Brussels briefing
Herman Van Rompuy has jumped on the bandwagon of those who have suddenly seen the light and are demanding growth policies to rescue Europe’s economies.
He plans a dinner of all 27 leaders in May, before the June summit. But he has a little problem over the guest list.
Countries vital to the process — France, Greece and the Netherlands — are in the middle of elections, and he certainly does not want to invite potential losing leaders.
The EU is becoming something of a political graveyard with Brian Cowen being joined by the prime ministers of Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, the Netherlands and now possibly Sarkozy. And all in little more than a year.
There was near jubilation in parts of the EU when Geert Wilders tripped up the Dutch government over the issue of budget cuts.
The Dutch, with a reputation of being more parsimonious than the Scots (going Dutch) and more in love with austerity than the Germans, have been scoffing at their hard pressed euro-neighbours.
But leopards do not change their spots, and the Dutch were simply arguing among themselves about what cuts to make and who they would affect — business or taxpayers. The opposition helped out the caretaker government in agreeing the €14 billion of cuts they wanted to make.
As Rupert Murdoch hung British politicians out to dry at the Leveson inquiry during the week, in Brussels Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso was getting in his own piece of retaliation.
“Did the British taxpayer know that their prime minister behind the scenes was pushing the EU to spend more money on the nuclear fusion project, ITER, at the same time as they were publicly excoriating the EU for spending money,” was the tenor of his outcry.
The Commission cannot run deficit budgets — a principle Ireland has agreed to adopt too — but, eager to please domestic voters, member states and MEPs have been cutting back the EU’s budget over the past few years. Problem now is that those same states are sending in the bills to the EU for the contribution to roads, bridges, training, farmers, fish etc — and they want to be paid, now.
The person likely to be the busiest during the six-month Irish presidency of the EU is Simon Coveney.
He will chair both the Fisheries and the Agriculture councils, at a time when deals on their multi-billion budgets for the next six years are coming to a head. The roles of the Taoiseach, Tanaiste and finance minister will be minimal compared with the last presidency in 2004 as the roles chairing summits, foreign ministers and finance meetings have been handed over to full time chairs.
Open Europe, a eurosceptic British think-tank funded by business, is advocating shutting down a number of EU agencies, including the Dublin-based Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.
It argues that the foundation’s work is unnecessary or is covered elsewhere. The others it wants to close deal with: Food safety; safety and health at work; fundamental rights; education and culture; training and gender equality. None are British-based.
It argues that running the EU’s 52 agencies costs Ireland €25m, and that the Dublin-based foundation costs the EU €20m. No word, however, about the cost of eliminating the jobs the foundation creates or the work it does in ensuring fair play for workers.
Just in case anybody thought this crisis was close to bottoming out, you should think again because over the past few months, for every three jobs lost due to employers restructuring businesses, just two new ones were created.
France, however, was the odd one out with 25% more jobs created due to restructuring.
Spain has announced it will reinstate border controls with France, because the European Central Bank is holding its monthly meeting in Barcelona during the week.
Politicians, desperate to win votes from right-wing anti-everyone-else groups, are touting the idea of being able to erect borders again in Europe.
While the Spanish say they fear people flooding across the border to protest against the ECB, one wonders if the country desperately battling to save its economy is sending its own message to the bankers.
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