If you are
after insider understanding of the current direction of EU policy, look no
further than the statements issued from the Commission. If you are after deeper
aspiration and intent, review the words of the Commissioners themselves.

It’s in
this context that our eyes are drawn to
a speech President Barroso delivered a month ago, to a room packed with
Jean Monnet professors flown in from all over the world – but more on that
issue on another occasion. Their presence encouraged Mr Barroso to talk briefly
about the role of the Bureau
of European Policy Advisers, a little-appreciated inner clique that looks
at some of the most fundamental ‘big think’ directional issues. Given the
interest in the media about David Cameron’s newly appointed Special Advisers,
it seems remarkable that there is such a lack of awareness about their
counterparts at the heart of the government at Brussels. (I’ll leave you to
look at the membership, where even a cursory review throws up several names of
Euro-groupies and Usual Suspects.)

But back to
direction. Barroso’s speech was an important pointer to how the Commission
thinks in the current climate.

Was Lisbon
so inoffensive in retrospect? Well, Mr Barroso certainly underlines its
importance;

It comes as a surprise to me that some
have interpreted the Lisbon Treaty as a defeat for the community method, as a
victory for intergovernmentalism.

Nothing could be further from the
truth.

If you look at the Treaty, its letter,
and its spirit, you will see that what there is more community method, not
less. The Treaty of Lisbon reinforces the European project. It reinforces
Europe's institutions – all the institutions. It provides greater coherence,
effectiveness and legitimacy to our decisions.

Nearly all legislation is now adopted
by co-decision, with a significant expansion in qualified majority voting –
especially in the field of justice and home affairs, for instance. So how can
someone say that the qualified majority voting as a rule means more
intergovernmentalism and less community method? How can anyone suggest that the
increased role of the European Parliament, the institution directly elected by
the European citizens means more intergovernmentalism and less community
method? The competences of the Commission have also been acknowledged and
reinforced, including its near monopoly on legislative initiative and its
executive functions. It gains new competences, notably in the areas of economic
and monetary union and external relations.

And we
wonder at whether we should dare redeem the pledge of a Lisbon referendum over
here in Britain! In the light of this speech, the answer is self-evident.

The issue
won’t go away. Contrary to what we may have been told in the UK, the Commission
is on the rampage again;

And far from being a high
water mark in the construction of Europe, the Lisbon Treaty – like past
treaties – is proving to be just the latest staging post in an ever closer
union.

The speech
has more besides, including a pledge to increase the Jean Monnet programme, and
accelerate economic union in the face of disaster. Review it now. As speeches
go, this is straight from the horse’s mouth.

One of the big dilemmas on immigration is how to manage its accompanying costs to taxpayers. It is genuinely the case that the right kind of migration – i.e. people with the right skills in the right numbers to the right places – can be of economic benefit to the British economy as well as to the migrants themselves.

However, it is also undeniable that migrants can place extra costs on taxpayers by placing an extra capacity burden on public services. How to avoid the problem of resident UK taxpayers having to pick up  the bill for new and recent arrivals using the NHS and so on?

The Government are apparently considering a possible solution – requiring the firms who employ migrants from outside the EU to provide health insurance for them.

This would be an improvement, shifting the burden of healthcare for migrants from taxpayers to the firms who directly benefit from their presence in the UK. Obviously, there are foreseeable difficulties in enforcing such a policy, just as there are in enforcing current immigration laws (see Baroness Scotland's cleaner troubles) or current requirements for car insurance.

However, the general thrust of the policy seems pretty good – with one notable flaw. Due to the handover of powers to Brussels, the restriction will only apply to non-EU migrants, neglecting the costs of providing services for all those from the EU.

It is good news that the Government are acknowledging this issue and public concern about it, but unless they face up to the loss of sovereignty to the EU then they are only ever going to be able to half deal with it.

There seems
to be some confusion over whether British eggs are under threat – or at least
the practise of selling them by the half dozen. Is the EU really planning
to ban it?

In a nutshell,
it is happening, and chances are it won’t.

There is
legislation in the pipeline; the mechanics are set out succinctly here.

There is also
an established track record. Notwithstanding the Commission’s favourite list of
so-called “Euromyths”, there has been EU-level legislation on the permitted curvature
of bananas, cucumbers, and even leeks. Harmonisation of volume, shape and scale
is seen as an obvious adjunct to the Single Market, rather than as a marker of
national identity or a familiar tool to the individual.

On the
other hand, the measure is obviously controversial, and has yet to be signed
off.

The basic
constant is that the earlier the public becomes aware of some outrageous
proposal, the easier it is for governments to block it – or indeed for the
Commission to realise measures have gone a step too far. The final shape of much
of the legislation that has previously featured in the pages of the Express, Mail or Sun has the
contentious clauses dropped in the end precisely because of the level of scandal
raised.

I rather
doubt that the familiar egg pack will now be under threat, at least for another
few years (these things are cyclical). The journalists have done us a service.
But you can bet your bottom dollar that the proposed loss of the familiar egg
carton will now join the list of “Euromyths”; embarrassments that in truth were
near-misses, had we not had such attentive MEPs, staff and journalists on the
job.

People are understandably furious about the rise in VAT.

Every cloud has a silver lining, even if this one is a slender filament in a twister. There is to be no extension, no new VAT introduced.

VAT, lest we forget, is essentially an EU tax.

It adheres to the principles of ever-closer union. Once introduced, it cannot be completely removed and becomes a political albatross for future ministers, as Norman Lamont found to his cost.

By not walloping it on those few items from which Britain is currently exempt, the UK continues to enjoy its opt out. It is consequently a bounded and beleaguered liberty. Had VAT been thrust on children’s clothing, or books, or food, or newspapers today, we would have been stuck with it for good. A future Chancellor trying to completely remove it would have been prevented under EU rules, and he would have been in the same boat as anyone trying to curtail costs for, say, repairs to a church roof – an expense now permanently stuck with a major VAT surcharge. Other examples include art sales, energy saving materials, bridge tolls, fuel, and heritage repair, and you can see a regular host of contested cases every year ready to add to the list.

The most illuminating example was probably when ministers forgot to add the VAT bill to the costs of the Olympics.

We may have ducked out of this round of measures pushing towards an economic government for the Eurozone, but the harmonisation battle underlying it is ongoing year on year.

Jean-Claude
Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank, is quoted as saying of the
Eurozone crisis that it is "the most difficult situation since the Second
World War, and perhaps the First". Coming from a Frenchman, to suggest the
disastrous state of the Euro might surpass the Fall of France does lend some
drama.

Meanwhile, we
also read through an ingenious piece of research in today’s Telegraph
that the gravy train is alive and well in the EU. Someone has sat down and done
the sums based on known civil service pay bands. “After tax relief and generous
perks are taken into account,” the paper suggests of senior EU officials, “it
is likely that over 2,000 officials are earning more than Mr Cameron.”

Statistically,
that is likely to include around 200 Brits on the EU payroll. In an age of public sector austerity, that is an
obscene figure.

As we ponder the
impact of expected cost-cutting in tomorrow’s Budget statement, we would do
well to consider that taxpayers’ money could be saved not just domestically,
but also via a massive shake up of Brussels. Nor should it ever be taboo to
reflect on changing the terms of our formal relationship with the European
Union. It’s just not value for money, and Britain should not be forever in Brussels’
debt – quite literally.

The
official text of the Conclusions from the European Council are now
out. The Downing Street spinmeisters have been pushing their side of the
story hard. The matter of Government revealing its Budget to Parliament first and
not to Brussels is supposedly won.  But
has it all gone Britain’s way?

The
backdrop of course has been the EU’s convoluted and costly reaction to the
Greek meltdown, explored in some depth by this
helpful analysis. In response, the Council yesterday adopted “Europe 2020,
our new strategy for jobs and smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”. This is
no sparklingly frisky innovation. Brussels has been peddling the concept of
EU-generated growth since at least the Lisbon Process a decade
ago. The prospect of another ten years of quasi-central planning of a continent’s
worth of economies is not a positive achievement, especially now that ‘innovation’
and ‘energy policies’ are going to be the focus for future planning. So too
will the reform of pensions systems. The Stability and Growth Pact will be made
up of a “progressive” system, “ensuring a level playing field across Member
States”: the ambiguity here is also a cause of concern.

The UK does
not get a magic Get Out of Jail Free card. “We fully agree on the urgent need
to reinforce the coordination of our economic policies,” runs the text. The “our”
is not limited to the Eurozone countries.

What about
the issue of taking the Budget to Parliament for approval? The text does indeed
include the proviso that it should run “according to their national
decision-making procedures”. Praise where praise is due: there is a small
victory there, but it is a cheap one. The prospect of formally submitting the
budget to Brussels before the House of Commons was so outrageous it would have
been a suicidally crass and insensitive Commission and Council to have pushed a
new British Government to accept it. I suspected earlier this week this was being
pushed by someone in the Whitehall press office as a pre-set negotiating
victory before the Council meeting even began; that suspicion lingers today. Whitehall’s
use of straw men victories is just too engrained.

What still can happen, however, is for
informal agreements between the Treasury and the Commission to be made
beforehand. Targets officially have to be finalised “in close dialogue with the
Commission” and set out in “National Reform Programmes”. Progress is regularly
reviewed. The ballpark can still be agreed in advance of the Budget Debate. But
then, federal systems are all about devolving ledger book decisions once the
big sums have been agreed. Cameron has his victory, but the integrationists
have not lost either.

What really
emerges from this set of Conclusions is a sense of deferment. A task force and
the Commission will review all the economic provisions of the agreement and
interpret what they actually mean by October 2010. The “level playing field”
aspect will be subject to a separate review also reporting in October. So, much
of what has been agreed hasn’t actually been agreed yet … a lot rests on how
effectively the FCO fight their corner beyond the media spotlight.

The next
Council meeting will focus heavily on climate change. In that context, an
observation by today’s Independent
 proves a little troubling. It observed
with respect to one part of the release,

Mr Cameron had no real
trouble signing the agreement on better European co-ordination on bank
regulation and reducing budget deficits. This agenda actually suits Mr Cameron
nicely. A pan-European levy on banks will help lessen domestic resistance to
his own planned levy.

That editorial
view is a somewhat cynical one; that Ministers appreciate the cover that EU-level
agreements can bring as it provides someone else they can blame.
Well, that’s certainly been a recognised aspect of these meetings in the past.
It’s too early to say if that will be a feature of the current government, but
in an area that carries price tags of many billions and the risk of causing
real harm to business, the prospect of such an approach come December is an
area of concern.

So much for
yesterday. The krypto-IGC is next, involving the Permanent
Representations of the national governments. The rational
for not holding a full process is that the changes are supposedly minor,
and that only a “technical IGC” is taking place. The real reason for downplaying
the treaty change is to avoid both a Convention and a set of referenda. We’ll
review this whitewash when we get the conclusions.

The pre-budget
forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility confirms some shocking
news on the EU front (see page 51). We knew the UK’s ‘contributions’ were going
up; we knew that Tony Blair’s deal surrendering part of the British Rebate was
a rum deal; but now we have confirmation on just how rotten it was. 

The
forecast for the UK’s payments over 2010-11 has been increased by £700 million
from the March Budget, to a net (not gross) payment of £8.3 billion.

The 2014-15
payments are officially and openly estimated now to run at £10.3 billion.

With
figures like these at play, Tony Blair should be turfed out on his ear if he
ever turns up asking for a peerage.

The
analysis notes that forecasts beyond 2012 are particularly uncertain, as “negotiation
for the budget envelope for 2014-2020 has not yet begun.” Talks may not have
started, but the bottom line is self-evident; Britain is paying a ludicrous sum
into the EU budget, especially in a time of national belt tightening. We want
our taxpayers’ money back!

On Tuesday
in the Lords, peers again challenged the Government on the legal basis of the
bail out of the Eurozone. By what legal right under the treaties was this
taking place?

The
response was quite remarkable. While we have exchanged one party in power
for two, it seems the Treasury stance is immutable.

Article 125
of course is the much-referenced treaty clause that prevents one state from
bailing out another. The minister confirmed this interpretation. However, the
billions of Pounds despatched or pledged to Athens through the EU did not
constitute a bail out; it was merely a loan – and loans weren’t illegal!

A couple of
other responses jarred. The Government tried to hide behind a UK share of €8
billion to the bail out through EU structures, whereas sum liabilities may actually
run closer to £9.6 billion. The minister further turned down the opportunity of
estimating how much EU membership costs and benefits ran to. 

Despite
prodding from Lord Waddington, the minister also declined to provide a figure
for the bill had the UK actually joined the Eurozone. From the figures suggested
it looks as if it might have run to another €60 billion. No wonder nobody
popped up to apologise ever crazily advocating that we ditch the Pound.

The imminent
IGC will be a cauldron of activity over taxpayers’ money. We can expect a lot
of banter over spending on the CAP; the economy as the backdrop to the Eurozone
crisis; budgetary reforms and the UK Rebate; and a barrel of other billion Euro
issues.

The draft
agenda is still a few days off from release. One thing we can predict will
feature will be the next phase of the development of the European
Diplomatic Corps.

That will
likely take the form of a ferocious debate on partitioning the goodies
associated with it. As the excellent EU
Observer website points out, in this instance that means a mooted Euro-diplomat
college.

If I had to
put money on it, I’d chance a fiver on either Prague or Tallinn, though if
Bratislava, Sofia or Bucharest gets it instead, the planners are afraid of a
posting that might turn the budding Euro-Caruthers into supporters of the
nation state.

We have
explored elsewhere the
history of Euro-diplomacy. But the prospect of a separate training centre is
yet another step (quite possibly an expensive one) in the creation of the new
federal establishment, whose purpose is the generation of a new elite whose
loyalty is to the centre.

This simply
confirms an already identified trend. First it’s not happening; then it is not
something to be concerned about; then it’s something we can do nothing about;
then it’s inevitable that something must follow on and it’s no use making a
fuss as the argument has already been conceded.

An EU Diplomatic
Training College would be a waste of money and send the wrong political message
to staff about the continent they are serving. It will be money spent duplicating existing resources as a
stepping stone of integration. Let’s hope it gets the veto treatment.

Yesterday’s Hansard
contains the text of Parliament’s first debate on the EU. It’s an informative read on many
levels – and quite a fun one as politics goes.

Let’s put to one side one or two oily backbench contributions;
these affairs always contain a couple of speeches so brazenly fused to the
party line that they discredit both the speaker and his audience.

We'll begin instead with William Hague’s contribution. At
one point, the Foreign Secretary admitted that the Government recognized a huge
level of public dissatisfaction with EU membership (albeit in the context of
his predecessors in post);

We are agreed that there is a profound disconnection between the
British people and what has been done in their name by British Governments in
the European Union. In the past 13 years under the Labour Government, the
percentage of the British public who believe that our membership of the EU is a
good thing has, according to surveys, fallen to 31%. That is the previous
Government's legacy on Europe: public disenchantment after years of arrogance
from Ministers, who did not listen to the people.

This is the first candid admission seen from Whitehall in a
long time. It’s also rather relevant in any debate over renegotiation, referenda,
and transparency.

Also of note in his speech was the first inkling of new
procedural changes on how the UK processes EU legislation;

In all but the most exceptional cases, that means that we will not
opt-in to any new measure in the first eight weeks following its publication,
to give Parliament time to give a considered opinion.

There was talk of such procedural delays as far back as 1996 and subsequently
during the Treaty of Amsterdam, though it never happened in practice (in part blamed to 'translation issues', and late delivery of texts). We’ll see
if it turns out better this time. We can meanwhile expect more to follow on how
the scrutiny committees explore new legislation, how the full Commons can pull
key items for full debate, and some heady debate on scrutiny reservations.
Well, it’s not a Commons veto, but transparency is a start.

Then there was Bill Cash’s persistent needling of several
speakers;

Mr Cash: In
the context of what the right hon. Gentleman has just said, will he concede
what Lord Mandelson said about the extent of over-regulation that comes from
European directives and the like, which is that 4% of the European Union's GDP
is absorbed in unnecessary and burdensome regulation? That is the real reason
why the eurozone is imploding.

4% of the EU’s GDP comes to about 580 billion US Dollars,
which takes us back to the need to have a full official investigation of the
costs and benefits of Britain’s EU membership.

The Lib Dem main contribution came from Simon Hughes. Of particular
note given his emerging backbench significance was this admission;

I do not oppose the considering the
repatriation of some powers – it depends on the power.
I do not take the view that we should only ever have one-way traffic of power
from member states to the European Union, but we have to be careful that we
make the right judgment.

While bearing a huge caveat, this does leave a yawning door
for the IGC if the Hague team can identify areas where both Liberal Democrats
and Conservatives can agree is best taken away from Brussels, especially if
they can subsequently be administered on a local level. A warning bell for the
coalition, however, sounds with this comment;

The Liberal Democrats made it clear that we need Europe to ensure that
we deal with criminals better, and the European arrest warrant and other
mechanisms are important parts of a wider European collaboration.

This confirms our past observations on JHA as a coalition bear
trap under the Stockholm Process.

Two other contributions deserve reading in full online. Gisela
Stuart always speaks from a position of immense experience. Newcomer and
self-styled Commons “pup” Chris Heaton-Harris also brings expertise from his
time as a sceptic MEP, and an example of his insider knowledge is worth
repeating here;

Six years ago, as a Member of the European Parliament, I went to a
meeting where I was advised that the External Action Service-which we commented
on earlier today-was simply not going to happen. On the way to that meeting, I
met a friend of mine who had just had a job interview for a position with that
External Action Service. I told the gentleman from the Foreign Office who had
told me that the service would not happen, that I had this friend and that jobs
were available, and he said that no, he must have got that absolutely wrong.
For years, those who now sit on the Opposition Benches have said that there
would be no such thing-that it would not happen-and now we have a full-blown
External Action Service. We are going to have European Commission offices acting
like embassies across the globe, diminishing the role of those of member
states.

All in all, it makes up a parliamentary debate worth
reading, and suggests a quality debate in the offing come the IGC in two weeks’
time.

Roger Helmer MEP (Conservative, East Midlands) has used his blog to give an insight into his current European Parliament trip to South Korea.

It's in part a defence against accusations (from ourselves and others) that these trips often amount to taxpayer-funded jollies.

We still think many of these trips are unjustified and that plenty of others could be done at better value, but we certainly welcome what Roger has done. It's nice to actually see a politician tell the public what they've been up to, outside election time.

If these trips are to continue, then this is the way for MEPs to deal with them – by actually telling the public what they did, what happened and what we got for our money. It should be a fundamental part of going on a taxpayer-funded trip that you should either blog about it when you're there or put a little account online afterwards.

Lies, so they say, are more convincing if there is a little bit of truth buried within them. A bit of news from Brussels yesterday suggests this is a maxim that is taken seriously by the EU's leadership.

The European Union has never been known for its honesty, but I suppose from time to time a fact becomes so clear and undeniable that even they have to admit it – or at least incorporate it into their wider narrative one way or another.

The most undeniable truth of all at the moment is that the Euro is in big trouble – economically, politically and crucially in terms of public confidence (particularly amongst German voters). With riots wracking Greece, the varied economies of the Eurozone suffering from a currency which is unsuited to either the prosperous north or the struggling south and international markets getting distinctly wobbly, even Herman van Rompuy could no longer pretend everything was entirely perfect.

So the EU's President evidently decided he had to acknowledge that something was up with the Euro – and at least try to provide some explanation of why the public are so angry at the huge sums being guaranteed in bailouts.

The reason for all this popular disquiet, Mr van Rompuy argued, was that the public were ignorant of the connotations of the Euro. It's the traditional pro-EU excuse for everything – "The people are only unhappy because they are stupid."

Of course, even he couldn't get away with just blaming the people entirely. He was gracious enough to concede that perhaps pro-Euro politicians hadn't made clear all of the potential negative effects of the single currency:

But this isn't entirely true. It's certainly the case that people like Mr van Rompuy, and his predecessors as cheerleaders for European integration never told the public about the risk they were taking on by joining the Euro. However, it's utterly untrue to say "nobody" ever warned them.

All sorts of campaigners against the Euro warned repeatedly that this could happen – from Business for Sterling and William Hague, to journalists in many countries and individual campaigners across the continent. There were plenty of people who were making that case.

The real sin of the pro-EU lobby was not that they simply failed or forgot to express those concerns – which time has shown to be entirely accurate – but that they actually went out of their way to try to discredit them as lies.

This is why Mr van Rompuy's weak shrug of the shoulders is not good enough. He and his ilk didn't – as he is claiming – commit a sin of omission by staying silent on the risks of Euro membership, they actively worked to undermine those who were raising legitimate concerns and lied to the peoples of Europe by claiming sceptics were wrong.

As a new report from Open Europe documents, even as late as a couple of months ago they were doing the rounds denying that these bailouts could happen.

Here's Angela Merkel on 1st March 2010:

and here's European Central Bank Board Member Ewald Nowotny last year:

but surely we could trust the word of the then EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Joaquín Almunia, back in January of this year? Couldn't we?

Ah.

So there it is, Herman. It's not that no-one told the people the full truth, it's that a lot of politicians actively told them lies. Lying about that as well won't make things any better.