Youth plans have not been submitted

Readers of this blog will know that I do not think the EU is either like Nazi Germany or like the Soviet Union. Anyone who looks at the three political systems seriously knows that those parallels are not just unilluminating, they are nonsensical. But they do come from the same matrix of ideas and there are times when one wonders whether any lessons have been learnt at all from failures in history.

Take this headline, for instance: EU summit to warn youth guarantee laggards. Let's not bother with the obvious point that what is starting today is not a Summit but a Council as it has now been more or less officially decided that every Presidency will have two Summits.

Let us look at the gist of the article in EurActiv:

EU countries that have not yet submitted their national plans to introduce so-called Youth Guarantee schemes will be requested to do so without delay at an EU summit, which opens in Brussels today (19 December).

Internal European Commission documents seen by EurActiv reveal that a majority of countries have not sent any plans and risk losing the funding for the initiative, aimed at tackling youth unemployment.

The draft conclusions of the summit, obtained by EurActiv, call on member states that have not yet submitted their Youth Guarantee Implementation plans to do so without delay.

Under the Youth Guarantee, young people without a job will be guaranteed an offer of employment, training or further education within four months of finishing school or becoming unemployed (see background).

A €6 billion pot in the EU budget for 2014-2020 has been set aside to tackle youth employment in regions with high levels of unemployment.

We have national plans, youth guarantee schemes, the Commission handing out money to member states who have submitted the best (or not so good plans). A proposed disaster of statist socialism, in other words, though that still does not make the EU anything like the Soviet Union.

According to the Commission, the cost of not acting under the Youth Guarantee will in fact be much higher. The European Foundation for Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) has estimated the current economic loss of having 7.5 million young people out of work or education or training at over €150 billion for the EU every year (1.2% of EU GDP) in terms of benefits paid out and lost output.

According to a Commission paper obtained by EurActiv, only 11 out of the 28 members have submitted national plans. The Czech Republic and Hungary have submitted a final draft, while France, Croatia, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Slovakia have submitted a first draft.

The document shows that Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, Sweden, Slovenia and UK have not submitted their national plans within the required deadline.

However, Austria, Finland, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands appear to be a special case. Austria and Finland have an excellent track record in combating youth unemployment and their experience is a source of inspiration for the EU, while Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark lead in averting youth unemployment, studies say.

But it may appear as a paradox that Greece, a country under bailout programmes,and Spain, with the highest rates of youth unemployment, and Bulgaria, the poorest country in the EU, have not made the necessary steps to receive EU funding to tackle youth unemployment.

Reportedly, the implementation of the Youth Guarantee is more complex than it appears at first sight. For many member countries, its implementation will require structural reforms. For example, public employment services must be able to ensure young people receive appropriate advice on job, education and training opportunities most relevant to their own situation.

Another area requiring structural reforms concerns vocational education and training systems, where member countries must ensure that they give young people the skills that employers are looking for. In this respect, trade unions, employers' organisations, educational establishments and public authorities have a role to play and prove their maturity.

I do not suppose it has occurred to any of the people in Brussels that by taking money out of the economy of the various countries in order to operate these schemes (and that means paying the people who operate them as well as handing out money) they are actually making it less possible for young and not so young people to get jobs? No, I don't suppose it has. If a job is guaranteed then somehow it will materialize and central funding will be provided out of the taxes gathered. Certainly, it is useful to remember one particular saying from the old Soviet Union: "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work".

Alas, given the thought processes of our own politicians, I do not think that this sort of nonsense would necessarily stop if we were out of the noxious European Union.

Last Monday in the House of Lords

Lord Liddle, who, according to Wikipedia is "s principally known for being Special Adviser on European matters to prime minister Tony Blair and President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso" asked a question that makes very little sense until one recalls the noble lord's previous occupation:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for making the case for the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union.

Rum. I thought we have been members of the European Union ever since it existed and were, indeed, signatories to the Maastricht Treaty, which set it up. What can the noble lord mean? If one reads the rest of the exchange it becomes clear that other peers, including the Minister found it hard to understand what on earth Lord Liddle was talking about though, obviously, his purpose was to demand to know why the government why HMG "clear leadership that our membership of the EU is vital to our economy and essential to our place in the world?"

 Later on the Leader of the House repeated the Prime Minister's statement about the European Council and a singularly uninspired one it was, too. So much so, that the debate, usually quite exciting on these occasions, lacked the usual vim. What could one say about a Council, which seems to have come to the conclusion that there is much to be done and much will be done any minute now or, rather, in the near and not so near future but we are going to have a proper time table, any minute now.

Their biggest promised achievement is:

On trade, the Council agreed an ambitious agenda to create 2 million jobs across Europe. This includes completing free trade deals with Canada and Singapore in the coming months, and starting negotiations with the US next year on a comprehensive transatlantic trade and investment agreement. And we made some progress on the launch of negotiations with Japan 'in the coming months'. This deal alone could increase EU GDP by €42 billion.

2 million jobs, eh? Well, that should solve all our problems.

Lord Willoughby de Broke pointed to one interesting problem [scroll down to the end of the debate]:

My Lords, one of the Council conclusions on which I hope the noble Lord can enlighten the House is headed,

"Developing a tax policy for growth".

Is this a tax policy for having higher taxes or lower taxes? Secondly, the same paragraph of the conclusions refers to, "enhanced cooperation to be launched on a Financial Transactions Tax". Was that supported by the British Government?

Well, was it? Hard to tell from the answer:

My Lords, on the first point, we are not in favour of any new taxes emanating from the EU. Secondly, we have not supported a financial transactions tax. We know that certain elements within EU countries have got together and decided to impose a financial transactions tax. I believe that in the long term that will prove to be against their interests.

After all, HMG supports the idea of a banking union, cheerfully pointing out that it will not affect Britain. So, it is reasonable to suppose that they assume that a financial transaction tax will not do so either. And the Porcine Air Force is about to take off.

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.

You mean he didn't veto this?

Troubling news for all those who are rejoicing about the Boy-King vetoing treaties, getting us out of the euro (when were we in?), putting us on the same footing as Switzerland and generally restoring Britain's pride in herself: it seems that there is a fair chance that Britain will have to cough up another £30 billion in the form of loans to the IMF (loans?) that will be used to shore up the eurozone, which is not, incidentally what the IMF is supposed to be doing.

The fund revealed in its official Survey Magazine that non-euro countries would put up a quarter of all new money under the EU summit deal.

“European leaders agreed to make bilateral loans to the IMF of as much as €200bn —with €150bn contributed by eurozone members and €50bn from other members of the EU,” it said.

The report relied on a briefing by IMF chief Christine Lagarde, who was in the room with EU leaders during last Friday’s summit talks. Britain is the EU’s only large economy outside the euro.

The EU statement contained no reference to the €50bn figure for non-eurozone states. “If Britain has really agreed to this, it is a huge deal,” said Julian Callow at Barclays Capital.

David Cameron gave no hint of such an obligation in his statement to the Commons on Monday. “Alongside non-European G20 countries, we are ready to look positively at strengthening the IMF’s capacity to help countries in difficulty across the world,” the Prime Minister said. “But IMF resources are for countries not currencies, and can’t be used specifically to support the euro.”

What else might have happened at that meeting about which we have not been told?

Oh well, this is going to work

Scary Dave demands that the EU budget be frozen.

In a blunt message to high-spenders in the EU, he [Scary Dave] said they could not carry on wasting money when other governments were battling to cut borrowing.

Worked so well last time when he was demanding a freeze on the budget, didn't it. Mind you, France and Germany are saying it, too. We shall have to wait for the European Council conclusions to find out what was really said.

Apparently, the Dutch and the Finnish Prime Ministers also signed that letter to the Commission but the poorer countries, such as Poland are insisting that there should be no cuts. Actually, we are talking only about not raising the budget but quite clearly Prime Minister Tusk has learnt from the British trade unions and other protesters.

Compare and contrast

Apologies for along absence, caused by a nasty bout of cold, which prevented me from attending a Mass of Reparation for those Slovenes and others murdered by the Communists in Yugoslavia in 1945 after they had been handed over by the Western allies. More on that and other matters, as they say, later.

I would, in the meantime, call attention to an interesting discrepancy between the statement made by the Boy-King of the Conservative Party who is, by some freak of historical irony, our Prime Minister about the European Council that ended on Friday and the Conclusions produced by that Council. (Here is the discussion in the Commons, in which Cameron is seen as floundering somewhat.)

Most of his statement is taken up by the question of the rise in the EU Budget for 2011 and subsequent years. To be fair, his conclusions are remarkably vague:

So before the Council started we began building an alliance to take a difference approach and insist on 2.9 per cent.

I made phone calls to my counterparts in, Sweden, France and Germany amongst others and then continued to press the case during the Council. Twelve other Heads of Government agreed with me. We issued a joint letter which makes clear that a 6% increase is – and I quote – “especially unacceptable at a time when we are having to take difficult decisions at national level to control public expenditure”.

Furthermore, the joint letter goes on to say that “we are clear that we cannot accept any more than” the 2.9% increase being proposed by the Council.

Mr Speaker, let me explain what this means. Either the Council and Parliament now have to agree to 2.9 per cent or there will be deadlock, in which case the EU will have to live on a repeat of last year’s budget settlement handed out in twelfths over the next twelve months an outcome we’d be perfectly content with.

With a great deal of self-satisfaction he says:

Mr Speaker, if you look at the published Conclusions, language on the budget formed a very prominent part, even though it was never originally on the agenda.

I do think this is an important step forward.

Even that would be a matter of opinion but, in any case, he is, once again, giving hostages to fortune. For the Budget does not occupy much or, indeed, any space in the published Conclusions. There is a great deal of discussion of the matter of Economic Governance, on which Mr Cameron is even vaguer than on the subject of the Budget. It is in connection with that little problem that the Conclusions state:

Heads of State or Government stressed that, at the same time as fiscal discipline is reinforced in the European Union, it is essential that the European Union budget and the forthcoming Multi-annual Financial Framework reflect the consolidation efforts being made by Member States to bring deficit and debt onto a more sustainable path. Respecting the role of the different institutions and the need to meet Europe's objectives, the European Council will discuss at its next meeting how to ensure that spending at the European level can make an appropriate contribution to this work.

Section II is about the Seoul G20 Summit, Section III is on the Cancun Conference on Climate Change and, apparently, the British Government would like to see binind UN legislation, according to the PM's statement. A couple of sentences about Summits with Third Countries and .... that's it. Budget? What Budget? Well, I did point out that it was not on the Agenda and, in any case, was not for the European Council to discuss.

How shocking that the Prime Minister should be misleading Parliament in this way.

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.

Budget cut-backs are not popular

Further to the pious hope expressed by Lord Howell (or whoever was writing that reply)

At a time when Governments across the EU are reining in their spending, it is only right that the EU institutions think carefully about every euro that they spend to ensure that they get the most from their money. We are currently pushing for a freeze in the 2011 budget and expect salary levels to reflect the current economic conditions.

The European Voice reports a great deal of outrage in the Toy European Parliament on the subject.

Members of the European Parliament have accused national governments of seeking cuts to the European Union's budget that would undermine attempts to spur economic growth.

Ambassadors from the member states have agreed a draft budget for 2011 of €126.58 billion, €3.6bn less than the draft budget presented by the European Commission in April. The reductions agreed by the ambassadors would affect most areas of EU spending, but the biggest cuts would be to programmes intended to boost growth and competitiveness. The Council of Ministers wants to cut the allocation for growth by almost €2bn and save €1.075bn on cohesion spending compared to the Commission's proposal. A further €821 million would be cut from spending on support to farmers and the fisheries sector.

To a more or less rational person the idea of taking more money away from the potentially productive sectors of society and giving them to the leeches that constitute the eurocracy would contribute to economic growth is insane but these puffed up little muppets (apologies to Kermit, Miss Piggy et al) really do believe it that they are the ones who are essential for that process.

Sidonia Jedrzejewska, a Polish centre-right MEP who is preparing the Parliament's position on the 2011 budget, told her colleagues on the budgets committee: “I take these cuts not only as a provocation but as an offence.” She pointed out that the budget lines concerned were supposed to pay for the Europe 2020 strategy, which aims to boost competitiveness and stimulate growth. Jedrzejewska called plans to cut the budget for youth training programmes, which the Parliament has made a priority, “a slap in the face”.

The Europe 2020 Strategy was, as this blog mentioned before, the one thing that came out of the last European Council. It is to be the replacement for the Lisbon Strategy that was going to make the European economy [sic] the most modern and most competitive by 2010. And what a success that was.

Seven member states, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK, think that the Council has not gone far enough and there should be even further cut-backs. After all, they argue, we all have to introduce austerity measures and, indeed, the Commission is demanding that; it seems somewhat wrong for the EU budget to remain as large and as wasteful as it has been all these years. One might argue, pace certain Polish apparatchiks centre-right MEPs that continuing to extract money for EU projects when everything else, including employment is being cut back, is a slap in the face of the taxpayer.

Well this is exciting! Or not.

For some time now the Boss at EUReferendum and I have been a little puzzled by the fact that various organizations close to the Conservative Party (now a member of the Clegeron Coalition) but pretending to be somewhat rebellious, have been talking about a coming IGC that would trigger off a referendum and then we shall see the Boy-King's mettle. (And no, they do not refer to him as the Boy-King but we do.)

An IGC? An Inter-Governmental Conference with all the grandiose trappings for which there are certain rules and which will produce a new treaty that should already have been more or less written and discussed with the Spanish Prime Minister (of the outgoing Presidency) rushing around the other capitals? This is a big event or ought to be. How on earth did we and, indeed, just about everybody else outside the above-mentioned organizations managed to miss it?

Phew! I have now found what all the excitement was about. It seems that on Wednesday there will be a meeting of the Permanent Representatives (or, in other words, not government leaders) to finalize certain arrangements for the Toy Parliament that had been more or less agreed on before.

It was decided to discuss those amendments without calling a Convention or add any of the grand trappings. Indeed, as an Inter-Governmental Conference is is decidedly a damp squib. Perhaps COREPER now feels that they are the real representatives of the various governments not the various Ministers, Prime Ministers or Presidents.

My guess is that this Amendment will be passed without any difficulty through Parliament. It seems unlikely that the Boy-King will consider a bickering about how many representatives there should be in the Toy Parliament a matter of such importance as to give even an ordinary, let alone a cast-iron guarantee of a referendum.

If at first you don't succeed

Having failed to implement the Lisbon Strategy "aimed at making the European Union (EU) the most competitive economy in the world and achieving full employment by 2010" the European Council, which ended the Spanish Presidency (no, it was not ever going to be an IGC) has adopted another ten-year plan: "EUROPE 2020", a new Jobs and Growth Strategy for Europe. Makes one feel all warm and cosy, particularly those among us who will be getting jobs in Brussels et al to create grids, strategies and frameworks for this plan. For sure as eggs is eggs, this will not create either jobs or growth anywhere that it matters, which is usually known as the economy.

This European Council, its participants and those who create the agenda as well as write the documents in the full knowledge that directives and regulations will follow, continues to assume that jobs, growth, economic development are all created by instructions from above. Undoubtedly, they will have those score boards as well. They did with the Lisbon Strategy. If you get more than three ticks you have achieved .... precisely nothing in real terms but a great deal as far as the euro-bureaucracy is concerned.

You have to scroll some way down to find the important paragraphs, though:

Financial Stability, economic governance and stability of financial system

European Council agreed on the need to enhance economic governance, in particular as regards budgetary and broader macroeconomic surveillance, and set forth the necessary rules to be implemented and the orientations to be met in so doing.

The necessary reforms to restore the soundness and stability of the European financial system is one more element highlighted by the Council to be completed urgently. The resilience and transparency of the banking sector must be ensured, an the he EU must demonstrate its determination to bring about a safer, sounder, more transparent and more responsible financial system.

The aim is, as we have been predicting all this time, to use this crisis as a beneficial one for the furtherance of the project. However, it is looking a little more doubtful as to whether they will succeed.

European Council

The usual blah has been published by way of Conclusions. To be discussed.

Oh goody!

Those red lines are back.

Hurrah!

First of all, allow me to congratulate myself. On this blog and on EUReferendum I said repeatedly, as did the Boss, that Tony Blair was not going to be the President of the European Council and David Miliband was not going to be the Foreign Minister in charge of a non-existent common foreign policy. And so it came to pass. Both stories existed merely in the feverish imagination of the British media and its devoted readers/viewers/listeners, a group that seems to include rather a large number of soi-disant eurosceptics.

That was one reason why I did not sign any petitions or joined any campaigns to prevent Tony Blair from becoming European Council President. The other reason seemed obvious to me but not to a number of people who did sign those petitions and did join those campaigns: it does not matter who becomes the Prez, we do not want anybody.

On the other hand, I do not find myself particularly outraged today. I do not wonder in public whether we asked for a European President because I know we did not and I have known for some time this was going to happen. (As did Daniel Hannan, to be fair, so I do not understand why he is saying these things now.) Bu then, as the Boss has pointed out over on EURef, the media suddenly discovered that there was more to the subject than will-Blair-get-it-or-not just about yesterday.

Nor am I too impressed by he sort of wailing and gnashing of teeth that is coming out of Open Europe, the leading perestroika europhile organization in this country. Their press release quotes Lorraine Mullaly, the Director:

"This whole process has been a stitch-up and a perfect illustration of just how out of touch and anti-democratic the EU now is. 27 EU leaders met behind closed doors over a cosy dinner in Brussels to thrash out who will represent Europe's 500 million citizens on the world stage, without so much as a wink to voters as to what on earth was going on."

"After years of insisting that the Lisbon Treaty would bring the EU closer to citizens, how sad and ironic that the very first big decision was made after a secretive backroom deal which should have no place in a 21st century democracy. This has been EU politics at its very worst."

"Neither Herman Van Rompuy nor Catherine Ashton has any democratic mandate to speak on behalf of Europe's citizens. Most people were denied a say on the Lisbon Treaty which created these posts, and now the jobs themselves have been filled without the slightest input from voters, nor even national parliaments."

"Neither candidate has explained to the public why they should get these jobs. And most people in Europe have never even heard of Herman Van Rompuy or Catherine Ashton, yet here they are to represent us in the global arena. Surely Europe can do better than this?"

"As for the politicians themselves, Herman Van Rompuy is a classic EU federalist who can be relied upon to quietly move EU integration forward. Likewise, Catherine Ashton was instrumental in pushing the Lisbon Treaty through the UK Parliament, which gives a strong indication of the direction she wants to take the EU."

Who is this Europe who can do better than that? And do they mean if someone else had been appointed, say William Hague, then it would have been all right to have an EU Foreign Minister?

Actually, I strongly suspect that to be the case - a couple of different personalities or just people who had personality and Open Europe et al would have lined up pleading for that endlesly elusive Holy Grail, the reform of the European Union. That is why I was so afraid that Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the former President of Latvia and known as that country's Iron Lady might get it. People might have liked and admired her (there is much to like and admire about her) and that would never have done. So, the very good news is that it was the completely unlikeable and unadmirable Herman Van Rompuy who got the job. After all who could be more suitable than the unelected Prime Minister of a country that is falling apart and can be seen as the microcosm of the EU?

I am delighted to say that President Obama has already congratulated the previously appointed Belgian Prime Minister (he did not win any elections to get the job) on being appointed to the European Council Presidency. Can we hear from those Conservative eurosceptics who supported Obama because he was not going to encourage further European integration?

"The United States has no stronger partner than Europe in advancing security and prosperity around the world. These two new positions, and related changes to take effect on December 1 as a result of the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, will strengthen the EU and enable it to be an even stronger partner to the United States," said a White House statement.

The Guardian gives a summary of President Van Rompuy's career, replete with accusations of europhobia against those who are unimpressed by him but carefully not mentioning that he has not been elected to any political position. The Telegraph is a little more detailed in giving the careers of both nonentities European leaders, pointing out that the new Foreign Affairs Chief Panjandrum, Baroness Ashton, has absolutely no diplomatic or foreign affairs experience.

That, as the Boss has pointed out on EURef, is exactly what was aimed at by the Commission. In the ongoing battle for power between the Council and the Commission, the latter has scored a notable victory. Nay, two victories.