Mean journalists ganging up on Brussels

An internal commission newsletter reveals what European Commission President José Manuel Barroso thinks about criticism of the pay and perks enjoyed by EU staff.

In what is seen as a direct response to revelations that 2,000 EU officials, earning between €124,000 and €185,000 a year, were also entitled to three months off work on full pay last year, Presidente Barroso said:

"The European civil service is often attacked for its apparent 'privileges' when this is not the case and I am always defending this."

Adding that he "cannot accept populism against the European civil service", while paying tribute to EU officials, describing them as a "great asset to Europe".

Sure, EU officials can do a good job but please! Not a week goes by without media across Europe lamenting the various excessive ways in which EU officials are compensated for their work. In Barroso's world, one is led to believe, this is just a case of mean journalists ganging up on Brussels (despite the Commission spending around €8 million a year on entertaining, training and 'informing' journalists. What has the world come to when you can't even buy some decent coverage?)

Only today, Danish newspaper Politiken reported that on average, salaries across Europe have fallen by 5% since 2008, while for EU officials they have increased by 4% during the same time period. One in five EU officials has an annual salary of around €135,000, or more - which seems high even to us. Between 1,100 and 1,600 make more than the Danish PM.

It would be strange if media did not report on this.

Barroso should take a stroll down the hallway in the Berlaymont building and have a chat with his colleague, Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski, who understands the need to cut at least some of the EU institutions' expenditure.

What the EU ‘didn’t’ do for you in 2010

If you were wondering what the EU actually did for you in 2010, have a look at this taxpayer-funded video released by the Commission just in time for Christmas.

"What has the EU done for you in 2010?"

On a long list of claimed achievements, such as "fair trials" and "boosting jobs", we were struck by this claim, which was followed by flashing images of euro notes and a euro symbol:

“Securing a sound economy and stronger financial markets"

Can this really be serious? Of all the years to spin this line they chose 2010 - the year when the flawed construct if the Single Currency nearly brought the entire European economy to its knees, forcing multi-billion euro bail-outs.

Or maybe they just got this mixed up with the EU's wish list for Santa. While they are at it, why don’t they just say world peace?

Questionable EU priorities

On Friday, the Commission opened up a new fund of €1 million for think tanks and NGOs to further research how to "promote active European Citizenship".

The €1 million fund comes under the 'Europe for Citizens' project, which has a colossal seven year budget of €215 million (2007-2013) and is projected to cost €32.5 million in 2010 alone. As we've argued many times before, these kinds of funding streams are shamelessly biased towards groups which more or less share the Commission’s political agenda of further integration and/or defending the EU status quo.

And sure enough, the project description openly admits that also these fresh funds are designed for organisations which promote “an ever-closer Europe”.

The core objectives of this latest proposal include:

(a) to foster action, debate and reflection related to European citizenship and democracy, shared values, common history and culture through the activities and cooperation of think tanks and within civil society organisations at European level;

The emphasis on democracy is not a bad thing, but is, as ever, ironic. Most citizens across Europe don’t particularly want an elite-driven ever-closer union, artificially created by like-minded bureaucrats in Brussels; and most governments in Europe are forced to take tough decisions on spending, including cutting down on vanity projects – knowing that they will face their electorates and taxpayers for every spending priority they make.

This self-reflecting contradiction in the EU’s communication/citizenship/we-are-the-world spending programmes hasn’t dawned on the Commission yet.

Peseta dreams and euro nightmares

A recent Eurobarometer poll has found that the majority of Spaniards, a sizeable 54 percent, believe that “without the euro, with the peseta, we would have been able to confront the economic crisis”. Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, this is higher than the eurozone average of 45 percent. (In a 2007 Open Europe poll, 51 percent of the Spanish said they would prefer the peseta over the euro – so the peseta has been missed for some time).

In an interview with Spanish daily La Vanguardia, the Head of the European Commission's Representation in Barcelona, Manel Camós, has set out a rather customary EU explanation as to why people hold such odd views: ignorance, what else?

Says Camós:

This makes us think that the public has not understood the advantages of the euro because the experts, in general, are convinced that thanks to the euro we have had the [economic] development that we have had and that we can overcome the crisis.

He goes on “both interest rates and the inflation rate have decreased. Before the euro in Spain the interest rate was higher than 14% and now, in spite of the crisis, it is around 4%".

Ah, Señor Camós, those ill-informed Spaniards who don’t understand that the single currency only comes with benefits. How can they believe the words of people like the EU President Herman Van Rompuy, when he now admits that the euro served as a “sleeping pill” for the eurozone? Or the Bundesbank President Axel Weber when he points out, in the wake of the crisis that "the benefits of monetary union, in particular lower interest rates and the elimination of exchange rate risk, have not always been used wisely and have tempted some countries to live beyond their means" (e.g, the Spanish housing bubble)?

Or EU Commissioner for Competition Joaquín Almunia, a Spaniard himself, when he notes that countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain have experienced “a permanent loss of competitiveness since they are members of the Economic and Monetary Union”?

The truth is that keeping up with German monetary policy has undercut Spanish competitiveness and put strains on the economy, while low ECB interest rates have served to fuel the Spanish housing bubble, the effects of which we now see. At the same time, devaluation to put this right is now not an option for Spain which in turn will make the adjustment much more painful for ordinary people. Surely, any serious commentator or official must take this into account before accusing people of not getting it?

In fact, it wasn’t the people who got it wrong on the euro, as Mr Camós seems to suggest, but the self-appointed EU elite (as we’ve documented here).

At least some of them now have the courage to admit it.

Paying people to tell you what you want to hear

Just received a ridiculous survey to fill in from Gallup Europe, which is working on behalf of 'Friends of Europe' - a Brussels-based outfit that gets most of its funding from the European Commission.

The survey asks questions about the EU's 'communication policy', with a view to producing a new report on the subject to feed back into the Commission and "improving communication about Europe."

Apart from the obvious issues with the Commission paying organisations to come up with policy ideas to feed back into the Commission, the problem is that all the questions are asked on the assumption that the respondant believes there should be an EU Communication Policy in the first place, which we do not (click here to read why).

Clearly the Friends of Europe wishes to help the Commission's DG Communications department in its ongoing efforts to convince people of the benefits of EU integration. Judging by its last effort along these lines, which was a report for the institutions called Can EU Hear Me?, (resulting in a letter to the EU Commission recommending it "Promote the benefits of EU Membership"), it has no intention of improving people's knowledge of the EU but instead wishes to improve its popularity.

If this survey is to be the basis of the future direction of EU 'communication' policy, we should be very worried indeed. Questions focus on such things as what the Commission should be doing to improve 'communication' about Europe in schools and in the media, making use of the internet to persuade people of the benefits of the EU, creating a 'Europe' brand, and creating a 'Commissioner for Citizens'.

Having commissioned many polls in the past, we imagine this online questionnaire is not coming cheap. Hopefully they will take note of some of our suggestions, such as scrapping EU Communication Policy altogether and allowing people a direct say on the big EU questions like treaty change. Is anyone in any doubt that Irish people will be the best informed about the Lisbon Treaty and the EU in general than any of their European neighbours, as a direct result of the recent referendums?