Presidential Fantasy

Just a thought - wouldn't it be funny if Václav Klaus were appointed President of the Council?

France Attacks Barroso

The title of this post ascribes the attack to France, which may or may not be fair, since Francois Fillon and Nicholas Sarkozy are not the same person, and neither is fully analogous with the country they lead. But what has come out of Paris, apparently from government insiders, is undoubtedly an attack.

If the French government really wanted to support Jose Manuel Barroso's re-appointment as President of the European Commission, it could have been lobbying in the European Parliament and national capitals. Or it could have kept quiet and let the likeliest outcome of the debate in the European Parliament just happen. But no. This clever piece of political manoeuvering has suddenly given all those MEPs to the right of centre who were going to vote for Barroso a priceless excuse not to: a potentially better candidate is just waiting for the nod. Even better, it gives those on the left the perfect opportunity to score a political victory against the right by succeeding in rejecting the Member States' centre-right nominee, just weeks after European elections that were such a calamitous blow for the social democratic family across the continent.

Who stands to lose from a rejection of Barroso (apart from Barroso himself)? Only those on the right who really do like Barroso, and an as-yet undefined group across the political spectrum who have existing or potential objections to Fillon. But with Fillon's distinct lack of international profile, it is possible that he will fail to attract much hardened opposition.

There is also good reason to believe (hap-tip to Charlemagne and Jon Worth) that such an outcome would represent a new landmark moment for the European Parliament in its inorexable rise, and a commensurate defeat for the Member State governments who have nominated Fillon. For me, this is the only significant question mark over the cleverness of the French ploy, since a precedent will have been set that will make it easier in the future for the European Parliament to reject France's own nominees to the Commission By implication in the more distant future, it could also jeopardise France's and other Member States' preferences for other key EU positions, institutional arrangements, and other political stakes.

The other question mark for me is not about the cleverness of the ploy, but about the suitablity of the candidate himself. If he has been unable to step out from the shadow of his President as Prime Minister, what are the prospects for his ability to rise above national governments' lobbying as President of the Commission?

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. ..