IP/06/1835

Brussels, 19 December 2006

What did the EU do for me in 2006?

The European Commission is launching a new multimedia product, the European Union Yearbook, which sets out 10 major policy actions undertaken by the European Union this year and is available in 22 languages. “Europe and you – a snapshot of EU achievements” aims at giving citizens a better understanding of what the European Union does and how this impacts on their daily lives.

“People can better understand the added value of the EU if they can see the real examples: cheaper mobile phone charges, a cleaner environment and no misleading labelling of food.” said Margot Wallström, Vice President of the Commission responsible for Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy, about the EU Yearbook.

“Europe and You” is a selection of 10 concrete examples in areas where the European Union is active. These areas range from new legislation on chemicals to cheaper roaming fees; from the tackling of illegal immigration to the Galileo project.

This new communication approach developed in the White Paper on Communication (http://ec.europa.eu/communication_white_paper/doc/white_paper_en.pdf) aims at reaching out to larger audiences through new channels which are better adapted to people’s lives. Apart from the technical aspect, the novelty of this approach lies in the way it highlights the efficiency of joint European action in concrete areas of daily life.

The EU yearbook is available on the website: www.ec.europa.eu/snapshot2006 where each example will be presented through a short text and a video-clip. A printed leaflet will also be available for the general public and a DVD has been produced for media professionals.

The official launch will take place on 19 December 2006 at a press event hosted by Vice-President Wallström.
TV Link

http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/video/video_prod_en.cfm?type=detail&prodid=673&src=1

Direct Taxation: The European Commission proposes an EU co-ordinated approach of national direct tax systems

(see MEMO/06/499)

The European Commission has adopted a Communication announcing a series of initiatives to promote better co-ordination of national direct tax systems in the EU. The aim is to ensure that national tax systems comply with Community law and interact coherently with each other. The initiatives seek to remove discrimination and double taxation for the benefit of individuals and business while preventing tax abuse and erosion of the tax base.

"Discrimination and double taxation prevent individuals or business from reaping the full benefits of the Internal Market and undermine the EU’s competitiveness. There is an urgent need to improve coordination of national tax rules to allow them to interact more coherently" said László Kovács, the Commissioner responsible for Taxation and Customs Union. "Moreover, I am convinced that coordination would help Member States to prevent unintended non-taxation or abuse and hence avoid undue erosion of their tax bases"

The main objectives of a coherent and coordinated tax approach are to:

• Remove discrimination and double taxation,
• Prevent unintended non-taxation and abuse, and
• Reduce the compliance costs associated with being subject to more than one tax system.

Linked to this Communication, the Commission is presenting two Communications on cross-border loss relief (IP/061828/) and exit taxation (IP/06/1829), which provide the first two examples of specific areas which could benefit from a coordinated approach.

Angela Merkel at Fogh.
The German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel is visiting an embattled Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Tuesday the 19th December 2006. Fogh has not been very informative about what was really going on in the democracy projects in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Merkel now wants Fogh’s “yes” to a new democracy project in the EU. The rejected constitution will be awakened again and will be adopted in other terms.

First they will change the name from Constitution to Treaty. Constitution is “grundgestez” in German. Then Germany gets the rejected constitution with their own name and countries where this word is unpopular can sell it as a “mini-treaty”.

From part I some bombastic words have been removed without changing the contents. The Court of Justice has already used Part II in the Constitution concerning the common fundamental rights more than 200 times.
The Court of Justice has already moved the pillars between the present treaty of Rome and the judicial policy co-operation. The introduction of criminal law has also been handled by the judges.

The more the Court of Justice decides, the less the teatry needs to contain to give the same result.

But changes in the decision making from unanimity til qualified majority and the entry of new voting rules together with a smaller Commission can only happen at a government conference. And this is what Merkel now wants to negotiate during the German Presidency and get approved by the end of 2007.

The very comprehensive part III is being rewritten into a few amended sheets compared to the Treaty of Nice. Part III already contains 85% of the Treaty of Nice and 15% of it is new. By making the changes short, incomprehensible and without context you think that it’s possible to cheat the voters into believing that the issue at stake is something different from the rejected constitution.

But the core remains the same and it is by moving power from the voters and the popularly elected to the public servants and to ministers and from small countries to big countries.

The core is 44 new areas for decisions with so-called qualified majority. On these areas, the Danish parliament and other national parliaments in the EU will loose the opportunity to legislate independently and to use the veto power in the EU.

The main part of the laws will be decided by public servants in 300 secret working-groups under the Council of Ministers, after being prepared by 3000 other secret working-groups in the Commission.

The members of the European Parliament will have greater influence but they will win much less than the voters and the national elected will lose.

The democratic deficiency will increase. The legislative power will lose to the executive power. Montesquieu’s seperation of powers will lose to Machiavelli.

For Merkel the most decisive is the implementation of the so-called double majority, where you have to vote after population in the future. This will increase Germany’s power at the expense of the smaller countries. Today, Germany has 32% of the votes needed to block a decision. With the Constitution, they will have 51%. Similarly, Denmark have 7.8% at it’s disposal today - and only 3,4% with the Constitution.

From being necessary conversation partners we will now become superfluous for the pluralisation. That Danish members of the national parliament can agree on this, testifies their lack in the knowledge behind the decision making process in the EU.

For Denmark it is also a problem that the Constitution and it’s replacement will abolish the entitlement to an independent Danish commissioner. The Danish seat in the Commission and especially in the commissioner’s cabinet is important for the daily co-operation between Danish companies and municipalities and EU’s distant French organised authorities.

Fogh and the national parliament’s majority are also willing to sell the Danish Commissioner. In this matter, they should give a call to the leading law graduate from the Danish Council of Trademen., Peter Vesterdorf, who is a member of the Liberals and a strong federalist and who has written the first Danish educational textbook about the European Parliament.

He has been following thousands of EU-cases during Denmark’s entire membership of the EU and he is warning about the selling out of the Danish commissioner in the same way that I am.

The removal of a Danish commissioner is such a decisive change of the co-operation in the EU that the compressed Constitution should be put out to a referendum.

It would suit the opposition and the Danish People’s Party, if they use Merkel’s visit to announce that they do not want any changes sneaked in the EU-co-oeration without a referendum.

Bonde’s Briefing