Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. DON’T TOUCH MY SCHENGEN Ah, Schengen. Who hasn’t visited the sleepy village on the Moselle river, with its German-French-Luxembourgish border tripoint, the Columns of Nations and the brand-new Schengen museum? For most of us, the treaty named after the village represents something bigger – free unbothered travel across the borders between European countries. Even if the Brussels bubble thinks the word “border” refers to the outside of the EU and prefers to refer to “Member States”, the reality is that freedom of movement hasn’t been the most accessible of the four freedoms we were promised. From the full-scale shutdowns during Covid to the recurring deadly traffic incidents due to symbolic attempts to stop migrant flows at the non-borders, the measures come…

Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. THE GREAT EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT USA TOUR Brussels seemed deserted this week, as the European schools enjoyed one of the hottest May holidays and MEPs left for their 'external Parliamentary activities' week, or 'green week' after its colour on the EP's famous institutional calendar. While for most MEPs this kind of week is better known as a holiday week in their constituency, Parliament's committee delegations racked up frequent flier miles to visit exotic destinations such as Canada (Economics), South Africa (Foreign Affairs) and Portugal (Fisheries). Interestingly, the most popular work destination this week was clearly the U.S., with four Parliament committees crossing the pond: the Public Health Committee met with US Congress to discuss medicines and innovative treatments, the Industry Committee went…

Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. THE BIG BOYS CLUB: FROM G7 TO E6 So as we reported previously, the leaders of the world's seven largest economies will meet in June in Évian. But first, finance ministers from the EU's six largest economies are having their own summit in Berlin, next week. The topics on the agenda include ongoing EU legislative initiatives, such as the integration of financial supervision as part of the Savings and Investment Union, leaving smaller member states with a significant financial sector, such as Luxembourg and Ireland, out of the discussions. In addition, even if the central supervision proposal is nowhere as ambitious as what happened in the banking sector with the the European Central Bank supervising the 130+ largest banks for well…

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…