Europe
MEPs create new scheme allowing them to claim £257 for each journey to work;
Taxpayers to fund £100m hole in MEP pension fund created by financial crisis
The Mail reports that from June MEPs will be able to claim up to £257 per journey under a 'duration allowance' which reimburses them for the time spent travelling between their homes and European Parliament buildings. The article notes that this comes on top of free business class travel to anywhere in the EU and a 'distance allowance' - which is supposed to cover the cost of meals, taxis and any other expenses incurred while travelling.
There is also further coverage of the revelations on Tuesday that the European Parliament has guaranteed that all MEPs who are members of the institution's voluntary supplementary pension scheme will receive their full entitlements even though the fund currently has a deficit of €120 million because of the financial market crash. According to the Mail, between £35 and £50 million was allegedly lost in the Bernie Madoff debacle. According to the Telegraph, the European Parliament's authorities are expected to bypass a decision by its budget control committee not to bail out the scheme in order to "honour legal requirements", meaning that additional taxpayers' money could be used in future to cover the deficit.
The Telegraph notes that two thirds of the optional extra pension is paid for in supplementary payments by the taxpayer. MEPs pay £1,052 (€1,194) a month into the scheme. That cash is added to by a publicly funded payment of £2,104 (€2,388). MEPs, on reaching retirement age, can expect an extra pension benefit, on top of generous national schemes, worth an annual £14,736 for every five year term of office. An MEP benefiting from the perk can net a combined pension of over £35,000 after just 10 years in office.
The management of the supplementary pension fund has repeatedly been criticised since 1999 by the European Court of Auditors, which questioned the legality of the scheme.
Mail Mail-leader Telegraph European Voice Telegraph: Waterfield blog
Bundesbank chief rejects EU's de Larosière report on financial regulation
German Bundesbank chief Alex Weber has rejected the EU's de Larosière report on co-ordinating bodies for banking, insurance and securities supervision, stating that it would create an asymmetry between responsibilities of national authorities and the big powers of European co-ordinating bodies. This was the first response to the report by the Bundesbank, which will reportedly have a big influence on the position of the German government. Weber's statement also shows German reluctance towards accepting a loss in national competence. "If there is a banking crisis, it is the national fiscal authorities who will put up the money, not the EU", Weber said, according to the FTD.
Eurointelligence FT
Talks on ending working time opt-out end in no agreement
El Mundo reports that yesterday's talks between MEPs and the Council on ending the opt-out from the EU's 48-hour maximum working week ended in no agreement. The next meeting will take place on April 23. The article notes that if no agreement has been reached by April 28 the opt-out will remain. The European Voice notes that the EP's last chance to vote on a compromise deal would be its plenary session on 4-7 May.
El Mundo Open Europe report Open Europe blog
French Europe Minister: We want a single EU military HQ
French Europe Minister Bruno Le Maire has announced in an interview with French radio that France wants the EU to have its own single defence headquarters, autonomous of NATO. He said: "While it may be a difficult objective, in time we will need to have a single military command for the European Union, a European staff headquarters which could be installed for example in Brussels, and which would allow us to command European operations wherever European security interests are at stake. Today there are three staff headquarters which do that: one in England, one in France, one in Germany. I think it would be more logical, more reasonable and also more economic for public money to have a single operational headquarters."
He admitted it would be "very difficult" to convince Britain of the need for a single headquarters, which has for years blocked the creation of a proper permanent EU military headquarters, because of the risk of duplicating NATO structures. But, Mr. Le Maire said, with the return of France into the integrated military structures of NATO, "we can no longer be accused (...) of doing it against NATO because we are now fully in NATO."
Meanwhile, Le Figaro reports that Le Maire has said that he wants a "politically strong Europe, with an autonomous defence force, which is responsible and advocates financial regulation". Le Maire also said that Nicolas Sarkozy's Presidency of the EU has changed Europe for the better and he hopes that Sarkozy will become involved in the election campaign. He argued that the French Socialist Party is "neither honest nor responsible" and wants to transform European issues into national issues.
AFP Le Figaro Open Europe blog
Oxford Energy Professor: The UK is "six years away from an energy crisis"
Writing in the Times, Dieter Helm, Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Oxford, warns that, "We are six years away from an energy crisis". In the article he states that, "Energy security is no longer something that we can take for granted" and notes that by 2015 "the energy position could be precarious."
Professor Helm notes that the UK's current coal power stations face closure by 2015 as a result of an EU directive on large combustion plants and that all but one of the UK's nuclear power plants will be decommissioned by this date. Helm adds that the Government's commitment under the EU's Renewables Directive to increase wind power from to 5 to 35 percent of the UK's electricity supply is "expensive and may even reduce the security of supply". He notes that, "The security problem arises because wind is intermittent. When it does not blow, back-up capacity is needed; and when it does blow, it reduces the profitability of power stations whose alternative energy supplies it displaces."
The EUreferendum blog notes that due to the crisis being predicted to occur six years from now it will only become an issue in the next but one general election, "which means that both parties can continue to ignore it."
The Guardian reports that McKinnon and Clarke, which claims to be the UK's biggest energy consultancy, has said that the Government's plans to build new nuclear capacity, announced yesterday, would not be enough to stop the lights going out in 2015.
Times-Helm EU Referendum blog Guardian
French fishermen end port blockade following promise of further subsidies
The Telegraph reports that the blockade of the port of Calais by French fishermen protesting over EU fish quotas is over and fishermen are meeting in Boulogne and Dunkirk this morning to discuss whether to resume the blockades there.
EUobserver reports that French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier has announced that the French government would release some €4 million to appease the fishermen, and the WSJ reports that the subsidy will be offered to fishermen who agree to limit their catches and expeditions.
Mark Mardell's BBC blog quotes Conservative MEP Richard Ashworth arguing that "The French government continues to ignore its obligation to provide free passage for Britons travelling in the European Union. France continues to turn a blind eye to this kind of deliberate disruption to a crucial trade route and it is totally unacceptable."
Times Express Mirror FT Sun Telegraph BBC BBC: Mardell blog WSJ EUobserver
Sarkozy questions Spanish PM's intelligence
The Spanish press reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said of Spanish PM José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero: "Maybe he isn't that intelligent". The comments were made yesterday in private, in reference to Spain's new law reducing advertisements on national television, which is "a copy" of the French law.
El País El Mundo
Costs of EU directive on biofuel to be passed on to motorists
The Times reports that the EU's directive on biofuels, recently passed as part of the EU's climate and energy package, will raise the cost of motoring for drivers. The EU rules state that 13 per cent of petrol and diesel fuels need to be derived from biofuel by 2020. Oil companies have had to spend more than £100 million in the past year on adapting refineries and storage facilities to cope with biofuels. The paper notes that the costs of complying with the EU directive will increase sharply over the next five years and most of the cost will be passed on to drivers.
A Friends of the Earth report this week said that biofuels could increase emissions because forests were being cut down to clear land for crops.
Times
Commission's staff appointing procedure ruled invalid
European Voice reports that the EU's staff tribunal has ruled that the European Commission's procedures for choosing head representatives in member states is invalid, after accusations of political interference and cronyism, specifically involving senior levels of DG Communication, who are responsible for the representations. The tribunal has annulled a decision taken at the end of 2006 appointing the head of representation in Athens.
European Voice
Swedish MEP: "EU climate plan will only achieve one third of what the US will achieve"
At a conference in Brussels on climate change policy, Swedish MEP Anders Wijkman said that the EU climate package which was approved in December will only lead to 4 or 5 percent reductions in emissions, while the US will manage at the same time to achieve a reduction of 16 to 17 percent. Wijkman commented that "us criticising them is possibly not the right thing to do". He said he was "not convinced" by the EU's Emissions Trading System, but said that "a lot of revenue and prestige has gotten into the ETS system, so it is not realistic to have another system".The Centre
EP Economic Committee Chairwoman lashes out at Commission
In an interview with European Voice, the Chairwoman of the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, French Socialist MEP Pervenche Beres, has said she regrets that "macro-economic questions have not been a priority for all members of the committee", who often preferred the "more political" issues of financial markets regulation. She also said that the EU had missed an opportunity when the Commission did not come out with strong EU-wide conditions on how taxpayers' money could be spent when rescue plans were organised last October.
She described the performance of the Commission in the financial crisis as "disastrous" and said of Internal Markets Commissioner Charlie McCreevy, "For five years the guy in charge of all these topics has told us we need regulatory pauses and we need to have confidence in self-regulation". She added that Commission President José Manuel Barroso "didn't care" about the topic.
European Voice
In an interview with EurActiv, French Senator Robert del Picchia asserts that the Union of the Mediterranean project is stalled on the issue of funding, among other things, and that it lacks the proper institutions to be fully operational.
Euractiv
The EU anti-fraud body Olaf has welcomed an Italian court ruling on a milk quota scam, where some Italian dairies simulated transactions using fake companies. Olaf argues that Italian dairies have avoided paying fines for exceeding annual quotas, but now the EU could recover up to €1bn in fines, according to Commission estimates.
BBC
Confidence in EU institutions at an all time low ahead of European elections
El País reports that public confidence in EU institutions has plummeted with the economic crisis and that record levels of abstention predicted for the European elections threaten Europe's future. According to the Eurobaromoter survey, in Spain only 27% of the electorate are likely to vote, and yet in 1987, the year after Spain joined the EU, turnout was at 69%.
Le Figaro has published an article by Jean-Dominique Giuliani from the Fondation Robert-Schuman analysing the European elections. Entitled "A Parliament in search of credibility", the article highlights voter apathy and explains that while the electorate demands more transparency and proximity to EU issues, the majority of French citizens prefer national politics. He argues that the candidates chosen by political parties and the size of the constituencies contribute to the nationalisation of European elections. However he also emphasises how the Parliament has become increasingly powerful and influential.
In article in the Independent looking at the European elections, Adrian Hamilton writes that the expected low voter turnout "is an indication of just how little the great European experiment has impressed itself upon the consciousness of the ordinary citizen."
He writes that, with a resurgence of the Franco-German axis, evident at the G20 summit, and with the recession testing the EU's ability to co-operate, "All of a sudden Europe has become an interesting place, although you won't have any reflection of that when voters come to choose their European candidate in June."
El País Independent: Hamilton Le Figaro
Spain's central bank has issued a stark warning to the country's government, saying there is no more room to revive the economy with fresh spending.
WSJ
Eline van den Broek is to head Libertas' list for the European Parliament elections in the Netherlands.
Volkskrant
Open Europe is an independent think tank campaigning for radical reform of the EU. For information on our research, events and other activities, please visit our website: openeurope.org.uk or call us on 0207 197 2333.
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