• National politicians and national media still have a major communication problem concerning the EU. European politicians too, of course, but they cannot solve the problem. Only those who already have the voters’ ear can do that.
• The irony of constitutional safeguards: Current legal constraints on the powers of governments prohibit the creation of legal structures that would offer better legal constraints on the informal powers that governments already have created for themselves.
• The democratic paradox: The smallest of Member States can veto a Treaty change supported by all other Member States. Isn’t this the dictatorship of the minority?
• If the issue was costs to tax payers or delivering concrete results, Irish voters would have voted ‘Yes’, massively.
• Nor can it be that the EU undermines symbols of national identity, like (in Ireland’s case) non-alignment, prohibited abortion, and low corporate taxes, as Ireland has opt-outs on the first two and tax decisions require unanimity in the Council.
• Perception, then, is everything.
• Today is Friday the 13th.

Update: First reactions by AFOE, Jon Worth, Nosemonkey.

Although it was a good thing that he did this in the end (and initially no one, except for the Arab regimes that instigated the rows, could have foreseen that it would become such a big thing), I was rather critical at the time because Fogh Rasmussen did not take the opportunity to explain what free speech was really about:

What Fogh should have done instead of saying that free speech is important, was explain why it is important. Instead of appearing as a weak leader not worthy of much respect, by saying that as a Danish PM he is used to being criticised and that he accepts that, he would have come across as a good leader by explaining that the constant criticism actually helps him to do a better job. He could have said that because people in Denmark have been allowed to say what they think about their leaders for a long time, and can even get rid of them if the leaders don’t listen, Denmark is such a wealthy country with so little inequality and suffering. The hint would not have been missed on a region still predominantly ruled by dictators.

Today, the Netherlands is holding its breath for a similar row to erupt, this time about a Quran-critical film that has been made by a Dutch MP and which should come out before the end of this month. Over at A Fistful of Euros, Guy described how the issue is being hyped in Dutch media before the film is even published. Hype or not however, the Danish case shows how easy it is to turn the positive reputation of a country into one of evil anti-muslim crusaders (that is, if you are an Arab regime with a motive and complete control over what appears in your own media). So it is only right that, in an attempt to avoid the Danish mistakes, the Dutch government has been working for months through its embassies in the muslim world to at least try to get its own message across to government and media in the predominant muslim parts of the world.

As part of the pre-emptive strike, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, the world service of the Dutch public radio, has now produced its own documentary (and a website ‘about Fitna, the movie’) in which it tries to explain the Dutch position on the MP’s film and its relation to free speech:

Has it succeeded better than Anders Fogh Rasmussen in the Al Arabiya interview? Well, yes, a little. What is good in the RNW film, is that it underlines that even the Dutch government is bound to obey the law, just like any ordinary citizen. It is not government, but the majority of the population through its representatives which makes the law. This is an important point to make. What the film also seems to be doing better than the Danish PM, is to make clear the importance of free speech for an open public debate. Even though a large majority of the population does not agree with the MP’s film, they still accept it is published because they realise that if they would ban opinions like these, next time it is one of their own opinions that is banned from being published. The giving and taking of free speech becomes a little clearer, and even more so because of most of the people explaining this in the documentary are Dutch muslims.

If the RNW film turns out to be convincing enough for a critical audience remains to be seen. What I am still missing, for instance, is a clear(-er) explanation of the connection between free speech, the state of law and democracy on the one hand, and having a government that is not corrupt, does not torture its citizens and governs effectively on the other. But it is an attempt, and anyway, if people turn to the streets over this film in Saudi Arabia, Syria or Egypt, we know that this is because their governments wanted them to, not because they have watched some film on the internet.

** update 27 March 2008: ** The film was published today. What an anticlimax! I mean, it is still the modern equivalent of Der ewige Jude, but not a lot of Dutch flags are going to be burnt over this. And it is badly made at that…

** update 28 March 2008: ** More on A Fistful of Euros.

First of all, I think lobbying is in essence a good thing and in fact essential for the quality of public decision-making. We expect our representatives in various parliaments and in our governments (including the European Commission) to consult widely with civil society before they take any decisions. How else could they do that than by talking to its representatives?

For Members of Parliament, especially if they belong to small political groups who do not have the (wo-)manpower to read (let alone follow in detail) every proposal going through Parliament, lobbyists are an invaluable source of information. Intense lobbying activity on a specific proposal is always a good warning signal that something is the matter with it. Information provided by lobbyists from industry and NGOs is also of great help identifying the contentious elements in a proposal and learning the positions of various sections of civil society.

As June O’Keefe of SEAP points out: reputation is everything in the Brussels village. If you spread false or misleading information once, you are no longer listened to next time. Good M(E)Ps know who is relevant to listen to – this is what the “building good relationships” part is mostly about. Good lobbyists know that too, so they make sure their information is useful and their arguments reasonable. Good lobbyists also know they must combine their efforts if they want their arguments to carry more weight, by speaking per sector or European umbrella organisation instead of bombarding policy-makers with different or even contradicting arguments for each company, interest group or national NGO.

Of course it is then up to the M(E)Ps to decide which and how many different lobbyists they listen to, what they do with that information and how they justify this to the outside world. Parliaments are transparent institutions: Journalists monitor every move politicians make, so, at least in principle, the opportunities to question the decisions made are plenty. In other words: the correction mechanism is there, and if an M(E)P gets away with pork-barreling or even corruption, it is because the correction mechanism (the press, the voters) failed to do its job.

Why then the common perception that there are so many lobbyists in the European Parliament? My answer would be: because there are so few journalists in the European Parliament. When I compare the European Parliament to national parliaments, my impression is not that there is more lobbying going on in the EP. What is striking in Brussels, is the lack of media frenzy there compared to national parliaments.

The explanation I think is that individual actors acting rationally here leads to a sub-optimal overall result: Lobbyists optimise results by concentrating on the politics that has actual effects in the real world (if they don’t, they simply don’t get paid). Newspapers and other media, if they want to keep selling, optimise by concentrating on the politics people think has actual results, even if that means reporting non-events happening at the national level while neglecting important things happening at the EU level. The adage “what happens does not matter, what matters is what people think that happens” applies. And the vicious circle remains closed by the facts that most people get their idea of what matters from what they read in the press, and that politicians who want to be re-elected – like newspapers that want to be sold – are forced to concentrate on what people think that matters. Hence, given the importance of EU decision-making, the rather shocking imbalance between the number of political correspondents in national capitals vs. those in Brussels, whereas lobbyists are much more evenly distributed. Hence, also, the equally shocking lack of knowledge among journalists, and with the general public, of how the EU works and which decisions are taken there.

So if we cannot, and maybe should not, do very much against the influence of lobbyists in the EP, is this different for the contacts between lobbyists and civil servants? Well, yes and no. As I said, civil servants preparing a piece of legislation must be in touch with civil society if they want to have any idea of the effect it is going to have on society. Like M(E)Ps they will have to keep the “general interest” (whatever that is) in mind when assessing that information. But unlike M(E)Ps, it is much more difficult to monitor what civil servants do, as in most countries their preparatory work happens behind closed doors. So it is fair that there are rules to prevent people from misusing their position. Of course, bribing should be illegal, both for the civil servant and for the person or organisation doing it. And within the civil service and the Commission, strict codes of conduct with sanctions should apply.

But where bribery is relatively easy to define, it is much more difficult to draw a line between defending and explaining one’s interest or those of one’s organisation or client, and inappropiate use of influence. So I really think a civil service’s main line of defence against this should be in having an effective code of conduct for their own employees, and not in setting rules for the outside world. As for SEAP, it is in their own best PR interest (remember, reputation is everything) to have their own code of conduct and to kick out members who misbehave. But I really think the prime responsibility is with the Commission.

And lest we forget: Member States do a lot of lobbying too in Brussels, only then it is called “defending the national interest”. But as this very often goes against the general interest of all EU members together (take Spanish structural funds, the British rebate…), it really fits into the same category. Here again, we need a lot more press to monitor what is going on and to hold those responsible to account.

Oh, just for the record, I am not a lobbyist…

In it, SVT describes itself as a “free” TV channel, in contrast to Italy where Mr Berlusconi “controls 90% of the national TV channels”.

And:

The trailer shows Mr Berlusconi, who owns Italy’s largest private TV network, blowing kisses from TV screens.

It also features snippets from Italian television with ticker tape running across.

“Silvio Berlusconi controls 90% of national TV channels in Italy,” it reads. “He became prime minister in 1991 after a massive TV campaign.”

“Right after that, a tribunal ruled he should sell one of his channels. Then the law changed,” the ticker says, rolling over footage from some of Italy’s many entertainment shows featuring scantly clad women.

So what was the Italian government’s reaction? Well, obviously:

The Italian foreign ministry summoned Sweden’s ambassador to complain about the spot for Sveriges Television (SVT).

… asking them to make sure it was not shown again, no doubt.

In a desperate effort to undo some of the damage wrought by the stupidity of the Common Fisheries Policy, a complete ban on fishing in some parts of the North Sea is being proposed.

Unfortunately he is right: the Common Fisheries Policy is such a disaster that drastic measures like these have now become a necessity. I also agree with what I think is the basic idea of his post, namely that our best chance of returning to sustainable fish stocks lies in combining the ownership of fishing rights with responsibility for the same stock: The Icelandic shrimper whose boat I once sailed on had no issue whatsoever sticking to his quotas, because he knew that if he caught too many shrimp in his fjord this year, there would be fewer next year.

However, I am not convinced of what seems to be the other basic idea of EU-serf’s post, namely that this combination of fishing rights with responsibility must be achieved by returning fisheries policy to the national level. Cod levels in the North Sea, for instance, have been depleted by the joint efforts of local fishermen from mainly the UK, not (yet) by evil Spanish trawlers using the EU rules on “common fishing waters” to empty “our” sea before moving on to the next one. And local cocklers in the north of the Netherlands have succeeded in doing great damage to the ecosystem in their own tidal sea (while, for the time being, maintaining cockle production levels), without the help of any foreigners.

Saving cod

The problem is not so much the government level at which policies are made, but who is involved in making them. In general, if a certain problem transcends national borders, it makes sense to tackle it at a supranational level, which could be the EU. Likewise, if the effects of a problem are only felt at a smaller than national level, it makes sense that a regional or local government determines the rules. But it does make a difference which interests they take into account. The Icelandic shrimper observed his quotas because his fjord was an almost closed system as far as shrimp were concerned and because the fishing community there was tiny: any free-riders predating on their colleagues’ future income would be spotted easily. The Dutch cocklers were heavily involved in (national) rule-making for their fishing waters, but perhaps too heavily: whether it was general short-sightedness, the fact that they were damaging mussels and other life forms rather than the cockles they depend on, or maybe a certain attitude among (elderly) fishermen of “après nous le déluge” – fact is that, until very recently, sustainability considerations did not prevail.

As for cod, it is therefore unlikely that national governments would be less sensitive to sector lobbying than the European Commission (if anything, you would expect impartiality to improve as government gets less dependent on a specific stakeholder). The point with cod and many other fish is that they move around and do not respect the boundaries between territorial waters, so it does make sense to regulate cod fisheries at a transnational level. The point with fishermen though, is that they move around as well, especially if you have common fishing waters established by the EU. In that sense, nationalising fishing policies could sound like the right thing to do, as countries would be able to prohibit foreign fishermen from fishing in their territorial waters.

But, just like the EU’s common fishing waters are accessible to all fishermen from the EU, any nation’s territorial waters are “common fishing waters” for any fisherman from that country. That still raises the question which nation’s territorial waters are the “right” size for keeping fisheries sustainable: Belgium’s? Denmark’s? The UK’s? And if the answer is that territorial waters the size of, say, Belgium’s are ideal, why don’t we chunk up the entire north sea in bits that size, instead of leaving fisheries policy to national levels which are obviously too large, like the UK’s?

All in all, considering the mobility of fish, the mobility of fishing vessels (which can and do move to international waters to deplete stocks there when they find their usual fishing grounds emtpy or prohibited), the need to involve multiple stakeholders and not only the fisheries sector, and the fact that the ideal size does not exist, I still think that fisheries are better regulated at a supra-national level. For the time being, that would be the EU, although even a global level would be necessary if we really want to save cod from extinction. While it is true that the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy is pretty much a disaster, it remains to be seen whether national policies would have been more successful or less susceptible to lobbying. And it has to be recognised that something is, finally, changing at the EU level – thanks to reforms introduced in 2003 by Austrian (!) Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler. Member states no longer succeed in blocking every attempt by the European Commission to set stricter rules (would that have anything to do with the EU’s enlargement?). And the idea to tackle the problem by its cause, by abolishing subsidies that stimulate building more and larger vessels, is basically a good one – in any case, much better than “end-of-pipe” measures like current quotas and TACs.

Meta-discussion: Red herrings

On a meta-level, the newspaper article refered to by EU-serf has something odd about it which touches on a discussion started by Nosemonkey about the EU debate itself. EU-serf writes:

Despite this headline, the push for the ban is not coming from Brussels.

The headline in question, reading “EU orders fishing ban in parts of North Sea”, comes from the Daily Telegraph. Money quote:

Fishing will be banned in parts of the North Sea under proposals to be announced by Brussels today after a Royal Commission called for 30 per cent of the sea to be closed to protect fish stocks and the environment.

The article goes on mentioning only the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and quoting its chairman saying that urgent action is required. The suggestion here is that it took a British advisory committee to boldly go where no other scientist in Europe had gone before, to finally talk some sense into the European Commission and to save (well, hopefully) the cod. Rule Brittania!

This struck me as rather odd: what about the Commission’s own scientists, was the British Royal Commission standing alone in its analysis? Of course not. Read the European Commission’s own press release on the matter:

Today, the European Commission tabled a proposal (~940 Kb) on fishing possibilities and attendant measures for 2005 (see table (~101 Kb)). The objective is to rebuild severely depleted stocks and protect those in sound biological state while maintaining, as far as possible, the economic activities of the fleets concerned. The proposal takes account of the latest scientific advice from the independent International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and the Commission’s own Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee on Fisheries (STECF), as well as input from stakeholders.

Science is probably the most globalised profession of all, so one has to assume that the Commission’s STECF has taken the Royal Commission’s very sensible reports into account as well. But as it turns out it is not the Royal Commission which was behind the Commission’s decision, nor does the STECF take a different stance. The Telegraph has probably combined two events which happened to occur within the same limited time frame, but which are not necessarily causally related. The Royal Commission may have been asked by the British government for advice on the position to take when fisheries were debated in Brussels, other scientific committees including STECF will have advised other governments, the Commission and each other, and the result of all that is this decision.

The Telegraph has only seen the British part of this story and the EU’s decision, and therefore wrote it down in the way it did. This is the problem with many national media: they are so used to looking at the world through a national periscope, that they do not see how decisions are taken which involve more than just the own government. EU knowledge is still astonishingly rare in most editorial offices, as they are mainly populated by journalists used to writing about national politics. Articles written by correspondents in Brussels are usually well-informed, but as soon as a national newsroom or a journalist not specialised in EU matters picks up the story, interpretation problems often arise.

The problem is that it is easy for people with an agenda to misuse this lack of knowledge for their own goal. So government Ministers implementing impopular decisions put the entire blame on Brussels while obfuscating the fact that they were themselves part of the decision-making and may even have voted in favour. Or reversely, when it is a popular EU measure, they take the full credits without mentioning the involvement of Brussels, as the Dutch government did when it implemented the EU’s anti-spam Directive. Most journalists simply lack the knowledge to see through such spin and confront politicians with their real responsibilities.

Many a euro-myth was born in this way. And, who knows, maybe the EU’s impopularity as well.

——
update: Bugger…

The decision was made after opposition from the UK and other EU member states with a North Sea coastline.

Now let’s wait and see how the Telegraph will report about this development…

Something is truly rotten in the state of the Netherlands…

Neighbours can however still peek through the holes in the curtain (here, here and here) to check whether family values are being respected.

On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod’s law dictates he’ll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr – where are you now that we need you?

and compare reactions from the UK (Europhobia):

Of course, The Guardian is well aware that it has a substantial American readership via the internet. It brags about it often enough. Its Operation Clark County articles were much noted and the coverage in the paper entirely predictable (it’s fairly obvious that they always wanted the idiot email responses: it helps fill up the paper printing them). The Manchester Guardian left its provincial moorings behind in the wake of the Suez Crisis to become metropolitan. Now another criminally stupid foreign adventure – one actually far worse than Suez – is turning the paper cosmopolitan.

and the 330 (so far) reactions on a Bush supporting blog in the US:

Guardian Calls for Bush to Be Assassinated. Now that the Guardian’s attempt to influence our election has been a miserable failure, they’ve moved on-to advocating assassination[...]

The Guardian column seems to have upset one esteemed non-Bush Englishman blogging in the US (Andrew Sullivan) as well:

This kind of malicious, not-even-clever cant needs to be exposed and condemned. But the last thing it is is surprising. The editor should apologize. What on earth was he thinking? They’d never call for the assassination of the leader of Hamas. They’d condemn it if it happened. But the leader of the greatest democracy on earth? They have lost what minds they ever had.

It reminds me of the discussion raging after the murder of populist politician Fortuyn in the Netherlands, when right-wingers kept arguing that “the bullet came from the left”. I did not think it did as none of his political opponents ever said anything near it, although it is true that they conjured up a few too many comparisons with the rise of nazism in the 1930s. Mr Fortuyn’s own libertarian values had indeed very little in common with the nazis. But then again, he was not entirely innocent either of the sometimes rather ugly forces he unleashed, and in my opinion he seriously overestimated his own powers to keep them under control. The episode has taught me once and for all that, contrary to Fortuyn’s own paradigm, “just say what you think” does not apply in politics. On the contrary, the more influence a politician (or any other public figure) has on what people think, the more responsibility he has to think very carefully about the effects before he says something.

This Guardian thing, however, is not a serious political essay or speech but a column in a left-wing newspaper for intellectuals, with tongue so firmly in cheek that it almost hurts. Is irony really such a difficult concept?