Brussels briefing
The Romanian government has decided it is a law until itself and decreed that the courts cannot rule on any of their decisions.
The country’s level of democracy is always an issue in Brussels where, despite years of coaching, encouragement, and threats, its grasp on the concept of the rule of law is sometimes less than firm.
The government took action after the chairpersons of the senate and lower chamber, who were sacked along with the supposedly independent ombudsman responsible for investigating corruption, challenged the action in the court.
Despite warnings from Brussels, and assurances from the prime minister, Victor Ponta, to commission president José Manuel Barroso, inset, the Romanian parliament passed a law outlawing its constitutional court from interfering with the actions of the parliament.
The parliament has also voted to impeach the president as he had breached the constitution and should be fired.
More than €500m of EU money disappears in the member states each year.
In some countries little or no action is taken; in others there can be long jail sentences.
The European Commission, which must ensure it is spent correctly or get a tongue-lashing from the Court of Auditors, wants everybody to take the matter more seriously.
They point out that both Ireland and Britain had no minimum sentence for fraud — just a maximum of five years’ jail. While in some countries the conviction rate for doing away with EU funds is as low as 14% in some countries, but as high as 80% in others.
New legislation aims to have every country dealing effectively with the problems of farmers pretending they have more sheep than they have, and many of the other highly inventive and often genius scams the funds give rise to.
West MEP Jim Higgins could find himself on the winning side yet again with his latest proposal to amend the common agriculture policy.
Currently, farmers can be awarded extra money under the harvest insurance scheme but only in the case of a natural disaster — and heavy rain, hail, ice or frost does not qualify.
But with grain growers expected to lose 30% or more of their crops because of the terrible weather in Ireland, Mr Higgins argues that anybody losing this much of their average annual production should be compensated.
Romania and several other countries are reporting major crop losses also, though this time from drought, and they will probably be anxious to add this phenomenon to the list of natural disasters.
Ireland is already planning how to become popular in Europe during its six-month stint as EU president from January.
Transport Minister Leo Varadkar hoped to be able to scrap the ban on bringing liquids on board flights, or having to give up your duty-free bought outside the EU when changing flights in the EU.
However, the European Commission has just announced that the ban will be extended until new arrangements are put in place to scrap it altogether. They got support from an unlikely source, the Airports Council that says more robust technology is needed.
The Scots imposed a minimum price on alcohol in a bid to curb binge drinking. It’s 0.63 cents per unit and is the first legally-binding minimum price in the EU.
But the European Spirits Organisation has joined forces with the Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins representing wine and liqueur producers and the Scotch Whisky Association to challenge the move in the Scottish courts.
They also hope to get support from the European Commission on the basis that price fixing distorts trade. But the Brussels body found nothing wrong with countries ensuring high prices for tobacco and cigarettes arguing successfully that trade should be secondary to public health concerns.
One in four MEPs had no occupation before they became members of the European Parliament, according to declarations they all must fill out.
This either explains why they are MEPs, or suggests that the transparency rules on their outside interests are not strict enough.
Although one, a Danish MEP, claimed that before coming to Brussels he was “master of the universe” with a monthly salary of more than €10,000.
Friends of the Earth surveyed all 754 declarations and found that while all except for two submitted them on time, 12% left them completely empty but just 75% declared they had at least one occupation before taking office.
Half say they are members of boards or committees and 16% say they are paid for work they do outside their mandate, including the only one of three MEPs who did not resign after a “cash for amendments” scandal, who says he is paid up to €1,000 a month as a law professor and columnist.
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