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Germany and France dispute Lady Ashton’s ‘excessive’ EU powers
• Confidential German ministry document reveals objections
• Alarm at Ashton’s multiple appointment of British officials
Germany is planning to stop what it sees as a British campaign to dominate European foreign policy-making under Lady Catherine Ashton, the Guardian can disclose.
Amid growing criticism across the EU of the performance of Baroness Ashton of Upholland, the EU’s new high representative for foreign and security policy, Berlin and Paris are alarmed at the prominence of British officials in the new EU diplomatic service being formed under Ashton.
A confidential German foreign ministry document analysing the creation of the EU’s new diplomatic service, seen by the Guardian, has concluded that Britain has grabbed an “excessive” and “over-proportionate” role.
Berlin and Paris are anxious that they are losing the battle to win key positions in the new service which is to be the main vehicle for projecting European power globally under the Lisbon Treaty.
Brussels is currently embroiled in tense negotiations to establish its first worldwide diplomatic corps and integrated foreign policy apparatus, known as the European External Action Service (EEAS). It is to be led by Lady Ashton, the EU’s new high representative for foreign and security policy.
“Excessive GB participation [in the EEAS] is evident,” says the German document. “Over-proportionate GB influence on the establishment [of the EEAS] and staffing is to be avoided.”
“There’s clearly an anxiety in Paris and Berlin that the overall balance will be satisfactory,” said Thomas Klau, a German analyst who heads the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “No one has anything against good British candidates, but if it looks like a takeover, it’s different.”
With Ashton coming under increasing attack across the EU for what is seen as weak and lacklustre performance as the EU’s first foreign and security policy chief, Berlin and Paris fear they are being out-manoeuvred in the tussle for the posts which will shape the new regime.
The Germans and the French point to the predominance of British figures in many of the pivotal positions in the new service. Senior sources complain that of the 12 staff appointed to Ashton’s office, four are British, including her chief of staff and her private secretary.
Additionally, British officials are conspicuous in heading several of the key departments crucial to the operation of the new service. These include the head of the EU’s intelligence cell, its military staff, the official recently appointed to overseeing recruitment to what are to be more than 130 EU embassies abroad, as well as Robert Cooper, the EU’s top foreign and security policy strategist.
“The inroads to the decision-taking level are easier for the UK than for anyone else,” said a former German diplomat closely following the politics behind the building of the EEAS. “A lot of people are very unhappy. But the French are the only ones doing something about this British dominance.”
A European Commission official said: “What are the French really complaining about? Everything comes back to the British, that it’s all a British plot.”
Another EU official said: “It’s a very highly charged political environment. It’s getting very messy.” The diplomats and officials declined to be named.
The French contend that the inexperienced Ashton is being schooled in policy-making by the Foreign Office. Diplomats and officials in Brussels also see Britain’s hand in one of Ashton’s first appointments, made last week. She named Vygaudas Ušackas, a former Lithuanian foreign minister and ambassador in London, as the EU’s special envoy to Afghanistan. He was widely seen as the UK’s favoured contender after Britain withdrew its own candidate because it secured the post of Nato envoy in Kabul.
The Germans are also increasingly unhappy at what they see as the erosion of their influence and being cut out of decision-taking.
The EEAS, like Ashton’s job, was created by the Lisbon treaty which came into force late last year and is aimed at streamlining EU decision-taking and enabling it to exercise greater political clout around the world through Ashton’s “single voice” articulating common foreign and security policy.
The EEAS is to supply the foreign policy machinery, converting 136 European Commission offices around the world into EU embassies.
The Germans, who are the said sources, were incensed at not being consulted when Ashton turned 54 commission offices into EU embassies at the beginning of the year.
Ashton has to decide and obtain agreement by the end of April on the fundamental structures, staffing, and budgets for the new service, not least because there are fears across Europe that a UK conservative government may enter office in May and could at best seek to delay its establishment.
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Conservative defector condemns party’s ‘vile letter’ and hostility towards Europe
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MEP Edward McMillan-Scott accuses Tories of euro-scepticism and ‘double standards’ for expelling him while only suspending Lord Archer
The former leader of the Tories in Europe launches a scathing attack on David Cameron’s Conservatives today, accusing them of “visceral euroscepticism”, “twisted” thinking and bullying tactics that forced him out of the party.
Edward McMillan-Scott, who defected to the Liberal Democrats on Friday, has also accused the Tories of “extraordinary double standards” for expelling him permanently, having only suspended Lord Archer, who was sentenced to four years in prison for perjury in 2001.
Writing in today’s Observer, McMillan-Scott, who remains a vice-president of the European parliament, says the Tories unleashed a “campaign of vilification” against him after he claimed that Michal Kaminski, the Polish MEP who now leads their centre-right group in the EU, had an antisemitic, homophobic and racist track record.
A strong pro-European and member of the Tory party for 43 years, McMillan-Scott gives voice to years of frustration at the party’s hostile attitudes to the EU under present and past leaders, including William Hague.
In his outspoken attack on the party over its handling of his expulsion, McMillan-Scott says he has been smeared by Tory press officers who have tried to claim he is the one who holds antisemitic views.
He adds that they have distorted facts about his defection and claims that the party produced no documents to support its case when he appealed against expulsion. “I am not bitter, but they are twisted. It is not a nice party now,” he writes.
He accuses Cameron of tolerating eurosceptics who depart from the party line while persecuting him, a pro-European, for daring to express sincerely held doubts about the leadership credentials of a controversial fellow MEP.
“David Cameron shields his europhobes,” he writes. “No murmur was made when last weekend Lord Tebbit in effect encouraged Conservatives to vote Ukip in the general election against the Speaker, John Bercow. The dog whistle is really at a lower pitch: that Ukip supporters know that there is a real home for them, back in the Conservative party.”
Last night, speaking from the Liberal Democrat spring conference in Birmingham, McMillan-Scott said the party had shown “massive double standards” by expelling him while suspending Jeffrey Archer for five years.
When the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, mentioned McMillan-Scott’s name at a rally on Friday night there was a huge roar from activists. Yesterday he was seated in the front row for a question-and-answer session, so Clegg could welcome him.
The row over McMillan-Scott blew up last year when he stood as vice-president of the European parliament against Kaminski, who was Hague’s choice. Following McMillan-Scott’s stand, Timothy Kirkhope, leader of the Conservative MEPs, withdrew the party whip.
On 15 September, without any prior notification, McMillan-Scott was expelled from the Conservative party after 25 years as an MEP, four years as leader of the MEPs and three years on the party’s board.
• Hague is also likely to come under fire if he declines an invitation to appear this Thursday before a parliamentary committee investigating the granting of a peerage to Lord Ashcroft .
The three Tory members of the public administration committee – David Burrowes, Ian Liddell-Grainger and Charles Walker – have already said that they will not attend the one-off meeting, at which confidential Cabinet Office records relating to the decision to grant Ashcroft a peerage in 2000 will be discussed.
But the event is now in danger of running into farce. Ashcroft, a “non-dom” who does not pay UK tax on his overseas earnings, is unlikely to appear in person and Hague, too, looks doubtful.
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Edward McMillan-Scott: Standing up to extremism in Europe cost me my place with Tories
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What the Conservatives say publicly about Europe is not what they really think, says the MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber
William Hague has been using positive words to describe the Conservative party’s future relations in government with our EU partners. I have been around the higher circles of the party for long enough to know that a visceral euroscepticism has been growing there since John Major’s day. I had a stand-up row with Hague when, while leader of the Tory MEPs, he tried to get me to back his “Never to the Euro” ticket.
It was chilling to hear the then party leader say to one very senior spokesman at an EU meeting some years ago: “We can say what we like here, but it will be different when we are in government.” I should have left then, instead of carrying on the pro-European fight from within.
David Cameron shields his europhobes. No murmur was made when last weekend Lord Tebbit in effect encouraged Conservatives to vote Ukip against the Speaker, John Bercow, in the general election. The dog whistle is really at a lower pitch: that Ukip supporters know that there is a real home for them, back in the Conservative party. Dan Hannan MEP plays the same game, even declaring that he had resigned his spokesmanship in Europe to campaign full-time for a referendum on EU in-or-out. No slapdown there, either; certainly no expulsion. But then he is a chum of Sam Cameron’s; they were at Marlborough College together.
My decision to join the Liberal Democrats this weekend was made easier by the vile letter the lawyers conducting my appeal against expulsion last year from the Conservative party received last weekend. They described it to me as “intemperate”, and advised me that, since the party refused to supply any documents about my expulsion, there was no hope of a fair final hearing next Thursday at Tory HQ. So I withdrew from the appeal and thereby resigned from the Conservative party I have served more or less faithfully for 43 years.
No doubt my successful stand for re-election last July as European parliament vice-president against the “official” candidate from Poland’s Law and Justice party, Michal Kaminski, put forward by Cameron’s controversial new group, caused him some discomfiture. But the campaign of vilification against me when I explained my reasons – that Kaminski had a recent antisemitic, homophobic and racist past – was so bizarre that it began to attract attention.
Indeed, Toby Helm in this newspaper was the most attentive. He had been present at the national commemoration in July 2001 of one of the most notorious massacres of the second world war in Nazi-occupied Poland. At Jedwabne in July 1941, more than 400 Jews were rounded up by their Polish neighbours and herded into a barn where they were burned.
At the time of the apology, Kaminski was the local MP and he made it his business to organise opposition to the commemoration. He denies this now, as he denies so much else of his easily discovered past, using the Nick Griffin defence: “If I said it then, I would not say it today.”
Last week Cameron was interviewed by the Jewish Chronicle and assured its readers that he would bear down hard on extremism in Britain. This sits uneasily with a man who propitiates it in Europe.
Conservative press officers hounded Labour over Damian McBride. The same pack have been repeatedly reported to me by journalists as using heavy tactics. One hapless Yorkshire Post journalist was called one week by six Tory boys demanding a right of reply for Kaminski. He coolly and properly said that, if he accepted that, he would also have to give space to Nick Griffin. The same team put it about that I was antisemitic because I once met Hamas – actually to tell them to stand for election. They are out again this weekend distorting the facts about my defection to the Lib Dems. I am not bitter, but they are twisted. It is not a nice party now.
A move to the Lib Dems is easier because I have known, liked and respected Nick Clegg for some years, whether as a key negotiator on trade while Sir Leon Brittan was EU commissioner or later as an MEP.
Most of my family are liberals and I am comfortable joining the Liberal family. From being a liberal Conservative I have become a conservative Liberal. And it is not a nasty party.
Edward McMillan-Scott is MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber and continues to sit as an independent vice-president of the European parliament
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Entente cordiale: Sarkozy speaks warmly of Brown at Downing St
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French president says Britain needed ‘bang in heart of Europe’ and tells Cameron he doesn’t understand Tory euroscepticism
Coming from opposing ends of the ideological spectrum, Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown aren’t supposed to be political brothers in arms.
However, at a Downing Street press conference yesterday the French president chose to lavish praise on the prime minister, coming close to siding with him on the issue of Europe and saying Britain was needed “bang in the heart of Europe”, while expressing regret at David Cameron’s decision to quit the European People’s Party.
“If you ask me whether I would prefer the Tories to remain within the EPP, the answer is yes. The EPP is a good bunch of people. Opening up to others is a very good thing,” Sarkozy said.
He went on to meet the Tory leader later at the French ambassador’s residence in London, but the Conservatives said he only pressed the point of their decision to quit the EPP in passing. The meeting between the two sides had been very warm, the Conservatives said.
Brown and Sarkozy said they had made progress on bridging their differences on the future regulation of off-shore hedge funds, and they hoped a compromise agreement on a directivecould be reached in time for an EU finance ministers meeting next Tuesday.
The Americans are opposing adirective that means US hedge funds – or funds operating from London, but registered for tax outside Europe – would need authorisation from each of the EU countries. Sarkozy spoke warmly of the prime minister, saying: “I have found in Gordon Brown a convincing and convinced reformer, and hand in glove we have tried to find the right answers when the economic and financial crisis almost swept us all away.”
He added: “I know we have differences: he is British and I am French. He is a socialist and I am not. That is not as serious as the first point. We have always worked in a spirit of partnership and trust.”
The French have been building contacts with the shadow cabinet in a series of meetings, but remain perplexed by Tory scepticism, saying they cannot find the intellectual basis for this criticism.
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Greece debt: EU agrees bailout deal
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Exclusive: Germany plays pivotal role in potential eurozone rescue package for Greek debts
The eurozone has agreed a multibillion-euro bailout for Greece as part of a package to shore up the single currency after weeks of crisis, the Guardian has learnt.
Senior sources in Brussels said that Berlin had bowed to the bailout agreement despite huge resistance in Germany and that the finance ministers of the “eurozone” – the 16 member states including Greece who use the euro – are to finalise the rescue package on Monday. The single currency’s rulebook will also be rewritten to enforce greater fiscal discipline among members.
The member states have agreed on “co-ordinated bilateral contributions” in the form of loans or loan guarantees to Greece if Athens finds itself unable to refinance its soaring debt and requests help from the EU, a senior European Commission official said.
Other sources said the aid could rise to €25bn (£22.6bn), although it is estimated in European capitals that Greece could need up to €55bn by the end of the year.
Germany, the EU’s traditional paymaster, but the most reluctant to come to the rescue of a fiscal delinquent in the current crisis, has played the pivotal role in organising the rescue package, the sources added.
“There have been quite intensive preparations under the eurogroup. We have the ways and means to do it,” said the senior official, asking not to be named because of the subject’s sensitivity.
“It will be a co-ordinated approach of bilateral contributions [between EU governments] … A bilateral contribution can be a loan or a loan guarantee. The guarantees will facilitate the kind of funds potentially needed in this context.”
The rules governing the operation of the single currency proscribe a bailout for a country on the brink of insolvency. Berlin, in particular, has been worried that any bailout of Greece could be challenged in its constitutional court.
The senior official said the agreement – which will not involve any contribution from the UK taxpayer – had been tailored to respect the bailout ban and avoid a supreme court challenge in Germany.
Alongside the financial relief package for Greece, the European Commission is rushing through tougher rules for the eurozone, using powers conferred by the recently enacted Lisbon Treaty to try to establish a system of rigorous “budgetary surveillance” of all 16 participating countries. The aim is a new regime of “reinforced economic policy co-ordination” in the EU.
“This is the essential lesson that has to be learned from the Greek case,” Olli Rehn of Finland, the new commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, told the Guardian (and four other European papers).
“The Greek case is a potential turning point for the eurozone,” said Rehn in the interview. “If Greece fails and we fail, this will do serious and maybe permanent damage to the credibility of the European Union. The euro is not only a monetary arrangement, but a core political project of the European Union … In that sense, we are at a crossroads.”
While ready to bail out the Greeks if only on terms of “rigorous conditionality”, European leaders are hoping that the rescue will not be needed, that the draconian package of austerity measures announced by Prime Minister George Papandreou will be enough to calm the markets and stabilise the euro.
EU leaders are to rule next week on whether Papandreou is doing enough to slash the 12.7% budget deficit by four percentage points this year, part of his ambition to cut the deficit by 10 points over three years.
Rehn said he would unveil new proposals next month enshrining a new single currency regime of “rigorous surveillance of national budgets” and that Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency, would need to be given formidable new auditing powers over the books of eurozone member states, a demand that may be resisted by EU governments.
“That’s the hard core of our proposal. [The surveillance] should be automatic,” said Rehn. “We have an immediate corrective instrument for the Greek case, plus another framework to prevent new Greek crises.”
Inside the commission, officials are confident that Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, supports the tough new regime being plotted. Schäuble is wheelchair-bound and currently in hospital and will not attend key meetings in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday.
Schäuble enjoys a longstanding reputation as a European integrationist and is said to have played a central role in shaping the Greek bailout plans despite widespread hostility to any such moves in Germany.
Over the past week he has sparked a major debate by calling for a European Monetary Fund to underpin the currency and yesterday stoked more controversy by proposing that serial sinners in the eurozone could be expelled from the single currency club.
The EMF concept is for the long-term and a new rule enabling expulsion from the euro club would require the Lisbon Treaty to be re-opened, a nightmare for most after labouring over it for almost nine years.
While senior figures in Brussels believe that Chancellor Angela Merkel and Schäuble are intensely serious about establishing an EMF, they also suspect they are using the idea to assuage hostile public opinion in Germany and “prepare a short-term fire brigade operation for Greece.”
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Tory rivals Andy Coulson and Steve Hilton move in together
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Party’s communication chief and director of strategy demonstrate Conservative unity by sharing an office at party HQ
Love, it would appear, is breaking out at Conservative Campaign HQ. Andy Coulson, the party’s communications chief, and Steve Hilton, its director of strategy, are now sharing the same office at the party’s HQ on Millbank.
The Coulson-Hilton love-in is designed, no doubt, to scotch rumours of a clash between the two figures at the top of the party. The news that the “yin and yang” of the Tory campaign are sharing an office is disclosed today by Tim Montgomerie, the founder and editor of ConservativeHome. Montgomerie writes:
Steve Hilton, director of strategy, and Andy Coulson, director of communications, are now sharing an office at the heart of operations. The two men have taken over the third floor’s last available meeting room and now sit opposite each other. This uniting of the party’s yin and yang is the beginning of a big effort to ensure better communication of the party’s strategy.
Coulson, the Essex boy who became editor of the News of the World, and Hilton, who has been the brains behind the detoxification of the Tory brand, are said to have differed over election strategy. The two men have always been on friendly personal terms. But Coulson was said to favour a harder edge while Hilton wanted to focus on a sunnier, optimistic message of the future in the mould of Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” theme.
Montgomerie, whose blog has been picked up by Paul Waugh, blames the party’s recent wobble on confusion over its approach to the economy:
Part of the explanation for the party’s difficult few weeks has been confusion as to the Tory approach to the economy (the election’s No 1 issue according to Stephan Shakespeare). Newspapers have concluded that the party is less hawkish on the deficit and this has fed Labour’s narrative that the election is about strong Brown v wobbly Cameron. Over coming weeks there will be a concerted campaign to ensure there is no doubt, in the minds of journalists as well as voters, that the Conservatives are the party of deficit reduction while Labour are the party that got us into this mess. Cameron will be presented as the straight-talker to the nation. Brown as the leader who borrowed too much, who has wasted taxpayers’ money and who failed to regulate the banks.
Coulson and Hilton will report to George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, who is now focused on his main job for the next two months: Tory campaign co-ordinator. Osborne was given a kicking this week by Le Monde, the main voice of the French establishment, which said of him:
He has been chancellor of the exchequer in David Cameron’s shadow cabinet for nearly five years but George Osborne has still not managed to convince people that he has the gravitas of a chancellor of the exchequer. His youthful demeanour and his lack of experience are apparent on the face of this 38 year old aristocrat.
The article in Le Monde reflects unease in Paris at the way in which the Tories cut themselves off from the mainstream centre right in the EU by leaving the EPP-ED group in the European parliament. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, made clear his irritation during his visit to London today which included a meeting with Cameron. Expressing “regret” at the Tory decision to leave the EPP, Sarkozy said at a Downing Street press conference with Gordon Brown:
I remained convinced that the position of our British friends is bang in the middle of Europe. We need you.
Judging by pronouncements by William Hague in the FT this week, the Tories intend to accept that invitation. Hague said the Tories have made a “strategic decision” not to pick a fight with Europe.
If Cameron is not careful he may find himself in the same position as Angela Merkel. The German chancellor’s staff had, at one point, to ask the Élysée if the president could be slightly less tactile.
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Former leader of Tory MEPs Edward MacMillan-Scott defects to Lib Dems
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Edward McMillan-Scott says he fears that on Europe David Cameron says one thing in opposition and will do another in government
The former leader of the Conservatives in the European parliament has defected to the Liberal Democrats, the party announced today.
Edward McMillan-Scott, MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, clashed with David Cameron over his decision to leave the centre-right European People’s party and set up a new group, European Conservatives and Reformists. McMillan-Scott successfully stood against Michał Kamiński, the controversial Polish MEP chosen to lead the new group, for the post of vice-president of the European parliament, and as a result he lost the Tory whip.
The MEP said today: “I have been around the higher circles of the Conservative party for long enough to fear that on Europe Cameron says one thing in opposition and will do another in government.
“I have long fought against totalitarianism and the extremism and religious persecution it brings. It was wrong of Cameron to associate with MEPs who have extremist pasts in his new European alliance.”
He added: “My reasons for joining the Liberal Democrats are that in Nick Clegg they have a leader whom I like, admire and respect. They are internationalists, not nationalists. They are committed to politics based the values of fairness and change.”
Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, paid tribute to his new MEP, saying: “For many years he has fought for human rights and democracy world wide and he is rightly a respected politician across Europe. As someone of principle he has refused to cosy up to rightwing extremists, despite pressure from the Tory machine.
“This flies in the face of David Cameron’s claims of change. It shows that people of principle, who believe in fairness and want real change for Britain are at home in the Liberal Democrats.”
The defection will be seen as a boost to the Lib Dems as they begin their spring conference in Birmingham.
A spokeswoman for the Tory party said McMillan-Scott had had the whip removed “months ago” and declined to comment.
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Industries hoarding greenhouse gas emission permits
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Saved permits can be used to meet future targets to cut emissions without reducing pollution
Companies across Europe are hoarding permits to produce greenhouse gas emissions worth hundreds of millions of pounds, the Guardian can reveal.
The surplus credits have been amassed from over-allocation of permits to pollute from the European emissions trading scheme, and by buying cheap credits from carbon-cutting projects in developing countries and holding on to their more expensive official EU allowances.
The saved permits can be used to meet future targets to cut the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming and climate change without actually reducing pollution, or sold for a profit in the future.
Campaigners for tougher emissions reductions said the saved-up allowances discredited the argument of some industries that much deeper cuts in future would be “fatal” because they could no longer afford to compete against rivals outside the EU.
However, companies involved said the banked credits would help them pay to develop new emission-cutting technology, and to meet emissions targets until that became widely available.
Industry also warned it faced “death by a thousand cuts” as a result of the next phase of the scheme, from 2013 and 2020, and other costly environmental legislation planned by government. Business leaders accused the government of being prepared to sacrifice industry to enable other sectors such as aviation to keep polluting and meet the UK’s carbon budgets.
One steelmaker told the Guardian: “Officials see us as acceptable collateral in the fight against climate change. If we don’t make anything in this country any more, it means people could still fly to Tenerife once a year and the UK will keep within the carbon budget.”
He said meeting targets would require vast amounts of steel to build windfarms, nuclear reactors and electric cars. This would have to be imported from more-polluting steelmakers outside Europe if the industry disappeared in the UK.
The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the centrepiece of the EU’s pledge to cut greenhouse gases, has already been criticised for giving many companies allowances to emit more emissions than they need, leaving little incentive to reduce pollution, and for lax regulation.
The latest concern about “banking” credits involves companies also buying cheap allowances from “offset” schemes which reduce emissions in other countries, often China and India, and using these to cover their emissions while keeping their official allowances – which are worth more because projects in other countries could in future be banned.
Analysis for the Guardian by campaign group Sandbag of the figures for 2008, the most recent available, looked at the extra allowances accrued by four big sectors: iron and steel, coke ovens, metal ore processing, and cement, which together have 800 installations covered by the trading scheme, and include big names like ArcelorMittal, Thyssenkrupp, Corus, Holcim and Cemex.
Sandbag calculated the four sectors received permits to emit 66m tonnes more carbon dioxide than they needed in 2008, partly because predicted growth did not happen and partly because of the recession towards the end of the year. In addition they bought cheap offsets for a further 18m tonnes plus, which would then free up more EU allowances. In total the surplus allowances would have been worth nearly €1.2bn (£1.1bn) in 2008, or just over €1.1bn at today’s closing price of €12.99. Based on the forecast average price of €30 a tonne for the third phase of the ETS from 2013-2016 by analysts Point Carbon they would be worth more than double that in future.
If the companies stockpiled over-allocated surpluses for the whole of this phase of the ETS, from 2008-2012 they could be worth as much as €3.2bn at today’s prices, said Sandbag. Any more credits released by buying offsets would be on top of that.
“If they [companies] want cashflow, which in the current climate they may, then they’ll cash in the allowances,” said Bryony Worthington, Sandbag’s founder and director. “But if they are thinking long-term then they’ll be thinking ‘I should probably hold on to them and insulate myself for the future’.”
ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steel producer, has pledged to use profits to invest in future energy savings to reduce pollution, but there were no guarantees they or any other company would have to do this, said Worthington. “How do we police it, they could be using it for dividends or anything,” she added.
Ian Rodgers, director of UK Steel, said: “The climate change agenda won’t affect the amount of steel consumed, but it will determine where it’s produced.”
According to industry estimates, the third phase could cost heavy industry – including steelmakers such as Corus, the chemicals industry and the ceramics industry – €1bn a year.
Sandbag will tomorrow publish in-depth analysis for 2008, including the biggest buyers of offsets from developing countries, and a map linking every offset scheme with their European customers.
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Ukip MEP removed from European parliament after outburst
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Lord Dartmouth is second Ukip MEP to fall foul of Strasbourg chamber in a fortnight
A UK Independence party MEP was removed from the European parliament today – the second in a fortnight to fall foul of the rules of the Strasbourg chamber.
First, Ukip’s leader in Strasbourg, Nigel Farage, was fined for describing EU president Herman Van Rompuy as having the “charisma of a damp rag” and the appearance of “a low-grade bank clerk”.
Now William, Earl of Dartmouth, has been asked to leave a debate for saying that for hot countries such as Greece and Cyprus to have an “Arctic policy” was “as bizarre as the appointment of Baroness Ashton as the EU’s high representative”.
Lord Dartmouth was taking part in a debate on policy towards the Arctic as the ice melts and sea lanes open up in an area until now not governed by international maritime law.
Chairing the debate was UK Liberal Democrat MEP Diana Wallis, who objected when Dartmouth raised what he called the absurdity of southern European states being involved in any policy to do with the Arctic.
When he made his remark about Lady Ashton – who had addressed the parliament earlier today – his microphone was switched off and Wallis ordered an usher to remove the MEP from the chamber.
A fortnight ago Farage’s microphone stayed on as he launched a tirade against Van Rompuy and his “non-country” of Belgium, and he was not told to leave the chamber.
Later, however, Jerzy Buzek, the president of the parliament challenged him to apologise to Van Rompuy, the Belgian nation and the Belgian people, or face a fine.
Buzek said he would always defend free speech, but not personal insults against guests to the European parliament.
Farage said he would only apologise to low-grade bank clerks and was fined 10 days’ MEP allowances – about £2,700.
This afternoon it was not clear whether Buzek would take sanctions against Dartmouth, but the MEP said he would be writing to the president to complain about his treatment.
He said: “Ukip has always said that this is not a proper parliament, as it is wholly intolerant of dissent. Today’s events have proved that.”
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Ashton risks renewed UK-French feud over European military HQ
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EU’s foreign policy chief accused of being ‘handmaiden’ for integration after promising to review calls for Brussels office
Britain’s EU foreign and security policy chief today risked reviving a bitter UK-French feud over European defence when she promised to review calls for a permanent EU military planning headquarters in Brussels.
The British are strongly opposed to such an HQ, believing it would undermine Nato and dilute the Atlantic alliance, while the French have lobbied for a new Brussels office as a means of boosting independent European defence capacities.
Appearing before the European parliament in Strasbourg, Lady Ashton said the permanent HQ question was “a serious issue that deserves serious debate … The question is whether we need something else.”
The decision to reopen the divisive subject followed talks in Paris last Friday with Hervé Morin, the French defence minister and a trenchant critic of Ashton’s performance as EU foreign policy head.
Following today’s remarks, Ashton was accused of being “a handmaiden” for European military and political integration.
Geoffrey Van Orden, the Conservative MEP who focuses on defence policy, alleged she was plotting a shift that would “ratchet up” EU military integration at the expense of Nato.
Ashton denied the charge – in January she said she was “unconvinced” of the need for a new HQ – and insisted she had no fixed view on whether the EU should establish the defence planning headquarters. The EU currently uses Nato’s Shape HQ and national centres for planning and co-ordinating military missions abroad.
Ashton and Morin discussed the permanent headquarters in Paris on Friday.
A Brussels-based dedicated HQ, said the French defence ministry afterwards, would be a “capacity, desired by a majority of member states, [and] would improve the EU’s responsiveness in the launch of operations and would also be a factor for making cost savings”. Ashton said yesterday that the need for an HQ was obvious and widely agreed.
“The question is whether the current system … is the most efficient way or whether we need something else,” she said. “People often approach this question in terms of structures. I think we should first analyse what functions need to be performed. From that, decisions on structures should flow.”
Sources said that Ashton was keeping her options open on the defence planning HQ, and was also keen to avoid perceptions that she was doing Britain’s bidding.
In a further nod to the French, Ashton also raised the status of meetings of EU defence ministers following criticism that she was ignoring European security at the expense of foreign policy.
Heavily criticised on several fronts since winning the new post in November, Ashton used today’s speech to answer back.
She had not yet mastered the art of “time travel”, she quipped in response to complaints about her schedule and meetings she has missed.
She spoke a sentence each in French and German in an attempt to assuage those unhappy with her lack of foreign language skills.
And she brushed aside taunts that her private office is top-heavy with British officials.
“I will appoint on merit – nothing else,” she declared. “There are no favourites here.”
Ashton is charged with building a new European diplomatic machine, the External Action Service, over the next few months. The service, the EU’s most ambitious new structure in many years, is currently the focus of an intense power struggle in Brussels being waged between the European commission and European governments.
While Ashton is seeking to tip the balance of power towards the governments, senior players in the parliament yesterday supported José Manuel Barroso, the commission president.
Ashton described the new service as “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build something that finally brings together all the instruments of our engagement in support of a single political strategy. If we pull together, we can safeguard our interests. If not, others will make decisions for us. It really is that simple.”
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Tories would play leading role in European Union, says William Hague
about 5 months ago - No comments
Shadow foreign secretary says the Conservatives have been champions of EU’s greatest achievements: single market and enlargement
William Hague said today that a Conservative government would play a “leading role” in the European Union.
In a speech, the shadow foreign secretary said that although the Tories had criticised aspects of the EU, they had also “been the foremost champions of the EU’s greatest achievements: the single market and enlargement.”
Hague said that his party would seek to “maintain and value the bonds of our relationships” with other EU states.
“The European Union is obviously an institution of enormous importance to the United Kingdom and its foreign policy,” he said in his address to the Royal United Services Institute in London.
“If we win the coming general election, it is our firm intention that a Conservative government will be active and activist in the European Union from day one, energetically engaging with our partners.”
He said that they would be “highly active” in promoting European cooperation on climate change, energy security, and pressing for freer and fairer global trade, as well as pushing for Turkey’s membership of the EU.
Hague also emphasised the potential of the EU 2020 strategy on jobs and growth to enhance Europe’s competitiveness – “if we get it right”.
While the Tories had opposed the Lisbon treaty that created the new external action service – in effect an EU diplomatic service – Hague said that they now accepted its existence and would seek to work with it.
They would also work closely with Lady Ashton – the Labour peer who heads the service – although Hague warned that she had an “almost impossible task” amid the “bureaucratic turf wars” in Brussels.
“Whatever our disagreements on that treaty, we intend to maintain and value the bonds of our relationships with our European partners,” he said.
“While we have had differences over the utility and purpose of institutional structures, we have always argued that it is in all our common interests that the nations of the EU use their collective weight in the world to our mutual advantage and in the promotion of our shared values.
“I have often argued that the nations of Europe have demonstrated insufficient determination and consistency in the delivery of our foreign policy goals. A Conservative government will be a strong advocate of the EU’s collective demonstration of those qualities.
“So, with a Conservative government, Britain will play a leading role in external affairs discussions within the European Union.”
The largely positive tone of his comments will been seen as an olive branch to leaders such as Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Angela Merkel of Germany, who were dismayed by David Cameron’s decision to pull out of the centre-right European People’s party grouping in the European parliament.
Hague also strongly attacked Labour’s record over foreign policy and the international economy, warning that the re-election of Gordon Brown would be a “catastrophe”.
He said that the dominant current within Labour was no longer the outward-looking aspect of the late 1990s, but an “explicitly old-fashioned left approach” characterised by the selection of “hardened union activists” as parliamentary candidates.
“Five more years of Gordon Brown would mean that this country would be associated across the world with risky and unaffordable debt, lack of discipline over spending and trade union power,” he said.
During questions, Hague declined to respond when asked to explain why it had taken him so long to find out that Lord Ashcroft was a non-dom. Hague said he was there to discuss foreign policy.
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