Certain subjects this column has recently tackled have undergone sometimes significant developments and further change, which should be underlined.
Opposing budgetary wastage. As I recently wrote, Europe is now poor (EUROPE 10348) and this applies to both the EU and its member states. The toughest austerity measures are being consolidated in Europe, whilst China, India and other emerging countries (not to mention the oil giants) are making massive injections into their monetary reserves and going on a shopping spree to purchase European goods. Nonetheless, in an examination of economic activity in Europe, wastage is still being identified. What is the point, for example, of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) and its bureaucracy, which has just met to tackle the issue of its budget for its secretariat general, personnel and service providers? For this simple task, the EU and its member states have committed €4.5 million alone (no country among the non-EU Mediterranean countries has made any contribution). EUROPE 10356 examined the situation regarding the UfM and noted that a much higher cost for the worthless (and sometimes destructive) Joint Parliamentary Assembly has had to be paid since it was set up and this cost is expected to rise.
At a more general level, the European Parliament has adopted a number of different austerity measures. At the same time, however, for spending other than its own, both the Left and Right continue to vote for the allocation of subsidies because each rapporteur and every parliamentary committee and political group has different interest groups to protect. Certain recent events in which MEPs have been involved should be reason for promoting a cautious response when money is at stake, so that useful, indeed, indispensable spending, such as supplementary funding towards a number of the countries where the Arab Spring has become a definitive reality, can be safeguarded.
Ms Ashton's role becoming clearer. The make-believe involved in the plethora of different roles is gradually falling away, as predicted in EUROPE 10341 and 10342. Catherine Ashton hardly ever takes part in European Commission meetings, of which she is theoretically the vice-president. She chairs the Foreign Affairs Council as often as possible but has already asked one or other minister member of this Council to replace her, due to the commitments implicit in her real task, the only one that she can effectively exercise -that of heading the huge and multifaceted diplomatic service Europe now has, by representing the EU in the international meetings and producing subsequent declarations. Nonetheless, every time a journalist asks her to take a position on a controversial question, her answer invariably points out that she is not the European minister for foreign affairs (this title is often conferred upon her). Her numerous declarations on behalf of the EU are perhaps inevitable but if they are analysed, one observes that they rarely go beyond a few trite banalities. I have made a detailed examination of the very recent declaration on the dramatic events in Syria (EUROPE 10356 reported on this issue). She firmly condemns the continued violence and deaths and sincerely regrets the loss of life; she sends her condolences to the families of the victims and underlines that a state must guarantee freedom of expression, fundamental rights and the primacy of law. She concludes with a firmness worthy of a schoolmaster reprimanding a naughty schoolchild and affirms that “this has to begin right now”. The Syrian authorities haven't given the impression that they have been listening to her.
The positive effects from Parliament's new role in the trade arena. This column recently expressed the conviction that the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Doha Round can only reach a positive outcome on condition that the negotiators accept what has already been acquired and do not spend too much time seeking to make any additional gains. At the same time, I expressed my scepticism about the conclusion of the EU-Mercosur agreement. I also recently learnt in EUROPE 10357 that the draft EU-India agreement was unlikely to be concluded. In this field, the European Parliament is increasingly monitoring the conditions underpinning draft agreements with third countries and is ensuring that free trade is subject to respect for standards in the domain of ecology, copyright, mutual access to public markets and, above all, the quality of food products. This does not constitute protectionism because the expansion of trade continues to exceed that of economic activity. Nevertheless, there is an appropriate demand for trade to respect the major principles of living together in a world fit to live in. This is an area in which the enhanced powers of the European Parliament are playing an undeniably positive role. (F.R./transl.fl)