Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. SOME POLITICAL PARTIES ARE OUT THERE TO DESTROY CIVIL SOCIETY It seems that some right-wing and extreme right politicians don't like NGOs. Perhaps because they confront politicians with an uncomfortable truth, appealing to their conscience. Perhaps because some MEPs genuinely don't believe that organised civil society should have a voice in decision-making, and that politicians should only listen to corporate lobbies who represent their own economic interest. Or, as one German EPP MEP put it a while ago, because they prefer twenty extra cows in the field in Bavaria over financing an NGO. More intellectual honesty came when the instigator of the Parliament's NGO Scrutiny Group admitted in February that the purpose of the non-committee was not to scrutinize spending, but…

Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. COMMISSION CAN'T SEE THE FOREST FOR THE TREES The rules to prevent products from deforestation to be sold in Europe will apply one day -- perhaps that is the only positive message to come out of the Commission's readjustment of the anti-deforestation rules published this week. That is legal certainty that EU companies will appreciate. Unless your company is importing leather onto the EU market oncourse, and had started to prepare for application of the rules. In fact, it is much more effective to lobby against the rules, as luxury leather bags producers have been doing for the past year. As a result of their effort, the Commission now proposes to take the sector out of scope, compared to a previous…

Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. NGOS STAYING ALIVE AS EU BUDGET BATTLE UNFOLDS Federalists rejoice --it's increasingly likely that the EU's joint debt issued in 2020 as part of the NextGenEU Covid recovery strategy will be rolled over for seven more years, essentially creating a joint debt, and with it a strong precedent for the EU as a transfer union. Please thank French President Macron, who openly asked why on earth one would actually want to insist on repayment of the EU's financial market loans, which represent less than seven percent of the EU's 2-billion-euro seven-year budget. Something that was still unimaginable in 2017 when frugal Dutch Eurogroup Chair Jeroen Dijsselbloem had to apologise for saying he had no solidarity for southern EU countries who had…

Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. WHAT HAPPENS IN STRASBOURG, STAYS IN STRASBOURG Many have tried to stop it, and all have failed. No, it's not the evil Omnibus we're talking about, but the monthly mandatory move of the Parliament to Strasbourg. For most MEPs, it doesn't really matter whether they travel from their constituency to Brussels or Strasbourg, even if the latter's airport is not so well connected and most politicians have a nice pied-à-terre in Brussels. But for the thousands of staff with a fixed reservation in one of the city's dozens depressing Ibis hotels, dropping the monthly trek would be quite a time and cost saver -- well over 100 million euros of taxpayer money every year. It is not that Parliament has not…

Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. DAMAGE OF OMNIBUS I FINALLY DOCUMENTED Remember the days of evidence-based policy-making? When the Commission's Better Regulation strategy was still being applied? Well, we're far away from the return of the impact assessment -- the Commission is planning to present a package revamping its rules on how to engage with stakeholders and how to estimate the impact of different policy options on 28 April. Potentially on the agenda: replace stakeholder consultation by implementation 'dialogues' to understand corporate compliance concerns, replace public consultations with an intimate 'reality check' session with a few friends in the Commission's headquarters, and followed by a quick 48-hour internal inter-service consultation. The manual will likely echo the process of the EU's deregulated corporate sustainability reporting and responsibility…

Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. ECB CLIMATE TSAR WARNS FOR FOSSIL FUEL DEPENDENCE Frank Elderson, the green central banker who joined the ECB’s Executive Board back in 2021, is stepping up his messaging on the price stability risk of fossil fuel dependence. We already knew we were not saving the planet just for the planet, but for the humans living on it. But now the framing is even further away from noble intentions to green our society: in fact, it’s all about saving our economy, as fossil fuel is a geopolitical risk before anything else. Climate campaigners will say there were right all along, but the framing of climate problems in climate terms has been a hard sell over the last years. Elderson suggests that the…

Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. RULE OF LAW: SHRINKING SPACE, SHRINKING NGOS? "The rule of law is not negotiable -- it is the foundation of our European way of life" Ursula von der Leyen promised the Parliament when asking for a second mandate in 2024. Then why does a report from the Civil Liberties Union for Europe classify eleven Member States as 'Dismantlers' or 'Sliders' when it comes to the erosion of the rule of law? Only a few countries show progress on four indicators: the justice system, anti-corruption, media freedom and checks and balances. The group warns that steps to undermine the rule of law in the United States show how fast systems can be dismantled, and double standards and fragility have been exposed across…

Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. FIRST EU OWN GOAL AHEAD OF U.S. WORLD CUP After more than half a year of back and forths, MEPs finally caved in and approved the Agreement on Reciprocal, Fair, and Balanced Trade with the U.S., better known under the name of Trump's Turnberry golf resort in Scotland where it was announced last summer. Replacing the failed TTIP deal, the Turnberry agreement is no less controversial as it included explicit commitments from the EU to water down its sustainability reporting rules and help American companies exporting to Europe through 'flexibilities' on the EU's deforestation and carbon border tax legislation. Between last week's trade committee vote last week and this week's plenary vote, MEPs were promised that the rules would be suspended…

Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. EU SUMMIT: SHOW US THE MONEY We said it last week and even Politico agreed: Trump stole the Summit. Just read this op-ed by Enrico Letta, the eloquent social-democrat former Prime Minister of Italy now hiding in academics and at the prestigious Jacques Delors think tank. His brilliant report, Much More Than a Market, is long forgotten, as EU leaders have selectively interpreted the recommendations he and his colleague Mario Draghi made two years ago. Yes, we have a 28th regime proposal, captured by the U.S. venture capital-backed "EU-INC" campaign and published in the nick of time a day ahead of the EU Summit. In classic Brussels strategic thinking, it could fly as no one is really happy with it: it…

Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. TRUMP SIDELINES DRAGHI AT EU SUMMIT Disruption in the agenda of next week’s European Summit. EU leaders were initially meant to focus on the roadmap to implement the competitiveness recommendations discussed with Draghi and Letta at the Alden-Biesen castle in February, and hear back from the Commission on how they will advance the Savings and Investment Union strategy. But the economic fallout from Donald Trump’s military campaign in Iran has reshuffled priorities, pushing other files down the agenda. During a discussion among ambassadors on Wednesday, several participants stressed the need to maintain momentum on the competitiveness agenda. Yet the immediate focus has shifted to energy prices and broader economic repercussions. Ukraine could also return as an urgent topic for leaders with…