Starry Days
A critical look at the EU and European integration
Thursday, 13 March 2025
The Era of Rearmament
Saturday, 8 March 2025
Time for rent-seeking - EU introduces Clean Industrial Act
As prescribed by Mario Draghi in his report last year, the union will use decarbonisation efforts to catch up with the US, China and others.
Main elements of the Clean Industrial Deal are
- Affordable energy. To day energy prices are much higher in the EU than in US and China. An affordable Energy Action Plan shall lower the energy bills for industries, businesses and households.
- Boosting demand for clean products. A Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act is meant to increase demand for EU-made products. The Commission will also review the Public Procurement Framework in 2026 to introduce sustainability, resilience and European preference criteria in public procurement for strategic sectors.
- Financing the clean transition. The EU will mobilise over €100 billion to support EU-made clean manufacturing. Among the measures are adoption of a new Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework, decarbonise industry and ensure sufficient manufacturing capacities of clean tech and strengthening the Innovation Fund.
- Promoting circularity in EUs decarbonisation strategy and achieving access to critical raw materials.
- Acquire reliable global partners.
- Actions to get the necessary skills to support the transition to a low-carbon economy, including skills in clkean technologies, digitalisation and entrepreneurship.
Although EU is implementing Draghis advise, he also warned that using the green agenda to get competitive is risky. If unseccessful it can make the situation worse.
Keeping the unions extremely ambitious climate policies while fighting for competitiveness prioritising clean tech industry seems like a fantasy. The US has abandoned the climate change strategy, now it is "Drill baby, drill!". And if the EU can come up with successful and interesting renewables, it will probably be met with US tariffs.
Versus China the challenge will be to produce better products than the asiatic country. Not an easy task, Chinas electric car and battery industries are highly competitive.
Perhaps the new big investment in defence industry can strengthen industry and economy, but the color will not be green.
Sunday, 5 May 2024
A new Norwegian review of the AAE-agreement - alternatives still taboo
Twelve years ago, in 2012, a government appointed committee delivered the first comprehensive review og the EEA and other agreements between Norway and the EU. They concluded that the EEA had been a useful instrument for Norwegian participation in the single market without beeing a member of the union. But the construction suffered from major democratic shortcomings ("fax-democracy"). The evaluation did not discuss alternatives to the EEA.
A new committee was established in 2022. The mandate was to evaluate the development and experiences with the EEA and other Norway-EU agreements since 2012. They delivered their report in april this year.
The main conclusion prevails: EEA is useful, but in several ways undemocratic for Norway. Ans still no discussion of possible alternatives to the EEA. This is taboo because Norways relationship with the EU is a difficult political question, and the EEA works as a compromise.
Sort of a compensation for the missing discussion of alternatives, the review describes cooperation models between the EU and Switzerkand, the UK and Canada. The committee shows how several assessments indicate that the EEA is a better solution for businesses and economy. But these assessments are uncertain, and the committee does not evaluate to what extent Switzerland, the UK and Canada have preserved democracy and independence compared to Norway.
Tuesday, 30 April 2024
EU interfering in Norwegian decision making
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The Norwegian Parliamnet |
The Renewable Energy Directive is part of the Fourth Energy Package, which is considered relevant for the EEA-agreement, and therefore should be incorperated in the agreement. But many think that building more wind generators and photovoltaic installations will damage valuable Norwegian nature and should be avoided.
This is a highly sensitive political issue, and the commissioner for energy, Kadri, has threatened the Norwegian government with punishment if the directive is not implemented before mid-August.
Inspired by this EU-involvement in the Norwegian decisionmaking process, 23 Norwegian businesses and organisations have asked the EU Commission to set a deadline also for the Energy Efficiency Directive.
This development is very worrying. When the EEA-agreement law was adopted back in 1992, it was a prerequisite that the Norwegian decisionmaking process should not be affected. Now we are in a situation where the process might be altered by the Renewable Energy Directive, where the EU commissioner is interfering and where Norwegian businesses and organisations ask for even more interfering by the Commission.
This is not acceptable.
Friday, 24 March 2017
EU future - added value is key
EU has always been about added value. Its predecessor The European Coal and Steel Community was established in 1951 as a way to prevent further war between France and Germany. These two countries had time after time ended in war when they acted separately. By placing French and German production of coal and steel - vital resources for a country to wage a war - under a supranational common High Authority, peace was preserved and France and Germany got added value. The idea of using regional integration to achieve more than the participants are able to do separately was developed further, and when the flag of The European Coal and Steel Community was lowered for the final time outside the European Commission building in Brussels in 2002, it was replaced with the EU flag - symbolizing how an innovative idea had prevailed.
But no tree grows into heaven. The EU integration project has met obstacles and crisis. People in Europe want to keep the EU, but they want changes. And the EU establishment should listen. What they call populism is democratic feedback. People react because they don´t feel the European Union gives added value - or more precise: they recognize and appreciate some important aspects of the integration, like a common market, but the project has gone to far. Especially when it comes to democracy many oppose the development and say "this is not added value, this is less democracy."
So instead of an ever closer union, the leading star must be a supranational cooperation which gives added value to everyone. This means a less ambitious integration with respect to "volume", but a more ambitious integration when it comes to identifying areas and tasks where the EU can give added value for a diverse Europe.
Wednesday, 15 March 2017
EU 60 years - shaky, but important
The EUs 60th anniversary will be celebrated in many ways, with a special European Council summit in Rome on 25 March as the most symbolic. It was on this date Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957.
EU summarizes the developments on its website
Sixty years ago in Rome, the foundations were laid for the Europe that we know today, ushering in the longest period of peace in written history in Europe. The Treaties of Rome established a common market where people, goods, services and capital can move freely and created the conditions for prosperity and stability for European citizens.
On this anniversary, Europe looks back with pride and looks forward with hope. For 60 years we have built a Union that promotes peaceful cooperation, respect of human dignity, liberty, democracy, equality and solidarity among European nations and peoples. Now, Europe's shared and better future is ours to design.The description points to important positive contributions, but does not reflect the European Union´s current crisis. However, it is necessary to deal with this in a good way for the EU to survive and provide added value in the future.
And it should not be impossible to achieve a workable compromise between europhiles and -sceptics. The common vision must be an appropriate mix of decentralization and supranational power. "An ever closer union" is a dead end street.
Even if the UK don´t want to be part of the single market and is heading for a "hard" Brexit, other sceptics are less radical. E.g. said one of the participants in todays Dutch elections, Geert Wilders, a few days ago to Norwegian journalists that he wanted the national sovereignty back, but that he might accept a Norway-model with EEA-membership. So the EEA, which includes the single market and some other cooperation areas, might give some ideas for development of a new EU vision.
Friday, 10 March 2017
EU future - everything in play
While the European Council today is preparing the EU´s 60th anniversary declaration without PM May attending, the growing lack of European unity makes it hard to deliver anything other than general phrases about the future EU.
At the summit yesterday Poland refused to accept a continuation for Donald Tusk as European Council President. The traditional consenus was stalled. “We know now that it [the EU] is a union under Berlin’s diktat,” the Polish foreign minister, Witold Waszczykowski, told Polish media.
Earlier this week France, Germany, Italy and Spain - "the big 4" - backed multispeed Europe (Juncker´s scenario 3), a future which the Visegrad group - Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic - does not like.
The leaders participating in the summit yesterday agreed to let a group of willing go ahead with plans to set up a European public prosecutor to probe financial crimes against the EU budget. EU Observer writes: "The move is largely procedural but also symbolic for an EU currently debating the possibility of a so-called multi-speed Europe, where some countries can forge ahead with deeper integration."
The multi-speed strategy is an old idea. When the frontrunners successfully achive added value, the slow ones will be tempted to follow. And integration will be strengthened.
But the consequences of multi-speed seems more likely to be confusion and disintegration. What matters most is the tasks unifying all the 27 member states. They are the basis and the core of the Union. So instead of escalating multi-speed, the strategy should be to democratize, concentrate and streamline a one-speed European Union.