EU Issue Tracker: New Year editorial

It was an Orwellian moment.

The Juncker Commission has billed itself, and now its work programme, as a “fresh start”. Beginning now, the Commission would focus on the big economic challenges, reduce EU interference in daily life, and be more open about what it does and how it does it.

And the work programme would, said Juncker and his right-hand man Timmermans, reflect the latter two goals by including far fewer new legislative initiatives and by being more transparent about what it’s planning to do.

But to us 2015 looks to be business as usual, and the programme is in fact a very much less transparent way of packaging this.

The truth, but not the whole truth

Presenting the work programme to Parliament, President Junker said the new Commission was only planning 28 new initiatives for 2015, rather than 130 initiatives presented each year under the previous Commission.

But the previous Commission had announced only between 15 and 20 new initiatives each year – even fewer than in the current work programme. The difference – and here we see Juncker’s sleight of hand – is that whereas previous work programmes have always also included all other initiatives that were either already being worked on or known to be required, the new simply omits all this – as if the bulk of what the Commission is working on simply didn’t exist.

So the new work programme doesn’t really represent significantly less legislation – it’s just that it doesn't mention most of what will be going on. The Commission will not only be presenting 28 proposals in 2015; there are hundreds of other proposals, delegated acts, reviews, reports, and strategies, that are in the works and most of these will, sooner or later, see the light of day.

As for the much-trumpeted withdrawal of eighty proposals – most of these had already been slated for withdrawal by the previous Commission.

Transparent for us, but not for you

The Commission said it was keeping most of its work unmentioned in the programme for fear of being incomplete, and defended the massive omissions by saying this would prevent “speculation”.

We are impressed with the Commission’s chutzpah, but not with its command of logic (“we want to be complete so let’s take lots of stuff out”) nor its understanding of what does and doesn’t fuel speculation (“let’s draw the shades, then people won’t wonder what’s going on inside”). Nor, indeed, with its commitment to transparency.

But at least this was the first time the Commission worked in dialogue with both the European Parliament and the member states to build support for the work programme before presenting it - right?

Apparently not even that – or not very effectively. No sooner was the programme presented than the Commission was already under pressure from the Council and Parliament not to withdraw some of the proposals the Commission said it would withdraw.

Further, it emerged that certain proposals were not really being withdrawn – simply amended or redrafted.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating

This is not an auspicious start. And while we don’t doubt the Commission’s good intentions, we anticipate that change (assuming it is really so very badly needed) won’t be quite so quick and easy to effect.

But we shall see, and we certainly do wish Juncker and his team the best of luck. And to them, and to the Parliament, the Council, our clients, and all our readers, a Happy New Year!