The closing of transparency in the EP

One of the things that most astounds even neutral visitors to the European Parliament in plenary session is the system of voting. 

Not only are at times hundreds of votes conducted at such a trot that mistakes are made at a phenomenal rate (one only has to look at the number of vote changes made as tardy or sonambulent MEPs realise that they have voted for this or that) but more importantly the vast percentage of votes that pass by show of hands. 

What this means of course is that there is no way at all for the general public to know how their MEP voted in any given vote. Votes are not counted unless somebody complains and there is an electric count. The late, great Graham Booth had great sport pointing out the failings of this system,

 “During voting on a report by Mr. Kaczmarek on EU partnership in the Horn of Africa, amendment No. 5 was declared ‘Rejected’ by the chairman Vidal-Quadras, having assessed the show of hands ‘for’ and ‘against’ the amendment.
The call for an electronic check revealed that it had actually been APPROVED by no less than 567 votes to 17 (with 18 abstentions).
He blamed the MEPs for ‘not holding their hands high enough’!
I close my case.”

But today the Parliament surpassed itself. You see, the only way in which we can find out how MEPs have voted is if somebody calls for a Roll Call Vote. which happens less than 20% of the time. But this is too much for the Parliament, too much light let in on the majesty.

Here it is, dull isn't it?

Stanimir Ilchev - Report on amendment of Rule 48 (2) of Parliament's Rules of Procedure on own-initiative reports(2011/2168(REG))

But what it means is the following,

Request for roll call vote should only be allowed for the final vote,

Or in other words, you lot, the proles, must not know who votes for what, but only a general position.
Oh it is presented as a money saving thing, printing of all those votes, all that paper you know, in 23 languages. They have of course never heard of the ruddy internet, everything could be done digitally, and thus automatically.

But the bottom line is that this is a deliberate attempt to ensure that the citizen cannot know what his or her elected representative is up to. It is just in reference (for now) for own initiative reports that have no legislative impact. But how long before the same rule is imposed for legislative reports?

If there was to be a serious reform it should be twofold.

1. All votes should be by roll call.
2. The abolition of own initiative reports (INI Reports).

The INI report system is a redundant, superfluous thing. An appendix in the body politic of the European Union. It was useful (maybe) when the European Parliament had no power, to allow the MEPs to say what they wanted to say, but today, after the Lisbon Treaty, the Constitution redux, the Parliament has significant and growing powers. It no longer needs these self indulgent, expensive vanity projects.

Much like the EDM system in the UK, but far more expensive and irrelevant they should be abolished. After all what are they for?

When is 'illegal' 'iregular'? When the EU controls your immigration policy

Tereasa May is today telling everybody how serious the Governement is when it comes to dealing with immigration. It is a sham of course, because even she admits she and the government have no say obver migration from EU countries. With the EU becoming even more involved with foriegn policy and Justice policy the Government's room to manoevre on non-EU immigration just gets smaller.

Just yesterday the EU anounvced the creation of a visa regieme with the Ukraine, and they are setting deals with India, Moldova and others are planned. The EU still believes that it requires mass inward migration, no matter what the populations of the nations of Europe think about the matter.

In other words, Europe needs immigration to survive. Therefore, we need to find more legal ways to the EU", says Cecilia Malmström.

But here is how the arguement is being twisted by the European Union. After all people will get angry about illegal immigration. That is immigration that is not specifically accepted by the Governmenst of those nation states. So what do they do. They change the word. Non legal immigrants are no longer to be called 'illegal', far from it, now they are merely 'irregular'.

The Parliament consequently welcomes the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon and welcomes the increased parliamentary dimension of these policies, notably concerning legal migration and integration.

The European Parliament actively supports the introduction of a European immigration policy. On the admission of third-country nationals, it calls for the development of legal means, particularly to reduce incentives for irregular (1) immigration.

And the footnote?

1 Parliament prefers the term ‘irregular’ to ‘illegal’ because it does not believe that irregular entry to the territory of EU justifies the reference to illegality.

You cannot charge somebody for commiting an irregular act. You cannot deport somebody for a mere confusion with the system. Changing the owrds makes a massive difference to how a situation can be handled, and they know it.

I guess it would be irregular of me to smash them over the head with a lead pipe? Or irregular to force feed them a rolled up copy of the Bill of Rights? After all the defence of my soveriegnty, indeed fighting for self determination doesn't really justify reference to illegality does it now?

Hmm Can anybody see any links?

Monsters and Critics have a story about a major corruption scandal in Spain. Jaume Matas a Parti Polpular politician,

Matas faces up to 24 years in prison for nine corruption-related offences including embezzlement, peddling of political favours, money-laundering, bribery and falsifying documents.
Matas was environment minister from 2000 to 2003 in then-prime minister Jose Maria Aznar's conservative government.

Interesting, so I wondered what, if anything he had done at an EU level.

And what do we find? That he was the President of the EU's Environment Council which pushed through the Kyoto Protocol.

Spanish Minister of Environment Jaume Matas, as President of the Council of Ministers of Environment of the European Union, noted that "the fact that today we can come to the United Nations to announce that the European Union has fulfilled its political commitment regarding the Kyoto Protocol, is not a simple administrative act, nor is it even political. Rather, it is the expression of the conviction of the millions of citizens of the European Union that the Kyoto Protocol is the best instrument available for working together to achieve our common goal, and their commitment to it...

Minister Matas went on to say that "the European Union's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol is a clear indication that, with enough political will and collective social effort, the challenges of our time complex though they may be can be addressed successfully through instruments of multilateral cooperation".

The simultaneous ratification by the EU and its Member States shows once again that the EU is exercising leadership in addressing this global environmental problem. To this effect, the Minister called on "the international community to support a speedy entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol, without a doubt one of the most effective instruments in advancing toward the new model of development we all aspire to, a model of sustainable development".

Just the sort of chap who you would expect to be forcing through a gigantic fraud.

Blackmail

Give us your money, or we will send over our unemployed millions is the clear message from the Prime Minister of Hungary, Gyurcsany to Western Europe.

The letter which he sent to the other heads of State yesterday reads like a contribution to an economic seminar, and in those rarified climes makes perfect sense. But the EU is not a seminar and the vaguely veiled threat is all too real.

Of course the problem for the UK is that it and Ireland are the only countries that have fully opened their doors to Eastern Europe, and thus are the only ones who would have to shoulder the burden of the millions who are being left behind.

It is, however hard to criticise Gyurcsany. After all when Hungary joined the EU they were promised 'solidarity'. It was this promise that encouraged Eastern European politicians to join the EU in the fitrst place. Now, when the chips are down it becomes brutally apparent that the richer countries didn't mean a word of it. And how could they. There own economies are going into a downward spiral with staglflation round the corner and unemployment jumping skywards. Because there is no European Demos, there will be no European solution. German taxpayers will be preparede to bail out Essen, but not Budapest.

For a while last week it looked like the Germans were going to help the Irish, with both Merkle and her finance Minister making positive noises, but now that the Eastern bloc has fired this warning shot across the bows that looks like an impossibility. They cannot help Ireland, without helping Hungary, and the German economy just doesn't have the spare loot to do that.


Below is the letter

Non-paperProposal for setting-up a Multilateral European Stabilization and Integration Program (ESIP) to support CEE economies

MULTILATERAL action required to prevent a second systemic shock CAUSED BY eastern europe

Despite cautious economic policies, Eastern Europe is being affected disproportionately by the global financial and economic crisis:

With only a few exceptions, economic policies in CEE have been conservative, e.g.: large national bank reserves; high compulsory bank solvency ratios; large-scale privatizations, including in the banking sector; relatively low public debt; low budget deficits

Open capital accounts, integration with the EU, and excessive global liquidity have led to an exceptionally large flow of funds to the region:1 EUR ~700 bn in international loans outstanding, and even larger amounts of cumulative foreign direct investment. This veritable tidal wave of money has been the main reason for the region’s low savings rates, large current account deficits (especially in South-East Europe, the Baltic states, and Ukraine), asset price bubbles, and substantial balance sheet risks in case of devaluation. These conservative economic policies in most CEE countries have led to a longer-than-usual maturity structure for these flows (e.g., intra-group and long-term debt)
Long-term investments and funding in Eastern Europe have led to significant acceleration of economic integration with the EU. However, the resulting high export quota2 has created a sensitive dependency on the EU, which is becoming particularly apparent in the current recessionary environment.

Failure to act could cause a second round of systemic meltdowns that would mainly hit Eurozone economies:

Central Europe’s (re)financing needs in 2009 could total EUR ~300 bn (~30% of the region’s GDP). Partial failure to refinance could lead to massive contractions in economic activity and large-scale defaults

A major crisis in Eastern Europe would have global systemic effects:

A 10% default rate on the Eastern European external loan book (at the lower range of previous emerging market crises) would put significant further strain on the solvency of the European banking sector; the capital impact would be at least EUR ~100 bn, or ~10% of European banks’ cumulative tier-1 capital

A 30% drop in the region’s imports would reduce global turnover byEUR ~150 bn and European GDP by ~ 1%

A significant economic crisis in Eastern Europe would trigger political tensions and immigration pressures (with a CEE population of ~350 million, of which 100 million are in the EU, a 10% increase in unemployment would lead to at least 5 million additional unemployed people within the EU).

Despite clear vulnerabilities, no effective stimulus or rescue package has been put in place so far, mainly due to an exceptionally complex stakeholder situation:

Financial intervention (e.g., liquidity provisions, interest rate cuts, capital increases) is largely ineffective:

A few Western European banking groups (domiciled primarily in Austria, Italy, and Greece) have accumulated most of the foreign debt exposure to the region. These groups are currently aggressively deleveraging their subsidiaries, as their central balance sheets are vulnerable3
Interest rate cuts and liquidity provisions could lead to capital flight and currency devaluations, further aggravating the balance sheet situation

National governments, whether in CEE or Western Europe, are struggling to find an angle to tackle European banking groups’ exposure across the region as a whole

Local governments cannot independently launch economic stimulus programs because of the high capital flight risk in the event of large budget deficits or reduced national reserves.
A COMPREHENSIVE multilateral EUROPEAN Stabilization and Integration Program (ESIP) should be LAUNCHED

Despite the challenges mentioned above, we strongly believe in the economic strength of the region and its prospects within the European economic system. In an effort to forestall possible grave economic impact, we are proposing to design and launch a European Stabilization and Integration Program (ESIP), with the following objectives:

Rebuild trust, by implementing support programs tailored to each country, but coordinated in a single transparent framework

Enable a sustainable integration trajectory by offering faster integration with the Eurozone to countries successfully implementing the program, while repairing excessive imbalances and strengthening productivity growth

Ensure transparency and ongoing oversight.

We would consider the following design principles to be critical when establishing the cornerstones of the ESIP:

Maximum economic and social impact. The financial resources activated should target areas of economic activity that will provide the highest economic multiplier (through increases in GDP) as well as positive social impact, with the lowest cross-the-cycle net cost

Fairness and equitability. The distribution of financial resources should be based on objective criteria, and the upside should be shared with fund providers

Transparency and accountability. The initial distribution of funds must be followed by strict control of secondary disbursements by local governments and financial institutions to ensure real impact

Minimal moral hazard. Shareholders and governments should bear the consequences of their own past decisions. This is especially important in the today’s very diverse situation of both individual banks (banking groups) and national economies. More prudent players should not be levied the same costs as bigger risk takers. Economically and financially more stable countries should not carry the same costs as countries with riskier and more unbalanced economic policies in the recent past.

Market driven. Secondary disbursements must be driven by market forces in the respective CEE economies, not by local political objectives.

The main elements of the proposed program are:
1) Establish an ESIP Recovery and Solvency Framework to boost solvency and remove non-performing loans from the CEE banking sector while facilitating effective recovery
2) Establish an ESIP Fund to provide emergency liquidity and capital to the banking system. The funding would come from the IMF, the World Bank, and EU institutions (including the ECB and the EBRD/EIB), with their roles clearly split
3) Establish an ESIP Multi-Year Stabilization Plan to reduce imbalances, including a clear and aggressive timetable for Euro adoption in EU and candidate countries and FX debt risk reduction in other countries.

1) Establish a robust ESIP Recovery and Solvency Framework
The ESIP Recovery and Solvency Framework would regulate four key areas, with the objective of establishing a sound legal basis for strengthening the financial sector as well as corporate and household balance sheets:

Strengthen collateral recovery and bank insolvency legislation in each country (accelerate and simplify procedures)

Establish “bad bank” legislation in each country to allow non-performing loans to be quickly segregated

Establish a coordinated debt restructuring framework (a “Super Chapter 11”) to enable private borrowers which are solvent but illiquid to reschedule their debt

Deploy tighter bank regulations ensuring, e.g., strengthened insolvency limits and increased reserve levels for FX lending.

2) Establish an ESIP Fund of EUR 160-190 bn
The ESIP Fund would act on four key areas, with the objective of strengthening the financial sector and providing solvent borrowers with access to liquidity:

Provide emergency liquidity of approximately EUR 50-60 bn4 (e.g., contingent credit lines or swaps, facilitated by the ECB and the IMF in the most challenging situations):

To CEE central banks, requiring structural economic adjustments in the most imbalanced economies and pricing in the additional country risk (albeit at lower rates and longer maturities than current market conditions provide)

To Western European banks heavily exposed to the region, but only if country exposures are clearly separated and if coupled with capital injections

Support coordinated debt rescheduling of approximately EUR 1.5 bn,5 funded partially by the ESIP:

Under the plan for private debt, the maturity would be lengthened and the interest rate and/or FX rates would be brought below market rates. This plan would be funded by the borrowers (mainly through extensions of terms), the banks (by accepting lower margins), and the ESIP (through providing long-term liquidity). The implementation of the plan could include a large-scale swap from FX to local currency loans (structured to eliminate FX rate impact) to reduce further FX exposure, mainly in non-EU countries

The public debt of selected countries should be restructured along the same lines, as needed on a case-by-case basis

Provide capital injections to restructured banks (e.g., with the EBRD in the lead) of approximately EUR 35-45 bn:6

To Western European banks, but only if country exposures are separated and if pre-specified trigger criteria are met (in conjunction with liquidity provisions)

To CEE banks, together with their respective national banks (international involvement in the capital would reduce domestic political pressures for un-economic lending)

To newly established bad banks, but only in return for equity in “clean” banks

Provide guarantees and/or liquidity to support the real economy, including:

Enhancing the region’s ability to export (e.g., with the World Bank in the lead), entailing approximately EUR 35 bn7 in trade finance

Channeling money to economic areas that are enduring the highest impact, in particular the infrastructure and SME sectors, entailing approximately EUR 40-50 bn or 3-4% of GDP
Ensuring the extension of parent banks’ credit lines to their subsidiaries.

3) Establish an ESIP Multi-Year Stabilization Plan
The stabilization framework for EU and EU candidate countries should be based on a clear, aggressive timeframe for Euro adoption (because CEE countries are structurally tightly linked to the Eurozone economy, failing to anchor them quickly to the Euro would perpetuate the current systemic instability). This would motivate concomitant political action in CEE (as EU accession has done) and strengthen the trust of international investors. The plan should be based on:
More stringent criteria vis-à-vis Maastricht, especially via incentives to increase the savings rate (structurally reducing the need for external investment funding)

Unlocking EU structural funds for rapid spending (including on larger and more targeted projects). The lower EU requirements, control, and oversight would be mitigated by the strong involvement of the ESIP in structuring and disbursing funds

Required legal reforms and meaningful initiatives to fight corruption.

Governance
The IMF and EU bodies (i.e., the ECB, EBRD, EIB, and EU governments) would fund the above-described program. The responsibility for specific elements should be allocated based on the current institutional framework and relevant skill sets to ensure swift program implementation. A possible solution might be:

The Recovery and Solvency Framework could be designed by the European Commission, based on input from the IMF

The IMF could directly fund and/or coordinate the liquidity programs and debt rescheduling framework at the national bank/governmental level

The EBRD/EIB could be responsible for capital injections into banking groups

The World Bank could be responsible for the trade finance liquidity program

The European Commission could be responsible for designing and enforcing the Multi-Year Stabilization Plan.

Oversight of the overall coordination and implementation should be provided by an ESIP Supervisory entity representing the key stakeholders providing funds. The ESIP program would be driven by a simplified ESIP Board directly coordinating with the national governments and banking groups within the overall framework.

1 Numbers in this paper refer to CEE-10 EU members plus Croatia and Ukraine.
2 Exports as a percentage of GDP. This ratio exceeds 50% for the region (80%+ in some Central European economies).
3 Due to excessive short-term funding and low capital buffers, caused by the central booking of loans to avoid the high capital ratios required at the subsidiary level.
4 25-30% of short-term gross external debt. If intercompany loans are included, the amount would be EUR 75-90 bn.
5 30% of high-risk FX and 10% of domestic assets rolled over at an overall cost of 15%, with ESIP supporting 1/3 of the cost (the rest would be internalized by banks through lower margins and by ultimate borrowers through longer maturities).
6 4-5% of total banking assets (EUR 875 bn) in the region, assuming a 10% average NPL hit with a 50% recovery ratio and current capitalization above the regulatory minimum.
7 5% of exports.

Har tip, the new UKIP blog

Oh good God

Picture the scene,

The big day has finally arrived. The house has been scrubbed and decorated. The whole family is here. Mum and dad have finally been able to take some time off. And they're out in the kitchen, making sure that everything is just right. Dinner's bubbling away on the stove, and the kids are tearing into their presents while grandma and grandpa – fresh in from Spain for the event – look on fondly.

Gosh don't your cockles just simmer with delight? And how does this paradigm of the perfect existance occur?

You wouldn't know it, but the EU helps make happy, festive scenes like this possible.

Surprise!!! Please pass the sick bucket , somebody

Hat Tip
Open Europe

Everybody be cool! This is a robbery.

News just in

The ING bank in the Spaak building of the European Parliament has just been robbed. Apparently somebody just walked through security, wandered uinto the bank, threatened the staff (with what we do not know) demanded they hand over the cash. The cashier did. The thief then calmly picked it up and walked out off the building.

The Parliament security then dashed round the PHS building demanding that everybody lock themselves into their offices.

Me I think it was Tom Wise or Giles Chichester getting lost on their way to the expenses office, but I could be wrong.

Nigel Farage's response was this,

"Though delighted to hear that nobody was hurt during today's robbery, I suppose the Parliament might now understand how the British people feel".

He went on, "A day after the who EU institutional structure got excited about the prospect of long-legged blonde haired 'Mata Hari's' wandering around the place, a real live crime happened under its very nose. It really doesn't say much for the security system now does it?"

Update

EU Observer is reporting that the felon was wearing a wig and makeup... Nah, I reckon it was a chicken suit

How far can a politician crawl up his own fundament

Apparently all the way. I give you perhaps the most self serving, deluded piece of 'Gosh. Aren't I wonderful' drivel that I have seen in all my time in Brussels. It even beats Nirj's "I survived the Tsunami, so don't worry", presser from a few years back.

Here is the Slovenian EPP MEP, Alojze Peterle and his extraordinary invitation.

Dear colleagues and friends,

At your request, I am going to give a lecture about my recent fasting for a whole month. I have abstained from food and drinks (except for water and fresh orange juice) for the whole month of January 2009.

I would like to share with you my reasons for fasting, the method I used and the results I have achieved from it.

I consider the decision to fast as the best one I have made so far this year. I feel that this experience has given me the important energy and strength I need for the looming European election campaign.

With pleasure, I would like to invite you to my presentation about fasting, on the 18th of February 2009, from 8am to 9am, room: ASP 5H-1.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

With kind regards,

Lojze Peterle MEP
(EPP-ED)

P.S. I kindly ask you to reply to: blocked::mailto:alojz.peterle-assistant3@europarl.europa.eu if you wish to participate.

Alojz PETERLE MEP (EPP-ED)
European Parliament

ASP 5F366
Rue Wiertz 60
B-1047 Brussels
Belgium

Tel: +32 (0)2 28 45638
Fax: +32 (0)2 28 49638
E-mail: blocked::mailto:alojz.peterle@europarl.europa.eu

I would love to know who actually asked him to do this, and whether they were joking.

Madoff for it

Now here's a funny thing. At the Parliament's Bureau meeting on the 12th january, in the Huis Clos/In Camera section of the meeting this little item cropped up

16. Observation on the voluntary pension fund
The Bureau
- heard an intervention from Mr ONESTA, Vice-President, concerning the voluntary
pension fund and the possible impact on that fund of the 'Madoff' financial fraud case in the United States.

I wonder what that is all about. After all the MEP pension scheme is shall we say the source of some controversy already, and it just wouldn't do to think that the poor dears are going to be blown out by their investment policy. But that is alright, last time their was a hole in their bucket they filled it with a convienient unused part of EU cash (er tax payers cash).

Does this get the European Parliament's 2009 Sycophancy Prize?

Yes it is that time again when journalists from around the Continent are convinced of the need to right magnificent copy about how wonderful the Parliament is on the promise of 5,000 euro and a bauble to put on their mantleshelf.

But this year an early favourite must be the Parliament's own internal online newskletter, Newshound by this quite magnificent piece of drivel,

Meeting the Euro in Strasbourg
A Euro perfume was in the air last week at the first session of 2009. Have you ever smelled the Euro? It carries the sweet smell of success; it is the buoy that now protects a Europe deep into a financial and economic crisis. The Euro is a European baby born naturally with a struggle ten years ago - a strong symbol of Europe which, among others, helps keep the European inflation rate at around 2%. The young Euro is behaving well!

But that was not a foregone conclusion. Born amid huge scepticism but regarded as a necessity, its success today is quite solid. A European currency that can remain stable and come second in the world’s currency league is no mean feat! And the Euro has sold well over the past decade. Ten countries adopted it at the outset, now there are 16 of them!

Could it be that even the British are wavering? At any rate Richard Corbett from the PSE noted at his press conference on Tuesday, 13 January:
"Perhaps against all odds, Britain is talking about joining the Euro. Some of our politicians have started to draw attention to the economic cost of being outside the eurozone."

He went on to explain the disadvantage of the current situation for Britain. "Firstly, we lose on the currency conversions and on the hedging costs (insurance taken against radical exchange rate variations) in our commercial exchanges. Secondly, we don't attract foreign non-EU companies to establish in the UK as we are not located in the main EU currency zone."
His conclusion: "Provided the economics are right, I believe we should join the
euro."

That explains why everyone was talking about the Euro in the corridors of the EP last week. They celebrated its birthday with great pomp and circumstance at a plenary sitting in the presence of its many parents; then there was a seminar on its role in the current economic and financial crisis, duly attended by your humble Newshound reporter who did not entirely understand the learned words of the specialist press about market trends.

Finally, on Tuesday evening, President Pöttering invited the Euro’s family to a dinner held at the renowned Strasbourg restaurant the Palais des Rohan. Alas, despite my
best efforts to convince the organisers of my love for the Euro and my relationship with it, I was not invited to sample the Alsatian specialities under silver cloches.

As a consolation, I met the Euro in the canteen, on my place mat, on posters, at the European Central Bank exhibition and at the exhibition by a French university lecturer on the cultural game she has created, in which the Euro is the hero.

So I have to say, despite the rather gloomy mood engendered by the financial crisis and the gas and Gaza crises, happy birthday and, as a schoolboy might conclude his essay, long live the Euro!

Give the guy a banana.