Memorandum by Mr Timothy Kirkhope MEP
(Submitted in a personal capacity)
1. Although much of this paper highlights a
number of shortcomings of the APS and the areas in which it could
be improved, I should stress that I am supportive of Jose Manuel
Barroso as President of the Commission. His priorities as President,
with the important exception of stress placed on reviving the
Constitution, are in general terms, the right ones. A strong emphasis
on less and better regulation, focus on more effective delivery
of results and a high priority given to economic reform and strong
but practical environmental protection are hallmarks of his term
as Commission President and this is welcome. It is certainly the
case that this Commission is a vast improvement on its predecessor.
2. Overall, the 2008 APS document stresses several
of the right priorities but also contains a significant number
of significant failings. On the positive side, it restates the
Commission's commitment to a reform agenda, which is welcome,
both for 2008 and, hopefully, as an indication of a longer term
direction of travel for the Commission. On the other hand, it
is disappointing that the Commission's commitment to the better
regulation agenda and to progressing the Doha round of trade talks
are not given greater emphasis, and there are serious concerns
over the Globalisation Adjustment Fund and the Institute of Technology.
Both are expensive projects of highly questionable and unproven
value, and both raise significant questions with regards to subsidiarity
and proportionality. I wholly endorse the conclusions of the interim
report of Sub-Committee G on the EIT. The Globalisation Adjustment
Fund is a fundamentally wrong-headed initiative and clearly raises
serious questions over subsidiarity.
3. The Commission is justified in asserting
that there is a large measure of consensus on the need for joint
action on energy, research and demographic change (p.3). It is
perhaps surprising that climate change is not included in this
list, but perhaps this is simply a reflection of the fact that
the APS Communication was drafted before the March summit. Tackling
climate change does feature prominently in the priority actions
(p.5), as indeed it should. After the headlines and promises EU
leaders made on this issue at the March Summit, there will rightly
be close scrutiny of the action the EU takes to follow up and
deliver on these pledges. Yet while the Commission's proposed
activities on climate change seem to be the right responses to
the challenges identified, it cannot be similarly claimed that
the Globalisation Adjustment Fund and the European Institute of
Technology are appropriate policy responses to the challenges
identified.
4. The priority given to working towards an
institutional settlement (p.3 & 4), is perhaps the biggest
failing of the Annual Policy Strategy for 2008. This is not to
contend that the Nice Treaty provides the perfect and final institutional
settlement for the EU—there will of course need to be some
institutional reform at some point in future. Nonetheless, the
current attempts to revive the EU Constitution, or achieve something
along similar lines, are quite mistaken. The EU should be concentrating
on delivery of substance not wasting energy squabbling over divisive
issues of process. I welcome the fact that the Tri-partite Committee
of MPs, MEPs and Peers will be examining this issue at its next
meeting on 14 June.
5. It is regrettable that the Better Regulation
Agenda and a commitment to progress the Doha Round of world trade
talks do not feature more prominently as key priorities for 2008.
Better Regulation is mentioned in passing in the introduction
(p.4) and although the main document (p.15) contends it is "at
the heart of the Commission's daily work" this is unfortunately
not yet true, or the issue would not be buried away as "priority
action 2.6" on page 15! Moreover, I would personally prefer
to see the Commission committed specifically to "deregulation",
rather than the more euphemistic term "better regulation".
Proper and thorough regulatory impact assessments are one of the
central components of this agenda, and there are a number of items
included within the APS itself where impact assessment has so
far been inadequate, as I have indicated in other parts of this
paper. Nonetheless, this comment should not be seen as an attempt
to denigrate the Commission's work in this area. Commissioner
Verheugen deserves great praise for forcing this issue onto the
agenda and for working hard to keep it there, which is clearly
an uphill struggle. It is vitally important that the European
Parliament and national parliaments keep up the pressure on the
Commission to maintain focus on this area if the potentially great
benefits of cutting back excess EU red tape are to be achieved
by 2009.
6. As far as the Doha Round is concerned, this
of course related to an area of exclusive Commission competence
and one where the benefits of more liberalised global trade both
to Europeans and to people in the developing world could be enormous.
As a response to globalisation, progress on Doha should be the
Commission's top strategic priority, rather than the short-term,
futile and populist Globalisation Adjustment Fund.
7. Among other initiatives worth highlighting,
the Commission's own reform agenda is welcome (p.4), not least
as it is to be hoped that a similarly reformist ethos is reflected
in the reviews of the budget and single market (also p.4). Both
must be ambitious and far-reaching. Reform must also continue
in the context of the Lisbon Agenda (p.5). The economic picture
in Europe has improved since the Lisbon process was renewed in
2005, but the urgency of on-going economic reform must be maintained.
The 2007 review report will be important in this context. There
is a risk of course that progress on economic reform may be undermined
by Commission action in other areas, not least in the area of
social policy where labour market flexibility must be promoted,
not restricted. In this context, I have already highlighted the
shortcomings of the Globalisation Adjustment Fund and any initiative
by the EU to extend it competence into social security, for example
by taking it upon itself to promote "flexicurity" (p.9)
similarly raises important subsidiarity issues. The debate over
what "modernising European labour law" (p.10) must also
be watched very carefully as what is understood by "modernisation"
varies considerably, as do views on how such modernisation should
be brought about. Clearly, the EU must move away from its outdated
"social model"—those of us who have been arguing
for many years that this model is holding back Europe's economic
progress do now seem to be in the ascendancy. But this welcome
progress will be squandered if there are attempts to impose, top-down,
some alternative "social model" from EU level: this
is an area where individual Member States should be free to determine
their own approach.
8. On the CAP, the "health check"
(p. 9) is welcome as the 2003 reforms were important and must
indeed be monitored. Regrettably, the fiasco over Single Farm
Payments in the UK may not show a very healthy situation in the
UK! Hopefully, the health check will not gloss over these problems
and lessons may be learnt. Of course, more fundamental reform
of the CAP is necessary and so the health check must be conducted
in synergy with the preparation of the budget review. Similarly,
the "major recast" of the CFP framework is overdue,
but again may not go far enough.
9. The Commission's stated determination to
focus on the implementation of REACH (p.8) is welcome and significant.
REACH was a major legislative initiative, so implementation will
be complicated so must be carried out carefully and sensitively,
but also thoroughly. More generally, willingness on the part of
the Commission to concentrate on implementation and enforcement
is welcome—this has not always been done well. Renewed focus
on follow-up and delivery is very important and could be extremely
beneficial in terms of improving legislative quality and outcomes.
The other major legislative item of 2006—the Services Directive—is
another dossier that must be carefully monitored through its implementation
phase so as to be sure that the expected benefits are indeed delivered.
10. On the Justice and Home Affairs front, the
push for a common European asylum system (p.11), FRONTEX (p.12)
and work on managing migratory flows (p.6) must be monitored very
carefully. These are of course very sensitive areas that are best
dealt with by co-operation rather than harmonisation. Harmonisation
is almost always a flawed approach in this sphere and one which
Conservatives will continue to oppose. The pressure to move to
Qualified Majority Voting in this area and the willingness of
governments, including the British Government, to take a rather
cavalier approach to the use of legal bases and institutional
propriety when making decisions is a source of considerable concern.
11. On the EU in the World section, the commitment
to pursue accession negotiations with the Western Balkans (p.13)
is of course extremely important although it does seem curious
that the need for on-going progress on Turkey is not referred
to—although again this may simply be due to the fact that
the document was drafted at a time of impasse which now, happily,
seems to have passed. The European Neighbourhood Policy is also
extremely important and the Commission's work in this area deserves
support. It is disappointing that there is not greater reference
made to the need to foster and enhance EU-US relations, particularly
through working on proposals for a genuine transatlantic marketplace.
However, there will need to be careful scrutiny of the commitment
to improve the visibility of the Commission's external action
and to develop the political and diplomatic culture of its external
services (p.14). This risks seeking to implement the Constitution
(ie creating and EU diplomatic service) and so acting without
a proper legal basis.
12. Finally, there are a number of initiatives
that are of questionable value that should certainly be subject
to careful scrutiny on the basis of subsidiarity, for example:
the proposed action plans on Urban Transport & Drugs (p.6);
the development of a policy to tackle radicalisation (p.12); and
social reality stocktaking (p.17). These initiatives must also
be subject to thorough cost/benefit analyses. It is similarly
doubtful that the cost implications of the Commission's commitment
to improving communication (p.16) can be justified. The way for
the EU to become more popular is by delivering on issues where
it can add value, not by spin and what amounts to "focus
group politics". There is bound to be suspicion that the
prominence given in the APS to the Globalisation Adjustment Fund
is a response to a recent a survey showing that EU citizens are
concerned about the so-called "social dimension" of
the EU.
27 April 2007
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