Berlaymonster

EU to publish vaccine strategy as soon as 2026

2021-01-05T10:09:00.001+01:00

The EU is to launch its jab-creation strategy in response to the Covid crisis as early as 2026, officials have told Berlaymonster.

The tight timeframe underlines the urgency of the situation, one official said, speaking under condition of anonymity because it’s all just a bit embarrassing.

The initiative, tentatively titled “Smart, Sustainable Shots: Towards A Forward-Looking, Stakeholder-Driven and Integrated Rebalancing Away from Covid”, is a bid to encourage take-up of life-saving vaccines.

Dr von der Leyen will see you in the fullness of time after appropriate stakeholder consultation and in full accordance with institutional procedures.

Despite the virus leaving Europe looking as ravaged as Place Luxembourg on a Friday morning, surveys show many Europeans remain sceptical about the benefits of inoculation, reasoning that anything developed by Bill Gates is probably going to be a bit shit.

That reluctance has meant EU health authorities have so far mustered fewer pricks than József Szájer’s birthday party.

The new strategy will feature many of Brussels larger-than-life personalities as well as Valdis Dombrovskis cheerfully receiving a series of injections while reading woodenly off an autocue, exclusive documents seen by this blog reveal.

The document has been dogged by holdups within the European Commission.

At a series of tense five-hour internal meetings, eurocrats battled over whether the new proposals should take the form of a 63-pronged Action Plan, or a much more controversial High Level Strategic Agenda. A cross-department working group has now been set up to settle this vexed question by Q4 2022 at the absolute latest.

Senior EU officials have however unanimously agreed a schedule for who should get priority receipt of the jab, based on criteria such as: importance to the EU economy, ability to choose among flying shapes in multiple-choice tests, and mastery of internal European Commission procedures.

The resultant “seniors first” policy will see commission staff of AD14 and above receive the first tranche of lifesaving jabs, followed by lowlier Policy Officers, before the focus turns to “ordinary European citizens,” whoever they might be, leaked documents reveal.

The new EU strategy is also likely to borrow ideas from Paris, where Emmanuel Macron’s government is attempting to deal with widespread vaccine hesitancy by setting up a Citizens’ Assembly, examining goat entrails, and hiring whichever marketing whizz persuaded people to eat andouillette.

Hopes had also been high that the vaccine developed by Oxford University will soon be complemented by one from the EU’s own Gravy Training College. But trials of the so-called Bruges Vaccine have proved disappointing, with early evidence suggesting that boring on about comitology in seven languages has only a limited effect on viral transmission.

Trouble still lies ahead for the controversial plans which are likely to meet with opposition from Brussels’ own yawningly self-important institutions. Lawmakers in the European Parliament have battled for buck-toothed euro-warbler Guy Verhofstadt to front up any campaign, while the Committee of the Regions is an institution established by Article 305 of the EU Treaty that nobody, literally nobody, gives a tinker’s cuss about.

A Commission spokesperson confirmed there would be a consultation in the coming years, with a hashtag set to be agreed as early as 2024.

“People who are vaccinated while visiting another EU country will also not pay any roaming charges,” the spokesperson said, his voice cracking with pride through a thick French accent.

“Did I mention we abolished roaming charges? Because we did,” the spokesperson added.

*HIT PARADE EU

2020-12-30T14:17:00.000+01:00

Party safely kids

[To bid a fond "à jamais" to 2020, @AmericanEUDude off-of the twitters brings you...]

The EU’s Top Pop Songs of 2020

Planning a festive farewell to 2020, clothed or clustered or otherwise? Here’s an endtimes – sorry, end-of-the-year – playlist that’ll help you shake it off.

The past year, that is.

“WAP” by Kadri B

You dudes know what it’s about, right? The year’s naughtiest Brussels Bubble jam is a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Wetlands Agricultural Policy.

“Cardigan” by Taylor Swift

A heartfelt woke-rock ode to the fashion statement Frans Timmermans finally made cool again.

“Bad Guy” by Billie Irish

If we learned anything during the pandemic, it’s that if you break the rules you will pay the price. This total banger had Phil Hogan and his golf buddies packed straight out of office and onto the dance floor.

“Blinding Lights” by the Weaknd

Brexit had more than its share of tear-jerker tunes, but this creepy techno track about Dominic Cummings’ lousy-optics drive to Barnard Castle is sadder than any ballad.

“Conversations in the Dark” by John Legend

Sweet soul music that became the soundtrack to so many Zoom calls.

“Murder Most Fowl” by Bob Dylan

A grim, 17-minute history lesson from music’s most celebrated poet about the dangers of unregulated globalization, from pirated pangolin to chlorinated chicken.

“Fetch the Bolt Cutters” by Fiona Apple

Just what you need to escape from a “lockdown orgy” when you’ve got no clothes on.

“Delete Forever” by Grimes

The avant-pop star sends a not-so-thinly-veiled message to every Commissioner with a Twitter account.

“Supalonely” by BENEE

Ursula von der Leyen spent so many hours in the Berlaymont, in her office, on the phone…

“Laugh Now Cry Later,” Drake

As usual, Drake seems to be talking about himself… but could be talking about all of us.

[Photo by Kyle Cleveland on Unsplash]

They Took Control of their Fish

2020-12-24T11:06:00.003+01:00

[To ~~mark~~ mock a ~~momentous~~ Brexit deal, guest contributor Martini Seltzermayr off-of the twitters has penned this epic verse]

So now the Brexit deal is done
It won’t really please anyone.
The end result - there is just one
They took control of their fish

The final haul of all this wrangling,
This grand UK-EU untangling?
The Anglo-Saxons only angling
To take control of their fish.

At last, it seems, the Brits are free
To claim their longed-for sovereignty
The nation’s hopes now lie at sea
They took control of their fish.

The Empire where the sun never set
That once invented the Internet
Its global dreams are now all wet
The whole country has gone fishing.

Free trade was just a hope that scattered
Zero tariffs never mattered
Only that which can be battered
Still lay in their ambition.

The outcome met with some resisting
From titans with a FTSE listing
How can our business keep existing?
They asked their Chancellor Rishi.

What trade will stop the economy tanking?
Restore our nation’s global ranking?
Is it cars or tech or banking?
The answer? Rather fishy.

Boris, schooled in the works of Seneca
Pinned hopes not on Nissan or AstraZeneca
But put his faith in the One True Cod
And if like me you find it odd

That after the bluster and Churchillan words I
See a deal that pleases only Captain Birdseye
A destructive total break with Brussels
For just a clutch of whelks and mussels

As though those angry Brexit voters
Merely cared for pelagic quotas...

Well here’s the rub: a real crowd-pleaser
Brussels’ response to the Johnson geezer?
“The fish you catch will need a Visa
To get to the EU.”

There will be further sovereign incursion
We’ll see more breakaways emergin’
That slippery fish, the Scottish Sturgeon
Will take control of you.

So when this history’s finally written
We’ll start to see that Global Britain
Looks even weaker than a kitten
That took control of its fish.

Was it really worth the hassle?
This bid to not be an EU vassal?
More short-sighted than an eye test at Barnard Castle
They took control of their fish.

[BM's hat well and truly doffed to Martini...]

Hungary, Poland get 2030 target to cut autocracy by 55pc

2020-12-11T12:37:00.006+01:00

An increase in reductions

Naughty ruling governments in Hungary and Poland have until 2030 to reduce repressive measures by more than half, under non-binding targets adopted by EU leaders today.

EU heads of state agreed that the declining state of democracy required immediate partial improvement over the course of a decade if the bloc was to avert the risk of rising populism and increasingly volatile political fronts.

Climate change, meanwhile, risks losing select amounts of EU funding under certain conditions subject to a unanimous vote, if it steps out of line. With a prevailing breeze. With Jupiter in the ascendancy.

On a Tuesday.

Afternoon.

Maybe.

Brexit is also happening.

Back to School for Bad Europeans

2020-11-13T14:22:00.000+01:00

Naughty un-European citizens are to be sent for re-education at a new EU training center, under latest ideas plucked from thin air by tin-eared topcrats.

Building on the model of the eurocrat gravy-training academy the College of Bruges, the idea is for a mega corrective educational institute to instill European 'values'. It's understood the center will also incorporate EU summit events organiser Charles Michel's idea of a School for Wayward Imams.

But it will also be a compulsory part of the training for anyone wanting to become an MEP or a national leader, so you don't get people voting in the pesky shouty ones who make life a bit difficult.

Initial classes will involve sartorial education in twinsets and rollnecks with suits. Advanced lectures focus on the irreproachable rationale of qualified majority voting and the two acceptable forms of euroscepticism (jokes about the EESC and having a pop at Selmayr now he's out of the picture).

The institution will have a tortured reverse-engineered acronym along the lines of "Ecole Normale Supérieure d'Ethique, Mœurs, Bureaucratie et Liberté Européenne", and will bear the motto "United in Diversity [within a prescribed spectrum as set out in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1673 approving a common definition of 'Diversity' as set out in TFEU)"

The EU has set aside a budget of 1.5 million euros for the sign-writing alone.

Faculty Dean will be Margaritis Schinas with Manfred Weber head of the religious re-education department.

Council documents setting out the plans call for the European Commission to do the groundwork for the establishment of the school "if a viable and lasting vaccination remains elusive."

The Future of Europe - But First: Personnel Issues

2020-10-13T16:46:00.001+02:00

It's the most Brussels of parlour games: The Top Job Speculation Game. A kind of 'Who's Who?' of European politics, or a 'Who's That?' for anyone beyond the inner beltway.

There's the cyclical guesswork every five years over who gets to bag the big jobs in each new incoming EU administration. It's pretty frenetic and all-encompassing for several weeks, as eurovillage barchat (RIP) barters authoritatively the rumour that the former Lithuanian finmin is to get forestry and cutlery, against the surefire bet that France wants Council and has secured a deal with Germany to swap out the SecGen in exchange for DG Trade, who'll get the DG job in a newly-created super-directorate for Vegetable and Mineral Affairs etc etc ad inevitable erratum.

It is also the most Brussels of parlour games for the decision makers themselves to spend ages bickering over which once-mid-level European politician to park in a thankless position with few powers and a likely inconsequential eventual outcome.

And so it is with the hunt for the loftily titled President of the Conference on the Future of Europe - a kind of hand-wringing talking shop aimed at giving a semblance of democratic legitimacy to a semblance of democratic reform.

Governments and MEPs are at loggerheads, and speculation is rife and uninteresting.

It's almost as if it mattered.

First out the gates was perennial bridesmaid Guy Verhofstadt, a man whose name has been in every hat for every top EU job in more than a decade. I think they now make the EU sorting hats with his name already stitched onto the inside.

It ensures he'll always be in the running, but will never get picked out.

He - or his European Parliament advocates - should have known better: Anyone tipped early on as a candidate is doomed to fall by the wayside.

Now we are led to believe that previous top-job also-rans Thorning-Schmidt, Grybauskaite and Stubb are possibles, as well as Enrico Letta or Michel Barnier, and for a true retro feel, Emma Bonino and Joschka Fischer.

The last time Joschka Fischer was A Thing in The World, Crazy Frog was in the charts, and Saddam Hussein was still alive. Probably listening to Crazy Frog. Because we all were in 2005. We didn't have much choice in the matter.

Bonino's EU credentials, meanwhile, date back to YMCA's first chart success, and John Wayne's final days. Though it's less clear he'd have been listening to it at the time, ubiquitous as it was.

It's possible with a bit of squinting to see the case for arguing the toss over who gets the European Commission or Council President job. They're positions of some influence, and having Your Guy (sorry, Verhofstadt) or Gal in the chair may be of some importance - much as they're supposed to abandon their national allegiances at the doorway.

But why the disagreements and delays over this chairperson role?

What differing outcome would a Stubb presidency have over a Bonino one, given they'd be marshalling a list of pretty much pre-ordained lower-common-denominator reform options after two years of chats with unrepresentative representatives of The Citizen and the usual parade of lobbyists?

May as well list 'enhanced cooperation' and some de minimis tweaks to own resources on a piece of paper, stick a ribbon on it, and call it job done for this stage - a stage which, we should recall, is the first, consultative recommendation stage.

You'd then need to go through the whole EU sausage making process in order to get anything out the other end, which if history is anything to go by, is likely to be not a sausage.

The last twenty years have seen a Convention on the Future of Europe (not to be confused with a Conference on the Future of Europe), three Intergovernmental Conferences on the Future of Europe (also not to be confused with the Conference on the Future of Europe), two rounds of Citizens' Dialogues (not to be confused with the "Citizens' 'Agoras'" foreseen under the Conference on the Future of Europe... whatever they are...), and a Future of Europe Consultation, not to be confused with any of the above.

All of these were intended to be steps towards EU reform of some kind, with grand aims of becoming more streamlined, more fit for the modern world, more lah-di-dah and whoop-di-dooh, more whizzbang and relevant, more hip to the kidz, you get me? etc.

And in all that time, the only reform of any note was the Lisbon Treaty, almost a decade in the making, accounting for mishaps and setbacks, and representing the maximum the EU could get away with in terms of eroding governments’ powers (which is what much of it boils down to).

So assuming this talking-shop ‘conference’ leads to some largely uncontroversial soft recommendations which get mauled throughout the process between those who want MOAR EUROPE and those who like winning national elections, assuming that then results in some pre-legislative discussions on some draft ideas which then get another mauling, followed by legislative proposals – mauled again – and we emerge years later with the aforementioned further enhanced cooperation and a tweak to how the EU is funded.

Assuming all that - which is hardly a stretch - why the 10 months of to-and-fro over who gets to run the village-hall debates? Why not just go with tradition and jettison all the higher-profile names and settle on a relatively unknown least-worst compromise candidate who’ll muddle through under arm’s-length direction from the member states for a cushy eurocrat salary and a no-less lucrative consultancy afterlife.

I remain available.

EU Summit - of Carrots and Compasses

2020-10-02T17:16:00.000+02:00

"Our special meeting on Thursday and Friday will primarily focus on Europe's place in the world and our capacity to shape our own destiny."

It was a spectacularly lofty aspiration for this week's EU summit from EU council prez Charles Michel, (or 'Chucky Mike', as I'm going to try and get him known from now on).

Certainly, in foreign relations there was much at stake, with unrest in Belarus and Turkey's posturing in the Med pretty much requiring a response from the EU. But it was less about making a mark on the global stage, and more about avoiding making no mark at all.

If the EU is to be one of the grown-ups in the global room - a room conspicuously short of responsible adults at the moment - it can't just silently tut and roll its eyes at the unruly juveniles threatening to burn the place to the ground.

True, there's a greater danger from the unruly adults threatening to burn the place to the ground. But that requires a level of school-gate diplomacy strictly limited to smiling artificially from a distance, while keeping your opinions on 'that ghastly creature' firmly to yourself.

So in response to the Turkish and Belarussian delinquents, it was the old carrot-stick one-two the EU resorted to.

And what you get if you cross a carrot with a stick?

Apart from sticky carrots.

A stern finger-wagging for being belligerent coupled with the promise of goodies for better behaviour.

In fact it was very much along the lines of the naughty-child-discipline playbook of a classic 'shit sandwich' of stinky admonishment nestled in between fluffy slices of lovely soft doughy promises of loveliness.

For months (years) Turkey has been sat next to Greece with his finger in Greece's face, going "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you." But in recent times Turkey has been sneaking in the occasional actual jab in the cheekbone, to Hellenic protestations. That's prompted the EU now to pull in to the hard shoulder, lean over to the back seat, and have a stern word about the prospect of ice cream if behaviour doesn't improve.

That model of discipline is a bit harder if the misbehaving child happens to have a spectacularly brutish stepdad (one of the aforementioned fractious pyromaniac grown-ups), and if the misbehaviour is particularly egregious.

For Belarus the EU prepared a similar foreign-policy sandwich, though with a considerably less favourable bread-to-turd ratio.

Pocket monies and privileges withheld - though notably not for Putin's stepson - and the vaguest of prospects of jam tomorrow.

Possibly on the carrots.

To make them sticky.

With that compound culinary metaphor finally fully self-destructing, and Chucky Mike having reminded the world that Europe exists – albeit in the form of a rather ineffectual parent with a very confusing picnic hamper – summit turned to domestic matters.

The subtext – sometimes barely sub at all – was a reflex to try and stuff the globalist genie back into the bottle. Unfortunately the globalist genie has spent the best part of two decades gorging on now embedded models of mass consumption and is rather too portly to consider a réembouteillage forcé. But Trump has altered that. He has not so much moved the Overton Window on that orthodoxy as bricked it up entirely and knocked through a gaping hole on the other side of the house.

It means that EU leaders can feel emboldened to talk euphemistically of ‘strategic autonomy’ and without standing accused of being old-world protectionists.

No.

They’re new-world protectionists now.

And it’s strategic so it’s ok. It’s about healthcare and energy. Not about preserving un-economic commodity industries like in the past.

Although some of those might magically turn out to be strategic too.

And it’s not just about Chinese bits and bobs and Russian gas. It’s also about forrin internets.

“Digital Sovereignty” means that just as we should be using European toasters and driving European cars powered by home-grown European renewable smugness, we should also be developing self-sufficiency in European kitten videos and European porn, and somehow be trying to Make Nokia Great Again.

And how will we get there?

Why, we’ll follow the “comprehensive Digital Compass” of course – ‘compass’ being (apparently) the latest addition to the EU’s lexicon of Names for Things that aren’t a Thing.

It’s actually quite in line with the EU’s foreign-policy image as a bumbling parent figure.

They’ll have a stern word with the bullies (probably in vain), make unfulfillable promises about growing our own produce, and when there’s a problem with the internet, they’ll reach naively for the least appropriate tool to fix it.

Although, glancing at the alternative parenting role models around, bumbling is about as good as it gets.

BM.

A Common Crisis Strategy Action Plan Speech Towards A Post-Covid Europe. Sustainably.

2020-09-18T15:45:00.000+02:00

President,

Honourable Members,

And Dishonourable ones.

Let me get straight to the point.

We are in unprecedented times. The most unprecedented ever. The unprecedentedness is unprecedented, one we could not have had the prescience to predict.

Europe is at a crossroads. And must serve as a bridge from the past to the future over these troubled waters if we are to find our lighthouse in these uncharted oceans.

What we need, and what we need to work towards, together, in a common effort that reflects the common challenges we face, is a concrete roadmap towards a better future, a more sustainable future, the most sustainable future in our shared history, a future that can last, sustainably, for the generations to come.

And that's what I'm presenting to you today. A vision to a horizon that is only now coming into view as the dust starts to settle, but a horizon that we know is there, and that we know we must strive towards.

Fine words will only get us so far.

But in so far as they will get us so far, more fine words will get us further.

Actions will get us further still.

Which is why I intend to harness the power of both to present an agenda for action, made out of words. Lots of words about actions. Including words about targets that will require action plans of their own. Made up of words.

And I look to you, dear colleagues, to work with us to see these bold, ambitious, far-reaching action plans adopted, so we can get on with the work of implementation. For implementation is key, and will require clear guidance and a strategy to fulfill the objectives that this house and the council are currently working on. The commission stands ready to deliver on those objectives, once adopted, and to that end is drafting the guidance and strategy necessary and plans to present those to this house towards the middle of the next bimester.

But that’s not all we have planned as concrete priorities for the coming year.

Europe has a place in the world. An ever more globalised world and an ever more digitalised world in which you can like a tikchat or swap a myface in a matter of minutes with someone literally in another country, almost on the other side of the world.

Our citizens are ever more plugged in and outward looking, and they expect the same of us. The NetizenEU2025 initiative intends to ensure every citizen can have internets and to have those internets safeguarded in line with a common set of fundamental principles designed to help build a Europe of Internets and an Internets of Europe. Making Europe less reliant on Russian, American or Chinese internets remains a long-term target, a target we will set out in an action plan roadmap, with a concrete strategy for how to meet that target.

And just as Europe has a place in the world, it also must bear its responsibility for its place in the world and its impact on the world. The EU has lead the way on policies to prepare for a greener future and the transition to a smugger economy. Through more targets and strategies we can continue to be the global standard bearers for environmental policymaking. By 2035 we intend to increase environmental and climate policy by 55 percent on 1990 levels, surpassing the policy-making targets agreed by global leaders in Paris.

Finally, ladies and gentlemen, a word on the pandemic and how the EU can harness its potential to be a driver for more Europe. Now is a time for action at EU level, a time of opportunity to seize the momentum towards a coordinated response to prepare for and safeguard against future pandemics of this kind. With the current pandemic still an immediate threat, with the lives and livelihoods of our citizens at stake, I am today calling for an urgent discussion about the outline actions we could consider, sometime next year.

I am aware this is an ambitious agenda, but if we don’t confront these challenges, these challenges will confront us.

If we fail to act, we act to fail, as someone never put it.

I look to a future in which the EU stands up and takes action on the key issues of the moment. With concrete plans for potential actions and clear-sighted strategies setting the parameters for a response at EU level that respects national competencies while adhering to commonly agreed principles with some exceptions and carve-outs, I look forward to driving this ambitious agenda forwards.

Thank you.

The Plight of the Eurosnark

2020-09-10T13:02:00.004+02:00

In case you hadn't noticed, Brexit's a drag isn't it?

Tsk.

It's been in our faces for the last five years like a horrendous pub bore, harrumphing, braying, and barking, and showing scant regard for our personal space, covid or no covid.

Frankly it's been hard to concentrate on anything else.

We try and knuckle down to a budget agreement, and Brexit pipes up loudly next to our earholes, telling us how it is, and is ever going to be, with fish quotas.

We start an earnest discussion about managing the challenges of the digital economy, and Brexit bangs down its drained glass, burps gratuitously, and somehow makes the conversation about him and his plans to walk out of the pub without paying ('him', because, in case there was any doubt in this personificatory analogy, Brexit is most certainly a man rather than a woman, and likely thinks all other gender identities are just woke nonsense propagated by a liberal media intent on a culture war against the decent majority. And probably imposed by Brussels).

Every time we try and occupy ourselves with anything else, anything involving the EU's own internal issues, from across the table there's some theatrical throat clearing followed an extensive incoherent trail of bombastic blurting to drown all else out.

And if I might clear my throat, reassure you all it's just a tickle, and make this about mefor a moment, how am I meant to prick the EU's pomposities and mock it's absurdities, if the most pompous and absurd thing in it – consistently, repeatedly, and over a long period of time - is the arse who's leaving it?

For a brief moment there was a scandal involving a politician *gasp* doing the wrong thing. The short-lived nature of the story wasn't helped by said politician then *gasp* doing the right thing. (And hats duly tipped for that).

But also, how can I justify any concerted satirical focus on hashtag golfgate when hashtag BrexitManbaby is throwing his toys out of the pram and threatening to jettison the pram because he never wanted a pram in the first place and in any case who needs a pram he’ll be fine without a pram?

Similarly, EUHQ self-backslapping over closing the stabledoor on the long-bolted car-emissions-fraud horse could have drawn more barbs.

And France's bizarre hissy fit over the decision not to cram thousands of people into metal boxes to transport them over many hours to spend a week in close quarters in a glass bowl in Strasbourg at a time of coronavirus should also have attracted some vilificacious column inches.

But no. Not while Brexit is loudly and proudly filling his nappy, and, by the look in his eye and on recent form, is now likely to consider making hand paintings with the contents.

And do bear in mind, again, for your mental-imaging purposes, in this scenario Brexit is a grown-up human man. Not a baby. Lest I sit accused of mixing my metaphors and trying to have my rhetorical cake and pick the cherries to go atop it.

(You’re welcome for the mental image by the way. Of the feculent Brexit guy. Not the cake.)

So,congratulations, Brexit, you have yet again drawn the attention.

And we are yet again, reluctantly, laughing at you.

La Rentrée – whisky business

2020-09-04T15:02:00.000+02:00

I got an ad on my Facebook feed this week. Presumably one of those notorious behavioural ones.

It was for a subscription home-delivery spirits company, and bore the slogan:

"They go back to school, you go back to whisky."

It paints a pretty bleak picture of parenthood and the double-edged emotions of term-time after lockdown. It also rather assumes lockdown hadn’t already nudged us more or less gently towards the liquor cabinet already, kids or no.

But as Brussels’ political term-time resumes too, spare a thought for those left at home, nursing a Bushmills, as loved ones head back to College. Still, more time for golf now, eh?

For those back at their desks, they’ve wasted no time in publishing the first “Towards” of the season.

Recent years are peppered with EU policy docs boldly plotting “Roadmaps” and strategies “Towards” some lofty goal.

It’s a construction that pulls in two directions, both setting an ambition but also intrinsically managing expectations.

If you’re on a road trip and you say you’re heading “towards” Baden-Baden, you’re basically admitting you’re not actually hoping to get “to” Baden-Baden itself, and might feasibly be content with getting to Bad Kreuznach or even Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, which while not as good as Baden-Baden, is not so Bad, and somewhat closer. And is, after all, the birthplace of Georg Kreuzberg, who discovered the source of the Apollinaris mineral fountain, and home to the cold-war “Ausweichsitz der Verfassungsorgane des Bundes im Krisen- und Verteidigungsfall zur Wahrung von deren Funktionstüchtigkeit” - an attraction with a name so long that even the Germans shortened it to “Regierungsbunker.”

Who can forget the 2015 “Towards a modern, more European copyright framework,” which seemed content to settle some way short of the IP equivalent of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler.

Since then, to name but some, we have launched valiant pilgrimages “towards” a European Education Area, a Circular Economy, a Sustainable Food System, and even a Sustainable Europe.

This week’s announcement was entitled “Critical Raw Materials Resilience: Charting a Path towards greater Security and Sustainability.”

It aims to “increase EU resilience in the rare earth and magnet value chains” we’re told.

Snark aside, it’s all about making sure China and Chile and the like can’t hold us hostage over the niche metals that make our electric-car batteries and phones work.

But until we discover a vast untapped resource of lithium just outside Genk, and can start to unravel the long-term supply chains and investments already in place, we’re simply going to have to inch “towards” slightly better recycling and being awfully nice to some dodgy sorts around the globe so they don’t jack their prices up or turn the supply off altogether to favour their own manufacturers.

Meanwhile the Berlaymont Brains-Trust are also having to deal with more pressing issues in which they have even less hope of success, but feel duty bound to plug away at nonetheless.

The Mad Moscow Hatter has decided to host another Toxic Tea Party. And his chum the March Minsk Hare has asked for help with his own troublesome dormouse, which has woken up and gotten all uppity and needs stuffing into the teapot.

The matters have attracted the sternest of tuts from the EU, which is also having to reserve some carefully worded opprobrium to direct at the Brits this week, who want to have their fishcake and eat it.

And then, in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s been this Bit-Of-A-Sniffle doing the rounds, which continues to inconvenience and may well kill off our loved ones, crash our economies and inhibit our way of life forever.

It’s enough to drive you to the whisky.

Cheers,

EU Stable-Door Directive takes effect

2020-09-02T13:39:00.003+02:00

The EU's Stable-Door directive enters into force this week, in a bid to clamp down on the future risk of horses bolting. The bill comes into effect five years after the mass escaping-horse scandal of 2015, also known as farmgategate.

The law provides for a list of indicators for what constitutes the risk of a horse bolting. Those indicators are to be decided by national regulators, and notified to the European Commission.

It also sets out parameters for action at national level to stem the risk of horse-bolting, which can include "the securing of the entrance/exit of the stable or other equestrian enclosure, such as to prevent egress." But it stops short of requiring the door or gate to be closed, leaving leeway for member states to notify "alternative equestrian containment measures."

The scope for greater discretion and powers to EU capitals followed months of pressure from the German horse lobby.

Horse escapes have become largely moot in recent years, after costly litigation from horse owners following farmgategate resulted in greater rigor from stables, and developments in stable-door technology, including 'latches' and 'locks'.

Asked if the directive would make much difference, a spokes-horse said:

"neigh."

BM [not even sorry for the horsey joke]

EXCLUSIVE: This blog has gone downhill

2018-09-27T10:50:00.000+02:00

This blog has gone downhill and has pretty much died a death, this blog can reveal.

Once a talking point and frequent reference website for literally several people in the EU bubble, this blog's usage stats are now practically zero.

A graph, yesterday.

Fuelled by the dwindling popularity of the blog format and frankly infrequent and worsening-quality content, this blog is barely worth maintaining.

In a further sign that this blog has gone to the dogs, the link to the once kind-of-popular merch website doesn't work anymore.

Even the comment-bots have given up posting their wares here.

I mean, the last post was almost a year ago.

In part to blame for the collapse of this blog is Twitter, where half-arsed half-amusing ideas can be churned out with considerably less effort.

But above all, it's thought that the fundamental lack of funny things to say about the EU is behind the blog's demise.

After more than a decade, it's said that the three objects of pillory within the EU - ill-judged campaigns, what things cost, and vainglorious has-beens/never-will-bes - have now gone through every possible iteration of satire at least three times.

If you've read this far, congratulations. Have a t-shirt.

If you can get the link over there to work. ===========>

BM

Idle Thumbs: a Tweetise

2017-10-19T18:15:00.001+02:00

[Some contribution I made to some book or something. Reproduced here to contribute to an event about "Digital Influencers" *beurk* in EU blurtery.]

Welcome to the fetid shallow pond of EU Twitter.

There's a handful of very (very) small big fish and a shoal of minnows, all gasping desperately for oxygen in this murky puddle.

There's a fug of smugger and self-servery rising from the slightly oily surface.

And a light acrid foam of ineptitude bobbing in the breeze.

But then, of course, I'm snarking away from my own particular algae-ridden crevice of the pool, like some kind of piscine bottom-feeding twypocrite.

Social media - we know this - can be incredibly self-regarding. It can foster a delusion that Your Things matter to everyone else as much as They do to you. Nowhere is that more exposed and amplified more than in politics - and further, I'd venture, in what is referred to as the EU Twittersphere.

From Brussels beltway expat gripes to live-tweets from dreadful events to the dad-dancing display that is top eurocrats trying to engage with the citizens, the experience can be unedifying.

So why do so many of us have a constant Tweetdeck ticker scrolling away next to the day-job stuff we do (or don't do)?

It can't all be to service a self-indulgent contemporary reflex to share online.

Or to tick a vocational box to do something - anything - on social media to make a semblance of promoting whatever impenetrable niche of eurogeekery you happen to work in.

Or indeed simply to absorb our goldfish attention spans, to punctuate the daily drudge of our respective existences with bad memes, worse puns, and cheap shots.

No, it’s all of the above.

But it’s also - *serious face* - a fabric of community of sorts. A very broad one, frayed at the edges and in parts in the middle too, but a community nonetheless.

And in amongst the fluff, it informs and shares news and insights.

And yes, I hear you mutter derisorily, “that’s the point, duh.”But for the EU Twittersphere, it provides that forum where there wasn’t really one before.

National politics features in every domestic newspaper and news broadcast of that country, and fuels discussions across the land at dinner tables, in pubs, and during lulls in swingers’ bars and niche-interest ‘massage parlours’.

Not so EU affairs. They are inward-looking and unsexy. As lively as the conversation was that you had with your peers on Thursday at the Grapevine before losing count of how many bottles of insipid rosé you’d had, it’s only with those peers you’re able to have that discussion, and it only really happens within the beltway.

Big-picture important issues such as Brexit and International Handshake Protocol raise the water level of EU politics and they spill over beyond the beltway. The EU Twittersphere as an amorphous but vaguely identifiable corpus of social media users is clearly part of the international blurtings on such issues. But remember the pond analogy from earlier? The water level rising means the europuddle is then a diluted part of a much bigger, wetter thing, with more and bigger fish.

However, when the water level falls again, maybe – just maybe – the europuddle has grown a bit. EU-themed discussions and references become that little bit broader longer term. I mean, if UK tabloids are bickering over the compatibility of FTA negotiations with customs-union membership, then maybe comitology reform will, too, someday no longer be a taboo for conversation at my local club échangiste.

Bréf: The EU Twittersphere serves its various purposes to varying degrees of success depending on what you want to get out of it. Don’t expect it to deliver online fame and be the silver bullet for ‘unlocking your networked comms potential’. As with traditional human social contact (remember that?), social-media takes time and effort. Particularly if all you have to talk about is swan preservation or inland waterways policy. But through judicious account following it can be an incredibly powerful information tool, and through judicious engagement on the EU matters that matter to you, a way to communicate that simply wasn’t there before.

So come on in. The water's lovely and tepid. And not too deep.

UK contributions to the EU explained:

2016-04-15T17:45:00.002+02:00

9 degrees deference

2016-01-29T16:54:00.001+01:00

It's one for David Cameron's career scrapbook: that time when the German chief of staff for European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker bowed to him.

Here's the vid.

And here's the snapshot moment.

Eurovillageois may remember that the topcrat in question, Martin Selmayr, has greeted EU leaders like this before, notably Selmayr's ultimate boss, Mutti Merkel herself.

Cameron will doubtless take extra satisfaction from the trigonometrical undeniable fact that Selmayr bowed lower to the British PM than he did to Mutti.

By BM's calculation, a full 9 degrees.

Here's the proof: superimposed on each other, the freeze-frame moment when the German official's bow to each leader was at its nadir.

So why did Martin bow so low to Cameron?

A show of deference for the cameras?

A true sign of respect?

Or perhaps he was just back from the barbers, and wanted to show off his new hairdo...

Our Saviour is Born...

2015-12-15T12:04:00.003+01:00

IT'S A MERKEL!

Snarky Christmas,

BM.

Plans on track to 'poo in Europe's hats' insists Cameron

2015-12-10T12:13:00.002+01:00

Europe's leaders are "onside" with Britain's EU reform plans, which include allowing Britons to do a poo in the EU's hats. That's according to Cameron himself, following a series of meetings with fellow EU leaders.

"It's great to see that there's a real momentum for change, the kind of changes that we're after" Cameron said today.

"Hmm. Might need some more, Janusz. I'm quite full."

The reform plans were "good for Britain, but also good for Europe."

Many have pushed back at his calls to be allowed to poo in the EU's hats.

But Cameron insisted that the need for the country to be allowed to do that was an "intrinsic" part of the package.

"The British people have concerns that EU migrants can come here to live and work and pay taxes, while we cannot poo in hats abroad in Europe. I must listen to those concerns, and so must our European partners."

"The time is right for a serious rethink," Cameron continued. "And that must include Britain's right to ensure we are allowed to do a poo in the hats of our good friends and neighbours."

BM

The European Ties that Bind Us

2015-11-26T18:50:00.004+01:00

Someone didn't get the "Big on Big Things" memo, as MEPs call for a 'European Cravat Day'

Must have been a quiet May this year. Just the burgeoning migrant crisis to deal with, a conflict minerals law to sign off on, loans to Ukraine, and an Emissions Trading System to reform.

So plenty of time for the European Parliament to think up a new Thing-That-Hasn't-Been-Europeanised-Yet.

And they came up with....

Neckwear.

That's right, a European Parliament document from May now made public "calls on the Commission to establish a European Cravat Day."

Europe, it explains, "is the birthplace of the cravat", and the tie has in time "become an indispensable item of clothing, gradually winning over Europe and the whole world."

Nnnnnno. Just.... No.

"For centuries the tie was characteristic of Europeans, namely people with a European spirit and values, and has gradually become a symbol of European fashion," the MEPs reason.

And as each EU presidency traditionally unveils its own tie, the accessory "is even considered a symbol of the EU," they say.

Establishing an EU Day of the Tie will contribute to "maintaining and strengthening interpersonal links between Europeans, as well as their links with the rest of the world."

One can only postulate that this particular group of MEPs may have been wearing theirs a little too tightly...

(And that the current Greek government will be unlikely to embrace the initiative...)

BM

(& *Hat-Tip* to anonymous, who sent through the link to the document...)

Porn blog found on official EU website

2015-11-06T13:07:00.000+01:00

A mucky blog hawking "naughty sex" and "adult chat sites" has been discovered among the 'useful links' listed on a European Commission website.

A keen-eyed reader - who wished to remain a 'cool anonymous source' (*hat-tip*) - spotted the link while perusing the EU's foreign-aid programs.

Seeking more information about the "Al-Invest" initiative to support SMEs in Latin America (ours is not to reason why), the individual clicked on what appeared to be the appropriate link.

But up popped a website (NB. LINK NSFW) with a URL citing "hookers want women horney member" and a blog entry under the curious headline "Married woman looking for sex Henderson".

At time of writing, the link is still there.*

BM

*DELETES INTERNET CACHE*

*update two hours on: link now removed...

The 8 million euro bill of replying to MEPs questions

2015-06-15T14:46:00.001+02:00

MEPs are putting more and more formal written questions to topcrats at the European Commission, with the cost of responding to them estimated to be more than 8 million euros this year.

In 2013 MEPs put 13 400 questions to the executive. Last year MEPs were distracted campaigning in the elections, and only scraped a meager 10 800 questions between them.

With one inquisitive type tabling 193 questions already this year, and many others not too far behind, this year the total is estimated to reach some 17 000.

The commission has said that replying to that many questions requires the equivalent of 76 people working full-time.

Per question, that works out at 490 euros per answer.

How do we know this?

It's all laid out in an answer to a written parliamentary question...

490 euros well-spent.

BM

The 19 Tweets of an EU Tweetchat

2015-04-28T10:05:00.000+02:00

Here's how it works.

Word gets down to the commissioner in charge of Inland Waterways and Catering that it's his turn to do a Tweetchat.

It's the way Topcrats aim to show they're in touch with the citizen and on top of their dossier.

In fact it serves only to satiate the social-media twitch of a handful of lobbyists, leaving both them and the commission with the impression that some job has in some way been done with some degree of satisfaction.

1. The Official Announcement

It starts with an uninspiring invitation from the European Commission.

2. The Commissioner mis-tweets

The commissioner in charge - or rather his cabinet member entrusted with his twitter account - then gets prompted into action.

The tweet goes out late at night on a Friday, and gets the hashtag wrong.

3. The Social-Media Acolyte

On the Monday morning, two days before the big day, some over-eager young social-media comms lackey gets in on the act.

He says he's excited.

He probably is.

4. The False Starters

At this stage a number of lobbyists jump the gun, and start tweeting the #AskBertie hashtag WAY too early.

5. The Social Media Acolyte has a friend. He's also excited.

A day later, Frederik is still excited. He and his colleague Piet have been collating inland-waterway statistics for the commissioner. This, they feel, must be brought to everyone's attention.

6. The Flak Attack

On the day itself, Frederik and Piet tweet selfies, and the spokeswoman finally gets involved. Depictions of the bustling Tweetchat Command Centre give the illusion of dynamism. Exclamation marks seek to underscore youthful enthusiasm for the social medium. When this tweet doesn't get the required pick-up, the head of the spokes service tries to add momentum with a tweet of his own.

7. The Man's a Natural

The commissioner himself dutifully christens the Tweetchat too, with a picture of him sitting by a computer equipped with Tweetdeck, as if to say "Hey, kids, I can use this".

He can't.

Nor has he ever used the phrase "Fire away!".

8. The Industry Twobby

At this point the assorted twakeholders unleash their unimaginative twobbying.

The catering industry association has another punt.

9. The NGO Twobby.

The swan-huggers make the most of the moment.

10. The PR Twobby.

Some PR person with a big hotellier client tries to capitalise.

11. The NGO Twobby Again.

And the swan people have another go with a more emotive line.

12. The Snarks Wake Up: Me.

The retweets will have been enough (barely, but enough) to bring the Tweetchat to the attention of others in the EU twattosphere.

At this point I'll probably have a snark.

13. The Snarks Wake Up: Parody accounts.

The better of the two commissioner parody accounts (yes, there's more than one) also tries to crowbar some semblance of humour from the twituation.

14. The Replies: Type A) Platitude

The commissioner's replies live up to the extremely low expectations.

They range from the platitudinous:

15. The Replies: Type B) Platitude

To the platitudinous again:

16. The Replies: Type C) 'I'm a Human Too'

To the 'look-I've-got-a-personality' replies, possibly drawing on the fact that he has a family, or something extraordinary like that:

17. The Replies: Type D) The Inveterate Joker

And the 'look-I've-got-a-sense-of-humour' ones.

Then after all that edification, there's the obligatory sign-off:

18. The Closing Selfie

19. The Post-Match Analysis.

And after it's all over, some freelance social-media 'guru' who can't get a proper job will tweet an 'engagement matrix' graphic for the Tweetchat, purporting to prove something or other.

The world continues inexorably and unaltered on its axis.

Gunther unsays daft stuff

2015-03-09T17:51:00.002+01:00

When the stable door opens this wide,
horses will bolt.

Internet bites Internet commissioner in the cache.

EU "digital" commissioner Gunther Oettinger has been caught out trying to rewrite a speech he gave two weeks ago.

He made the address on 24 February to a "Digital For Europe" event, seemingly without a script.

The speech attracted snarks at the time for going badly off piste in suggesting companies could be "thrown out" of the European market for not obeying the rules, and for nutty out-of-place references to Napoleon and pigeons.

This was worsened when a few days later, some poor euroserf was tasked with taking a transcript of his speech from the English simultaneous interpretation, and posting it online, which laid out in black and white quite how meandering the utterings had been.

Now it seems someone has redacted the original to try and make it more respectable.

The new version removes the threat of corporate banishment and the gauche analogy with Napoleonic comms.

But the Internet - as Oettinger may someday discover - is a marvelous thing.

Old webpages, Oettinger and his people will learn, don't just disappear. Those clever American search engines that Gunther seems to dislike so much keep an archive.

A cached version of his speech, as well as a video of his blurtings, remain available on the websuperhighwaythingy, and bear testament to the rambling nature of the address.

And a document merge of the original transcript and the doctored version reveals there have been 263 revisions made throughout, most of them deletions. In fact, the second version of the speech is about 1000 words shorter than the 2400 word original.

One can only imagine the time it took to wipe the Tippex off Oettinger's computer screen when he had a first go at editing the transcript himself.

Selmayr shows who's boss

2015-03-04T14:39:00.001+01:00

EU commission prez Jean-Claude Juncker's German chief of staff Martin Selmayr shows who's boss around here...

He could do his back in if he doesn't rein in the deference a bit.

BM

EU to replace Scientific Adviser with 'more holistic' role

2015-02-12T18:46:00.000+01:00

The European Commission has decided to replace its scrapped Chief Scientific Adviser position with a "more holistic" role "better suited to our post-science era."

According to the notice announcing the change, the successful candidate should be able to "look beyond the bounds of scientific orthodoxy" in order to "add to the EU's regulatory toolkit with a wider array of possible responses."

Where science fails,
resort to bunkum.

The aim is to break the deadlock on political issues that science and facts have been unable to resolve.

The stalemate on GMOs, for example, which 'scientists' say are perfectly safe, could be lifted if there were a way to protect crops by placing crystals in the fields. Or something.

Similarly, objections to acknowledging US food-production standards could be treated by ingesting a water solution containing a sub-molecular amount of chlorine-washed chicken.

The first task of the "Holistic Guidance Maven" will be to establish an advisory panel to recommend options for realigning Europe's chakras, and to draft a strategy for a Positive Energy Union.

Bogeyman in the European Parliament

2015-02-11T12:33:00.000+01:00

Witness as Portuguese MEP Paulo* Rangel has a good ol' nasal rummage live on camera in the European Parliament this week, while his colleague bangs on about blah de blah I dunno Syria or something.

Find anything you like Paolo?

BM