26 October, 2008

EU: The Mandelson problem


The EU have a US Senate-style system of controlling who becomes a commissioner. I remember the parliament refusing some nice old Italian cove who admitted that he went to Church and supported the Church's teachings (not sufficiently pro-abortion, you see). They had ample chance to refuse Mr Mandelson, and anyone from Britain could have told them that they would be saving themselves a whole heap of trouble.


Why didn't they? Because Mandelson, like them, is a senior member of the political class. You don't refuse one of your own, no no. But they should have done.


Now that the UK press' spotlight had finally turned towards the real possible scandal, and away from Mr Osborne, the mess is becoming clearer. Mandelson, who led the public to believe that he hadn't met Mr Deripaska until recently and then not often, now admits that he had dinner with him in Moscow in 2004, after the announcement of his appointment as Trade Commissioner but before he even took up his duties. It would have been one of the first things he did.


Unsurprisingly several journalists have applied to be given details of his meetings, the request being made under the Transparency Rule, 1049. Here is the Commission's response:


"The concept of document to which regulation 1049 applies must be distinguished from that of information. The public's right of access covers only documents and not information in the wider meaning. Only information contained in existing documents has to be treated under the regulation."


Straight out of George Orwell, that first sentence. And note 'The public's right of access...' as if the public were something separate and alien to the real world of Euro-bureaucracy. Which, I suppose, it is.


I don't hold out much hope for reform, but if this sorry episode serves to inform the public just what a mad, undemocratic world we have permitted our politicians to create, it would be something.

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