Storm in a teacup

This is not another posting about Douglas Carswell. I really do not think there is anything more to be said about him until the Clacton by-election, which will take place on October 9 (earlier than I had expected but the Conservatives may well think it is better to get it all over with as fast as possible) a few days after first the UKIP then the Conservative Party Conference. It seems that the Conservative Party is going to take Carswell's ideas seriously by having an open primary in Clacton.

Let us now turn to the newly chosen top officials in the European Union, which is after all, our real government.

There was, as I recall, quite a fuss about Jean-Claude Juncker becoming President of the European Commission. For the life of me I cannot see why that should be a problem. Would anyone else be any better, given the structure of the European Union and the lack of any kind of accountability among the eurocrats? Why do we go through this ritualistic pretence that the difference between the various candidates (usually two) has any kind of distinction?

Anyway, Commission President Juncker has announced his "team" today though we actually knew one of them already. The new Common Foreign Policy (still in development stages) High Panjandrum, as we know, is Federica Mogherini, a hitherto little known (outside Italy) Italian politician. She will be known as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Policy and Security as well as Vice-President. Here is one article that does not think highly of that choice. I know there were many others from people who fear that she might not be as tough on Russia as Radek Sikorski, the Polish Foreign Minister might have been but who could not get the job as his erstwhile boss, Donald Tusk became President of the Council of Minister.

Mr Tusk has handed in his Cabinet's resignation and has moved on to his new job.

A smooth transition is expected after current Sejm speaker Ewa Kopacz was picked to succeed Mr. Tusk by the ruling center-right coalition, which has a slim but reliable majority in the lower house. Kopacz, previously health minister in Mr. Tusk's cabinet, is set to become the second woman after communism in Poland collapsed in 1989 to head the Polish government.

Though whether everything will go just as smoothly in the next election remains to be seen.

"The main challenge for the next prime minister and the party leader is to reconfigure the party and its leaders in such a manner as to have a realistic chance of winning the next election," said Radoslaw Markowski, professor of political science. "It is normal for a party aiming to become a senior coalition partner and win over 30% support to have factions and managing them will be a challenge."

In actual fact, there is no EU common foreign policy, not even on a subject that ought to be close to most Europeans' interests, that is Russian behaviour in eastern Poland, where Russian soldiers unaccountably keep straying over the border and whence body bags have been going back to the motherland.

When it comes to events further afield, say, in the Middle East, the chances of any kind of an agreement on common interests and common policy are slim, to put it mildly. Whatever policy erupts from the European Union, it tends to come from individual member states.

Let us now turn to the new Commission, the body, which, according to the Consolidated Treaties, the real constitution under which we live, has the sole right to initiate legislation of any kind and has a great many rights to interfere in that legislation to ensure that it is more or less in line with its ideas. Though I have very little time for the sort of nonsense that is usually spouted in the European Parliament and would not like that body to become the legislator in the EU (as numerous misguided media hacks seem to assume it is) I view the EU with the position of the Commission being what it is, a very fine example of governance by management rather than politics.

European Voice has helpfully provided us with a list of the new Commissioners (to be confirmed by the European Parliament) and their assigned portfolios though, curiously, the list is in alphabetical order of member states rather than jobs. Clearly, even European Voice cannot quite bring itself to treat the EU government as a single entity.

Our own Lord Hill, so derided by the cognoscenti though not by this blog, has been given Financial Services, which, given the UK's importance in that sphere, ought to be good news. Whether he will manage to make anything of that and, indeed, whether there is anything to be made of that, remains to be seen. Largely the destruction of financial services has been unrolling for a decade or more and it is hard to see what one Commissioner can accomplish.

The storm continues unabated. Open Europe has been rather pompously giving its advice to the new Commission about the way it ought to proceed:

It is time for the UK and other reform minded countries to put their words into action. By giving the new European Commission a tough mandate, they can ensure that over the next five years the EU focuses on delivering jobs and growth and stops meddling in areas better handled nationally or locally.

While much of the UK’s renegotiation strategy will hinge on striking deals with other national governments, the Commission is vital to improving the EU's day-by-day functioning. From improving transparency to focusing on areas where the EU can truly add value, it is essential that the new Commission has a clear set of boundaries and priorities.

That should sort them all out.

In other words, we are not telling

As we know (or ought to know) the final decision on legislation, particularly the more important kind, rests with the Council of Ministers and, occasionally, the European Council. That does not apply to treaties, which is a completely separate problem though the Boy-King and his acolytes seem unable to grasp this.

In the Council we are told, the elected and accountable (stop laughing at the back) UK Minister can prevent legislation that is harmful or might be harmful to this country from taking shape. Of course, there is the small matter of Qualified Majority Voting, which used to be easy to compute but has become so complicated that Fibonacci would give up, but whose purpose is to ensure that measures cannot be blocked.

Theoretically, though, some measures might be stopped but, as there are no reports of those meetings we really do not know what happens and whether our Ministers or the UK Permanent Representatives do actually fight hard for British interests as they always tell us they do. (Oddly enough, the one time I had a chance to find out what really happened, over the inspection of slaughter houses and the destruction of small and medium sized ones, I was told on very good authority that those who assured us they had fought doggedly had been somewhat economical with the truth.)

In the circumstances it is not unreasonable of Lord Stoddart of Swindon to ask

Her Majesty's Government on how many occasions the United Kingdom has been successful in achieving blocking majorities in the European Council or Council of Ministers; and what are the details of those occasions.

We would, actually like to know the answer. After all, we are told that we can do this: block legislation that does not suit us. Sadly, we are not going to find out. Lord Howell of Guildford resorted to the time-honoured formula:

The UK does not hold this information centrally.

If I had a fiver for every time that formula was used not to reveal information, I would actually be able to afford to travel on London transport. But I digress. Lord Howell, or whoever wrote the answer, then added: However, under the Lisbon treaty, some information on formal votes in the Council of Ministers on co-decision dossiers is available on the following European Union website.

This information constitutes separate documents, available for download, on each formal co-decision vote since 2006, listing the issue and the voting positions of member states.

The Government recommends that the noble Lord treats this information with caution. In general, proposals only progress to a formal vote after member states have gone through a substantial period of negotiation. During that period, the UK and other member states seek to block, amend or remove proposals which do not meet their objectives. The UK would normally aim to prevent proposals to which we cannot agree ever reaching a formal vote. It is also possible that some negotiation might go to a formal vote more than once, with different outcomes. For both these reasons, a simple collation of voting numbers would be misleading.

Moreover, the information can only show whether or not the UK participated in a blocking minority; not whether the UK was itself successful in achieving said blocking minority. All these points apply equally to blocking minorities.

Or, in other words, we are not going to tell you because we do not know and do not want to find out.

A couple of interesting items from the House of Lords

Here is Lord Stoddart again, this time asking a Written Question:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Neville-Jones on 11 October (WA 40) concerning the European Investigation Order, whether they will reconsider their decision to accede to the directive before final agreement is made; and what arrangements they are making for Parliamentary discussions of this issue.

Naturally enough, HMG does not exactly bother to reconsider anything, no matter how foolish it was. But we do have another problem. Even if they did, mirabile dictu, reconsider their decision to opt in the European Investigation Order, they cannot do anything about it, as Lady Neville-Jones explains:

My Answer of 11 October 2010 stated that the United Kingdom will be unable to withdraw from the directive. I can further explain that, in line with Article three of Protocol 21 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union concerning the position of the United Kingdom (and Ireland) in respect of the area of freedom, security and justice, the UK is able to opt in to a draft directive within the three month opt-in period, but that the Government cannot then subsequently reverse this decision (to opt in). This means that the UK will be bound by any text that is agreed after qualified majority voting (QMV) in the Council of Ministers. However, should the Government not like the final negotiated proposal the UK can vote against it and attempt to form a blocking minority alongside other likeminded member states in order to prevent its adoption.

Good luck with that: the new rules for QMV make it well-nigh impossible to form a blocking minority. The whole process used to be rather easy as this BBC site explains: there were 87 votes and 62 were needed to pass a proposal while 27 constituted a blocking majority. You could do a bit of negotiating here and there. All that has changed. This gives you some idea of the complications, which are due to increase in 2014 when a system of double majority will be introduced as it was decided in the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty. (Article 16 on page 24 of the Treaty on European Union, known as the TEU, since you ask.)

The House of Commons produced a good paper on the Treaty of Nice (whose arrangements for QMV still stand) and pages 19 to 24 discuss the subject exhaustively. Suffice it to say that, at present, a blocking minority in most circumstances is 91 votes. As I said good luck with getting that on any important subject.

On the same day there was a Written Statement from Lord Howell of Guildford, which was a copy of the one in the Commons, made by David Liddington. It summed up what was going to take place in the forthcoming Foreign Affairs Council, to be attended by that great giant of international statesmanship, William Hague and the General Affairs Council, to be attended by another giant of political thinking, David Liddington.

I thought this paragraph might be of interest, given the Prime Minister's stated intention to lead a rebellion about the EU Budget, which has, in fact, been decided on.

October European Council

Ministers will look ahead to the October European Council, which takes place in Brussels on 28 and 29 October and will be attended by the Prime Minister. The Council agenda includes economic governance, the Single Market Act, climate change, the Seoul G20 summit, and the EU-US summit. There may also be discussions on the EU-Russia summit, Pakistan (see below) and the EU budget review.

It would appear that a possible discussion of the budget is very low on that list. What we really need to be paying attention to is the Boy-King's stand on that economic governance.