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Almost unnoticed, the Government yesterday published the second batch of reports in its so-called “Balance of Competences” (BoC) review – the flagship exercise that’s mapping out the EU’s impact on UK society and the economy – covering everything from trade to culture.
It's a mixed bag. The Trade and Investment report is a genuinely good read, engaging with alternatives to the EU and key debates, such as whether the EU is trade diverting or creating.
The reports on transport and environment point to some serious problems of over-interference, such as that EU rules can add 18 months to a planning application for building a house, illustrating the need for some strong, new safeguards against over-regulation (such as a "red card" for national parliaments).
However, while the individual reports contain tales of dissatisfaction with the EU within policy areas, none of the reports draw any deep conclusions about the broader balance of power between Westminster and Brussels. This is clearly deliberate, in part due to the Coalition Agreement, in part due to fears about giving away the UK's potential negotiating hand.
But this means that it isn't a "Balance of Competence" review at all, but rather a descriptive public consultation. This would have been fine but for a rather odd, unintended consequence. In its attempt to avoid drawing any "controversial" conclusions, the BoC is doing precisely that.
Consider the Culture, Tourism and Sport report. In places, it reads like a European Commission advert for EU intervention. That a report drafted by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport with evidence submitted by various organisations drawn from the culture sector should conclude that EU involvement in culture is “an important source of funding for the sector, as a driver for new creative partnerships, and as a vehicle for promoting the UK’s ‘soft power’” is hardly a surprise.
Some spending on warm and fluffy initiatives such as films may seem like no big deal, but this illustrates the problem. There's little meaningful evidence to prove that in a world of trade-offs and limited resources, it's right for the EU to spend close to €1.5bn on culture projects linked to "European integration" over the next seven years. Key questions are omitted, like if these projects should be publicly funded at all, shouldn't this be a decision made by people far more accountable to UK taxpayers than EU officials? Therefore, possibly unconsciously, the report seems to back the status quo.
Of the 14 reports published so far, many have fallen into this trap. Of course, critics of the BoC will be accused of simply not liking the evidence, and there might be a degree of truth in that, particularly on the benefits of EU trade. But the fundamental problem with the process is not the evidence, it's the lack of context within which to weigh it. There is no one judging the micro aspects of EU membership against a wider set of principles – or benefits and costs – so the reports and the evidence end up telling us little about the wider UK national interest.
At the same time, if you sit in Berlin or Brussels, you could be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that with his promise to renegotiate in Europe, David Cameron is really tilting at windmills. After all his own studies don't actively point to a fundamental problem apart from at the margins. Is this really what No 10 has in mind?
The Government's EU powers review could become a big problem for Cameron – Telegraph Blogs
It's a mixed bag. The Trade and Investment report is a genuinely good read, engaging with alternatives to the EU and key debates, such as whether the EU is trade diverting or creating.
The reports on transport and environment point to some serious problems of over-interference, such as that EU rules can add 18 months to a planning application for building a house, illustrating the need for some strong, new safeguards against over-regulation (such as a "red card" for national parliaments).
However, while the individual reports contain tales of dissatisfaction with the EU within policy areas, none of the reports draw any deep conclusions about the broader balance of power between Westminster and Brussels. This is clearly deliberate, in part due to the Coalition Agreement, in part due to fears about giving away the UK's potential negotiating hand.
But this means that it isn't a "Balance of Competence" review at all, but rather a descriptive public consultation. This would have been fine but for a rather odd, unintended consequence. In its attempt to avoid drawing any "controversial" conclusions, the BoC is doing precisely that.
Consider the Culture, Tourism and Sport report. In places, it reads like a European Commission advert for EU intervention. That a report drafted by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport with evidence submitted by various organisations drawn from the culture sector should conclude that EU involvement in culture is “an important source of funding for the sector, as a driver for new creative partnerships, and as a vehicle for promoting the UK’s ‘soft power’” is hardly a surprise.
Some spending on warm and fluffy initiatives such as films may seem like no big deal, but this illustrates the problem. There's little meaningful evidence to prove that in a world of trade-offs and limited resources, it's right for the EU to spend close to €1.5bn on culture projects linked to "European integration" over the next seven years. Key questions are omitted, like if these projects should be publicly funded at all, shouldn't this be a decision made by people far more accountable to UK taxpayers than EU officials? Therefore, possibly unconsciously, the report seems to back the status quo.
Of the 14 reports published so far, many have fallen into this trap. Of course, critics of the BoC will be accused of simply not liking the evidence, and there might be a degree of truth in that, particularly on the benefits of EU trade. But the fundamental problem with the process is not the evidence, it's the lack of context within which to weigh it. There is no one judging the micro aspects of EU membership against a wider set of principles – or benefits and costs – so the reports and the evidence end up telling us little about the wider UK national interest.
At the same time, if you sit in Berlin or Brussels, you could be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that with his promise to renegotiate in Europe, David Cameron is really tilting at windmills. After all his own studies don't actively point to a fundamental problem apart from at the margins. Is this really what No 10 has in mind?
The Government's EU powers review could become a big problem for Cameron – Telegraph Blogs
