Francois Hollande

Weekly Round-up

Labour Party

The Labour Party issued a statement last week clarifying its position on the ex-Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker’s, bid for President of the European Commission.

The party said, in a statement: “The nominee for European Commission President is ultimately a decision for the European Council, including David Cameron.

“Labour will not support Jean-Claude Juncker as a candidate for President of the European Commission. Should Mr Juncker be put before the European Parliament, Labour MEPs would vote against him.

“The message from the European elections was clear – that we need reform in Europe. We need reform so we can promote jobs and growth.

“Mr Juncker’s record shows he would make these reforms more difficult.”

It was also reported that German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, initially favoured Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetry Fund (IMF) for the Comission President position. It is understood she broached the subject in a private conversation with French President, Francois Hollande. However, it is unlikely Lagarde will receive the support from her own country, and therefore be in the running, as Hollande is reluctant for France to lose its top post at the IMF. So Merkel has given her support to Juncker as I wrote on my blog last week.

Meanwhile, as the European Parliament re-assembles following the European elections, Cameron faces fresh tensions with Angela Merkel after news surfaced that his group, the ECR, which he formed in 2009, narrowly voted to accept Germany’s anti-euro AfD party, the fuer Deutschland into its bloc.

Reuters revealed: “The tally of the secret ballot was not released but members said it was 29 votes for, 26 against. Two members of Cameron’s Conservatives defied his call to vote against AFD, sources said. Had they obeyed, the German party would have been rejected.”

The Tories were forced to seek support and invite interest from extreme right parties because, as I revealed on my own blog last week, they had been struggling to get support from centre right parties who joined the Tories main rival the EPP.

However, despite now being a relatively large group within the European Parliament, Cameron is now in an embarrassing position as Merkal’s CDU party is a key player in the rival EPP bloc.

Cameron needs Merkel as an ally in order to secure an acceptable candidate as president of the European Commission.

Repatriation of powers really is smoke and mirrors

Labour Party

France and Germany have refused to participate in Prime Minister David Cameron’s much-vaunted examination of whether some EU powers should be returned to member states.

Reported in the Financial Times on 2 April, this extremely significant development has unfortunately received little attention in the British media. Since the story broke before the Thatcher demise, there was no excuse for ignoring such important news.

David Cameron’s flagship policy is now in tatters, as predicted many times on this blog. I first mentioned the impossibility of repatriation of powers as long ago as March 2010, before Cameron achieved the highest office. It was blindingly obvious to those of us engaged in European politics that there would never be the agreement required from the 26 other EU member states for repatriation to happen.

According to the FT, Paris and Berlin consulted with one another before concluding that the exercise known as the “balance of competences” was about serving Britain’s domestic political interests and not an EU issue as such. The two countries took this view even though the British government sent letters to each of the 26 other EU countries explaining the approach would be even-handed.

Cameron, of course, wants to use the results of the balance of competences review to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership of the European Union. Now that France and Germany have refused to participate in Cameron’s little scheme, renegotiation looks less and less likely. The Franco-German axis seems to be at one on this. The previous position where Hollande was against what he called “cherry picking” , (ie the UK keeping what it wanted such as the single market while opting out of European social legislation) while Merkel seemed to be more sympathetic to the UK position has obviously hardened into that of opposition to Cameron’s impossible policy.

Indeed, the FT was quite clear that most EU governments have indicated extreme reluctance to re-open the EU treaties. It is, moreover, unclear whether Cameron has enough political sympathy among his EU partners to engineer a one-off deal for Britain.

So it’s all ending in tears for Cameron and his side-kick William Hague. Fortunately for Mr Cameron and the Con-Dem government the end of one of the major promises in the Conservative manifesto for the 2010 general election has gone virtually unnoticed. Shame on all those who seek to cover up Tory incompetence and their lack of understanding on EU and international matters.

Honeyball’s Weekly Round-Up

Labour Party

The French President, Francois Hollande gave a highly anticipated speech last week to the European Parliament in Strasbourg. He argued that the European Union should be more vocal in world conflicts and defended France’s decision to intervene in the Mali conflict calling it “a European fight for democracy.”

Without referring to the UK specifically he made it clear that he totally rejected any idea that any national Government could cherry pick EU policies. He said: “National governments should stop calling into question EU competencies at every step.”

He warned against it being a body which looks out only for self-interest and said the EU was in danger of becoming “a sum of nations where each looks for what is good for itself and only itself.”

He did agree however, that it was necessary to look at the European Unions ‘architecture.’ You can read a full report from European Voice here.

A deal was reached over the European Union’s budget last week and responding to the deal Douglas Alexander MP, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: “We welcome news that a deal has been reached. Failing to agree one could have seen next year’s budget go up automatically.

“Labour voted in November to give David Cameron a clear mandate to negotiate for a real terms cut, and so we welcome the reports indicating the policy we advocated has been agreed.

“It seemed at times that David Cameron was ready to throw in the towel and aim for a freeze, but today’s deal proves that a cut was worth voting for in Westminster and worth negotiating for in Brussels”.

You can read his quote in full here.

My piece for Total Politics: Do EU policies serve our economic interests?

Labour Party

The latest issue of Total Politics magazine has an article wrote about whether or not the European Union still serves our economic interests. I have pasted my argument here in the blog, and it is available in the latest issue (February) Total Politics.

Do EU policies still serve our economic interests?

by Mary Honeyball MEP and Michael Fabricant MP / 17 Jan 2013

Mary Honeyball MEP warns against the dangers of ‘single market-lite’, but Michael Fabricant MP believes our economy is too different from those of other member states

This article is from the February 2013 issue of Total Politics

Yes, says Mary Honeyball

Certain elements of the British political class have for too long treated the European Union as a scapegoat for our economic woes. Always a simplistic view, this attitude to the EU is becoming increasingly untenable.

As far as the broad economic argument is concerned, the essential point is that much of the western world is in recession. We are, inevitably, all in this together. Britain’s economy and that of the eurozone are inextricably linked.

The eurozone is the UK’s biggest trading partner, and the decline in the bloc’s fortunes – the 17-nation eurozone contracted by 0.1 per cent between July and September 2012, following a 0.2 per cent decline during the previous three months – contributed to our falling back into recession earlier in 2012.

It is the eurozone, and by extension the EU single market, that really matters to the UK. The majority of our exports go to the single market, and as a result any dip in the eurozone economies will have an adverse effect on Britain.

Given the single market’s importance, it seems extraordinary that anyone in government would think about upsetting the balance so necessary for the UK’s prosperity, yet this balance would be utterly undone if our much-vaunted repatriation of powers were to be applied to the single market. The government, along with London mayor Boris Johnson and assorted eurosceptics, think they can negotiate a “single market-lite”. What they mean is bringing EU employment law, health and safety regulations and anything else to do with working conditions back to the UK, presumably with a view to reducing these social provisions once they are safely restored. And it’s not only employment legislation. Trying to negotiate this single market-lite would have serious implications for London’s financial services. More euros are traded in London than Paris and Frankfurt combined, but would this still be the case after a ‘Brixit’?

EU leaders have made it clear they don’t see an attempt by Britain to repatriate powers as a plausible action. French President François Hollande has already insisted EU member states must comply with the terms of EU treaties they have signed and ratified, saying: “Europe is not a Europe where you can take back competencies. It is not Europe à la carte.”

The single market agreements and treaties serve a very real purpose and are not simply a means for the EU to impose its will on recalcitrant member states. For the single market to function, there needs to be a level playing field. This is the reason employment law and other work-related matters need to be broadly the same across the EU. If one country were able to have an easier time than the others, it would have an unfair advantage and undermine the power of the single market and its ability to function.

Given that the EU single market, which Britain entered under the premiership of the eurosceptic Margaret Thatcher, is so important for our exports, attempts to repatriate powers from this economically beneficial part of the EU seem like a prime example of cutting off our nose to spite our face. Britain’s economy needs a fully functioning single market – it is the most crucial reason Britain needs the EU.

What is more, any proposals for repatriation of powers would need the agreement of the 26 other EU member states, an unlikely scenario if the French president is anything to go by. The fact that there is little likelihood of any new treaty negotiations happening before the European Parliament elections in 2014 just adds another layer to a misguided fantasy.

The UK is one of the big players in the EU. German chancellor Angela Merkel does not want a ‘Brixit’. A source close to her recently said: ”The chancellor and her closest advisers are trying very hard to make it easy for Britain to keep the EU door open. The chancellor does not belong to the school that is fed up with Britain; she believes it is essential Britain remains at the heart of Europe.”

Given that there is still such goodwill towards Britain, it would be sheer folly to throw this away in a desperate bid to attempt to repatriate powers from the single market and thereby undermine Britain’s economy. We should, instead, take stock of where our economic interests lie in relation to the European Union before it is too late.

Mary Honeyball is Labour MEP for London

Honeyball’s Weekly Round-Up

Labour Party

Yesterday the Telegraph reported that the Prime Minister had signed a deal with the leaders of all 27 EU countries to strengthen Europe’s ability to deploy troops rapidly and effectively in any future crisis.

Of course a backlash from his own MPs has already formed. One said the latest move was “the first step to creating a ‘European Army’.”

And Douglas Carswell, Conservative MP for Clacton, was reported in the article to have said: “This really shows that we can’t trust our negotiating team. You turn your back for two minutes and they go and sign up to something as daft as this.

“This might look like a good deal for those in Number 10 but outside Westminster it is anything but a good deal.

“If anyone seriously believes that it is in our national interest to hand over our defence to the people running the euro then we would need our heads examined,” Carswell said.

And Tory MP Peter Bone called on the Prime Minister to “come to the House and clarify the position”.

This sort of response peppered with language designed to spread fear but which actually shows a complete lack of knowledge also indicates why the Tories are in such a mess over Europe.

Their approach, as we know well by now, lacks clarity and is fragmented. Cameron has failed to get any unity from his party and it’s going to continue to cause problems for him.

You can read the article in full here.

As I have been saying for some time, the Tories cannot simply pick and choose what part of the EU they do want to be part of. It’s not as simple as that.

Francois Hollande used a fantastic line which summed up the situation perfectly, after getting tired with Cameron’s strategy of exploiting the euro crisis as an excuse to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership and claw back powers from Brussels. Hollande said of Cameron’s plans: “Europe is not a Europe where you can take back competencies. It’s not a Europe ‘a la carte’.”

One of the biggest challenges Cameron would face if he continued plans to renegotiate the relationship with Europe would be to get the 26 other governments to allow concessions for Britain.

It’s messy, improbable and, as Ian Traynor pointed out in his article in the Guardian on Saturday, it’s certainly unlikely that EU treaties would be re-opened before the next European Parliament elections in 2014. You can read his article in full here.

The world economy needs growth not austerity

Labour Party

Throughout sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone, British commentators and, unfortunately, politicians as well, have failed to understand the nature of the beast. Unless and until the British accept that the Euro is a political as much as an economic project we will continue to talk in terms of Euro failure and eventual break-up.

Much though the feral Tory Eurosceptics who sit on the right-wing of their already right-wing party would love to see the Euro collapse, the more sensible among us should get real, knowing that this will quite simply not happen. The Euro is here to stay. David Cameron, hectoring the Eurozone countries to put their house in order while the UK flounders in a double-dip recession, admits as much.

Both the political nature of the Euro as a unifying force and its ultimate durability were demonstrated in the result of Sunday’s election in Greece. The Greek people voted, albeit narrowly, for stability, choosing in New Democracy a party that, while demanding some let-up, will broadly follow the Eurozone’s demands. The Euro, despite the crippling demands for austerity, is popular in Greece. In fact, the idea of a single currency is generally hailed across the EU as the way forward and a force for good. It is Britain, Sweden and Denmark who are out on a limb, not the other way round.

The new Greek Leader, Antonis Samaras, meanwhile, does not want to go down the harsh austerity route outlined again by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Samaras is right to seek some slack for Greece. While there is much Greece needs to do to put its own house in order by way of fighting corruption and making the population pay their taxes, further austerity will only make things worse.

In a welcome development, the French people have well and truly understood the ant-austerity message. Francois Hollande now has a clear majority in the National Assembly, ensuring that his growth plans will be approved. It is not only the French socialists who believe in action to stimulate economic growth and employment. President Obama is saying the very same things. At the start of the crucial G20 summit in Mexico there are two clear blocs – the right-wing pedlars of austerity and those who are more enlightened demanding an agenda for growth.

Labour Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls argued in yesterday’s London Evening Standard that we need a global growth plan and that every national leader should support Presidents Obama and Hollande as they seek to get the world economy moving. Given that the India’s massive economy is slowing down, such action is more urgent than ever.

If there is one overriding conclusion to come out of the Los Cabos G20 summit it is surely that “we are all in it together” as separate nation states linked by an ever more global economy. This is exactly the reason why the Euro will survive. We are increasingly living in a world where large power blocs hold sway – the United States of America, India, China. The European Union is on its way to achieving power bloc status.

Where, you may ask, is Britain? My answer is that the United Kingdom is at present moored precariously in no man’s land. I would also contend that although no-man’s land is not an ideal place to be, going it alone outside a power bloc would be disastrous. In today’s world, nation states are always stronger together than apart.

Honeyball’s Weekly Round-Up

Labour Party

The week saw several high profile meetings between heads of state, starting with François Hollande’s first encounter with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, then building up to the G8, held at Camp David.

In the Observer Andrew Rawnsley asked us to stop “being beastly to Germans”, as Noel Coward put it.  I can’t say I have much sympathy for Merkel, despite having to watch David Cameron celebrate as Chelsea beat her team Bayern Munich in the Champions League final on Saturday.  It is true though that, with Hollande as France’s new president, Merkel is looking very low on allies among her fellow heads of state.

As Rawnsley says in his article; ‘The American Democrat, British Conservative and French Socialist may not agree on much else, but on this, at least, they are together. It is one second to midnight in the eurozone because a recalcitrant and miserly Germany has refused to step up to its historic responsibility to do what is necessary to save the single currency. If the eurozone implodes, and carries away the global economy with it, the buck will stop in Berlin.’

I think it’s fair to say that that Germany does deserve a big helping of blame for the current state of the eurozone.  Germanyhas repeatedly failed to offer leadership that rises to the scale of the present crisis. When Germanyhas led, it has not always been in a well-judged direction. The austerity programme imposed on the Greeks as the price for continued membership of the euro was too draconian to be implemented in a democracy. The have duly revolted.

So now Obama, Hollande and Cameron get to lay the blame for the current situation at Merkel’s feet.  I can see their point but the idea that Cameron gets to lecture another European leader about a growth agenda is very galling.  Merkel has overseen a German economy that had remained very healthy through out the crisis, whilst Cameron’s government has led us in to further recession.

With all this going on, apart from the Champions League Final, you can’t imagine that Cameron did much relaxing at Camp David, though he has been accused of “chillaxing” too much of weekend, and playing games on his iPad.  He has reacted by saying that he is driven, like Lady Thatcher, to achieve “massive radical and structural reforms”.  I think I prefer the idea of Cameron “chillaxing” than bringing about reforms similar to Tatcher.  I hear that a new version of Angry Birds has just come out, can someone please buy it for him?

The Eurozone avoids recession after the UK has sunk into double dip

Labour Party

The first meeting between President Hollande and Chancellor Merkel ended with a show of unity, at least on the surface, and a joint view that Greece should stay in the Euro. Meanwhile, as IMF head Christine Lagarde adds her voice to those who think Greece may have to leave the single currency, the Eurozone remains in crisis. The result of the next round of elections in Greece will be crucial for both that country and the Euro itself.

It is important at what may turn out to be the crossroads for the Eurozone that those who make these decisions do not get caught up in the general air of panic. There is no doubt the atmosphere in Europe is febrile, while the Merkel/Hollande meeting is being described as sober.

Yesterday I argued that Europe’s leaders must take on board the results of a recent poll in Germany as well as the national elections in France and Greece which produced winning results for candidates opposing austerity. Fortunately it looks as if this may be sinking in. Horst Seehofer, head of Germany’s CSU Party, sister party to Merkel’s CDU, is now calling for some element of growth.

Yet the Eurozone crisis and the problems in Greece are taking place at the same time as the Eurozone is keeping its head above water as far as recession is concerned. It was announced yesterday that the Eurozone had avoided recession thanks, interestingly, to stronger than expected German growth. Even France, sometimes seen as a problem due to its 35 hour week and generous pensions, recorded neither growth nor contraction.

This is not, of course, the case in the UK. At the end of April we were informed that the British economy had again sunk into recession putting us into the unenviable double-dip category. David Cameron, of course, blamed the Eurozone crisis. This claim looks less than tenable in the light of the Eurozone’s ability to avoid recession itself. In fact, according to a recent Sunday Times/YouGov poll 32% of people blame the return of recession on the Tory-led coalition.

Cameron and Osborne have, in fact, been fortunate that the Eurozone crisis has taken attention away from the British economy. Our economy is not doing at all well, as those who have lost their jobs and the young people who cannot find employment will tell you. In addition, the Bank of England has today revised its forecast for growth downwards. We are, in fact, seeing a re-run of the decimation of our society last seen under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

The British people are, however, cottoning on to this. The local elections on 3 May showed beyond a shadow of doubt that they preferred Labour under Ed Miliband to this Tory-led coalition. Labour is on the way up, the Tories are going down and the beleaguered Liberal-Democrats seem headed for electoral wipe-out.

Our political leaders must take note of the people of Europe

Labour Party

France’s new President Francois Hollande is meeting Germany’s tried and tested Angela Merkel probably at this very minute.

The Euro, which will no doubt form the centre-piece of their deliberations, was, and remains, a brave venture, a departure from the politics of nation states and superpowers, globalisation and international money markets. For the first time ever a monetary project sought to bring together 17 different countries – a bold vision indeed. In this sense the Euro is the logical conclusion of setting up the European Union. Once the EU had established a political agreement, the Euro began the process of economic co-operation.

In this sense it is right to call the Euro a political project. And this is the very reason why Europe’s leaders from Angela Merkel to the European Commission do not want the Euro to fail. While I do not agree that if Greece were to leave the Euro this would mean the disintegration of the EU, its departure would seriously undermine the bold vision for Europe.

Mrs Merkel and the European Commission see this clearly, maybe even thinking that if Greece goes the whole Euro project will fail. Their response – severe austerity – is, however, beginning to look as if it will not work in the longer term.

Austerity should not continue for the simple reason that the people of Europe who have been to the polls recently have not supported Mrs Merkel’s point of view. Sunday’s elections in North Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s largest Land, saw Merkel’s CDU vote slump by eight per cent to an all-time low of 26%. The centre-left SDP social democrats did well boosting its share of the vote by five per cent to 39%. The liberal FDP also gained support.

While there may have been local factors at play in this internal German election, the result comes on top of Francois Hollande’s victory on a platform which included growth as well as austerity. We should also not lose sight of the result of the election in Greece. The Greek people have suffered more than any others in the EU and they are clearly saying no to austerity. The fact that the Greek election results have not delivered a government should not blind us to what the results are saying, which is a clear no to austerity.

The European Commission, Angela Merkel and the rest of Europe’s political leaders would do well to take on board that the many people in three EU member states have made their voices heard against strict austerity.

EU leaders are often quite rightly accused of being out of touch. The people have actually spoken over the past few months. The European Union – composed as it is of the world’s leading democracies – must take these voices on board. If they do not, the bold vision will flounder even further off course.

Meanwhile Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls hit the nail on the head regarding Britain’s role in the EU. According to today’s Guardian he told a Centre for European Reform seminar, “I don’t remember a time when British economic and political leaders in our country were less influential in debates which had more profound significance for jobs and growth in our economy.” Under the Tory-led coalition David Cameron and George Osborne are nowhere. The final irony is, if Greece were to leave the Euro, they would probably receive IMF money to which the UK had made a contribution. Standing aloof from the Euro does not let us off the hook in today’s integrated world.

Austerity must go hand in hand with growth

Labour Party

It would be a grave error to allow the excitement of Francois Hollande’s historic victory on Sunday to overshadow the results of the Greek general election. It was, of course, Greece’s sovereign debt crisis which sparked the ensuing crisis in the Eurozone. Moreover, the Greek people never accepted the consequent austerity measures. Whatever your view of those who demonstrated on the streets of Athens, it was always clear they had widespread support.

The short premiership of Eurozone appointee Lucas Papademos did nothing to assuage the opposition to austerity. Now, given the chance to once again elect their government, the Greeks have said no to austerity. Having come second in the inconclusive poll on Sunday, the far-left Syriza Party are incredibly in talks to form a coalition. If they are not successful the baton will pass to the leader of Greece’s socialist party, PASOK, former Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos.

Both the Greek and French result aptly demonstrate that austerity on its own without plans for growth, while never popular, is now losing whatever credibility it had for solving Europe’s economic problems. Put simply, the people will no longer put up with recession, unemployment and public expenditure cuts seemingly for no gain.

Now that two general election results have delivered this verdict along with local elections in Italy, another country under a Eurozone appointee, it is surely time to re-evaluate the austerity strategy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday it was of “utmost importance” that the programmes of austerity and economic reform as a condition of the €174 billion Greek bail-out package “continue to be implemented”. She also made clear that “The process is a difficult one, but, despite that, it should go on.”

Likewise the European Commission would do well to think again as they seem to be taking a pro-Merkel line. A spokeswoman said it was up to the Greek political parties to “work in an atmosphere of responsibility” and continue implementing structural and economic reforms.

The only realistic way out the austerity deadlock with the people on one side and powerful financial vested interests, not to mention the leading lights of the Eurozone, on the other is to seek a middle way. Just as Labour Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has always said, austerity must go hand in hand with measures for growth. Austerity alone causes huge suffering – unemployment and poverty coupled with the absence of hope. The people of Europe need to believe there is a future and a relatively strong one at that. Angela Merkel’s regime is providing the exact opposite and the people are making their views known.

While I would never claim the British local election results were wholly based on opposition to austerity measures, they clearly showed that our electorate prefer Labour to the current coalition. On the basis of those results Labour would form a government. We are seeing the Tory-led coalition sinking deeper into the mire as Cameron and Clegg try to revive their flagging fortunes. We should, perhaps, add the UK to the list of those countries who have had enough of austerity and want to feel hope for their future.