Don't just take it from me: even the Lib Dems concede that Tony Blair's presidency of the European Council was a success! So says Andrew Duff MEP:

Credit to Blair for a successful presidency

"…The prime minister’s most admirable performance came not at the start of his presidency but at the end, on December 20, when he reported back to MEPs after the critical meeting of the European Council the previous week.

"On this occasion Blair had to explain and justify the agreement on the EU’s multi-annual financial framework for the period 2007-13. For Blair it was much more than a public relations outing because the parliament has the power to approve or reject the package proposed by the European Council and, within certain parameters, to adjust figures between headings.

"His presentation – which skilfully mixed confidence and contrition - was admirable, not just for its content, but also for the way in which he bashed ‘reactionaries’ and derided ‘commentators’."

The UK Presidency ended as the clocks chimed in the New Year, and it's worth evaluating what was achieved. The balance sheet is surprisingly positive; surprising, that is, compared to the assessments of many of the armchair commentators whose agenda precludes them from saying anything positive about the government or the EU.

The Presidency of the European Council is not an executive office, but the chairmanship of one of the EU institutions for a very short period. It has no decision-taking powers of its own, merely the opportunity to chair skillfully, to broker compromises, and to place items higher up the (largely inherited) agenda.

Within these constraints, the UK's achievements are not insignificant:

• Managed to get a deal on the budget. (Enough has been said about this elsewhere on this blog.)


• Secured agreement on the "European Consensus on Development" that will double EU countries development aid to $80billion per year by 2010, commits Member States to reach the UN target of 0.7% GDP by 2015, and re-orientates the EU's own programmes towards poverty elimination and meeting the Millenium Development Goals.


• Begun a further round of CAP reform, with agreement to end all export subsidies over the next 7 years, to fit all the 10 new Member States and the next two (Bulgaria and Romania) within the current CAP spending ceiling, which will itself be reduced by 7%, to radically reform the sugar régime now and to have a new overall review of spending in 2008.


• Got all 25 countries to agree to start accession negotiations with Turkey.


• Persuaded Council to agree that its meetings on EU codecision legislation should be held in public, with immediate effect.


• Made huge progress towards adoption of the REACH directive on protecting consumers and workers from dangerous chemicals.


• Secured agreement with the European Parliament (rather than an intergovernmental shortcut) on the data retention directive, vital for combatting terrorism and serious criminality.


• Persuaded Council to resume consideration of proposals to reform the "comitology" system of scrutinising the implementing powers of the Commission, in view of giving Council and the European Parliament equal rights to call back Commission decisions.


• Set an example of how Council presidencies should interact withn the European Parliament, with a record number of ministerial appearences in Parliament and no fewer than four visits of the Prime Minister.


• Hosted a highly successful meeting of the 104-country ACP Assembly in Edinburgh.


• Launched EU Security & Defence missions to Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt and to Aceh in Indonesia.


• Made progress on climate change, leading the EU delegation to contribute to the agreement at the Montreal conference and putting together a package of assistance to China to clean up its coal-fired power stations.


• Secured agreement in Council on the Capital Requirements Directive, an important part of the Financial services Action Plan.

One extra achievement of the UK Presidency just before it finished - which therefore went almost unnoticed - is the new agreement that the EU Council of Ministers will hold its co-decision discussions and votes on proposed EU legislation in public, with immediate effect.

This meets a long-standing demand of the European Parliament, which considers that votes on legislation should be in public in both branches (Council and Parliament) of the EU legislature. How else can the public see who is accountable for decisions and national parliaments control their country's minister? Of course, the results of votes were already published, but this extra transparency is an important improvement.

Only a few months ago, the leaders of the Labour, Liberal, Conservative, Green and even UKIP MEPs signed a joint letter supporting this. Will they be united in their applause? Don't count on it!

Today's Independent has a leading article on Europe that is well worth reading:

Just the previous day, Mr Blair had appeared before members of the European Parliament in Brussels. Confident, combative, uninhibited, the Prime Minister seemed to be in his element. It was a pleasure to hear a British politician speaking so unapologetically as a European. His exchanges with Nigel Farage of UKIP were especially choice. Although he sat "with our country's flag", Mr Blair scolded him, "you do not represent our country's interests". He followed up with the curt rebuke: "This is 2005, not 1945."

Tony Blair's report to the European Parliament on the budget deal went quite well. It was the UKIP MEPs who made fools of themselves, by their childish antics of coming in early to bag the second row of seats all to themselves, decorate them with large Union Jack flags and stage a walk-out just before the end of the debate on the grounds that only two of their MEPs had been called to speak. For the record, among the British parties, three Conservatives were called, three Labour (including me), two UKIP, two Liberal and one Scottish Nationalist - hardly unfair towards UKIP, given the numbers of MEPs from each party!

Anyone interested in reading a full summary of the debate should click here.

So we have a budget deal! Or, at least, a negotiating position that the Council of Ministers can take to the negotiations with the European Parliament in order to decide the final outcome. (This is an aspect that most newspapers seem to have overlooked!)

Even before the deal was clinched, I had to defend the government's position on the BBC's Newsnight programme and on Radio 5, against Tory accusations that it was a sell-out. A "sell-out" that will see the size of the UK rebate increase over the coming years, and the overall size of the EU budget as a proportion of GDP remaining well below what it has been in recent years, despite enlargement! Frankly, nobody else in Europe believes that the UK has been lax in defending its interests - rather the contrary, that it has been too successful.

In fact, Tony Blair had a thankless task in trying to reach an agreement on the budget. He had to reconcile the six countries who wanted to limit EU spending to 1% of GDP with those who wanted a much larger budget. He had to deal with Mr Chirac, who wanted to ring-fence all agricultural spending. He had to deal with the expectations of the new member states, who understandably want the kind of assistance to poorer countries that the EU has provided in the past. He also had to deal with the frankly rather less defensible demands of some long-standing members seeking to preserve their privileges – such as Spain wanting to remain a net beneficiary to a greater extent than the much poorer central European countries, and Luxembourg which, in per capita terms, is both the richest member state and the biggest net beneficiary! He had to deal with all those who thought that a cost-free way (for them!) to increase resources was to eliminate the British rebate. So it is a tribute to his negotiating skills that he secured a deal at all!

In the absence of an immediate new cut in agricultural spending, there will be no change either to the UK rebate, which remains intact, other than the adjustment in favour of the new member states mentioned above. But the absence of a new cut to agriculture should not blind us to the major changes to the CAP that have already been achieved - see my blog entry for 15 December. If I have one criticism of the government, it is that it fails to make people aware of this (and its other) achievements in the EU.

Some thoughts on the budget that have not been highlighted in the media:

• The original British rebate was agreed over twenty years ago when Britain was one of the poorest member states and when 2/3rds of EU spending was on agriculture. It is now one of the richest member states with just over 1/3rd spent on agriculture.
• If the UK rebate was left intact without any adjustment whatsoever, it would see Britain becoming the smallest net contributor by 2013, with only Cyprus paying less. The rebate was never intended to provide us with a windfall, simply to make sure we did not pay more than our fair share.
• Britain's current offer (to adjust the rebate to the benefit of the new, poorer member states) will lead to Britain, for the first time since we joined the EU thirty years ago, paying roughly the same as France and Italy (two countries who are of equivalent size to Britain). In the past, Britain paid more than double what France paid and several times the Italian contribution (in net terms).
• A more radical adjustment of the British rebate will not take place until there is a more radical adjustment of agricultural spending. Britain made this clear from the beginning.
• The current proposals, including the adjustment of the rebate, will lead to Britain paying in an extra €8 billion over 7 years (i.e. €1.14 or £bn.0.77 per year), Britain’s fair share towards the cost of enlargement. This comes to about 2.55 % of our defence budget or just under 4 pence per person per day.
• In practice, helping these poor but high growth economies to develop will boost their demand for British exports: trade with the new member states has already increased by 400% since 1990, 10 times the rate of growth of the rest of the world!
• It is also in our interest to have increasingly stable societies in central and Eastern Europe. The high human and financial (about £4b) costs of sorting out Bosnia and Kosovo demonstrate why this investment now is good value.
• The payments to central and Eastern Europe are lower than envisaged in the Commission’s original proposal – in return, Britain has proposed speeding up procedures so that they can access their dues more speedily.
• Britain is not alone in making overall agreement difficult: Spain insists on remaining a net recipient of EU funding to a far higher degree than the much poorer eastern European countries. France refuses to countenance much more agricultural reform. The Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Austria also want to limit the increase in their contributions through special arrangements similar to Britain’s.
• The overall level of the EU budget remains limited to just over 1% of GDP and has been coming down as a proportion over the last few years. This means that, with enlargement, we are getting “more Europe for less”. The sums involved are anyway relatively small.
• In any case, the UK rebate will rise from €5 billion to €7 billion (£4.7 billion).

Off to London for a seminar to mark the mid point of the British Presidency of the EU Council. Denis McShane, the previous Minister for Europe, and myself were invited to speak.

Of course, we agreed on much: the Presidency is right to focus on major issues of concern (economic reform, the future of the European social model, the medium-term budget, CAP reform etc) rather than trying, at this stage, to pre-empt the 'period of reflection' on the constitution by proposing to renegotiate the text. Tony Blair's speech to the European Parliament at the start of the presidency was extremely successful in refocusing the agenda.

We also agreed that the presidency affords only limited opportunities. It's not an executive office, but merely the chairmanship of one of the EU institutions for a short period with a largely inherited agenda. One of its pitfalls is exaggerated expectations of it.

To liven things up, we did our best to disagree on details! Denis couldn't resist a few populist digs at MEPs, moaning that a few “out of touch” MEPs consider the EU constitution to be still a live issue - in which case a fair number of national governments must also be out of touch!

He also raised yet again an idea that failed to get any support in previous discussions on EU reform, namely that a 'second chamber' be added to the European Parliament composed of delegations from national parliaments. When I pointed out that we already have a two-chamber system in that EU legislation has to go through up to three readings in both Parliament and the Council, he says that there is no way Tony Blair would consider himself to be a mere senator!

No doubt - and as Prime Minister, Tony is a member of the key EU strategic decision-taking body, the European Council. But ordinary departmental ministers dealing with routine legislation in the normal Council are indeed part of a bicameral legislature in that legislation must be approved both by the Council and the European Parliament. To change that into a complex three-chamber system, with a new body composed of national parliamentarians, would scarcely make EU decision-taking procedures easier or clearer. Many people already now find the system too complex, so what it would be like with a three institutions having to agree, heaven only knows.

Besides, the pre-1979 European Parliament was composed of delegations from national parliaments - and it didn't work! The MPs found they couldn't do two full time jobs simultaneously, and majorities depended on which national delegation was missing due to a key vote in their national parliament. That is why the original European Parliament was changed into a full-time elected Parliament.

There is no doubt that the institutional structure of the EU will need revisiting. But this is one idea that won't float!

Yesterday, Tony Blair appeared before the European Parliament to outline his priorities for the UK’s presidency of the European Council, which starts on 1 July. His speech was excellent (the full text is here) and he maintained a refreshingly positive tone. The British presidency will be a great opportunity to address current challenges in the EU.

Back in Yorkshire today, I was astonished by the media’s wide range of interpretations of the Prime Minister’s reception at Parliament. Were they at the same debate?!

Financial Times:

"Tony Blair, prime minister, won unexpected support in Brussels yesterday with his vision of a revitalised European Union that could embrace free markets and face up to the challenges of globalisation… Mr Blair was praised by EU MPs for a passionate speech which sought to chart a route out of the continent's political malaise… [His] speech was consensual in tone and received applause from a parliament that had been expected to give him a rough ride."

and:

"As a political performance it was brilliant; as an argument, compelling. Watching Tony Blair speak to the European Parliament in Brussels yesterday was to remember why this British prime minister is Europe's most successful leader."

Independent:

"Mr Blair escaped unscathed from a debate in the European Parliament… [Y]esterday most Euro-MPs seemed won over by a speech in which Mr Blair described himself as a 'passionate pro-European' while making a powerful plea for reform to deal with the forces of globalisation."

Times:

"It was a vintage performance… the clapping became more and more frequent."

Sun:

"He won new allies as they applauded him 15 times during the 30-minute keynote address."

Le Monde:

"The new strongman of Europe"

Then, on the other hand, Guardian:

"His speech… prompted a few jeers and catcalls from MEPs."

Telegraph:

"BLAIR DOES A THATCHER TO THE EU, ONLY RUDER

…He was met with scattered applause, some heckling and long periods of sullen silence from MEPs."

Finally, somehow the Daily Express manages to come up with an utterly inverted analysis, reporting on the performance of the self-proclaimed ‘passionate pro-European’ as follows:

"Tony Blair took his new Eurosceptic agenda into hostile territory yesterday as he unleashed a devastating attack on the European Union."