Welcome to Better Europe’s weekly update on EU Affairs.
FROM TIRANA TO OTTAWA, WITH LOVE
In 2003, European leaders in Thessaloniki promised that “the future of the Balkans is within the European Union”. Fast-forward more than two decades, and six annual visits of President von der Leyen to the region. Against the backdrop of anti-government protests that have been ongoing for four months in Tirana, the Commission chief told Prime Minister Edi Rama that Albania is “among the frontrunners” and “the goal is on the horizon”. The goal obviously being full EU membership, as of 2030 or so. The timing is tight: only three negotiation chapters have been closed so far, with 30 more to go by the end of next year. Kosovo, Montenegro, and North Macedonia also got a visit this week; Serbia and Bosnia were conveniently skipped “because of elections“. As the geopolitical situation gets more and more complicated, Europe has every interest in pulling the region into its sphere of influence. But not everyone can join the party — like Albania, Montenegro is well under way for full membership, but the other two do not even have accession status. Brussels’ seems to have its interest elsewhere, with a special summit coming up at the end of this month to discuss the “associate membership” promised to Canada and potentially a model for Ukraine. Some memberships are clearly more equal than others.
FIFTEEN YEARS OF ESMA, ZERO YEARS OF CENTRAL MARKET SUPERVISION
This week, outgoing ESMA Chair Verena Ross reminded MEPs one more time that Europe really needs more integrated financial supervision. Twenty years after the crisis, and fifteen years since the transformation of CESR into an EU agency, most regulation is still applied by national supervisors. So much for the Capital Markets Union, or the Savings and Investment Union. Her argument, during her final appearance before the ECON committee: capital markets have become more integrated, more digital and more cross-border, so supervision must follow. The Market Integration and Supervision Package is “so important” precisely because of that mismatch. Of course, ESMA is “ready to earn the confidence placed in it and deliver effectively on any new responsibilities you might decide to entrust to it”. Might. In other words: please give us the powers or forget about building any Union worth its name. In banking, the ECB supervises the largest cross-border banks and leaves the smaller ones to national authorities. But ESMA has only been given a few targeted central supervision mandates; Deutsche Börse and Euronext are still supervised by national capitals. Why? Because the same national capitals asked to give up supervisory powers are the ones holding the pen to fix it.
STOPPING TRUCKS COSTS MONEY, STOPPING PEOPLE WINS VOTES
It’s episode two of the post-Ceuta Schengen saga, as “temporary” border checks are in place in most of Europe now. Member States love using the Ceuta migration crisis that-never-was-one as a bad alibi to sabotage free movement in the Schengen zone, to the frustration of over 100 academics, MEPs and four former S&D Commissioners who have now filed a formal complaint against the Commission. The accusation? Failing to protect free movement, one of the four core EU freedoms, with the latest episode just the last one in a long, long, series. But no one explains how exactly queuing up at the Belgian-French border to show your passport helps to address “continued serious threats to public order”. The most visible impact of the largely symbolic measures seems to be the exponential increase in road accidents, with just the traffic jams at the Dutch-German border alone causing 15 deaths last year. The Ceuta case is even more striking: no one who entered Ceuta ever reached mainland Spain, yet Italy and Austria treat every passenger arriving from Spain by air –so already checked by the airline– as a potential illegal migrant. So why is the free movement of goods, services and capital more important than the free movement of people?