#eublogging

[archacovercosine]

on the topic of the european union: it seems to me that the introduction of the single market was even more of a watershed moment than most have realized.

The economic coupling it induced set into motion a process that was only going to lead to more integration, no matter what the recalcitrant heads of state may have thought, as the reversal or stopping of the process would plunge the member state's economy into a forced reset with huge consequences (the example of brexit is here illustrative). And as is clear now, even a temporary pause on it has eventually led to a temporary pause of european development!

In the realest sense possible, the EU is the internal market, and the internal market is the EU.

[archacovercosine]

agree on the first part, mostly because this is a slow moving thing and so the comfortable response for the most part will be inclined to hold on to a good but declining thing.

I don't know about the second part, it seems true on the short scale but I would say to really get at the cause here you have to go back to the slow decline of further european integration, where really the reluctance of the governments is to blame, not the public's view of the EU.

pivotal point here really seems the eurocrisis which stands out as the first time where politicians negative attitudes towards the eu were transferred to the population-wide sentiment in a more permanent way.

learning how the Italian tax system works and what zoning laws are like in small German villages is going to turn me into an insufferable Anglo-American chauvinist libertarian

[archacovercosine]

had to miss the hearings held last afternoon and this morning, so here's some relevant bits from the coverage:

on agriculture, Christophe Hansen took a mostly right-wing stance on animal farming, claiming that a decrease in livestock is "unnecessary" and that the agriculture sector is only 11% of emissions anyway.

He also came out mostly in favor of the status quo on CAP, although the subsidy disparity between west and east was mentioned as very important.

Similar to Sefcovic yesterday, strong support for the Mercosur agreement and the allowance of Ukraine goods into the EU, both points that are also facing oppositon from farmers.

Personally, would have liked to see those stances flipped: an agricultural reform is really needed, but it's not looking like a emission or pesticide decrease is going to happen like this.

[archacovercosine]

oh boy the Draghi report is finally out

that'll stir up some dust I'm sure, since from a brief summary he recommends the EU cough up around a trillion bucks to invest into industrial policy

of course he also says you need to abolish the veto, but more interesting also that if not every country wants to join this new initiative the ones that do should just do it, as happened with the Euro and with Schengen.

[archacovercosine]

back to your regularly scheduled comissioner hearing recaps! these ones were taken before the american results, but starting today I expect them to start factoring into the questions

first, Dubravka Suica, comissioner-designate for the Mediterranean, a new portfolio which is supposed on working to integrate the mediterranean region closer with the EU. it remains to be seen how much room to manoveur she'll have though, as these topics are also generally covered by the trade, enlargement, and migration portfolios.

a hearing characterized by a lot of line-toeing on the middle east, although Suica affirmed she'd continue to finance UNRWA and the PA, but no comments on actual consequences for israel.

Otherwise, it's looking like the EU wants to work closer with Morocco and Jordan on migration, in a matter similar to Tunisia and Egypt. Not an unexpected line, but the existing migration deals are already inhumane and essentialy mean the EU just moves the suffering of refugees and migrants out of sight, Tunisia has been leaving people to starve in the desert but at least we didn't get our hands bloody.

So, any human rights guarantees she makes are essentially worth nothing.

The last interesting bit was a that in response to some of the questions she did display an awareness that migration is also sorely needed to counteract the population dying off, maybe we'll see more on "skilled migrants" in the hearing for Brunner, the actual migration comissioner

So, not all that eventful, Suica's last term was not exactly marked by her making a big impact, so we will if she gets much done this time, or remains a hanger-on for Kallas and others.

[archacovercosine]

alright, new hearing time, for Dan Jørgensen, comissioner designate for housing and energy

the housing portfolio was added on request of the social democrats, but it's not something the EU has a lot of power in. Jørgensen is therefore also a social democrat, and comes out strongly pro-green deal in his opening statement. he also affirms that nuclear will have to part of the decarbonization mix.

there will be an "EU affordable housing plan", hoping the MEP questions shed some light on this. one named proposal here is better support measures for social housing via reformed state aid rules.

hoping we can get some questions on the energy tax which Draghi identified as a big part of the high prices.

[archacovercosine]

I wonder by how much the EU is transferring to the US because every single tech company is American.

if this is a large fraction, I think the talk about european "productivity" is misguided, because then the gap is just because the EU is missing a sector, which calls for very different measures.

[archacovercosine]

btw one of the disappointing things about the report-draghi is that the eu economy policy bean-counters seem to be taking big gulps of the quantum computing flavor-aid.

(same goes for ai to a lesser extent. at least there is current functionality there, and behind the big talk about frontier models is an enormous usage potential of machine translation, image recognition, etc.)

[archacovercosine]

lol so thierry breton fucking ragequit

some eu inside baseball: he and von der Leyen were already known to not get along, now the fact that Draghi's report was harsh on some of his past policies combined with the fact that he's a re-nominee from a government with weakened mandate (and a man too) meant that he was going to be getting a much weaker portfolio than he wanted, and also what France wanted. So Breton says Macron has been asked by von der Leyen to submit someone else and that in exchange he's going to get a good portfolio, and that this was behind Breton's back.

so I guess he decided to just blow it up.

kind of a shame, he was always calling out von der Leyen's more questionable behavior. But a Frenchman was definitely the wrong pick for an Internal Market comissioner, given how they're notoriously protective.

[archacovercosine]

all this talk about "productivity" in the Draghi report seems to be missing the issue. It is after all a calculated metric, based on GDP and hours worked.

and it is the GDP number that you have to look for here, and where some of the gap between us and the US comes from: basically every single digital-related transaction siphons money out from the EU and into the US.

Draghi did mention this I think, at least I have seen a clip of it, that they did a numeric test and that if you remove the tech sector, the productivity was about the same!

the problem thus is clearly not "productivity" in the aggregate, it is that the EU as a whole basically missed the boat on the big growth sector of the last 20 years.

and the report does seem aware of this, since a lot of it is focused on creating strong EU companies and keeping them here, but the second-hand sources are already breathelessly speculating about general "productivity" being lower, which is misleading!

[archacovercosine]

second round of questions is a lot less interesting than the first, probably because there are so many repeat topics.

some questions on ukraine trade integration that I'm not qualified to follow, and sanction circumvention is not really a trade issue.

repeated calls from parliament for their requested treaty change to democratize the EU more, but more than just agreeing to push for it Šefčovič can't really do, it's up to the council.

mercosur comes back AGAIN, really a showcase of the might of the agriculture sector in europe.

a question on investor-state settlements, but he gets away with a reference to the ongoing ISDP reform.

Šefčovič gets to express a little salt that the major economies are no longer interested in rules or WTO settlements

and after a few more question that are not really related to the direct portfolio, we are done!

Šefčovič did well, which was to be expected from a routinier. Though we will see how much the stated ambition to not get into trade wars plays out once the member states start pulling

anyway, I won't be able to watch the other hearings today but hopefully we'll be back tomorrow

forget the american election, the most interesting bit of political theater is starting right now, one day earlier: the EU comissioner hearings!

unfortunately, they seem to be held partially simultaneously and horrifically offset wrt my current timezone

first off, the choice to watch: Glenn Micallef, comissioner-designate for youth, sports and intergenerational fairness, from Malta, or the old Slovak Brussels hand Maroš Šefčovič, comissioner designate for Trade, Economic Security and Transparency.

The second is clearly the more interesting portfolio, so that's what I'll be going with.

[archacovercosine]

this post was inspired by how countries seem inclined to carve up Schengen into bits and pieces by reintroducing border controls.

sad to say, the situation does not seem to be getting better and despite the reports the comission has in hands they seem disinclined to reprimand member states for messing with the internal market.

of course, the whole thing is mostly symbol politics at it's best, the amount of actually stopped vehicles and persons is negligible and so far it's mostly a colossal waste of personnel and money, and more of a worrying sign of our direction than an actual threat.

it really is depressing how no one seems capable of putting forth a different message on immigration. I do not want to live in a gerontocratic country full of elderly and cow shit, and immigration has a big part to play in that! only Spain right now seems to be resisting the impulse of bowing to the collective pro-ethnostate gut feelings, and we'll see how that lasts.

on the topic of the european union: it seems to me that the introduction of the single market was even more of a watershed moment than most have realized.

The economic coupling it induced set into motion a process that was only going to lead to more integration, no matter what the recalcitrant heads of state may have thought, as the reversal or stopping of the process would plunge the member state's economy into a forced reset with huge consequences (the example of brexit is here illustrative). And as is clear now, even a temporary pause on it has eventually led to a temporary pause of european development!

In the realest sense possible, the EU is the internal market, and the internal market is the EU.

[archacovercosine]

transport and infrastructure:

the Greek Apostolos Tzitzikostas was confirmed as comissioner here, after a fairly uneventful session, as he had a lot of words but few concrete proposals

the integrated train ticketing system was mentioned again, and promised in 2025, but that's not the first time so I'm not holding my breath.

He did reaffirm the decision to phase-out combustion engine cars by 2035, despite calls from the EPP to delay it. We did have a little e-fuel weasel snuck into the planning though, but I don't think that'll amount to much.

he did get questions on the tragic greek rail incident, but of course could not do much except comitting to safety. He was suspiciously helped by the chair, who escorted a greek MP who was handing out flyers, but I don't really know enough about the background of that accident.

lot of talk, but nothing on maritime or aerospace emissions except that they "need global solutions" (lol), which has been the mantra even while negotiations with the IMO stall and stall.

surprisingly, no questions about his and his familys extensive real estate investments in greece, which were marked as a potential conflict on interest (tourism is in his portfolio too) before.

I'm not expecting too much, but at least he did not cave wholesale to the EU auto lobby

had to miss the hearings held last afternoon and this morning, so here's some relevant bits from the coverage:

on agriculture, Christophe Hansen took a mostly right-wing stance on animal farming, claiming that a decrease in livestock is "unnecessary" and that the agriculture sector is only 11% of emissions anyway.

He also came out mostly in favor of the status quo on CAP, although the subsidy disparity between west and east was mentioned as very important.

Similar to Sefcovic yesterday, strong support for the Mercosur agreement and the allowance of Ukraine goods into the EU, both points that are also facing oppositon from farmers.

Personally, would have liked to see those stances flipped: an agricultural reform is really needed, but it's not looking like a emission or pesticide decrease is going to happen like this.

[archacovercosine]

2: Jessika Roswall, swedish comissioner-designate for the environment and circular economy.

This actually turned out to be the first nonconfirmation of this round of hearings, though she was not rejected out of hand, merely asked to come back for another round.

a combination of sweden's poor environmental track record, which raised questions about her indepence, and the lack of details she could give to MEP questions is what lead to her getting a no vote.

she did unfortunately seem committed to the "bioeconomy", which mostly translates to biomass as a fake-carbon neutral energy source.

also no concrete answers on water management, both flood and drought management, only the promise of a "strategy", and similar on biodiversity.

Roswall is fairly new to this dossier, so this could also be partially to blame for her poor responses as soon as she has to step outside of the prepared sentences. But it does feel like the student who is gambling only the topics he studied for will be on the exam.

so the decision is postponed for confirmation, and chances are good MEPs will be asking for more written answers before.

back to your regularly scheduled comissioner hearing recaps! these ones were taken before the american results, but starting today I expect them to start factoring into the questions

first, Dubravka Suica, comissioner-designate for the Mediterranean, a new portfolio which is supposed on working to integrate the mediterranean region closer with the EU. it remains to be seen how much room to manoveur she'll have though, as these topics are also generally covered by the trade, enlargement, and migration portfolios.

a hearing characterized by a lot of line-toeing on the middle east, although Suica affirmed she'd continue to finance UNRWA and the PA, but no comments on actual consequences for israel.

Otherwise, it's looking like the EU wants to work closer with Morocco and Jordan on migration, in a matter similar to Tunisia and Egypt. Not an unexpected line, but the existing migration deals are already inhumane and essentialy mean the EU just moves the suffering of refugees and migrants out of sight, Tunisia has been leaving people to starve in the desert but at least we didn't get our hands bloody.

So, any human rights guarantees she makes are essentially worth nothing.

The last interesting bit was a that in response to some of the questions she did display an awareness that migration is also sorely needed to counteract the population dying off, maybe we'll see more on "skilled migrants" in the hearing for Brunner, the actual migration comissioner

So, not all that eventful, Suica's last term was not exactly marked by her making a big impact, so we will if she gets much done this time, or remains a hanger-on for Kallas and others.

[archacovercosine]

man, MEPs really love to ask questions about red tape huh

the big question for this portfolio is the money. Jørgensen states the housing part of the cohesion funds will be doubled.

Jørgensen says he will work with other comissioners to curb housing speculation, and that there will be money allocated for renovations of energy inefficient buildings.

that marks 2 questions on SMRs, another industry that has clearly lobbyed well, given that they're barely in the commercial stage. though this last one was asked by the far-right, well known of JAQing climate change questions using prospective technology.

MEP for the greens wants a commitment faster rollout of renewables, most notable binding targets for 2040, but Jørgensen answers his other questions instead.

(man, some of the MEPs are using their time really poorly)

reaffirms that he will reform state aid rules, and also that he is looking at short-term rental rules.

alright, new hearing time, for Dan Jørgensen, comissioner designate for housing and energy

the housing portfolio was added on request of the social democrats, but it's not something the EU has a lot of power in. Jørgensen is therefore also a social democrat, and comes out strongly pro-green deal in his opening statement. he also affirms that nuclear will have to part of the decarbonization mix.

there will be an "EU affordable housing plan", hoping the MEP questions shed some light on this. one named proposal here is better support measures for social housing via reformed state aid rules.

hoping we can get some questions on the energy tax which Draghi identified as a big part of the high prices.

[archacovercosine]

yesterday we also had the hearing of the Maltese Glenn Micallef, youngest in this comission at 35.

this got him a very light portfolio: sport, culture, and intergenerational fairness

the hearing never got concrete on what intergenerational fairness is supposed to be exactly, mentioned were mental health (eugh) and youth unemployment.

he promise a "forward looking" AI strategy wrt to culture, which is very uncomitted, though it is good he did not jump to copyright enforcement immediately, although that is already provisioned in the AI act.

there was a bit in there about illegal sports streams, which doesn't seem like a pressing issue to me but the football leagues have good lobby in the EP I guess.

yeah, not much to add here I think, the intergenerational fairness might turn out to be mostly hot air if he can't get any money from other departments.

had to miss the hearings held last afternoon and this morning, so here's some relevant bits from the coverage:

on agriculture, Christophe Hansen took a mostly right-wing stance on animal farming, claiming that a decrease in livestock is "unnecessary" and that the agriculture sector is only 11% of emissions anyway.

He also came out mostly in favor of the status quo on CAP, although the subsidy disparity between west and east was mentioned as very important.

Similar to Sefcovic yesterday, strong support for the Mercosur agreement and the allowance of Ukraine goods into the EU, both points that are also facing oppositon from farmers.

Personally, would have liked to see those stances flipped: an agricultural reform is really needed, but it's not looking like a emission or pesticide decrease is going to happen like this.