Registration is now open for this one-day, policy-orientated conference, organised by the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES), which involves practitioners who have been actively engaged in the European integration process. It will offer both a retrospective on the UK’s relationship with the EU and a chance to look to the future.

This event is part of UACES’s ‘Evolving Europe’ series, marking 40 years since the UK’s accession to the EU.

Speakers include:

• Sir Stephen Wall
• David Frost (Director for Europe, Trade & International at the Dept for Business, Innovation & Skills)
• Charles Grant (Director, Centre for European Reform)
• Sir Nigel Sheinwald (Visiting Professor, King’s College London)
• Judith Kirton-Darling (Confederal Secretary, European Trade Union Confederation)
• Baroness Joyce Quin
• Lord David Hannay

To find out more and to register visit www.uaces.org/impact.

Hugh Grant, campaigner for press reform (picture Eva Rinaldi, www.evarinaldi.com)

This blog has not expected to be proved right so quickly on press regulation, but that’s what happened today.  At the end of last year, when the Leveson commission published its report into the standards and regulation of the press, this website observed, while the questions of whether the press could really be trusted to regulate itself, or whether the intervention of a regulator would kill the free press, were outside its scope, that the press was probably unregulatable.

The geographical extent of British press regulation would bump up against the fact that many news sources were based abroad, and the practical extent would discover that the digital era has made everyone a journalist.  Traditional newspapers and magazines are often less widely read than blogs and websites.  Stephen Fry has more than 5 million followers on Twitter, for example.

And so it has proved.  The cross-party talks, on again/off again over the past few days, reached a conclusion with the proposal to regulate the press via a royal charter.  The theory is that this is less intrusive to the freedom of the press than a law, but given that certain aspects of the charter will be framed in law, that is a rather hollow distinction.  (Supporters of a British republic might comment on the fact that the press is to be regulated by the Privy Council, appointed by the Queen, rather than by the elected House of Commons, but that is another out-of-scope subject.)

That charter aims to govern the dissemination of news and news-related material, defined as:

(a) news or information about current affairs,
(b) opinion about matters relating to the news or current affairs, or
(c) gossip about celebrities, other public figures or other persons in the news.

This covers newspapers, obviously, but it goes much further.  This website might be covered, as might its Twitter feed, or even your author’s Facebook page (amid the cute baby stories, there are complaints about the news).  The royal charter would thus regulate not the press but the whole nation.  As an attempt to regulate the press in a free society, it has failed.

¤ ¤ ¤

The government has responded to this obvious absurdity by publishing its own definition of who is and is not caught.  Business websites, Twitter and Facebook would escape, voiding some of the fears expressed above, but so do specialist publishers and charities.  If the actions of the regulator actually prevent journalists from doing what they want, they can simply rebadge themselves as something else, exempt from regulation.  Again, the attempt at regulation has failed.

Policy Network in cooperation with the European Parliament Information Office in the UK is hosting an informal lunchtime discussion with Klaus Welle, Secretary General of the European Parliament, discussing ‘EU institutions in a changing European landscape’. This event will be held on 22nd of February 2013 from 12:45 to 14:15 at Europe House. Sandwiches and coffee will be served from 12.15.

Speaker:  Klaus Welle, Secretary General of the European Parliament

Respondents (all tbc):  Jan Royall, Leader of the Opposition, House of Lords; Anand Menon, Professor at King’s College London; John Peet, European Editor, The Economist

Chair: Olaf Cramme, Director of Policy Network

For more information or to register for this event, please click here.

English Harbour and Falmouth Harbour on Antigua (picture Frederik Ramm)

International trade disputes often shine a light on odd behaviour, and the dispute between the United States and the tiny Caribbean island country Antigua and Barbuda is no exception.  Originally colonised as a site for sugar plantations, the decline of the Antiguan sugar industry has left it looking for new industries.  The internet offers plenty of opportunities, and one of those is gambling.  Antigua became host to online gambling businesses appealing to customers around the world and particularly in the United States.

The US, in a peculiar fit of morality, has made gambling on the internet illegal (although not in Las Vegas or on Native American reservations) and has banned its residents from visiting Antiguan gambling sites.  This has hurt Antigua badly: employment in the industry there has fallen from 4,000 to 500.

The Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organisation has ruled in Antigua’s favour, and trade retaliation up to a permitted level is now proposed.  The nature of that retaliation is intriguing – offering Americans free downloads of material they would have to pay copyright fees for in the US (maybe this is what David Cameron meant when he said that island peoples have “a frame of mind that is more practical than emotional”, as opposed to those over-emotional and impractical continentals living on the land from California to the New York Island) – but the very fact of the ruling is interesting in itself.

The fact is that in the WTO, cases are not won by the strongest country. They are won instead by the strongest argument.  When international relations is governed by rules, the weak do not have to cower in the face of the strong but they can stand up for their rights.  Antigua, with population 80,000 and GDP $1.2 billion, is protected by membership of the WTO; outside that organisation, it would have no chance of exerting pressure on America, with population and GDP thousands of times the size.  The rule of law exists to protect the weak and restrain the strong.

(h/t Andreas Bummel)

Mary Sumner House, 24 Tufton Street, London SW1P 3RB

Speakers:

Vasco Cal, Economic Adviser, Bureau of European Policy Advisers, European Commission

Dr Giacomo Benedetto, Lecturer in Politics, Royal Holloway, University of London

Dr Alan Greer, Associate Professor in Politics and Public Policy, University of West of England

A detailed programme will be available nearer the time.

If you would like to attend this event please contact Ulrike on ulrike.rub@fedtrust.co.uk or 020 7320 3045.

25th February 2013

5.00pm – 7.00pm

National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE

Speakers include John Cooke, Council Member, The Federal Trust, and Rod Dowler, Chairman, Industry Forum. Further speakers and a detailed programme will be announced soon.

If you would like to attend this event please contact Ulrike on ulrike.rub@fedtrust.co.uk or 020 7320 3045.

Let me make a rough guess that towards 100 per cent of the spending on Maseratis is made by the nation’s millionaires.

That is not to say that welfare spending is a luxury like a sports car but that it is something that inevitably is going disproportionately to be incurred by the richer parts of the world.  And that includes Europe.

These days though we can also think of it as an essential part of a modern economy. It gives people the confidence to take risks in setting up new businesses. It gives workers the willingness to accept redundancy from a declining industry in order to learn new skills and search for a new job. It is actually the means by which the disabled or the retired are offered the chance of a decent, dignified life, and it is good for economic growth in that it can route income and wealth from economically unproductive uses, such as inflating the prices of property and fine art bought by the rich, to economically more productive uses, such as buying food and clothes and providing heating for the poor.

In that other major speech this week – Barack Obama’s inauguration speech – he put it thus:

The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.

Too much welfare spending is undoubtedly a bad thing, but I think we can say also that so is too little.

Why has welfare spending grown? This website has observed before that an ageing population and declining birth rate will lead to growing dependency ratios (each person in work is going to have to support more non-working people) which in turn will pose a new challenge to existing welfare strategies. Governments were warned about this over the past decade but did not deal with it at the time. This is one of the reasons why national public finances are now in trouble.

But an important word in that last sentence is “national”. The task of reorganising welfare systems is a national one, not a European one. The EU does not set benefit rates nor the conditions for eligibility. Those are decisions for national governments. The EU has an influence at the margins in its insistence on the free movement of workers and their corresponding eligibility for benefits in member states to which they might move for work. But using the need for welfare reform as a stick to beat the EU with is quite wrong.

In fact, looking at the need for welfare reform, the EU is an asset not a liability. What will bring welfare bills under control is a more productive labour force, meaning both that more people are in work and that they work better in the jobs they are doing. EU investment in technology and trans-European networks and further moves to eliminate non-tariff barriers in the single market are the keys to a more productive European economy and a more productive labour force.

That welfare spending statistic is a reason for more action by the EU and not less. David Cameron makes a good point but draws the wrong conclusion.

Brendan Donnelly

Brendan Donnelly, Director of the Federal Trust and a former Member of the European Parliament, has commented as follows on Mr Cameron’s speech on Britain’s position in the European Union:

“Despite the publicity that has surrounded it, it is very difficult to believe that Mr Cameron’s speech will put an end to controversy surrounding Britain’s place in Europe until the next General Election. It is a response to mounting pressure on his own position as leader of the Conservative Party rather than a coherent long-term approach to Britain’s position within the European Union.

There is of course a certain domestic political logic to Mr Cameron’s thinking manifested in today’s speech. It would be unacceptable to his party if he excluded for ever the prospect of a European referendum, or if he gave now an unqualified commitment to campaign in any European referendum on the pro-European side of the argument. Long-term renegotiation followed by a referendum to consider new terms of British membership in the Union may appear an elegant tactical response to this conundrum. There are however a number of design flaws in his blueprint.

It is by no means clear that the Conservative Party will be in government after 2015 to carry out any European policy. It is more than unlikely that any significant renegotiation of the terms of British membership will be possible after 2015, a factor in the equation that recent remarks from French, German and Irish sources have thrown into sharp relief. If Mr Cameron is Prime Minister after 2015, and then holds a European referendum, he will almost certainly find himself having to make the invidious choice between recommending a “yes” vote on the basis of at best cosmetic changes to the terms of British membership of the Union; or a “no” vote, admitting that he had failed in his attempts at renegotiation. In any event, the outcome of that vote is very difficult to predict, irrespective which choice Mr Cameron himself recommends. It is striking that Mr Cameron apparently wants to disenfranchise in his proposed referendum those who want no change in the United Kingdom’s present terms of membership in the European Union.

It used to be conventional wisdom among those who follow these things that Mr Cameron should be able to avoid holding a European referendum in this Parliament. Now, this is less sure. Everything associated with this speech of Mr Cameron has smacked of improvisation and short-term thinking. Far from reassuring his party, Mr Cameron’s most recent speech on European policy will simply usher in a time of uncertainty, helpful neither to Britain nor its partners.”

The views expressed are a personal comment from Brendan Donnelly and do not represent a corporate view of the Federal Trust.

David Cameron (picture Number 10 Downing Street)

So we have finally heard The Speech. David Cameron spoke this morning to outline what Conservative party policy on Europe would be after the next election. (Read the speech here.)

David Cameron wants to renegotiate the terms of British membership of the EU and put those new terms to a referendum. If those terms are not approved, then Britain will have to leave the EU. He didn’t spell out what those renegotiated terms would be – he does not know what he wants, and he does not know what the other member states will let him have – so his strategy for keeping the UK in the EU (which is how he describes it) is full of enormous and possibly insuperable uncertainties. Who advises him on this stuff?

He couches his demands for change in the context that every member state wants change.  Maybe they don’t realise themselves, but they do.  Of course, the principal change that most of them want is for a more democratic and integrated eurozone, which is not at all the direction that David Cameron has in mind.  His vision of Europe is at odds with that of most of the rest of the continent.

Furthermore, those things he said before about changes to the EU being decided by referendums only apply to other people’s changes. For he proposes that a Conservative victory at the next election is itself enough, without needing a referendum, to justify unwinding Britain’s EU membership somewhat.  The exact extent of the unwinding will be defined in their election manifesto with the threat that he will take his ball home if he does not get what he wants. The alternative to a Tory EU will be no EU at all.

Noting that we can’t be sure exactly what the Tory demands will be, we can still lay out the challenges for pro-Europeans in each of the three main parties.

For Conservatives, they are going to have to weigh up the demands made of the EU in their manifesto (and there will be a lot of lobbying and arguing between now and then about what those demands should be) to decide whether they are bearable. If not, or if they are so unrealistic as to be unachievable (remember, there is no guarantee that the other member states will agree to whatever it is that the Tories want), then our friends in the Conservative party are going to have to seek advice from Labour veterans of 1983. In that year, the Labour policy was to withdraw from the then EEC without a referendum: some Labour pro-Europeans left to join other parties; others clung on with the thought that their party was destined for defeat.

For Labour, the first question is what reforms of the EU it too should demand – it can’t go into the election defending the status quo – and the second is whether to propose a referendum on them. It would be a great risk to hold a referendum which had leaving the EU as an option, but a referendum which did not offer that option would not satisfy the demands of Ukip and thus would fail to keep pace with the Tory offer. (Read the arguments for, by Dan Hodges, and against, by David Clark.)

Like pro-European Tories, the Liberal Democrats will also have to study the demands laid out in the 2015 Conservative manifesto. Can they live with them? The coalition negotiations in May 2010 fairly rapidly reached agreement on what to do about Europe: as little as possible, but enough to placate the right wing. The EU Act requires referendums on future pooling of sovereignty within the EU, but the big demands of pulling out if certain EU policy areas, such as social and employment policy, were shelved. After this build-up, such demands can’t be postponed again, or the Tory party will explode. So if there is no clear winner at the next election, the Liberal Democrats will be faced with an existential choice, to side with the Tories as they did in 2010 and connive in their anti-European strategy, or to join with Labour and plot a different course.

The only people happy with what has been proposed are the members and supporters of Ukip.  A Tory victory at the next election gives them at least a partial withdrawal from the EU if not outright departure.  And the more the Tories talk excitably about what their negotiating demands will be, the harder it will be to manage their expectations when some of those demands are not met.  This new strategy of Mr Cameron’s could get horribly out of his control.

Andrea Leadsom MP, coordinator of the Fresh Start group (picture Andrea Leadsom)

If a future British government wants to renegotiate membership of the EU, the Fresh Start group of Tory MPs has published its view of what that renegotiation should achieve.  The central claim is that the EU does too much, so there are policies that should be discontinued at European level and picked up again nationally (or not, as each national government should decide).  The budget should be cut, some agencies and institutions closed down, and national vetoes should be exercised more.  (You can read the plan here http://www.eufreshstart.org/downloads/manifestoforchange.pdf)

This blog is not going to write a detailed criticism of the plans (CBIE has published such a document here http://www.britishinfluence.org/images/stories/PDFs/fscritique.doc) but there is a bigger, more fundamental point that needs to be made.

The opening demand in the Fresh Start plan is the call for “An emergency brake for any Member State regarding future EU legislation that affects financial services.”  Financial services are important to the UK and so the British should have a veto.  This is not special pleading on behalf of the UK, oh no, because everyone else should have a veto too.

But what’s this?  Financial services are picked out for this treatment because they are important to the UK, “just as the automotive industry is critical to Germany, agriculture is to France, and fishing is to Spain.”  So, policies relating to cars, food and fish should be subject to unanimity too.  That’s where this unpicking of the European Union is going.

So when the Fresh Start manifesto claims

We must maintain and expand the benefits offered by the single market, safeguarding what we already have, and developing further opportunities within and outside the EU.

it does not mean it.  The idea of trade free of tariff and non-tariff barriers is long-standing, inherent in the very idea of European integration in the first place.  It took the Single European Act to make that idea a reality because it depended on Qualified majority Voting rather than unanimity among the member states in order to make agreement on the abolition of non-tariff barriers possible.

Fresh Start also claims that

This Manifesto for Change is not about ‘cherry picking’; its goal is rather to articulate the necessary reforms that would lead to a more sustainable relationship for the UK in the EU.

which of course means that it is about cherry picking.  There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but if the authors cannot even persuade themselves, they are going to have a hard time persuading others.