Telegraph Blogs site.

Hannan himself, a British Conservative, is one of a rare breed among British anti-EU politicians - he is not only eloquent, but actually knows something about what he writes about. He is not above the occasional descent into myth and hyperbole, but he does powerfully point out some of the iniquities of the EU system.

Best of all, he does this with a certain degree of panache; he has an endearing habit of baring his soul (or at least appearing to) to his readers, which makes for a very devoted fan base. Interestingly, he seems to be able to win the admiration of not only his political soul mates, but also of a wide variety of political opponents (from members of the UK's withdrawalist UK Independence Party to tough left-wingers, to passionate advocates of European integration) - a not inconsiderable asset for a politician.

As on every major EU blog that publishes comments, some commentators are, how shall I say, intellectually more exotic than others, but on the whole the clientele is fairly thoughtful. Naturally enough for a very conservative publication, most of the local fauna is well to the right of centre.

Hannan publishes primarily pieces on the EU as he experiences it - i.e. as a Member of the European Parliament. He varies this with the odd posting on cultural or personal topics. Inevitably, I suppose, he is very UK-centric (indeed, he is very Anglo-centric) in his outlook, although, like many anti-Europeans, he is at pains to emphasise his internationalist credentials.

All in all, well worth a read, especially if you are interested in a stereotypically British approach to the EU.

Inevitably...Microsoft

It's the hottest topic in Brussels right now - the shock judgement by the Court of First Instance against Microsoft in its long-running anti-trust battle with the European Commission. It's been analysed from all angles in the media already, but I think it's a topic I can't avoid (with some delay and a considerable break since my last posting - blame Summer holidays and workload).

I'll focus on some of the key questions:

First, was the judgement correct? I really have to leave that one to the competition lawyers, but for what it's worth I have very bright friends on both sides of the case, and I can't help feeling sympathetic to the Commission, primarily as a user and as someone who knows something about the difficulties of IT systems integration. One of the striking aspects is the size of the case in terms of the sums of money and numbers of companies and lawyers involved. That the world's biggest company can throw such vast resources into this fight and still lose in what is generally acknowledged to be an impartial court does warm the heart of even the most fervent capitalist.

Second, what of the bizarre reaction by the US Department of Justice? In a press release, the DoJ stated its view that the decision was pro-competitor but not pro-competition, and that it would end up harming consumers. This struck me as odd because you can hardly talk about a bias in favour of competitors and against competition in the same sentence as the word, "Microsoft" and keep a straight face, can you? I mean, honestly. Is 95% market share not sufficiently dominant that competition is virtually non-existent, regardless of how many or how worthy the competitors are? Every computer user I have ever spoken to has had some complaints about Microsoft applications. This is entirely normal and should not reflect badly on Microsoft, since the company's products are of exceptionally high quality. But it does emphasise the fact that dissatisfied or frustrated users really have no alternative. How it can be anti-consumer to provide such people with more choice, I don't know. I understand and accept that the theoretical incentive to innovate is lessened if you know you are going to have to share your intellectual property rights with competitors. But this is really something of a joke in this particular case, isn't it? What market share do these competitors have? Is sharing protocols with them really such a threat? Surely the resources pumped into the case, had they been employed in trying to steal a march on competitors, could actually have resulted in more innovation and not less? Isn't monopolistic behaviour inherently anti-innovative? Isn't it true that all the biggest and best innovators, especially in the IT world, have been start-ups? Microsoft, Apple, HP, Intel, AMD, Google... Big companies talk about innovation essentially as a defensive mechanism, to stave off the rise of more creative start-ups. Microsoft's innovations will all be based on the premise of the PC with a traditional operating system. They will simply be evolutions of what Microsoft already offers. The really innovative stuff will come from companies that can and must think outside this box.

Sooooo...all this goes to show what a load of rubbish the DoJ was spouting in its press release. But Commissioner Kroes' reaction was totally unnecessary, and in my view, unhelpful to her own cause. The DoJ statement was so transparently silly, both in substance and as a major diplomatic faux pas, that Kroes could have simply killed it with faint praise, smirking quietly while making a very polite but somewhat superior comment. Instead, she chose to get all defensive and lash out at this "foreign" jurisdiction, as if the EU was not in the habit of exporting its standards, regulations, policies, and court rulings around the world. She could have been 30-0 up, but is now stuck at 15-15. What a wasted opportunity.

Third, are there implications for Intel and other dominant firms that are already or soon to be in the Commission's sights? One of the most commonly cited examples is Apple, whose i-Pod has a huge market share in the US (somewhere around 80%). But if my sources are correct, the i-Pod's market share in Europe is much, much lower, hovering around 20% in Germany, and closer to 10% in France. This could conceivably give Apple Significant Market Power, but Dominance in Europe is just a pipe-dream for Steve Jobs right now. Moreover, the market for music players is really very new. Did anyone carry such things around five years ago? I don't think so. But I do recall Microsoft's products, and indeed its 90%-plus market share in PC OSs being much older news when the Commission started its investigation.

The other favourite comparison is Intel. But the behaviour that Intel is charged with is completely different from the behaviour that Microsoft is guilty of. Essentially, Intel is accused of putting unfair pressure on customers not to buy AMD products - something Microsoft has probably never really felt it needed to do. So I don't expect the Microsoft ruing to be anywhere near as historic as many of those involved might like it to be. In my mind, the judgement was the inevitable result of a blindingly clear case of abuse by a super-dominant player. If you read a textbook on EU law, it quickly becomes apparent that the most historic judgements are not those meted out to obvious villains, but those where defendants with strong cases have unexpectedly found themselves on the sharp end of an innovative treaty interpretation.

Lastly, what of the future for Microsoft? Has it learned any lessons? Will it appeal? Very few people really know the answers to those questions. I can only express my hopes: yes, and no.

Coulisses de Bruxelles

Jean Quatremer's blog, Coulisses de Bruxelles is not award-winning for nothing. It's by far the highest-quality French-language EU blog that I am aware of, with insightful postings by the author and a lively, courteous, and serious debate by commentators.

M. Quatremer's recent postings have focused primarily on the new EU treaty and on the growing political and constitutional crisis in Belgium. Belgian politics is a something of a black art, and has the ability to flummox even veteran Brussels expats.

Quatermer's latest theory is that Belgium may be heading for dissolution because the Walloons and Flemings are incapable of agreeing the terms of a new coalition government. The king recently suspended negotiations for the many players to cool off and come back to the table after the Summer with a renewed commitment to power sharing. As I understand it, the key issue is how much de-centralising constitutional reform the Flemings can extract from the Walloons. Massively oversimplified, this is about the Flemish parties pushing for more independence within Belgium, at the inevitable economic expense of their poorer French-speaking countrymen.

Last year, a Belgian state-funded French-language television channel ran a spoof news item that pretended that Flanders had seceded. Quite apart from the political furore that followed, the episode was interesting because of the scenario chosen by the broadcasters - a vote by the Flemish parliament. What we are seeing today is quite a different scenario - the simple absence of a democratically mandated federal government. I have not got the faintest idea how this will all end; for all I know, it could end up strengthening the Belgian federal state. But at the moment it looks like Belgium is slowly but surely tearing itself apart.

French-speaking and Dutch-speaking Belgians have separate print and broadcast media that focus on regional and not national perspectives. They have separate political parties (the Walloon Christian Democrats are at odds with the winner of the elections, their sister party in Flanders, over constitutional reform). They have a high degree of legislative independence from each other, including on such policy areas as environment. Their education systems are different and separate - it is rare to find a native French-speaker teaching French in a Flemish school, or a native Dutch-speaker teaching Dutch in a Walloon school. And national politics have become a sort of zero-sum game between Walloons and Flemings over money - for every subsidy granted to one region, the other insists on a matching subsidy for itself.

What are the implications and lessons for the EU? Should we be concluding that dissolution à la Belge is inevitable without greater centralisation of power in Brussels? Or should we conclude, on the contrary, that the EU is the ideal home for smaller "national" communities that prefer broader associations than the ones that have bound them to non-nation-states such as the UK, Belgium, or Spain? I tend towards the latter view, but we have not yet seen the practical effects of the dissolution of an EU Member States. The closest we have come is the velvet divorce of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but this happened some years before EU membership.

How would such a split work? Would new accession treaties be required for both Wallonia and Flanders, or Scotland and a rump England-Wales-Northern Ireland, or Catalonia and the rest of Spain? Would new calculations have to be made for votes in the Council and European Parliament seats? New allocations of Structural and other funds? How would the timing work? Would new official languages result? Would there be legal challenges to any of this? Which courts would have jurisdiction?

I'm not sure whether this post is really a review of the Coulisses de Bruxelles, or perhaps more of a collection of random thoughts about Belgian politics. At any rate, if you read French and you want to read only a half-dozen EU blogs every week, Jean Quatremer's should be one of them. Merci, Jean!

Commissioner Wallström's Blog

Communications Commissioner Margot Wallström is one of 3 (or is it now 4?) European Commissioners who publish a blog. It's by far the best of these, with the most regular postings and the best opportunity to send in comments. In fact, it gets a lot of comments. Unfortunately, they are dominated by a coterie of less than 10 annoyingly regular posters, who probably put enough other people off with their bickering to make a big difference to the numbers.



The Commissioner publishes some interesting posts on important topics, but the debate on the comments pages seems to be fated to descend into sterile discussions on the legitimacy of the EU and these days, a peculiarly British discussion on the Constitutional/Reform Treaty. I'm all in favour of freedom of speech, but I think some clever moderation could allow commentators to post say, up to once a day, leaving the field free for people who would otherwise not care enough to read through the back-and-forth of the more "enthusiastic" readers.



A big issue with the blog also seems to be the fact that it is published primarily in English. This is a cause for concern from many non-English speakers, including a dedicated band of esperantists who translate all the Commissioner's words into Esperanto and a series of European languages. I have expressed some of my thoughts on language in another post, but there is more to be said here. I think that on balance, the Commissioner could publish a higher proportion of her posts in other EU languages, but the reality is that she is a Swede who is most comfortable with English when not speaking her native tongue. If the next Communications Commissioner is Austrian, I would expect a good number of posts to be in German.



The Commissioner's most recent post attempts to bring up the subject of climate change (before being drowned out in a cacophony of "the EU is inherently evil" - "no it isn't, it's the best thing ever" comments). She tries to make a link between this Summer's extreme weather in Europe and Asia and man-made climate change. Now, between you and me, I think there may well be a link. But I think it is scientifically impossible to ascribe individual events like this to the man-made climate change phenomenon. At any rate, the scientific consensus that the trend exists is the most overwhelming there has been on any environmental issue I have ever heard of.



Which makes climate change, with its cross-border weather angle, the perfect candidate for EU-level action from the Commission's point of view. After all, here's an issue that resonates with the public in all of Europe. Following the embarrassing false start of the Kyoto targets that we aren't going to meet despite self-righteously criticising the Americans for non-participation, there seems to be a genuine desire for fresh and radical ideas in the Berlaymont. The challenge will be for the Commission to push an ambitious environmental, carbon-emission-cutting agenda without badly alienating industry. A particularly interesting challenge, given that this is the most pro-business Commission ever. The current debate on the proposals for very strict car emissions will create a hugely important precedent. Watch this space.

A good blog, Commissioner. With a few tweaks, it could be great.

Certain Ideas of Europe

The Economist is one of those publications that people either love or hate; very few who have read it are indifferent. I feel somewhat lonely as a regular reader who enjoys it but well understands the irritation and frustration of others with it.

It does at least have the virtue of providing a great deal of informed analysis on a great may issues. And its coverage of EU business, although it suffers from being too high-level and afraid to get down in the weeds, is very solid.

For those who like to look at EU affairs through the Good/Bad prism, who see any debate about the EU as being necessarily about praising it to the heavens or calling for its demise, the Economist is of little comfort. It takes a fairly middle-of-the-road stance, endorsing the idea of the EU but being critical of its workings. The Economist's excellent blog, Certain Ideas of Europe, is a good example.

I always dread the prospect of entering into a debate on the Constitutional Treaty, or the Reform Treaty, depending on the name you prefer, because it is so painfully sensitive that use of terminology has to be very precise to avoid accusations of favouring one side or the other. What the Economist does do skilfully is to expose some of the less "serious" criticisms of the Reform Treaty in one of its recent postings. I think the publication might have taken a more critical look at the treaty. But I also think that "unserious" journalism like that of British EU-sceptic Christopher Booker does nothing to aid his cause, since it is easily dismissed as ill-informed, misleading, or inaccurate.

A Quiet Revolution

Back to one of my favourite topics: the Services Directive. This isn't an excuse for me to publish that picture of the Polish plumber again, although I suppose I might secretly be hoping that readers think he's me...!

No, I really want to share my views and hopefully stimulate some discussion on the effects of the Directive. My line of argument is essentially that the Directive's main benefits will come in areas completely unrelated to the subjects of heated political debate. I remember distinctly the times when PES (Socialist) and EPP-ED (Christian Democratic) groups stopped talking to each other in the European Parliament's internal market committee. I remember the tortuous negotiations that addressed the precise wording of the Country of Origin Principle (now renamed the Freedom to Provide Services Principle). I remember the painfully detailed discussions on precisely what administrative requirements for establishment of new businesses should be banned or reviewed or allowed. I remember the farcical horse-trading that went on over the scope: health services, public services, education, gambling, temporary work...in or out?

There was also a surreal moment when I saw a news item on Belgian television about the anti-Services Directive demonstrations in Brussels organised by the trades union movement. The journalist interviewed a Polish union member holding a placard written in French, who said that he was against the Directive because he, as a Polish worker, wanted to be able to work in Germany for German wages and not Polish wages. It was surreal because he clearly had been bussed to Brussels on the basis of a plain lie about the contents of the Commission proposal - the proposal specifically said that workers posted in other Member States would work under local labour conditions, specifically including wages. He was actually fighting against the cause he claimed to be fighting for. But the irony didn't stop there. It was of course even more surreal because it was widely believed (and in fact explicitly claimed by the trades unions movement) that Polish workers overwhelmingly wanted to come to the West to work for lower wages than locals.

Joking apart, it was a significant moment in my life, when my view of politics changed abruptly, and I saw much more clearly than ever before how cynical people could be when seeking to achieve a political goal. hroughout he debate on the Services Directive, it mattered little to the unions or their opponents what logic they used, as long as they could make a big media impact. It was media coverage the politicians were counting on to win their battles on the Services Directive, and not the strength or consistency of their arguments.

All this is really to set the scene for my main point. Which is that while these battles were being fought, the parts of the Directive that I think will have the biggest long-term impact on the single market were being quietly nodded through. I suspect this was partly because the articles concerned were quite boring and therefore less likely to make good press. I am, of course, referring to the articles on administrative simplification and administrative co-operation.

The Directive's high profile provisions on freedom of establishment, freedom to provide services, and the restrictions on administrative requirements, were essentially re-statements by the Commission of its interpretation of the Treaty and ECJ case law. None of this, despite the claims of the more passionate advocates and opponents of the proposal, was really innovative. It was simply an attempt by the Commission to force the pace of opening of the internal market for services by directly attacking common practices by protectionist Member State administrations through legislation. Had these proposals not been made, the ECJ and the Commission would have done the job eventually through case law and infringement proceedings.

The parts of the proposal that were new and innovative were those that addressed the most fundamental workings of national administrations. These will entail nothing short of a revolution in the way public administrations work in the EU. The Directive contains no less than 13 articles (well over a third of the content of the Directive) that touch on the way national administrations must change to serve the market and the citizen. I won't bore readers with a detailed list, so here are some headlines:

• simplification of procedures;
• points of single contact for businesses;
• rights to information for economic actors;
• procedures by electronic means;
• detailed obligations on mutual assistance for Member State administrations;
• rules on which Member State is responsible for supervision of various aspects of cross-border service provision;
• alert mechanisms when fraud is suspected.

The Commission is given some pretty impressive powers to harmonise implementation through comitology, particularly as regards the IT systems that will have to be set up to make all this work. The whole philosophy that drives these provisions is one that will strike those of you who are familiar with European public administrations as quite alien. National administrations will be obliged by the Directive to modernise and become more efficient, and to communicate systematically with counterparts in other Member States. The primary driver of all of this is the idea that the administration should facilitate, rather than control, economic activity. That philosophy is going to be a shock to most of the national administrations I have come across. Expect strikes and demonstrations as the Commission and Member States push modernisation through. ..

Centre for European Reform

One of the best EU think tanks, the Centre for European Reform runs a good-quality blog, which they populate with challenging opinions from their staff. Like Caroline Lucas' blog, the postings are perhaps fewer and further between than they might be, but CER does at least produce its thoughts in written form, if not on their blog, very regularly and frequently.

The blog looks at some of the big EU issues, such as the Constitutional Treaty (now the Reform Treaty), the EU's Middle East policy, the prospects for Turkish membership, and more. I'd like to see more postings on economic policy and on hot issues like data protection and privacy, but maybe that just reflects my personal bias. After all, they do plenty of excellent work in these areas (see their publications on competitiveness and on Justice & Home Affairs), so it's not like they don't have anything to say.

Perhaps motivation is low because of the low level of comments (to be fair, at the time of writing they're doing a lot better than I am on that score, but I'm still very new!). Chicken or egg?

Anyway, what they do post is of high quality, and I enjoy reading them from time to time.

Caroline Lucas MEP's Blog

Caroline Lucas' blog, on the UK's Guardian newspaper web site, is a good place to talk about EU environment policy. The UK Green MEP is well-known as one of the most articulate leaders of the environmentalist movement, and her postings are thoughtful and thought-provoking.

The most recent one (dated March 2007) is about the fundamental contradiction between the EU-US Open Skies agreement's goal of increasing air travel across the Atlantic and the carbon emissions cutting goal of EU environment policy. Commentators have pointed out that this is a classic case of non-joined-up thinking. The parts of the EU machine that care about air transport lead the dance on air transport policy. And the parts of the EU machine that care about the environment lead the dance on environment policy. And what you end up with is bound not to be as coherent as it might be.

The mechanics of this are interesting. Consider this scenario: The Commission's DG TREN (transport & energy) comes up with policy proposals for legislation liberalising air transport in Europe. These are the fruit of public consultations that have elicited reactions primarily from direct stakeholders in the air transport industry. The DG's proposals are run through an "interservice" procedure in the Commission, during which all the other DGs are supposed to be able to submit objections and propose changes. But this doesn't happen as much as it should, because the Environment Commissioner knows that the Transport Commissioner will block his next initiative if he blocks this one. The proposal is then published with minimal changes, and sent to the EP and Council for co-decision. The EP committee dealing with it specialises in transport and not environment. It likes the idea of liberalising the sector, and delivers a positive recommendation to the plenary, which follows the lead of its expert committee. After all, they are the experts, right? In the Council, the dossier is taken through the Transport Council, populated by transport ministers and transport officials at the lower levels. And this Transport Council, together with the EP led by its in-house transport experts, delivers a piece of legislation that liberalises the sector. It may even be a very good piece of legislation. But the most powerful, institutional avenues for getting environmental concerns heard are marginalised at best. The NGOs are left struggling to lobby transport-minded MEPs and transport-minded officials and ministers.

What happens when a piece of environmental legislation goes through co-decision? Exactly the same, but the tables are turned. Now the NGOs are in the driving seat, and industry is struggling to get its voice heard.

It's a pretty fundamental problem with the way decision making is structured in all the institutions, and it results in all-or-nothing outcomes like REACH on the one hand (which is regarded as catastrophic by industry), and Open Skies on the other (regarded as catastrophic by Greens like Caroline Lucas).

Anyway, this is supposed to be a post about that blog, and not a rant about the deficiencies of the EU decision-making process. But the fact that I have gone off on the rant is evidence enough that Ms. Lucas' blog gets you thinking. The quality of comments is relatively high, especially when compared to the propagandist and ideological stuff that afflicts blogs like that of Commissioner Wallstrom!

My only regret is that her postings are so far apart - her last one was in March 2007, and her last 10 go back as far as May 2006. My last 10 go back all of a week! So much good thought in that head of yours, Caroline, and so little of it shared with your readers! Give us more!

Religion in Second Life

Have you heard of Second Life? If not, I suggest you check it out. It is widely regarded as one of the most significant innovations in the online world - one with the potential for far-reaching effects on society.

It's a complete virtual world - fully fitted with time, space, "living" people, laws, money, an economy, and now, religion. Users can create an identity, called an "avatar", and interact with each other in an increasingly "real" way. Economic activity has taken off, with millions of dollars' worth of real money being spent every day. Property on Second Life is now worth real-life cash.

Some months ago the Commission announced it was looking into setting up an embassy in Second Life to provide information to curious users. I'd love to know if the EU is more surreal in Second Life than it is here...

Religion is still very much a minority interest on Second Life. I can think of several possible reasons but I am sure there are more: perhaps the online world attracts technology-minded people who are less likely to be interested in religious "superstition". Or perhaps "real-life" society inflates the appearance of religiosity through rituals such as Sunday churchgoing or Friday prayers at the mosque, and Second Life, as a fresh start, reflects people's beliefs more genuinely.

There are less than 1000 representatives of the major religions officially registered with the religious organisations that have sprung up on Second Life. The largest group is Christian, followed by Muslims, followed by Jews. But the absolute numbers are so small that the difference in size of the groups is hardly significant.

Which makes the fact that the Jesuits are now entering Second Life all the more interesting. Here is an opportunity for religious organisations from real life to test out their appeal to the world's youth in a unique, global environment - in an entirely new culture or civilisation that has no historical baggage to influence the outcome. There are no established churches, no state religions, no cultural or family pressures (yet). In other words, here is an opportunity to test the appeal of religions (paradoxically perhaps) in a more scientific way than has ever been possible before.

But indeed beyond science and perhaps more importantly, from a purely religious point of view, will the religions be able to bring more followers around the world into their respective types of union with the divine? After all, behind every avatar lies a soul potentially in need of spiritual nourishment.

This raises all sorts of questions and possibilities - could we see religiously-motivated or religiously-justified terrorism in Second Life? On the other side of the coin, could it be used to test out strategies and solutions for a wide range of social and religious problems? Imagine dialogue between Muslims and Jews in a world where there is no Temple Mount or Al-Aqsa mosque. Or between Muslim and Christian "Europeans" in a world where neither community has the advantage of political, geographic, economic, or social incumbency.

What about new advertising techniques? New political philosophies? New societal structures? And all these with the potential to spill over into real life. It really will be fascinating to watch. Or participate in...

Berlaymonster

One of the real gems of the Brussels Blogosphere is Berlaymonster, which adopts an irreverent and unashamedly humourous (and often critical) take on EU affairs. The best story on the main page at the time of writing is about the Commission's PR assault on the online world via YouTube, or, more precisely, EUtube. Most of the talk about the promotional material available on EUtube has been generated by the sexually explicit images taken from European films (subsidised by the EU).

How can you not love Berlaymonster when you read such priceless gags as:

"I always wondered what Ever Closer Union meant. That's pretty close."

"Aha, United in Perversity."

"Oof, he's no candidate for enlargement is he..."

"Well SHE clearly met the entry requirements."

"Is that what you call a horizontal strategy?"

And Berlaymonster asks for further submissions, so here's mine: "What ever happened to the precautionary principle?"

Great stuff.

Polish Plumbers Apply Here!

The Polish plumber was the bogeyman of European politics for the two years that the Services Directive was going through co-decision in the EU institutions, coinciding with the accession of Poland and seven other former Communist Bloc countries - perhaps not quite a hate figure, but certainly feared as the symbol of Eastern European workers coming to Western Europe to "take our jobs", working for East European wages. The Polish tourist board outflanked French trade unionists by using humour and publishing the now-famous poster of a hunky, wrench-toting, pipe-wielding Polish plumber addressing French lady tourists saying, "Je reste en Pologne. Venez nombreux!"

At the time, the argument went something like this: Polish plumbers will come in large numbers to "old" EU countries like France and Germany, will price local competitors out of the market, and will not contribute a penny to local taxes. This has all been proved to be nonsense by the UK and Ireland, which have no successfully hosted several hundred thousand Polish workers (not just plumbers), of whom the overwhelming majority pay taxes and fill labour shortages. Most EU Member States took advantage of a "phase-in period" for the freedom of movement for workers from the new Member States, and have seen very limited immigration. Germany and Austria retain these controls. What immigration there has been there seems to be part of the grey economy, with the workers legally present in the countries, but working illegally.

And now we have the German government acknowledging a skills shortage in Germany, and calling for immigration from the East to be made easier. Great! Let's all gloat at the Germans and say how pleased we all are that they were wrong. And wrong they undoubtedly were. But is it really that simple?

Now, I'm not an economist, but I know for a fact that Poland is facing severe shortages of skilled construction workers, and yes, plumbers! Word is, you can't get hold of a decent plumber anymore, because all the best, most enterprising ones, have moved West. Can it really be that good for Poland to lose large numbers of its best and brightest? Sure, it makes the government's drive to cut unemployment much easier - the stats are good even taking into account the fact that many who are working abroad are claiming unemployment benefits at home.

There seems to be a consensus that most of the emigration is temporary, that workers are sending money home and will return when the Polish economy begins to catch up. That may be the case, but in the meantime, Poland and some of the other new Member States are making do with shortages of their own.

Shouldn't this really be about addressing the need for better education and training in all EU countries, rather than moving skilled workers from low-wage countries to high-wage countries? Isn't the issue here that all EU countries need these workers, and aren't we making a mistake if we seek to solve the problem only through labour mobility?

Don't get me wrong - I am not in favour of closing the borders. But I don't see governments addressing this in a way that is sustainable for Europe - the German government has little interest in what's happening in Poland; it wants to find the easiest way to fix the skills shortage. Shouldn't policy be more consistently directed at addressing the underlying structural problem?

I don't know. Maybe national governments are taking this seriously and are doing lots to increase the skills of the local labour force, and the media aren't reporting on it. But I have my doubts.

I have a confession to make: I have used a Polish plumber, a Polish handyman, and a Polish-owned Belgian construction company here in Brussels. They are competitive on price, especially for the small jobs, and they do good work. By contrast, my experiences with Belgian plumbers have invariably been negative: rude, incompetent, late, untidy, and expensive. The Poles are "incontournable" in Brussels, but I expect the locals still rule the roost outside the big city.

A Fistful of Euros

A Fistful of Euros is a good, solid, multi-authored blog on general European affairs, not restricted to EU politics. Which makes it a refreshing change for those of us who spend so much time with our spectacled eyes glued to our EU navel that we feel s wee bit out of touch with the Real World!

It's somewhat left of centre in political sympathies, but reassuringly free of party politics and the inevitable defence of party lines that this entails.

A recent post that attracted my attention was from July 16, by Alex Harrowell, on the EU as a force for reform amongst its neighbours. This is a truism that you often hear in the Eurobubble, and the stock examples given are the EU's activities in promoting civil society in places like Georgia, Ukraine, and Russia, as well as the gradual adoption of the acquis communautaire and associated reforms in candidate countries such as Croatia and Turkey.

The nice thing about this post is that it gives an example of a specific EU action that has resulted in reform in a neighbouring country - the effect of the EU's blacklist of airlines on Moldova. Perhaps a little light on detail, but interesting nonetheless. If there are any Moldova experts reading this, I'd be curious to know if there was any background that A Fistful of Euros is missing and that might be important - e.g. pre-existing plans to ban the banned airline, the detailed context of national politics, the role of Russia and other neighbours, etc.

Anyway, A Fistful of Euros, well done for being thought-provoking. Keep up the good work.

EU Blog Reviews

The Brussels Blogosphere is sprawling. There is material out there to cater to most tastes and interests. On the left hand side of this page you will find a list of the blogs that I find particularly worthwhile. I have listed only blogs in languages I can read - which includes English, French, German, Dutch, and a wee bit of Polish and Italian. Not all those languages are represented, so any suggestions from readers are welcome.

I'm most comfortable in English, but will try occasionally to post in another language myself.

Some of the blogs I link to are simply essential, such as Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's blog - essential because of his role in the Constitutional Treaty and the Reform Treaty.

Others are worth reading for the insights they give into the way veteran pro-EU campaigners like the Federal Union and anti-EU campaigners like EU Referendum see the world.

Many are serious; some (like Berlaymonster) are not so serious.

Some are more informative, some are more geared to debate.

None of them, as far as I am aware, systematically review each other. That is something that I'd like to add to the landscape - an opportunity to discuss the Brussels Blogosphere in detail: its heroes and villains, facts and myths, hot policy debates, key players, etc. Hopefully this will become a place where opinions can be aired freely (and moderated in a neutral fashion by me).

I will simply start at the top of the list and work my way southwards...

A Humourous Take on the Future of the UK Conservative Party

Apologies to readers who do not follow UK politics with any interest. As the UK is "the Member State that I know best", I try to keep up with developments across the Channel.

This opinion piece on the future of the Conservative Party from the Daily Telegraph is worth a read for a laugh. I think no one but a die-hard Labour supporter would be able to wish this to come true...

Comission Directory

This resource is probably better known than the comitology document register, but I do come across Brussels insiders who don't know about it. Regardless, it would certainly be of interest to outsiders who want to get hold of the right official.

I am not aware of any such directory for a national administration; if any readers are, I'd love to hear about it.

The Directory's best feature is its hierarchical structure. You can start at the Commission level, work down through the Directorate-General, the Directorate, and then the unit. But you can also search for officials whose names you know in the name search.

http://ec.europa.eu/staffdir/plsql/gsys_page.display_index?pLang=EN

This is not quite the same as IDEA, which is the online directory for all EU institutions, and has similar functionality. IDEA will only take you down to the Head of Unit level. Also helpful for most enquiries, since the Head of Unit's office can pass you on to the relevant official, but not much use if you really want to talk to an official privately.

Next step? Email addresses...

English & the EU

Anyone interested in the dynamics of language in the EU institutions should read the Economist's Charlemagne column in the July 21st edition . Interesting stuff. Is the dominance of English in Brussels good for the institutions? Is it good for the native English-speakers in Brussels (British and Irish EU officials, British, Irish, American, Australian, Kiwi, Indian, South African etc journalists, lobbyists, and diplomats)?

It's a complex question that doesn't lend itself to a simple answer. But my experience is that being a native English speaker has been a tremendous advantage in one area, at least. And that is in the preparation of documents. I have lost count of the times that non-native English-speaking colleagues, friends, or contacts have come to me asking me to check the grammar, the style, and the spelling of their position papers, letters, press releases, etc.

Every time I do such proof-reading, I have an opportunity to subtly change shades of meaning, and probably do so unconsciously. If you extrapolate this experience to the whole Brussels EU policy community, you come to the inevitable conclusion that among EU citizens, the Brits and Irish have a distinct advantage in this department. Over time, the cumulative effect of this extra input must be significant. If you have any specific examples of changes that have occurred as a result of this process, I'm interested!

Resources Postings

From time to time I intend to publish information about a resource. It might be anything - a web site or page that is useful for information-gathering, for example - but will ususally be web-based.

My first featured resource will be helpful to lobbyists who follow Brussels' notorious "comitology" committees (see Wikipedia if you don't know what comitology is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comitology). I only discovered this resource very recently, having long been deeply suspicious of comitology committees and their workings. It's the European Commission's comitology register, and it contains not only a list of the scores of committees, but more importantly, a search function that allows access to many of the key comitology documents.

You can search by various criteria. I find it most useful to search by committee. The committees are organised by Directorate-General of the European Commission by which the committee is chaired. The drop-down box is very badly designed, but if you click on it and type in "E", for example, you come to the committees chaired by DG EAC (Education and Culture). Further down, you come to ENTR (DG Enterprise) and then ENV (DG Environment).

The most interesting type of document you can find is the Voting Results - they often contain details of votes taken in committee, including how many Member States voted in favour of a Commission proposal, against, or abstained. This, combined with the information on the number of votes under QMV (Qualified Majority Voting), can often tell you pretty precisely which Member States voted how, despite the secrecy of the vote.

Pretty rudimentary functionality, but quite powerful. I'm finding it very useful, as it eliminates the need to rely on busy friends and contacts for leaked copies...

Here's the link:

http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regcomitology/registre.cfm?CL=en

Sleepy Summer

Brussels is in the process of shutting down for "The Summer Break". Hordes of officials, lobbyists, journalists, and ordinary residents are heading for the airports and the motorways, aiming for sunnier destinations. My street is emptying at a frightening pace - about 50% of the cars normally there have disappeared; the trip into work by metro or on the roads is eerily quiet. Another month of peace before everyone descends on Brussels again towards the end of August...

I learned soon after arriving that late July and August were not times to find people at their desks. Those you do find are often covering for several, luckier, colleagues, and are overworked and stressed.

Hello

Hello and welcome to my new blog, Brussels Comment! I hope you'll find it thought-provoking, informative, and enjoyable. It aims to appeal to a broad range of readers interested in the EU - from the Brussels professionals to the curious outsiders to perhaps even the journalists, there should be material for all to get their teeth into. I'd love to know your thoughts on format, content, and style. Happy reading!