VOL. 1 NO. 6
EU
Polish Duda rises over Brussels
The election of a Euroskeptical president raises pressing questions about Warsaw’s sway in the EU
By JAN CIENSKI
The surprise victory of Andrzej
Duda in Poland’s presidential
runoff was greeted with shock
in Brussels, and raised pressing
questions about the future of
Warsaw’s policies toward as well
as influence in the EU.
The European capital had long
The reign
in Spain is
CREDIT
no longer
on the wane
King Felipe and
Queen Letizia,
a power
couple for a
weakened
kingdom
By TUNKU VARADARAJAN
MADRID — Spain has been
magnificent at giving birth to
painters and poets, impressive at
minting novelists, chefs and soc-
cer players, but thoroughly inept
at producing good kings.
Apart from Ferdinand and Is-
abella, Philip II, Charles III, and
for the sentimental, Alfonso XII
(who died at 27 in 1885), no Span-
ish monarch can indisputably be
called “great.” This scorecard
dates back to 1492, the year in
which, most historians would
agree, it became meaningful to
talk of “Spain” in anything re-
sembling the modern sense.
On a recent afternoon here,
I lunched with two experts in
Spanish kingship, at one of those
masculine restaurants where no
patron of good repute starts to
eat before two in the afternoon
(and only those of ill repute fin-
ish earlier than 4:30 pm).
FELIPE VI: PAGE 14
A new sheriff in the ‘Wild West’
Robert Ménard has turned French town of Béziers into a laboratory for far-right policies
By NICHOLAS VINOCUR
BÉZIERS, France — Take a walk
through the sleepy streets of
Béziers, in southwestern France,
and you might get the impression
ISSN 2406-5250
that this is just another pictur-
esque old town with a struggling
economy.
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015
factored in a second term for in- of a more socially conservative
cumbent Bronisław Komorows- and Euroskeptical strand of Pol-
ki. Dismissed as an unknown and ish politics.
long-shot, Duda triumphed in The 43-year-old lawyer comes
Sunday’s elections by three per- from the Law and Justice (PiS)
centage points, bloc of Jarosław Kaczyński, a
heralding former prime minister who
the re- will lead the party — now
sur- brimming with momen-
gence tum and confidence
Then you pick up the city hall set against huge yellow numer-
newspaper. The bimonthly “Jour- als that spell out “64%” — a ref-
nal de Béziers” is what a French erence to the alleged proportion
municipal newsletter might look of Muslim students in the town’s
like if the New York Post some- school system. Diagonally across
how got hold of its printing press- Marianne’s front, a banner head-
es. On the cover of its May 15 edi- line blares: “THE REPUBLIC
tion, a stone bust of Marianne, MUST STOP HIDING ITS STA-
the French national mascot, is TISTICS!”
— into parliamentary elections
in autumn. Komorowski’s loss
reflected voter fatigue with his
centrist Civic Platform (PO),
which has ruled Poland since
2007 and comes into the election
campaign on a weaker foot. This
unexpected political shift is also
forcing a rethink of Poland by its
main EU partners, which view
KEN FALLIN
The all-caps title, the urgent
tone and even the subject it refers
to are all the work of Béziers’ me-
dia-savvy mayor, Robert Ménard.
A former Trotskyist militant-
turned-journalist and then press
freedom activist is now one of
WILD WEST: PAGE 15
POLITICO.
Warsaw as the leading EU power
east of Germany.
“Duda is a representative of
the Kaczyński movement, which
was very critical of the common
European approach and has a
very nationalistic background,”
said Manfred Weber, president
POLAND: PAGE 21
The Queen
does
Cameron’s
bidding
By BEN JUDAH
LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II
made clear Wednesday that the
parliament will be dominated by
Prime Minister David Cameron’s
quest for a new, long-term consti-
tutional settlement for Britain.
The Queen read out the key
points of Cameron’s legislative
agenda to lawmakers, in a cen-
turies-old ceremony known as
the Queen’s Speech. Cameron’s
top targets: more powers for
Scotland, English votes for
English laws, and radical de-
volution to new elected mayors
in English cities.
“My government,” read the
Queen, stumbling at first on
her words, “will renegotiate the
United Kingdom’s relationship
with the European Union and
pursue reform of the European
Union for the benefit of all mem-
ber states.”
THE QUEEN: PAGE 3
FORUM
The Catholic Church will no longer
be the dominant institution of Irish
family life. PAGE 18
HEALTH
Leading patient organizations call
on EU countries to cooperate on
drug pricing. PAGE 8
DANI KIRCHLECHNER
SPECIAL REPORT
NUTRITION & HEALTH
Is there such a thing as “bad food”
– or just unhealthy eating and
drinking habits? POLITICO reports.
INSIDE
2 POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015
PLAYBOOKPLUS
By Ryan Heath and Tara Palmeri
PARLIAMENTARY jousting +++ The JUNCKER touch +++
CHIVALRY ISN’T DEAD: Last
week the European Parliament
didn’t just tackle the great foie
gras debate but also wrestled
with a request to host a Medi-
eval tournament on July 13 and
14. The European Conservatives
and Reformists group — known
for wielding budgetary swords
rather than real ones — asked
the Bureau of the Parliament for
permission to use the Esplanade
Solidarność 1980 for the event.
Debate on the request focused
on whether the Code of Chivalry
reflected European values. Af-
ter a lengthy discussion on the
merits of jousting on the steps
of the European Parliament, it
was decided that the games do
not constitute a parliamentary
event and Parliament Vice-Pres-
ident Rainer Wieland of the Eu-
ropean People’s Party killed the
concept. An ECR representa-
tive explained: “It was intended
to promote common values in
Europe such as honor, fair com-
petition and courage, highlight-
ing the common heritage in
Europe.” Apparently, we’ll have
to find some other way to do that.
The minutes record: “After a dis-
cussion on the merits of organiz-
ing such a tournament in front
of the European Parliament (the
code of chivalry as ‘European
values’ was raised) the Bureau
decided that such an event did
not constitute a European Par-
liament event.”
FAUX-JUNCKER’S FAN CLUB:
Jean-Claude Juncker’s shadow
Martin Selmayr is keeping tabs
on a Twitter account spoofing
the Commission President — @
JunckerLU. The chief of staff is
one of the 37 followers of the ac-
count, which tweets gems such
as: “Served English sausage for
dinner by @David_Cameron.
Think I have food poisoning.
Must ban those things when I
get back. #GBR #Brexit#EUref.”
MEDIA POWER STRUGGLE AT
EUROVISION: Not everything at
the Eurovision Song Contest is
sweetness and harmony. Con-
rheath@politico.eu +++ @POLITICORyan +++++++++ tpalmeri@politico.eu +++ @tarapalmeri
Go to Politico.eu to sign up for Ryan’s must-read daily briefing on what’s driving the day in Brussels
EUROfuneral +++ EUROVISION power struggle
WE RUINED THEIR DINNER DATE! German Chancellor Angela
Merkel and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras were due to
sit next to each other over dinner last week at the Riga Summit
on Europe’s Eastern Partnership. Until Playbook wrote about it
… and Latvians were placed between them.
sider a dust-up in the press cen-
ter between the BBC and Radio
France. The BBC decided to
commandeer a few tables, just
because they could. Then Ra-
dio France needed to borrow a
power outlet, and decided to help
themselves to one in the BBC
space. Cue a spat in which the BBC
tried to push them away, and the
Radio France journalist shout-
ed, “Who do you think you are?
The BBC, so what?” Calmer
heads intervened and Radio
France got their power outlet.
SMOOTH SWEDE: Eurovision
winner Måns Zelmerlöw (be-
low) is a man of the people. He
arrived in an ordinary taxi to the
final in Vienna, and he defied the
stage crew at the official after-
party. They wanted him to per-
form his winning number using
a taped recording, but Zelmer-
löw argued with them on stage
and insisted on singing live.
SIGN OF THE TIMES: There’s a
place in Brussels where the euro
goes to die: It’s called the “Euro
Funeral Home,” located in the
scenic industrial zone of Forest.
The funeral home’s sign has a
familiar 12 yellow stars in a
circle. It offers “Discount ash-
es to families,” in case you’re
wondering.
WHO’S UP, WHO’S DOWN

Andrzej Duda — The 43-year-old
dark horse politician (pictured)
went from being a rank-and-file
MEP to ousting Polish President
Bronisław Komorowski. See,
there is life after the European
Parliament!
World’s oldest woman —
Jeralean Talley, the world’s
oldest living person, turned 116
on Saturday in Michigan. The
African-American great-great-
grandmother was born in 1899
as one of 12 children. The world’s
oldest mom — 65-year-old
German Annegret Raunigk — just
gave birth to her 14th child. She
already has seven grandchildren.
Anne Glover — Her post as
Commission chief scientific
adviser was abolished by Juncker.
After months of delay and
uncertainty it turns out it will take
seven people to replace her — with
something called the Scientific
Advice Mechanism.
EPA
EMOJ-ASBORD: There will be
38 new ways to express your
boredom to friends during a Par-
liamentary hearing or EU sum-
mit by summer 2016, when the
Unicode Consortium releas-
es new emojis. Get ready for
Nauseated Face, Drooling Face,
Lying Face and Clown Face. But
we hope there’s enough time
to add a few — like Belly Slap
Face, Where’s Your Tie Face,
Dictator Slap Face and Triple
Kiss Face
SPOTTED: Jean-Claude Junck-
er taking a morning walk with
no security detail or assistants
just before 8 am outside the
Princess Juliana school recently.
He stopped to chat with a young
schoolgirl and her father when
recognized.
WE HEAR: MEP Jacqueline
Foster has been complain-
ing that she isn’t referred to as
a capital ‘C’ conservative. She

Litterbugs in China — The Hong
Kong Cleanup Challenge is publicly
shaming people who throw trash
on the streets. By collecting DNA
samples found on the waste,
the NGO, in partnership with
Ogilvy & Mather, has digitally
reconstructed the faces of the
culprits and plastered them on
billboards around town. The only
thing missing piece from the mug-
shots is hair, leaving the guilty at
large as long as their hair disguises
their face.
Unrecognizable government
leaders — Jean-Claude Juncker
couldn’t recall their names in
Riga last week, and neither
could we (see right).
Mariano Rajoy (pictured) — The
Spanish prime minister’s People’s
Party lost control of almost
every region in the country
after a bruising election last
weekend.
EPA
took to the phones this week to
vigorously challenge at least one
person for referring to her as a
small ‘c’ conservative. Do you
know more?
BY THE NUMBERS — JUNCKER’S
SPECIAL TOUCH: It was “Maul
Europe” rather than Less Eu-
rope as Jean-Claude Juncker
greeted national leaders in
a back-slappy, necktie-grabby,
forehead-kissy Friday photo-op
session in Riga. A video edit by
Le Petit Journal showed Junck-
er goofing around with a parade
of VIPs as European Council
President Donald Tusk looked
on uncomfortably. Here’s a
breakdown of the Juncker meet-
and-greet:
4 dismissals, in which a
national leader is told to move
on.
4 back slaps.
3 “who is that?” questions
to either Tusk or the Latvian
prime minister.
3 face slaps.
3 kisses for Lithuanian Presi-
dent Dalia Grybauskaitė.
3 necktie yanks and/or com-
parisons.
2 forehead kisses.
1 calling somebody a “dictator”
(Hungarian PM Viktor
Orbán).
1 making of a dictator sand-
wich — with Orbán pressed by
Juncker into Tusk.
1 belly slap.
A WANTED POSTER SPOTTED IN
RIGA: hat tip @Berlaymonster
News POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 3

The radical Queen

Speech makes clear that the PM’s quest for a new
constitutional settlement will dominate this Parliament
THE QUEEN FROM PAGE 1
The Queen formally announced
Cameron’s plans to legislate for an
in/out referendum on Britain’s EU
membership. This will take place,
the speech revealed, “before the
end of 2017.”
That timeframe will disap-
point both Tory and Labour
MPs, who have called for the ref-
erendum to be brought forward
to 2016 to minimize negative
effects on the economy that the
uncertainty over membership
may bring.
The Queen’s speech noted that
the government is also is still re-
sponding to the long-term reper-
cussions of the 2014 referendum
on Scottish independence, which
the Unionist camp almost lost.
“My government,” read the
Queen, “will bring forward legisla-
tion to secure a strong and lasting
constitutional settlement devolv-
ing wide-ranging powers to Scot-
land and Wales.”
Plans to hand over more pow-
ers to Scotland also come, in light
of the triumph of the Scottish Na-
tional Party in recent elections,
winning 56 out of 59 national seats
in Westminster.
The speech did not commit
Cameron to any specifics however.
The speech also marked Cam-
eron’s embrace of constitutional
radicalism, where England is con-
cerned.
“Legislation will be intro-
duced,” read the Queen, “to pro-
vide for the devolution of powers to
cities with elected metro mayors.”
This plan, a brainchild of Chan-
cellor George Osborne, is a dramat-
ic break with the old distribution
of power in England. Under new
legislation, Britain’s cities will get
an unprecedented level of control
over their own finances. The bill
will also see a new tranche of pow-
erful, high-profile mayors emerge
as figures in national politics.
Cameron’s constitutional am-
bitions do not stop there. The gov-
ernment also outlined its inten-
tions to bring forward legislation
to create so-called English votes
for English laws, which will greatly
enhance the Tory majority in Par-
liament by removing the Scottish
votes on matters that no longer
affect them thanks to devolution.
Critics see this as further weak-
ening the Union.
The speech was also defined by
a turn not quite taken. The Queen
had been widely expected to out-
line plans for a new British Bill
of Rights, scrapping the Human
Rights Act. Instead the Queen
spoke of “proposals” and not “mea-
sures” — a code word for a consul-
tation, not laws.
The Queen said the government
will adopt a “one nation approach.”
This phrase is redolent with mean-
ing in Britain and especially to the
Conservative Party, alluding to a
more social and not merely free
market aim.
“He very much sees himself as
(1950s Prime Minister) Harold
Macmillan,” said Andrew Rob-
erts, a historian and friend of Cam-
eron’s. Macmillan also spoke of
himself as a “one nation,” socially
concerned, leader.
In this spirit, the speech con-
tained a series of packages aimed
at low-income voters. This includes
controversial legislation to allow
those living in housing associa-
tions to buy their own homes and
an initiative to remove income tax
for those working 30 hours a week
on minimum wage. The speech
also highlighted existing plans to
build high-speed rail lines.
For higher earners, the Queen
outlined the government’s prom-
ise for “no rises in income tax rates,
value added tax or national insur-
ance for the next five years.”
Perhaps the most controver-
sial part of the speech concerned
planned legislation covering trade
unions.
“My government,” read the
Queen, “will bring forward legis-
lation to reform trade unions and
to protect essential public services
against strikes.”
Britain’s trade unions claim
the plans, which include a 50 per-
cent turnout threshold for strike
ballots, are repressive and could
effectively bar them from holding Queen Elizabeth II’s speech to open Parliament did not commit her
most strikes. Prime Minister to any specifics. EPA

DIRECTOR (Grade AD14)

DIRECTORATEGENERAL FOR HUMAN RESOURCES AND SECURITY

Directorate “Security” (HR.DS), Brussels

COM/2015/10359
The European Commission’s Security Directorate is part of the Directorate-
General for Human Resources and Security and in charge of the institution’s
internal security policy. This policy seeks to ensure that, in all its places of
activity, people, assets and information are adequately protected against
security threats and safety risks.
The European Commission is seeking a Director for the Security Directorate
who will be responsible for the safety, security and protection of staff, property,
activities and information at all Commission places of employment in
Europe and outside.
Your responsibilities:
Manage and direct the development, implementation and evaluation of
the European Commission’s security policy;
Ensure the physical protection of the European Commission’s sites and
protection to members of the European Commission and visiting VIPs;
provide IT and technical security advice and deal with counter-intelligence
and counter-terrorism activities;
Implement and deploy the European Commission’s “health and safety at
work policy”, including auditing of management systems and implementing
related training programmes.
Your skills:
Established track record in the relevant aspects of security especially in
the context of the European Union, including proven successful experience
in high-level management and leadership in this domain;
Ability to establish and maintain effective relations and co-operation
in the area of security with EU institutions, international, national and
local authorities, international organisations at the appropriate and
highest levels;
Experience of budgetary, financial and human resources management in
a national, European and/or international context.
APPLICATIONS / INFORMATION:
Please consult the Official Journal C 165 A of 20 May 2015 for the
detailed vacancy notice as well as the eligibility and selection criteria.
Registration for applicants:
https://ec.europa.eu/dgs/human-resources/seniormanagementvacancies/
The closing date for registration is:
18 June 2015, 12.00 noon Brussels time.
4 POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 News

Cash for asylum seekers plan

Commission Triton will be brought to Greek
or Italian harbors and then
proposal would COMMISSION’S PITCH: eventually relocated. The Com-
mission points out that this pro-
EU RELOCATION PLAN FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS
see EU countries cedure will not apply to economic
migrants but only “persons
get a payment of The EU Commission's proposal includes a number of asylum seekers that EU countries will have to take on.
in clear need of international
protection.”
€6,000 for each 0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 The relocation mechanism
will only apply to asylum seek-
asylum seeker Germany
ers arriving to Italy and Greece
“after 15 April 2015 or that arrive
coming from Italy France after the mechanism is launched”
— if it passes the Council in a
or Greece Spain vote likely at the end of June.
Poland That means Rome and Athens
By JACOPO BARIGAZZI and can decide on one of the two
HANS VON DER BURCHARD The Netherlands options.
Romania EASTERN OPPOSITION
The European Commission on
Wednesday pitched its proposal Portugal There are some obstacles ahead.
to relocate 40,000 asylum seek- Sweden The Commission’s legislative
ers from Italy and Greece across proposal needs be adopted by the
Europe, paying EU countries Belgium Council on a qualified majority,
€6,000 per individual to take the Czech Republic meaning with the approval of at
refugees, confirming an earlier least 55 percent of the EU mem-
report by POLITICO. Austria ber countries who represent 65
The plan, once described by Hungary percent of the EU population or
a Commission spokeswoman more.
as “Juncker’s baby,” envisions Other member states Some Baltic and Eastern
relocating 24,000 asylum seek- excluding Italy, Greece, European countries fiercely
ers from Italy and another Denmark, Ireland and
oppose the mandatory reloca-
16,000 from Greece to other EU the United Kingdom Asylum requests foreseen in Commission proposal tion of refugees, others, including
members, to stem the rapidly Spain, could vote no as well.
expanding migration crisis. Source: European Commission, Eurostat | Find the full figures at www.politico.eu/tag/migration “Can you exercise solidarity
“The EC has shown that it can by imposing it?” asked the Czech
act quickly,” Dimitris Avramo- ambassador to the EU, Martin
poulos, the European commis- Povejšil. Referring to the rise of
sioner for home affairs, said on right-wing parties in Europe,
Wednesday. Referring to the Povejšil said Brussels was acting
delicate nature of the numbers he this relocation scheme, which is “Realistically,” says Collett, “you “completely irrespective of the
added: “Quotas is a word we don’t designed to last for 24 months. “Quotas is a word cannot return someone to Syria.” political consequences.”
like and we never used.”
The calculations per country
These numbers are the miss-
ing parts of the ambitious
we don’t like and As for the funding, it should
not be a problem: “Europe is
A blocking minority of at least
four EU members representing
will be based on a redistribution agenda that was presented two we never use. ” facing threats so big that we 35 percent of the EU population
key that gives population size a weeks ago, and comes a month will find the money,” Antonio will be enough to stall Juncker’s
weight of 40 percent, 40 percent after about 800 refugees died at Tajani, an EPP vice president of migration plan.
based on economic growth, 10 sea trying to cross the Mediter- Dimitris Avramopoulos the European Parliament, told As the relocation of the
percent on unemployment and ranean, pushing migration to European commissioner for POLITICO. “Europe has to real- asylum seekers is based on a
10 percent on former engagement the top of the Commission’s home affairs ize that the situation is worsen- treaty article — defining a “emer-
with asylum seekers. agenda. ing and that it needs to have a gency situation characterized by
They must belong to “nation- “We have to look at this figure strategic thinking. We have to a sudden inflow of nationals of
alities for which the EU average as a strong first step, it’s a com- avoid having Isis surround Eu- third countries” — the Parlia-
recognition rate [as refugees] as pletely new era for the Commis- rope, otherwise soon even quotas ment is reduced to a consulting
established by Eurostat is above sion,” Elizabeth Collett, director ers have to remain in the first will not be enough,” he said, re- function and won’t be able to
75 percent,” the proposal defines. of the Migration Policy Institute European country they enter, ferring to the presence of Islamic amend the legislative proposal
This could particularly apply to Europe in Brussels, said. “A first which is in most cases Italy or State in Libya, where many of the brought forward by the Com-
Syrians and Eritreans, who have step with a implicit ‘quid pro quo:’ Greece. refugees crossing the Mediterra- mission.
the highest success rates in their that Italy and Greece invest in re- But other answers have yet nean Sea come from. “The objective is to move
requests for protection with over ception, processing and integra- to be provided by the Com- Meanwhile, the EU border ahead swiftly,” an EU official in-
70 percent being approved. In tion of asylum seekers.” mission. What will happen to agency Frontex announced plans volved in the migration agenda
2014, they were the largest group But the EU help will come people who do not want to stay to boost its “Triton” rescue op- said under condition of anonym-
trying to enter the EU. with strings attached, since in the country where they are eration. The operational area ity.
The document specifies that Italy and Greece will have to relocated? How many countries will be extended to 138 nautical The United Kingdom, Ireland
EU countries “shall receive a stop turning a blind eye to have the real capacity and miles south of Sicily, up from 30 and Denmark won’t participate,
lump sum of €6,000 for each those refugees who avoid being experience to support people and miles. One additional aircraft as they have a special status in
applicant … relocated from Italy registered in these countries try to restore their lives? And and helicopter, four new offshore the EU treaties.
and Greece.” The money will so that they can easily move will it really be possible to send patrol vessels and six further pa-
come with an extra €240 million to another European state. back those whose requests trol boasts also will be brought Zoya Sheftalovich contributed to this
funding by the EU to support Under EU law, asylum seek- for asylum may be rejected? into service.Refugees rescued by report.

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SPONSORED CONTENT
Europe: Innovate or stagnate
Few doubt that Europeans have great
ideas. Some of the world’s most dy-
namic companies have emerged from
these shores, and young people in
Europe today are coming up with all
kinds of innovations. The problem is
that too often, these innovations have
to be taken elsewhere in order to be-
come successful businesses.
Three European countries – Switzer-
land, Sweden and the United Kingdom
– topped the 2014 Global Innovation In-
dex, a ranking by Cornell University, IN-
SEAD and the World Intellectual Prop-
erty Organization. But Europe’s position
as an innovation leader faces a number
of hurdles, resulting in a ‘brain drain’
of talented people and ideas to other
countries. The most significant of these
hurdles is a lack of finance for research,
start-ups and expansions.
The European Commission has
taken steps to address this problem.
In 2010 member states agreed to
set a target of raising investment in
research and development to 3% of
“Size does matter. The EU
needs to be better at leveraging
the size of Europe as a lead
market and as a home market.”
Carlos Härtel, managing director, GE Global Research Center – Europe.
the EU’s GDP by 2020, as part of the
Europe2020 strategy. Doing so could
create 3.7 million jobs and increase
annual GDP by up to €295 billion by
2025, according to the Commission.
That same year, the Commission
adopted an ‘Innovation Union’ strate-
gy, setting out further goals to increase
innovation. It set out to make Europe
into a world-class science performer,
improve the way public and private
sectors work together and remove
bottlenecks like expensive patenting,
market fragmentation, slow standard-
setting and skill shortages.
But five years later, this push for
innovation seems to have stalled. Eu-
rope is still a long way from meeting
the goals set out in the 2010 Innova-
tion Union strategy. “There has been
quite some silence, nothing specific
on innovation and how this relates
to initiatives such as the DSM, smart
manufacturing and the Juncker Invest-
ment plan has come out so far from
'Propelling Europe forward,' a series brought to you by GE
the new Commission,” says Roland
Strauss of the Brussels-based plat-
form Knowledge4Innovation.
The K4IForum is organising the 7th
European Innovation Summit in De-
cember at which Strauss will push for
a renewed emphasis on boosting in-
novation in Europe. “The strategy was
adopted in 2010, it was conceived two
to three years earlier,” he says. “Now
we are in 2015, it’s more than time to
take stock of new developments such
as digitalisation.
Strauss says the bottlenecks identi-
fied by the strategy – lack of finance,
regulatory burden and market frag-
mentation – are still the main chal-
lenges faced today. Finance remains
the most beguiling. Venture capital
funds in Europe are a quarter of the
level in the United States. Despite
having the world’s largest public fund
for research, the EU has struggled
to provide matching public money
to source more private investment.
“The framework conditions have to be
improved,” says Strauss. “We need
more incentives for private equity and
angel investment. The solution for en-
trepreneurs seems still to be to go to
Silicon Valley. What we start in Europe
goes out to other markets, where they
make better use of the great know-
how we develop in Europe.”
Few angel investors
Of course there’s a limit to what policy-
makers can do to address the funding
problem. “It can’t be controlled arbi-
trarily, there’s little money in Europe
compared to the United States,” says
Carlos Härtel, managing director of
the European research centre of Gen-
eral Electric which is currently being
doubled in size. “That’s the nature and
structure of the finance market. But
improving the situation has to be on
the agenda, because there has to be
more money available for good ideas.
The start-ups of today are the mid-
sized companies of tomorrow, and the
mid-sized companies of tomorrow are
the ones that that will lift the economy.”
Market fragmentation and regula-
tory burden also remain significant ob-
stacles for companies trying to innovate
in Europe. In principle, the EU single
market should bring the advantages of
the world’s largest consumer base. But
differences between member states
can still hamper development of an
idea. One only need look at the difficulty
faced by Swedish company Spotify in
setting up in various states of the EU,
where it faced different copyright restric-
tions. For this Swedish company, setting
up in the United States was easier and
more lucrative because it was a simple,
large market to enter.
“Size does matter,” says Härtel.
“The EU needs to be better at leverag-
ing the size of Europe as a lead market
and as a home market.”
The EU has made some strides in
this area, for instance with the recent
adoption of the unitary EU patent (al-
though not all member states are par-
ticipating). The recent digital single
market strategy from the Commission
also aims to remove copyright bottle-
necks, which would address the prob-
lem faced by Spotify.
Needed: speed and risk
Though many of the innovation ob-
stacles Europe faces are financial and
technical, many are psychological. Last
year a report from GE on innovation in
Europe, which surveyed over 3,200
executives around the world engaged
in innovation strategy, identified an ‘at-
titude problem’ among both businesses
and policy-makers. Compared to other
regions, European executives place
less emphasis on speed than those in
other parts of the world.
The survey also identified a frustra-
tion with Europe’s risk-averse regulatory
structure. Strauss says that there needs
to be a different way of thinking in policy-
making. Europe’s ‘precautionary prin-
ciple’, which says that laws should be
made on the basis of possible risk rather
than proven risk, is useful, he says. But
the EU should also make laws on the
basis of an ‘innovation principle’, which
rewards some element of risk.
“There are still a lot of areas where
the EU is putting the breaks on promis-
ing areas for new technology develop-
ment, such as GMOs, driverless cars
and fracking,” he says. “There is a need
to take risks, to give space to new tech-
nologies to solve burning issues.”
European businesses are looking to
the new Commission to come forward
soon with a new strategy for innova-
tion, to change the way Europe thinks
about taking risks in new ideas.
This article is part of a series, spon-
sored by GE, ahead of a POLITICO
event ‘Propelling Europe Forward’
on 16 June. More information is
available on www.politico.eu/pro-
pellingeurope
6 POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015
Five subplots in
the EU budget
We combed through the proposal for
the best nuggets so you don’t have to
By QUENTIN ARIÈS
and TARA PALMIERI
The European Commission un-
veiled Wednesday what it called
“a small budget with a big punch”
for the EU for next year, as officials
sought to justify new spending to
deal with foreign policy crises.
While the broad outlines
of the EU budget have already
been determined for the 2014-
2020 period, the annual budget
allows wiggle room for certain
priorities. For its €153.5 billion
proposal for 2016, which must
be approved by Parliament and
EU countries, the Commission
took pains to point out that it is
shifting more resources to crisis
issues, like the migration prob-
lem in the Mediterranean and
conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.
“We are responding to the most
pressing needs in Europe and aim-
ing for the best possible results,”
said the Commission’s budget
chief, Vice President Kristalina
Georgieva, at a briefing in Brussels.
The 2016 budget includes
spending commitments of €153.5
billion, down 5.3 percent from
2015; and actual spending of
€143.5 billion, an increase of 1.6
percent from the 2015 budget. The
budget includes a plan to close the
€10 billion yearly gap between
spending commitments and actual
payments — basically, unpaid bills
— that has existed since 2007.
Spending hawks in Brussels
seemed pleased. British MEP
Richard Ashworth, from the
Parliament’s European Conser-
vatives and Reformists Group,
said the budget had “better focus
and better discipline.”
“There is a welcome approach
STEELIE-NEELIE JOINS ODI
BOARD: Neelie Kroes, the for-
mer European commissioner
who was a tireless but arguably
unsuccessful campaigner against
the vested interests standing be-
tween the EU and its digital po-
tential, has been welcomed by the
Open Data Institute (ODI), a UK
non-profit. A press release from
ODI announced that Kroes would
join Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Sir
Nigel Shadbolt and Baroness
Martha Lane Fox on the ODI
management board. ODI CEO
Gavin Starks said the organiza-
tion shares with Kroes “a com-
mitment in deriving social, eco-
nomic and environmental value
from open data.” On April 28,
the Commission authorized the
appointment, providing Kroes
“refrained from lobbying the
Commission” within 18 months
of her departure.
REDING NON-NEWS: Luxembourg
MEP Viviane Reding recently
joined the board of Agfa-Gevaert,
the Belgian-German multination-
al. It was all above-board (pardon
the pun): the Commission’s ad-hoc
ethical committee had approved
the appointment (as a former
commissioner, Reding’s business
regarding unpaid bills,” Ash-
worth said of Georgieva’s pro-
posal. “I admire the Commis-
sioner’s optimistic target of a €2
billion reduction by 2016. I also
approve of the greater focus on
the role of member states in ac-
cepting greater discipline in their
forecasting.”
But sealing an agreement
among the Commission, the Par-
liament, and EU countries will
take time. The Commission’s
adoption of Georgieva’s proposal
on Wednesday is only the first step.
Here’s a look at some of the key
subplots that will play out as the
budget makes its way through the
legislative process:
WHO WINS?
With the migration crisis in the
headlines — the budget proposal
came out on the same day as the
Commission put forward a con-
troversial and expensive plan to
relocate asylum seekers across
the EU — there was a clear effort
to show a broader intent to deal
with the problem.
The proposal includes a €6
million boost for Trident and
Poseidon, the EU’s two border
patrol operations in the Medi-
terranean aimed at stopping the
influx of asylum seekers making
dangerous and often deadly sea
crossings.
It also allocates €833 million
to the Asylum, Migration and
Integration Fund, which would
cover the price tag for the asylum
seeker relocation program. EU
countries would receive €6,000
per refugee.
There’s also a big increase in
support to the EU’s capacity to
respond to external crises, such
BRUSSELSINFLUENCE
dealings concern the Commis-
sion). The same ethical committee
green-lighted Reding’s association
with Nyrstar, a mining and metals
business. However, when con-
tacted by POLITICO, Reding’s of-
fice said: “[Reding] is not and will
not be part of the Nyrstar Board
of Directors.” Asked whether that
meant that the EPP MEP would
not have any business dealings at
all with Nyrstar, the answer was:
“exactly.” Her office would not
elaborate.
KRAHMER & KRAHMER: The
finely-oiled revolving door keeps
swinging. As an ALDE MEP be-
tween 2004 and 2014, German
Holger Krahmer was known as
a staunch defender of the Euro-
pean (read: German) car indus-
try, weighing in heavily in the
2012 debate over whether pro-
ducers should require vans to
rein-in their CO2 emissions and
accept in-built speed limits. The
proposal was 120 km/h — some
drivers on the autobahn aren’t
even out of third gear at that
as those in Ukraine and Syria,
and to provide humanitarian
help to those in need, with €9.5
billion in funding for 2016.
The European Court of Justice
will see its administrative budget
increase by 5.8 percent to cover
the cost of hiring new judges and
legal staff.
Also good news for students
and farmers: The EU’s Erasmus+
program for education, training,
youth and sport, gets €1.8 billion
(a 30 percent boost over 2015);
and programs aimed at helping
European farmers are getting
nearly €43 billion.
WHO LOSES?
Getting EU funding for a local
project might become at least a
little trickier. The budget puts
the squeeze on the cohesion
fund, which includes spending
on infrastructure, investments
in roads, energy efficiency and
rail transport and other public
transportation. For 2016, com-
mitments are dropping by 15.9
percent and payments by 4 per-
cent.
The European Globalisation
Adjustment Fund — which pro-
vides subsidies to employees
who lose their jobs to competi-
tion overseas — with spending
commitments dropping by 9.8
percent and payments by 7 per-
cent for the year.
By James Panichi and Quentin Ariès
speed. Krahmer argued that the
EU nanny state should butt out of
speed limits which “patronize”
drivers. All this to say that Krah-
mer’s appointment as director of
European affairs, public policy
and government relations with
car manufacturer Opel makes
sense. The German car manu-
facturer (owned by General Mo-
tors) placed Krahmer’s name on
the register on May 9.
BIRDLIFE’S GOLDMAN SACHS
MOMENT: Brussels NGOs have
maintained their rage over the
information put on the Register
by investment bank Goldman
Sachs. The NGOs had been sus-
picious of Goldman’s 2013 entry,
in which it estimated its lobbying
spend at €50,000 (the 2014 entry
boosts the annual lobbying spend
to €800,000). Yet NGOs are not
immune to such controversies.
We contacted avian and nature
conservation group BirdLife to
heap praise on the organization:
with seven accredited lobbying
staff on the books the NGO esti-
THE “JUNCKER FUND”
Coincidently — or not — the Com-
mission published its 2016 budget
the same day of the last round of
negotiations among the Com-
mission, the Parliament and EU
countries on the funding of the
European Strategic Investment
Fund, commonly known as the
“Juncker Fund.”
This proposed €315 billion
fund, designed to reboot the EU
with innovation and growth, was
expected to include an infusion of
€8 billion in seed money from the
EU budget to help it gain credibil-
ity. The Commission aims to raise
the rest of the cash in EU countries
and the private sector.
But with cuts in research pro-
grams Horizon 2020 and the Con-
necting Europe Facility, there’s
less cash for the infusion. The
Commission proposed this week
to limit EU funding and to feed the
Juncker fund from other unspent
margins in the EU budget.
The Parliament would rather
use those margins in the 2016
budget, either for payments (€2.2
billion) or for commitments (€1.6
billion), but the Council has been
divided on this compromise.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The budget proposal is notable for
its use of creative terminology to
describe EU spending. The main
mated its lobbying spend at under
€10,000 for 2014 — that’s fantas-
tic value for money. It was with
some surprise, therefore, that
BirdLife sheepishly told us that
it had slightly underestimated its
expenditure. They indeed wrote
€10,000 but what they actually
meant was between €1,500,000
and €1,749,000. Oops!
HUNTING FOR GOOD-WILLED
PRESS OFFICER: If you’re a PR
professional who likes to both
shoot animals and have a cred-
ible backdrop in which to do so,
then FACE (Federation of Asso-
ciations for Hunting & Conser-
vation of the EU) has the job for
you. The industry organization
is “looking for someone who is
a multi-tasker, fast learner, au-
tonomous and communicative”
with “experience in interna-
tional communications, ide-
ally within an NGO” (Birdlife?
Friends of the Earth? — the pos-
sibilities are boundless). FACE,
which is listed on the Trans-
parency Register, “acts in the
News
Kristalina Georgieva,
the Commission
vice president for
budget and human
resources. EPA
line items have names every-
one could love. Here’s what they
mean:
n Smart and Inclusive Growth
(€66.58 billion; includes pro-
grams to boost research and in-
novation)
n Sustainable Growth: Natural
Resources (€55.87 billion; spend-
ing on agriculture and fishing
subsidies);
n Security and Citizenship
(€2.26 billion; migration policy,
consumer and citizenship initia-
tive)
n Global Europe (€9.54 billion;
includes common foreign and
security policy and humanitar-
ian aid)
n Administration (€8.9 billion;
the bill for all those Eurocrats,
which amounts to just 2.9 per-
cent of the total budget)
KEEP AN EYE ON THE CALENDAR
The Parliament is expected to
vote on the 2016 budget dur-
ing its October session. But EU
countries will aim to slash fund-
ing they find wasteful.
It’s an annual struggle be-
tween the Parliament and the
Council. The Commission — the
deal broker between the two
— has proposed adopting a ne-
gotiation by November 18, but
if history is any guide, they will
likely wrap up talks just hours
before that deadline.
interests of over 7 million Euro-
pean hunters since its founding
in 1977.” You’ve got until June
1 to get your application in. But
update your shooting licence
at once: “The ideal candidate
should be familiar, or prepared
to become familiar, with all as-
pects of hunting [...] with prac-
tical experience and participa-
tion on an ongoing basis.”
RAI’S (NOT SO) LARGE LOBBYING
SPEND: Imagine our surprise.
Just two days after we reported
that Italian state broadcaster
RAI was strutting its €2.7 mil-
lion budget to lobby the Commis-
sion on the digital agenda, copy-
right and TTIP, RAI updated the
figure to a more modest €50.000
to €100,000 in 2014. A change
of strategy or an entry mistake?
The latter, according to an email
from RAI. The €2.7 million was a
reference to RAI’s overall budget,
although the company officials
concede that “three zeros were
omitted, by mistake.”
To sign up for a complimentary
trial of the weekly Brussels
Influence email newsletter, sent
on Mondays, go to Politico.eu/
registration
Health care POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 7

Pharma wins first round in booze battle

Two Nordic drug
manufacturers
face the alcohol
lobby behind the
scenes
By ALEKSANDRA TERZIEVA
Before the European Parliament
voted to push the Commission to
take a more aggressive stance on
curbing the health impact of too
much booze, interests from the
pharma and alcohol industries
were lining up their allies.
Nordic drug manufacturers
– the Danish Lundbeck and the
Finnish Biohit – mobilized mem-
bers of Parliament, anti-alcohol
NGOs and academics, and ran
anti-alcohol campaigns behind
the scenes. On the other side,
beer, hard liquor and wine in-
terests all lobbied against many
of the recommendations, which
include a pitch for mandatory
labeling and minimum pricing.
Pharma may have won the first
round. Late last month the Par-
liament voted to push the Com-
mission to adopt a new alcohol
strategy, also advising EU states
to “implement policies and treat-
ments within their healthcare
systems that reduce alcohol ad-
diction in individuals.”
Lundbeck has a keen interest
in promoting awareness about
the side-effects of drinking too
much. Its drug Selincro curbs
cravings by attaching certain
proteins to the brain. The treat-
The EP Beer Club — MEP Renate Sommer, one of those who opposes an EU-wide approach to
alcohol regulation, is the president of the club. EP BEER CLUB
ment needs to be accompanied by
specialized counseling, accord-
ing to the European Medicines
Agency. Since 2013, Lundbeck
has granted over €315,000 to pa-
tient organizations in Europe for
anti-alcohol campaigns.
“This integrated approach to
alcohol policy from prevention
to early diagnosis and treatment
is particularly important for the
patients,” Lundbeck’s product
PR specialist Charline Coquerel
said in a statement. Lundbeck
and NGOs urged high-profile
parliamentarians, such as Presi-
dent Martin Schulz, who is a
nondrinker himself, to include
the fight against alcohol on their
agenda in an open letter.
The company gives money to
anti-alcohol lobby groups, such
as NGOs and organizations rep-
resenting patients with liver dis-
ease. These types of campaigns
can lead to the medicalization
of conditions and “downplay or
omit lifestyle changes or non-
drug therapies, which are often
highly effective and lower cost
options for patients and health
care systems,” Illaria Passarani
from the European consumer
group BEUC told POLITICO.
Yannis Natsis, advocacy officer
at the NGO TransAtlantic Con-
sumer Dialogue, acknowledged
that pressure from industry on
patient groups is standard. “Pa-
tient groups are increasingly in
the spotlight as they are encour-
aged by industry to put pressure
on their national regulatory au-
thorities and to demand earlier
and faster access to treatments,”
he said.
The company also tells Wall
Street the drug could sell over
€300 million a year — but needs
governments to pay for broader
sales. In 2013, when Lundbeck
funded the awareness raising
campaign in Belgium, France,
Germany, the UK and other EU
countries had not decided yet
whether to pay for the anti-alco-
hol drug.
Now they pay for the drug. To
be sure, alcohol interests were
also spending to get their mes-
sage through. The industry group
spiritsEUROPE reported expen-
ditures between €500,000 to
€599,000 during 2014. Officials
there declined to comment spe-
cifically on the nature of their
lobbying activities but oppose
much of the advice in the Parlia-
ment’s resolution, and are fight-
ing a minimum tax on alcohol in
Scotland in the European Court
of Justice.
Diageo, which sells Johnnie
Walker whiskey and Smirnoff
vodka, reported expenses on EU
lobbying ranging from €1.5 to €2
million in the last reported year
ending June 2014. “We are active
members of the European Alco-
hol and Health Forum, where we
have publicly committed to a se-
ries of initiatives in partnerships
with retailers, governments and
NGOs,” said the head of alcohol
policy at Diageo, Piero Soave.
The beer industry associa-
tion, the Brewers of Europe, says
it spent €300,000 to €400,000
in 2014. MEP Renate Sommer
of the European People’s Party
is among those opposing an EU-
wide approach to alcohol regula-
tion. “Consumption patterns and
traditions vary completely in the
EU member states. Therefore
an exclusively European regula-
tion is nonsense – the different
member states are asked to find
solutions to alcohol abuse,” Som-
mer told POLITICO. Sommer is
the president of the Parliament’s
Beer Club — one of the most
popular clubs in the Parliament,
with 82 MEPs as members. The
Brewers of Europe serve as the
party planners for the club. A
second pharma company acting
to influence EU policy makers is
the Finnish biopharmaceutical
company Biohit.
The company, which did not
have a comment, makes a drug to
reduce the effects of a substance
– acetaldehyde – that can cause
cancer. The chemical is present
in alcohol but also more benign
products, such as bread and fruit.
Alcohol lobbyists say they are
being unfairly singled out. Sev-
eral amendments to the text of
the Parliament’s report asked
for labeling on this carcinogenic
substance in drinks.
The amendments were pro-
posed by Finnish center-right
MEP Sirpa Pietikäinen. Biohit
welcomed the move, quoting
Pietikäinen in a press release.
There was a warning on acet-
aldehyde in the final document,
which “urges the Commission to
immediately ask the European
Food Safety Authority to re-eval-
uate the use of acetaldehyde as a
flavoring substance in alcoholic
and non-alcoholic beverages.”

TUESDAY, JUNE 16 Join POLITICO for a half-day discussion with key EU policymakers, leaders in business and
DOORS AT 8:30 A.M. entrepreneurs on how to make Europe an attractive destination for innovation and investment,
and how EU and national regulation can help cultivate a growth-oriented business environment
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Presented by
8 POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 Health care

Impatient patients demand drug fix

Two major groups
surprise industry
with their specific
demands for ‘a
European
approach to the
market’
By PETER O’DONNELL

Exasperated patients are making

a surprise intervention in the in-
creasingly rancorous debate over
drug costs in Europe.
The two leading patient orga-
nizations in Europe have called
on national pricing and reim-
bursement authorities to aban-
don their reluctance to cooperate,
and to set up a common system of
price fixing for new drugs.
The European Patients Forum
and the European Organisation
for Rare Diseases, known as Eu- ARCHIVE
rordis, sent a letter to the pricing
and reimbursement authorities
in every member state demand-
ing “a European approach to the euros per patient without bank- should set up a formal negoti- prices that national authorities meeting in June, is formally pro-
market rather than [the current rupting health care systems. One ating procedure at the EU level choose to fix. hibited from looking at changes
approach] at scattered national high-profile drug, Sovaldi for where drug firms and buyers It is also much more ambi- in the current EU rules.
level.” Until now, the groups have Hepatitis C, costs $84,000 per could conduct common assess- tious than the discussions now Central to the patient associa-
stopped short of issuing such treatment. ments of the value of new medi- underway at the European tions’ pitch is that the negotia-
specific demands. cines and reach agreements on Medicines Agency on alterna- tions would allow for prices to be
Their intervention has sur- STRUCTURED DIALOGUE what the medicine is worth. tive ways to approve medi- adjusted in the light of a prod-
prised industry executives, who The patient groups are calling for The proposal goes much fur- cines, which also involve some uct’s demonstrated merits after
told POLITICO that they wel- “structured dialogue” between ther than anything envisioned health technology assessment it is launched.
come the contribution but re- national authorities, to achieve in the EU’s current health tech- advisers, but without any man- So prices could be increased
main unconvinced that a price “an adequate balance between nology assessment network, date to look at pricing decisions. if the drug is shown to work well,
system that works for the Neth- cost-containment, pharmaceu- where national advisory bodies Similarly, a new European but they could also be cut if it
erlands would work for Portugal tical innovation and patients’ are exploring joint discussion of Commission committee of ex- disappoints — or, paradoxically,
or Poland. access to medicines.” a drug’s effectiveness, but with- perts on accelerating market ac- if it works so well that it is used
To be sure, the hope of coun- They say member states out any formal influence on the cess, which will hold its second in very wide populations, and its
tries banding together is to nego- volume of sales at the initial price
tiate lower prices — an outcome agreed would threaten health
likely to cut into industry profits. system finances.
Fierce protection by mem- For national authorities, the
ber states of their autonomy on
health matters has until now WEEKLY FACT CHECK +++ system would give them greater
powers over budget management.
kept them from working togeth- For patients, it could allow ear-
er on prices and reimbursement. ARE POLITICIANS GETTING THEIR FACTS RIGHT? Source: factcheckeu.org lier access. And for drug firms, it
In the parlance of EU treaties, could generate faster returns on
health is not a “competence” of investment and reduce the ad-
the EU, but left to individual ministrative burden of separate
member states. negotiations country-by-country,
Now, patients want member argue the patient groups.
states to set up a new negotiat- The drug industry is likely
ing framework for joint review to remain guarded over the pro-
of economic questions, to mirror posals.
the long-standing arrangements
for cooperation on the scientific NEED FOR CHANGE
EPA (2)

issues of drug approval at the Eu- Industry strategists know that

ropean Medicines Agency. They
call for a radical new system to
ensure patients have access to
new medicines without compro-
mising sustainability of health
care systems.
The two groups both derive
some funding from the phar-
maceutical industry, alongside
financing from the EU and other
sources. But they command re-
spect in the EU for their inde-
pendence. EPF’s constituency of
patients and their families total
some 150 million — more than
a quarter of the EU population.
Eurordis is a central player in
policy discussions about helping
people who suffer from condi-
tions for which no effective treat-
ment currently exists.
A third of EU patients do not
have access to the treatments
they need, according to the
groups. Their initiative comes
amid widespread debate over
how to meet the challenges of
providing new medicines that
can cost tens of thousands of
ALMOST •
“Ninety percent of asylum requests are
rejected but only five percent are
realistically returned outside of our
borders.”
Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, a deputy in the French
National Assembly and scion of the Le Pen political
family, denounced in a tweet the apparent laxity of
France’s refugee policy. Is she right?
Maréchal-Le Pen somewhat exaggerates the
proportion of asylum applications France rejects,
which is closer to 80 percent than 90 percent. The
vast majority of asylum applications are rejected,
but the fate of these people is less clear. According
to the French interior ministry, the figure of
rejected refugees who were returned was about
five percent, though this excluded those who
returned voluntarily, which brings the total to
around 10 percent.
Maréchal-Le Pen gets an “Almost”.
50/50
“I support free movement.
It allows over 1.3 million Brits to live
abroad.”
At the end of last year, when migration was (yet
again) a controversial topic in EU-UK relations,
David Cameron had used the same exact figure
of Brits living abroad (in Europe).
Cameron is technically right: “Over 1.3 million
Brits” do live abroad. However, the likely number
is quite a lot more. A report commissioned by the
foreign office claimed the figure was at least 1.8
million. While census-based reports from the UN
and others do claim roughly 1.3 million Brits live
abroad, the British Embassy in Madrid estimates
that the figure of Britons living there is more than
twice what these reports are estimating. Cameron
has thus significantly underestimated the real
figure, ignoring a study quoted by a part of his own
government.
something has to change if there
is going to be money available for
new drugs. The language of this
new intervention reflects many
of the views of the industry, es-
pecially on the need for collabo-
ration across all players. But it
is not easy to see, say industry
figures, how cross-country price
negotiations would proceed
where there were differences in
national wealth, or customs and
culture.
“The money component will
remain very national,” Richard
Bergström, director-general
of the European Federation of
Pharmaceutical Industries and
Associations, told POLITICO.
The two patients’ groups sign
off their letter saying: “Looking
forward to hearing from you
soon.”
To subscribe to POLITICO Pro’s
Morning Health newsletter,
visit www.POLITICO.eu/
registration
10 POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015
The hunt for
Chinese solar
EU inspectors to check Taiwanese
and Malaysian factories
By SARA STEFANINI and
HANS VON DER BURCHARD
As the European Commission
nears a decision on whether to
investigate claims that Chinese
solar energy products destined
for Europe are sidestepping anti-
dumping taxes, one big question
has emerged — exactly how will
the Commission conduct such a
probe?
Lawyers and industry insid-
ers expect the Commission will
launch an investigation into
whether China is shipping its
cheap and readily available solar
energy modules to Taiwan and
Malaysia, then loading the prod-
ucts onto a new ship, issuing new
papers, and sending them off to
Europe. A source said the Com-
mission hasn’t reached a conclu-
sion and it’s “monitoring” the is-
sue. A decision is expected within
the next days or weeks.
But carrying out this anti-cir-
cumvention inspection may be
much easier said than done. The
Commission would have to ex-
amine several dozen companies
in Taiwan and Malaysia, starting
with questionnaires and followed
by on-the-ground visits — all with-
in the deadline of nine months for
such queries. The number of com-
panies is rumored to be as high as
80, according to Paulette Vander
Schueren, a partner at the global
law firm Mayer Brown.
“That in itself may cause some
practical problems, because
there’s a large number of pro-
ducers in Taiwan and Malaysia,
and if all submit a response to be
exempted from anti-circumven-
tion measures — if imposed — the
Commission probably doesn’t
have the manpower to do these
onsite verifications,” said Vander
Schueren, who represents the
Sustainable Energy Trade Ini-
tiatives (SETI) Alliance and the
Alliance for Affordable Solar
Energy (AFASE).
James Watson, the chief execu-
tive of the European Photovoltaic
Industry Association (EPIA), an-
other SETI Alliance member, put
it more bluntly: “There are at least
80 manufacturers who would
require exemption, and the Com-
mission would have to visit each
one, which is a huge job. Finding
what isn’t legitimate is like finding
a needle in a haystack.”
By SARA STEFANINI
Imagine you’re buying a new tele-
vision, and you see an energy ef-
ficiency label of A+. If you’ve done
your research, you know that’s
the highest rating for TVs in Eu-
rope from 2014, so you buy it.
But what you may not know is
that television technology has al-
ready surpassed the EU’s sched-
ule for energy labeling, which
means some makers may already
be using the A++ or A+++ ratings
that were not due to take effect
for another two to five years.
“Because the market has been so
quick and innovative, you’ve got
The aim of the investigation
would be to figure out which of
these Taiwanese and Malaysian
companies are legitimate mak-
ers of solar energy products, and
which are simply extensions of
Chinese exporters.
The Commission would start
by sending out questionnaires to
companies exporting to the EU;
those that want to be excluded
from its existing anti-dumping
and anti-subsidy measures
would have to reply. The next
step would be to make so-called
verification visits to companies
that have answered.
The Commission is not le-
gally obligated to visit each site.
However, assessing Taiwanese
and Malaysian companies from
Brussels could also be tricky, said
Vander Schueren. “Will it sample
some by going onsite to verify
them, and simply do a written
analysis of the others? I don’t
know, that is for the Commission
to decide within these few weeks
“The Commission would have to visit
each one, which is a huge job. Finding
what isn’t legitimate is like finding
a needle in a haystack.”
James Watson
Chief executive of the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA)
or days before the initiation of
the investigation.”
At the end of the investigation,
Taiwanese and Malaysian com-
panies that are found to be deliv-
ering products from China would
become subject to the same re-
strictions imposed on Chinese
makers in December 2013.
LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD
Two things happened that month
to restrict solar products from
China, which had been flooding
the EU solar market with cheap-
er panels and cells.
First, the EU imposed anti-
dumping and anti-subsidy taxes
on Chinese imports, at an aver-
age of 47.7 percent for two years
from December 6, 2013. Two
days later, the Commission for-
mally accepted the Chinese
Grade inflation
for TVs and fridges
Makers of appliances have become too
good at increasing energy efficiency
TVs that are so energy efficient
the producers have been forced
to use a labeling scheme that was
only supposed to come into force
in 2017 or 2020,” said Stephane
EPA
A solar panel outfitted emergency power supply truck at Yingli Green Energy company headquarters
government’s agreement to set a
minimum import price for solar
products sent to Europe. That
price is based on a formula that
includes a Bloomberg index for
solar panel prices, as well as the
euro-to-US dollar exchange rate,
and is revised every quarter.
But both measures have be-
come contentious in Europe, par-
ticularly as the minimum import
price has gone up in 2015, in line
with the strengthening dollar.
Groups pushing for a growth
in solar energy capacity — such
as the EPIA and AFASE — say
the minimum import price is
partly to blame for a slowdown
in Europe.
Solar energy installed in Eu-
rope has declined since 2009,
when the EU passed a directive
designed to promote renewable
energy. Although total solar ca-
pacity is growing, the amount of
new solar capacity installed ev-
ery year has fallen from nearly
23 gigawatts in 2011, to 11 GW in
2013 and just over 6.8 GW in 2014
— which was about the same as in
2009, according to the EPIA.
The European solar market
has grown increasingly sensi-
tive to the price of modules as
EU countries have rolled back
Arditi, the products and waste
policy manager at the European
Environmental Bureau (EEB),
a federation of environmental
groups. “So it means the labeling
subsidies in recent years. “If your
price is being distorted because
you’re paying more, it becomes
harder to compete against other
sources such as wind, and to
draw the capital needed,” said
Watson.
On the other hand, European
solar producers say they need the
anti-dumping and anti-subsidy
measures to compete with Chi-
nese rivals, and would even like
to see them strengthened. This
point of view is represented by
the Brussels-based trade group
EU ProSun, which asked the
Commission to carry out the an-
ti-circumvention investigation in
Taiwan and Malaysia.
CLOSING THE LOOPHOLE
EU ProSun announced it had
made the request in late April,
arguing China is evading the
taxes and minimum import price
and, consequently, continuing to
distort the European solar mar-
ket. “They have the most protec-
tive market, EU companies could
never sell their solar cells there,”
Milan Nitzsche, EU ProSun’s
president, recently said of China.
“But Beijing’s official position is
‘We are against protectionism,
the EU can’t [stop] us from sell-
ing our products to them.’”
EU ProSun represents 30 so-
lar product makers in Germany,
Italy, France, Spain and Austria.
The group only names a few of
its members — Germany’s Kioto
Photovoltaics, Energetica Ener-
gietechnik and SolarWorld, and
Italy’s Brandoni Solare and Sol-
sonica. The rest prefer to remain
anonymous, “because of threats
and impairments by Chinese
producers,” according to a group
representative. It also sees a de-
cline in the solar industry, point-
scheme is running after the mar-
ket, rather than boosting innova-
tion, which was the idea.”
That scheme may start to
catch up to innovation this sum-
mer, after the European Com-
mission releases a much-antici-
pated review of the energy label-
ing directive passed in 2010.
Maros Šefčovič, the EU’s vice
president for the energy union,
has consistently said improving
the rules for rating the energy use
for fridges, washing machines,
televisions and other electric ap-
pliances is a cornerstone for the
proposed energy union.
The Commission’s plan has re-
Energy
ing to more than 70 bankrupt-
cies, insolvencies and production
shutdowns — not just in Europe,
but also in Taiwan and India. But
the root of the problem, it says, is
the Chinese government’s sup-
port for its solar industry.
“The Chinese set up a five-
year-plan for their solar panel
production, which resulted in a
sudden overcapacity,” Nitzsche
said. “Currently, they build more
solar panels than the world mar-
ket demands, so they are sitting
on high stocks and are willing to
sell their panels at a low price.
There is also a high competition
between the different Chinese
manufacturers, which causes
further price cuts.”
Evidence that China is evad-
ing the EU restrictions is in the
import data, the group claims. It
says that while China’s exports
of solar products to Taiwan went
up by around 400 megawatts in
2014, Taiwanese exports to Eu-
rope grew by the same amount.
A lawyer representing Chinese
companies exporting to Europe
declined to comment. But the
Commission’s anti-circumven-
tion case, if it proceeds, would
be a burden for the companies
being investigated as well as
those doing the investigating,
said Vander Schueren. “It is a te-
dious process for the Taiwanese
and Malaysian producers too,
because they will have to show
that they are genuine produc-
ers and do not merely transship
products imported from China,”
she said. “If they show they are
real producers they will also have
to show the value added in Tai-
wan, or show that Chinese parts
and materials only make up 60
percent or less of the total cells
and modules shipped to the EU.”
ceived strong backing, although,
according to the environmental
bureau, it will only be the first
step to improving a system that
is so outdated that the four lowest
ratings for white goods (fridges,
washing machines, etc.) — D, C, B
and A — are no longer used. That
leaves A+, A++ and A+++.
The Commission is expected
to introduce a new scale running
from A, at the top, to G, at the
bottom. To avoid having to revise
the scale too often, it may choose
to leave some of the highest
categories empty for the arrival
of newer, even more efficient
products.
12 POLITICO
WEDNESDAY,MAY
THURSDAY, MAY28,28,2015
2015
UK companies
are creating a
lobby group to
block EU
copyright changes
By ALEX SPENCE
LONDON — Britain’s film and
television industries are push-
ing back against the European
Union’s plans to equalize the
prices and availability of digital
entertainment across member
countries.
Representatives from the
UK’s major broadcasters, mov-
ie studios and independent
TV producers, including NBC-
Universal and the BBC, are form-
ing a lobby group to present a
united front against the proposal.
They claim changing copyright
laws, a key part of the European
Commission’s digital single mar-
ket strategy, will cripple their
ability to finance productions.
“We are absolutely of one mind
that this is probably the single
biggest threat to our ability to
make high-quality content in
the UK,” said John McVay, chief
executive of Pact, which rep-
resents the UK’s independent
producers.
Their cries have been echoed
by media companies across
Europe. Trade groups in Italy,
Belgium, Poland, Greece, Swe-
den and the Netherlands have
written to Brussels to voice their
objections. At the Cannes Film
Festival, filmmakers including
Lord Puttnam, producer of The
Killing Fields and Chariots of Fire,
criticized the initiative.
British producers generated
£340 million (€479m) from
sales to European countries over
the past year, more than any
other territory except the US,
according to consultancy TRP
Research. Their businesses
depend on selling the same
programs and movies again and
again in different markets and
across different platforms. Fre-
quently, they use money raised
from selling the rights in advance
Parliament power struggle over digital single market
Two committees in a tug of war
over control of the package
By ZOYA SHEFTALOVICH
Two influential committees in
the European Parliament are
locked in a power struggle to
control the digital single market
strategy.
Parliament last week assigned
the lead role to the Internal Mar-
ket and Consumer Protection
(IMCO) committee, because its
core competencies are closely
aligned with the strategy.
However, the committee for
Industry, Research and Energy
(ITRE) is trying to cut in, claim-
ing expertise in cybersecurity,
the data economy and fostering of
interoperability.
“I am writing to express my
disagreement with the fact that
the ITRE committee has not
been attributed the proper role
in the procedure given the con-
tent of this communication,”
according to a letter from Jerzy
Buzek, chair of ITRE, who
British
film’s EU
fight club
Günther Oettinger (above, at the Cannes Film Festival) can
expect a call from the likes of Lord Puttnam (below) who is
unhappy at the EU’s planned copyright changes. GETTY (2), EPA (2)
asked for a review of the May 21
decision.
He also noted that the tele-
coms single market package, the
predecessor to the digital single
market, is “currently being nego-
tiated under ITRE lead.”
Buzek did not respond to
requests for comment.
Róża Gräfin von Thun und
Hohenstein, a Polish MEP
and chair of the IMCO work-
ing group on the digital single
market, is staking her claim.
“To me it is important it
goes to IMCO,” she told
POLITICO.
The digital single market
package, released May 6, is a hot
property because it is a top pri-
ority of European Commission
President Jean-Claude Juncker.
Taking the lead on the pack-
age bestows significant prestige
on a committee, elevating its
status in Parliament and be-
yond, with more face-time with
Jerzy Buzek, the Polish center-right MEP who chairs the European
Parliament’s ITRE committee. EP
the Commission. The package of
legislation and directives, which
will be negotiated and rolled out
over several years, will cover
everything from copyright and
to different countries to pay for
the productions.
“[The digital single market]
completely pulls the rug out from
under our financing,” McVay said.
STRAIGHT TO THE TOP
The British companies will be
seeking meetings with the biggest
hitters on the project in Brussels
in the coming months: Andrus
Ansip, the Commission’s vice
president for the digital single
market; Günther Oettinger, the
commissioner for digital econo-
my and society; Robert Madelin,
the senior civil servant respon-
sible for the digital agenda; and
Martin Selmayr, chief of staff
for Commission President Jean-
Claude Juncker.
“We are absolutely
of one mind that
this is probably the
single biggest
threat to our
ability to make
high-quality
content in the
UK.”
John McVay
Chief executive of Pact
Senior figures from the UK’s
TV and film industries have met
four times to discuss a combined
response to the proposals, McVay
said. The new lobby group, yet to
be named, will commission an
economic study to bolster their
case.
Other European produc-
ers expressed their concerns
at Cannes last week. Anders
Kjaerhauge, an executive at
Zentropa, a Scandinavian pro-
ducer whose credits include Lars
Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac,
told an industry event he is wor-
ried that in their push to boost
Europe’s digital economy, offi-
e-commerce to Internet access
and data privacy.
Now that ITRE has raised
an objection, the conference of
committee chairs will review
Tech
cials in Brussels are “beginning
to cut down one of the legs of the
[entertainment] industry.”
Pre-sell rights across Europe
account for up to 60 percent of
the budget of some productions.
Without that source of funding,
Kjaerhauge said his company may
have to pull out of making its own
pictures and merely act as a dis-
tributor.
Martin Smith, a policy adviser
to Ingenious, a British invest-
ment group that has financed
films including Selma, said that
creative businesses would be
“commercially unsustainable”
if they can’t negotiate exclusive
arrangements in different ter-
ritories.
Oettinger, in a blog post before
the festival, said he doesn’t want
to scrap the sale of territorial
rights or impose pan-European
licenses. The commissioner met
filmmakers including Michel
Haznavicius, director of The
Artist, in Cannes to try to allay
their concerns. He will meet with
filmmakers again in the autumn,
according to the Commission.
McVay said British companies
have heard mixed messages and
the latest “warm words” from
Oettinger are not enough.
Their lobbying assault will fo-
cus not only on Brussels, but also
on Westminster.
The UK producers were horri-
fied by the UK government’s last
position on the EU’s digital sin-
gle market. The UK agreed that
consumers should be able to ac-
cess content “on fair and reason-
able terms across borders” and
that prices for digital products
“should not change unfairly on
the basis of where consumers
come from in the EU.”
They hope the key ministers
in Prime Minister David Cam-
eron’s new cabinet — Sajid Javid,
the business secretary, and John
Whittingdale, who will head the
department for culture, media
and sport — will be sympathetic
to the entertainment industry.
Whittingdale, for example, has
made numerous speeches in Par-
liament in recent years support-
ing their position on copyright.
But the media companies are
taking nothing for granted.
the decision at their next meet-
ing on June 9. If they can’t agree,
the matter will be decided by the
conference of presidents, which
will meet June 11 and July 2.
Regardless of which commit-
tee takes pole position, several
committees ultimately will be
responsible for implementing
the package. The Committee on
Legal Affairs, or JURI, will likely
take on intellectual property
and copyright reforms, while the
committee on civil liberties,
LIBE, will most likely look at
privacy. The biggest challenge
will be ensuring the digital single
market package doesn’t suffer the
same fate as its predecessor. The
telecoms package has been gut-
ted and blocked in tense nego-
tiations between Parliament and
the Council.
“If European citizens knew
that it’s their ministers who block
reforms, they would put pressure
on them,” said Thun. “Citizens
come to us and say ‘why do we
still have roaming [charges]?’
Well they must look at their
governments.”
 NUTRITION & HEALTH
A SPECIAL REPORT
VOL. 1 NO. 6 THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 POLITICO.EU

The real
battleground
The only way to keep your health
is to eat what you don’t want,
drink what you don’t like, and do
what you’d rather not.
MARK TWAIN

W ith characteristic intuition,

Mark Twain identified the
debate that even in his day was
developing over nutrition and
health. Since he wrote those
words in ‘Following the Equator’
in 1897, the surge in science, in-
dustrialization, technology, and
mass communications has made
the debate look more like a battle-
ground.
The medical establishment is-
sues dire warnings to citizens that
poor diet will trigger rampant
disease and premature death,
and the food and drink industry
is increasingly accused of placing
profit above public health. It is not
only multinational conglomerates
and burger chains that come un-
der fire. Village stores, hospitals
and school caterers, pizza take-
away shops and even Michelin
two-stars increasingly come un-
der scrutiny from health authori-
ties, consumer organisations and
environmentalists. Governments
are caught in the cross-fire as

they struggle uncomfortably to
arbitrate between demands for
regulation and arguments for in-
novation and choice.
The confrontations are all the
more acrimonious in the absence
of any widely-agreed definition
of what constitutes healthy food.
The arguments spill over into is-
sues of civil liberties, as the rights
of citizens to be defended against
misleading practices or abuses of
dominant position are weighed
against the right to make offers
in a market economy or the rights
of individuals to make their own
lifestyle decisions.
Underlying the entire debate is
that inescapable common biologi-
cal necessity — to eat. In Europe,
the reflections on precise calorie
content of a cream cake or a cor-
don-bleu steak may ring hollow
to many for whom such refined
decisions are a luxury beyond
their reach. A parallel debate is
now gathering pace over how the
mountains of wasted food might
be better re-deployed — a debate
fueled by the recent widespread
emergence of food banks for the
indigent, even in Europe’s richer
countries. There are many more
people, too — both among epi-
cures and those for whom food
is not a life’s calling — who may
resent the impertinence of unso-
licited advice on what they should
feed themselves or their families.
The energy and resources that
are dedicated to the discussions
in Europe nowadays reflect the
power and the prestige of the dis-
tinct protagonists. But the real
battleground is — as Twain hint-
ed — each person’s everyday life.
Pure Health
The debate over nutrition is handicapped by the lack of agreed definitions
While health authorities and
health campaigners call on
the food and drink industry
to change its behaviour, the
industry urges greater reli-
ance on science, and says that
finger-pointing is unhelpful.
For the European office of
World Health Organization,
there is no doubt that eating
habits are “the most impor-
tant factors that under-
mine health and well-
being in every member
state.” The European
Commission cites
evidence that young
people in the European
Union now consume more fast-
food and substantial amounts
of sugar-sweetened beverages,
eat outside the home more fre-
quently and spend less time
eating family meals.
In addition, it says, prepared
and processed foods are more
accessible, and in larger por-
tion sizes. The European con-
sumer association, BEUC, says
that people in the EU consume
too much added sugar, salt and
saturated fat, and not enough
fruit and vegetables — and it
blames the trend on industrial
food products.
The industry contests the
logic of attacks on ingredients
or individual foods. “There is
no such thing as ‘bad food’,”
says the main industry body,
FoodDrinkEurope. “Every-
thing is a matter of balance
and moderation, as well as
information.” As Enrico Fra-
betti, deputy secretary general
of Clitravi, the EU lobby
organization for the
meat processing
industry, puts
it, “a person
does not
need to ex-
clude any food
a priori.” Wouter
Vermeulen of Coca
Cola takes a similar ap-
proach in responding to the
suggestion that fizzy drinks
mean people have too much
sugar: “There’s nothing wrong
with sugar, in drinks or any
other source — it’s just a ques-
tion of the quantity in the con-
text of overall energy burned,”
he says.
Industry likes to place
the debate about nutrition
and health in the context of
broader socio-economic and
environmental factors — “a
major challenge for society as
a whole,” as FoodDrinkEurope
terms it.
“There is no one single
method that can effectively
address the various facets of
the complex issue of obesity,” it
says: “Issues such as obesity for
instance result from a series
of factors, including a lack of
physical exercise, stress, sleep-
ing problems.” Frabetti echoes
the view: although diet is
“an important part”
of a healthy life-
style, it is just
one influence,
alongside
physical
activ-
ity, no
smok-
ing, mod- erate
alcohol consumption, or
regular sleeping, he says.
FoodDrinkEurope also
stresses the need to take ac-
count of product acceptability
to consumers, and of “Europe’s
rich cultural diversity.” “Con-
sumers make their choices,”
points out Vermeulen from
Coca Cola. “You can’t dictate
to them. You can only nudge
them. But companies can pro-
vide clear information to help
people make the right choices
for them.”
Unilever’s Truus Huisman,
the European communications
vice-president for the multi-
national with major brands
that stretch from ice creams to
shampoos, told POLITICO the
group is reformulating its foods
to reduce salt content, but that
“the challenge is to move grad-
ually. We need to help consum-
ers to adjust their taste prefer-
ence for salt and prevent them
from adding salt at the table.”
Henk Aalten, head of Europe-
an regulatory affairs at Dutch
food-ingredient manufacturer
DSM, also argues for a more
nuanced debate: “There is a
tendency to see the food indus-
try as a threat to public health,”
but “the reality is much more
complex.”
The industry boasts of what
it has done already. “Food and
drink manufacturers have
stepped up to the plate,” says
FoodDrinkEurope. It is help-
ing people to make informed
choices with more information,
modified ingredients, and wid-
er varieties of pack and portion
sizes, it says, and “consumers
PURE HEALTH: PAGE II

WRITTEN BY PETER O’DONNELL +++ ILLUSTRATIONS BY DANI KIRCHLECHNER

II POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 Nutrition & Health

Pure Health
SPECIAL REPORT FROM PAGE I
who are given a choice are mak-
ing healthier food choices than
they used to.” But its emphasis
is often on voluntary action, self-
regulation, encouragement, and
“a pragmatic approach.” And it
notes that “it is a challenge to
change a product’s ingredients
while maintaining the taste that
consumers have come to love and
expect.”
“WE TAKE IT SERIOUSLY”
Companies like DSM in the spe-
cialty ingredients sector indus-
try — that manufacture preser-
vatives, colorants or emulsifiers
— are seeking “solutions for the
health issues society is strug-
gling with,” says Aalten. “A topic
like obesity is high on our agenda
with research topics like finding
sugar and fat replacements.”
At Nestlé, Bart Vandewaetere
rejects any suggestion of neglect-
ing consumer interests — as far
as his company, at least, is con-
cerned. Highlighting the group’s
hallmark infant formulas and its
continuing attachment to “nutri-
tion from conception onwards,”
he said: “We take our responsi-
bilities seriously,” and cites the
company’s record in reducing
portion sizes, reformulating
products to improve their nutri-
tion profile, and commitments to
removing trans-fats.
Unilever’s Huisman says that
since 2005 the group has system-
atically reviewed its entire foods
portfolio of 30,000 products and
22,000 formulations for their
levels of trans-fat, saturated fat,
A LITTLE OF WHAT YOU FANCY
Amid all the discussion of links
between health and nutrition,
there is little agreement on what
constitutes healthy food. Even
the World Health Organization
is tentative in its approach to
the issue: “Some diets in parts
of Europe are consistent with
the characteristics of a healthy
diet, notably the Mediterranean
diet,” it says — but nothing more
prescriptive.
The Journal of Public
Health published a study this
year concluding that “the true
causes of the childhood obesity
epidemic remain undiscovered,
and the ability of research to
identify effective prevention
and treatment methods is
compromised.”
And the Non-Communicable
Disease Alliance congratulated
the WHO on a recent initiative to
refine understanding of what is
and isn’t good food for children
because until now, the main
obstacle to action has been “the
difficulty in finding a workable
classification system for foods.”
Wouter Vermeulen of Coca Cola
says flatly: “There is no definition
of ‘unhealthy foods’. It’s a matter
of lifestyles.”
sodium, sugars and calories, and interest,” says the official record of
has set targets to meet “the high- the meeting. Similarly, the WHO’s
est nutritional standards”, with a new action plan on nutrition warns
third of its volume sales already in against letting industry get too
compliance. close. “Engagement with the pri-
The European Commission vate sector is needed, given its role
concedes that the industry has in food production, distribution
“already implemented a number and retail”, the plan concedes. But
of good examples of self-regula- this should be only “to meet nutri-
tory measures.” But, it goes on, tion and health goals; care must
“more remain to be developed in be taken to avoid con-
the areas of marketing of food flicts of interest
and drink products and initia- in policy-
tives to create and promote making.”
healthy dietary and physical
activity choices in children and
young people.”
Voluntary initiatives have so far
failed to ensure restaurants pro-
vide information on their menus
about energy content, says BEUC.
Chains including Kentucky Fried
Chicken, Pizza Hut and Starbucks
have complied in the UK, it says,
but there has been only a patchy
response from restaurants and
their trade associations across
Europe. “Only legally binding leg-
islation can meet this objective,”
says BEUC.
Behind closed doors, misunder-
standing and mistrust pervade the
debate, despite the numerous part-
nerships proudly proclaiming their
multi-stakeholder composition. In
private many of the stakeholders
are dismissive of the achievements,
and the strains are often evident.
When Nutricia, a Danone sub-
sidiary, recently presented an
educational program for pediatric
nurses to one of these European
Commission-sponsored encoun-
ters on diet, “some members con-
sidered that this commitment
presented a potential conflict of

Recipes for change — what authoritie

All eyes are on
the EU to create
a stronger link
between nutrition
and health
There has been no shortage of
European initiatives to promote
the links between nutrition and
health — in regulations, recom-
mendations and research. But
questions remain over the scope
and the impact of actions to date,
and particularly over how far new
regulation is needed to create a
stronger link between nutrition
and health.
The World Health Organiza-
tion, which has no direct author-
ity in the matter, insists in its own
action plan on nutrition that “self-
regulatory, voluntary approaches
have loopholes, and government
leadership is required to estab-
lish the criteria for policy and for
independent monitoring.” A series
on obesity in The Lancet this year
concluded that increased efforts
from industry and civil society
will not be enough: “regulatory
actions from governments” will
be necessary, it said. An OECD
study on combating alcohol
abuse published in May argued
that “governments’ ability to de-
sign and implement wide-ranging
prevention strategies through dif-
ferent policy approaches is critical
to success.”
João Nabais, president of the
International Diabetes Federa-
tion Europe, says: “Self-regulation
has not brought the expected re-
sults. Many companies still heav-
ily market unhealthy food to chil-
dren, limit reformulation to only
a few of their products, or use un-
realistic portion sizes to hide high
levels of added sugars, saturated
fat and salt.”
The EU is the focus of expecta-
tions from both sides for incisive
action — health advocates seek-
ing tighter rules, and companies
seeking a business-friendly envi-
ronment. But the balance seems
tilted in industry’s favor. The
EU’s notoriously limited powers
in matters of health are coun-
terbalanced by its more robust
competences in single market
supervision, competition issues,
agriculture, and trade. And as the
Commission boasts, the food and
drink industry is the EU’s biggest
manufacturing sector in terms of
jobs and value added, and an asset
in trade with non-EU countries,
which weighs in any deliberations
on introducing new regulatory
constraints. The Commission’s
explicit aim is “to improve the
competitiveness of the sector.”
The European Economic and
Social Committee Consultative
will vote in June on a text with
a similar message, calling for “a
more business-friendly environ-
ment” that is “tailored to the sec-
tor’s specific needs.” It complains
that companies “face endless
problems when introducing inno-
vative products and processes,”
and says authorization proce-
dures for placing new products on
the market need to be speeded up.
That in turn reflects the position
of the main industry lobby, Food-
DrinkEurope, which points out
the sector’s position as “a major
contributor to Europe’s economy,”
but warns that it is “losing its com-
petitive edge.” The industry mes-
sage has also won support from
EFFAT, the trade union closely
linked to the sector, which is urg-
ing smart regulation that elimi-
nates bottlenecks to innovation.
The issue of innovation is
sharply divisive. Industry says it
EUROPEAN INITIATIVES
In May the European Commission
provided healthy school lunches
and a recipe booklet to 70,000
pupils in connection with the Milan
Expo, and on June 5, it is sponsoring
a conference there on the role of
fruit and vegetables: “Healthy
diet, healthy environment
within a fruitful economy.” EU
research ranges from supporting
an agenda for “a healthy diet for
a healthy life” to using gut flora
needs space to innovate. But crit-
ics allege that many claims to in-
novation are simply subterfuges
to circumvent those regulations
or guidelines that do exist on
food content, and that regulators
should be more assertive. Patti
Rundall, policy director of Baby
Milk Action, says EU policy fa-
vors innovation over health, and
“encourages companies to baffle
with science” in the interests of
big business. She complains that
regulatory action is “riddled with
conflicts of interests” and that the
Commission has issued “weak
and outdated rules” that permit
high sugar and deceptive adver-
tising for baby formula products.
But many in the food industry
argue that innovation is essential
to boost consumer choice and to
as a preventive target for major
diet-related health problems. The
current Latvian presidency of the
Council has made a priority of
healthy lifestyles and nutrition.
And the merits of the longstanding
EU subsidies to milk, fruit and
vegetables in schools that reach
more than eight million children
across Europe look as if they may
be confirmed by an ongoing review
of those policies.
maintain industry competitive-
ness at home and abroad.
Industry spokespeople
also argue for firmer
action by the Com-
mission to protect
the internal market
— which is often a
coded message about
limiting the scope for
member states to intro-
duce their own constraints.
“It should prevent any drift to
national bans or additional
labeling or advertising rules,
which could be problematic,”
said one, preferring to speak
anonymously.
Bart Vandewaetere at Nestlé
also says it would be better for
firms to have coherent rules:
“There should be greater coordi-
nation of member states policies
and implementation,” he said. The
need for greater European har-
monization is frequently raised
by international groups: “Having
EU-wide nutrient profiles would
be of great help in establishing
which products can carry health
claims. This would safeguard the
internal market, supporting in-
vestment in reformulation,” says
Unilever.
But advocates of greater atten-
tion to health in food policy say
that the EU’s competing objectives
— and particularly the concerns to
promote industry interests — risk
blunting attempts to boost healthy
eating. Even within the Commis-
 Nutrition & Health POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 III

THE INNOVATION DEBATE

Henk Aalten of DSM, who
chairs an industry nutrition
committee on specialty
ingredients such as colorants
or emulsifiers, criticizes
the view that dismisses
innovation “as one more
step away from good
diet,” arguing that many
consumers, including those
with food allergies, “have
much to gain from the
application of new
knowledge
and food technology.” He
says that European health
authorities have paid only
lip-service to innovation: “In
the past, those with primary
responsibility for developing
EU food regulations have
been health officials with
little interest or expertise
in market dynamics.” What
is needed is confidence in
the regulatory system, he
insists: “When your approval
dossiers disappear in a
regulatory black hole, and
market plans go wrong,
that confidence and desire
to innovate seeps away.”
Enrico Frabetti of
meat processing lobbyist
Clitravi agrees that “it
is difficult to bring new
products to consumers,
and the EU regulatory
framework today does
not support innovation.”
And Wouter Vermeulen, of
Coca Cola, told POLITICO
the Commission should
promote innovation, not
allow it to be
impeded.
Equal chances
It is important to reach out to those consumers
with low awareness levels of nutrition
Europe’s inequalities are revealed most
cruelly in terms of health. Average life ex-
pectancy varies by as much as eight years
between the best-performing and the
worst-performing countries — and the
gap in healthy life expectancy for men is
21 years.
And within member states, the varia-
tions in affluence and opportunity across
regions and sections of the population are
conspicuous — and closely matched to
health indicators. Overweight and obe-
sity are highly prevalent among the chil-
dren of less educated parents, particularly
in southern European countries, and the
problem has the greatest impact among
the most deprived groups of society, says
WHO.
OVERWEIGHT AND OBESITY HAVE RISEN
WHO is also particularly worried at the
situation in the eastern part of Europe,
where overweight and obesity among
children and adolescents in some areas
has risen more than threefold since 1980.
Patti Rundall of Baby Milk Action says:
“Europe is not a paradise for everyone,
with 120 million at risk of poverty or social
exclusion, 100 million lacking piped water
in their homes, and 66 million without
access to adequate sanitation.” Non-com-
municable diseases affect all population
groups but they are most commonly found
in disadvantaged groups.
The Commission childhood obesity ac-
tion plan says “overweight and obesity in
children and young people in Europe is as-
sociated with parental socio-economic sta-
tus. Lower socioeconomic status, physical
inactivity, food and nutrition insecurity
and obesity are associated.” And the bur-
den of disease and deaths related to alcohol
are found to disproportionately affect the
most deprived, says the European Public
Health Alliance.
So in terms of food, “it is particularly
important to reach out to those consumers
with low awareness levels of nutrition as
they are high level consumers of processed
and low nutritional food,” says BEUC. Low
literacy impedes label understanding, and
disadvantaged groups are disproportion-
ately exposed to poor diet, it says.
One response to the challenge is that
WHO has agreed to an action plan for
creating healthy food and drink environ-
ments, to promote the gains of a healthy
diet throughout life, especially for vulner-
able groups.
Other responses range from forms of
market intervention to nutrition counsel-
ing and in-school campaigns. Denmark,
Finland, France and Hungary have all ex-
perimented with taxes on food with high
fat or sugar content, and there is some
evidence that the approach can influence
consumption and purchasing patterns. At-
tempts have also been made at modifying
food environments in public institutions
or retail environments, giving greater
prominence to offers of fresh fruit, for in-
stance — particularly in areas frequented
by people of lower socio-economic status.
But there are practical problems. Fra-
betti at Clitravi concedes that “it is prob-
ably much easier to find foods considered
unhealthy than those considered healthy”
— but he points out that preservation or
shelf life have to be taken into account in
the discussion: “A vending machine in a
rail station filled with carrots and apples
probably needs to be re-filled every day
and this is not efficient (and food waste
might increase).”

es can do
sion’s health department,
where Vytenis Andriukaitis,
the European commis-
sioner for health and food
safety, says unequivo-
cally that “food is one
of the contributors
to a healthy society,”
the range of challenges
is evident. “It is no sur-
prise that my everyday job
is to protect Europeans from
food crisis,” he told POLITICO.
“But there are many more aspects
to the food role, such as promoting
food safety together with healthy
and sustainable diets.”
João Nabais wants tougher ac-
tion right now. “The EU needs to
stop being complacent about its
actions to promote healthier eating
habits,” he said. “Tackling obesity
and unhealthy diets will require
tougher and more intrusive legis-
lation.” Ilaria Passarani, head of
health and food at BEUC, told PO-
LITICO that the focus of the Junck-
er Commission on jobs, growth and
investment “is creating a sort of pa-
ralysis on key measures to protect
consumers and public health.” She
says the Commission should “strike
a better balance between economic
and public health interests.”

A CONSUMER’S WISH LIST

BEUC points to a long list of
necessary health actions it
would like to see enacted,
including many of what
it claims are unfulfilled
obligations.
It says the EU failure
to complete its legislation
on health claims allows
manufacturers to make
claims of health benefits for
cakes and biscuits that are
high in calories and sugar,
merely by adding vitamins
and minerals. There is still
no obligation for nutrition
information to appear
on the front of packs,
and the absence of legibility
rules or harmonization
for portion sizes hampers
consumers’ use of nutrition
information.
BEUC attacks delays
in removal of trans-fatty
acids (on which US
President Barack Obama,
by contrast, is tipped to be
recommending firm action),
on ending the ingredient-
labeling exemption for
alcohol, on country of origin
labeling, and on full labeling
of meat.
And on the tighter rules
on food information now
coming into force, it says
“Enforcement will be
key!” The BEUC wishlist
includes regulation on
“realistic portions,” nutrition
standards for schools
and hospitals, controls on
supermarket promotions
and product-positioning,
tighter controls on vending
machines and on advertising
to children.
IV POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015
What’s on the tin?
The new rules
for product
information
have not settled
arguments
“Open your mouth and close your
eyes” used to be a popular chil-
dren’s game of dare. Nowadays, say
food industry critics, it is more or
less what consumers are being in-
vited to do. This is why the pressure
for more product information is so
intense. “Key content informa-
tion has to be on the label so that
consumers can make informed
choices,” Vytenis Andriukaitis, the
European commissioner for health
and food safety, told POLITICO,
highlighting one of the issues at
the heart of the health and nutri-
tion debate.
And labels are only part of the
conflict, because product infor-
mation can be conveyed — or,
say industry critics, effectively
concealed — in many other ways:
through advertising, television
placement, in social media and
in video games.
The nature, the content, the
credibility, the legibility, even the
positioning of labeling have been
subjects of intense discussion
for years. As BEUC points out,
a supposedly healthy drinkable
yogurt can contain more sugar
than a fizzy drink, and two slices
of bread can have more salt than
a packet of peanuts or chips — but
this can’t necessarily be tasted,
so the display of information is
DID YOU KNOW?
Soft drinks contribute just
3% of daily calories in
the average European diet
No and low sugar
varieties account for up to
30% of sales in
many EU markets
Between 2000-2013
the average calories
per 100ml of soft
drinks has declined by
11.5%
www.unesda.eu
essential for consumers to make
real choices about what they eat
or drink.
New EU rules came into effect
just six months ago requiring
most prepacked processed foods
to carry nutrition information,
with a further volley of require-
ments due to kick in at the end of
next year. But it has not settled
the arguments, because second-
ary legislation is still needed for
its detailed implementation, and
it has disappointed consumer ad-
vocates’ ambitions — such as for
EU adoption of the colour-coded
‘traffic-light’ schemes to convey
information graphically that
major players including Pepsico,
Mars, or McCain already use.
FoodDrinkEurope says it aims
to give consumers “the informa-
CHILDREN’S FAVORITES
Recent consumer research shows
that foods high in sugar, salt and
saturates and of low nutritional
value — chips, snack bars, breakfast
cereals, fizzy drinks — are still heavily
marketed to children, says BEUC.
The Commission’s action plan
on childhood obesity shares the
concern. It argues that television
viewing and internet use have
harmful effects on the eating habits
of children and young people.
Controls are largely voluntary.
FoodDrinkEurope chooses its words
carefully on the subject. It “has
encouraged its members to develop
marketing communications which
support parents in their efforts
SIGNATORIES
TO THE UNESDA
COMMITMENTS
Do not advertise
to children
under 12
Do not offer their
products for sale
in primary schools
330ml
Carry calorie labelling
549kj
7%
front-of-pack in
139kcal
100ml: 180kj/42kcal
addition to clear
nutrient labelling
Nutrition & Health
tion to make
suitable
choices
for a bal-
anced
diet and
healthy life-
style.” And it
insists on basing
advice on “sound, ac-
cepted science.” It urges
a pragmatic approach to
assess whether or not manu-
facturers can meet labeling re-
quirements and whether or not
they bring an added value to the
consumer.
The plethora of labeling re-
quirements is making life dif- cially the frequent changes.”
ficult, particularly for smaller And EFFAT, the European trade
firms, says the EU’s Economic union federation that strongly
and Social Committee, “espe- supports the food industry, has
to promote healthy lifestyles to unhealthy food to children is led by
their children, and which are both food and drink businesses,” it says.
responsible in terms of content and A WHO-Europe initiative to
the products advertised.” develop curbs on food marketing
But the worm seems to be to children has won support
turning. The recently published from consumer groups as “an
interim report of a WHO commission authoritative contribution to tackling
on ending childhood obesity also childhood obesity in Europe.”
found that voluntary initiatives are João Nabais of the International
insufficient due to the wide variation Diabetes Federation Europe
in attitudes and behavior within the says: “A quick look at the EU pledge
food and non-alcoholic beverage to stop marketing of unhealthy
and marketing industries. food to children is enough to show
BEUC is just one of the the limits of self-regulation : not all
organizations now denouncing the food companies have signed up, and
self-regulation approach as not fit family programs on television, social
for purpose. “Right now the major media and online computer games
EU initiative to reduce marketing of are not covered by the pledge.”
Fair Shares
A third of all food is lost or wasted while 898 million
people are undernourished across the world
According to FAO data, 898 million peo-
ple are undernourished and going hun-
gry across the world, and more than one
third of the deaths of under-45-olds are
attributable to under-nutrition. At the
same time, 1.4 billion are overweight,
including 500 million who are obese. In
Europe people are going hungry too: 79
million people in the EU live below the
poverty line, while 124 million are at risk
of poverty or social exclusion.
Yet more than 100 million tonnes of
food are wasted annually in the EU. Glob-
ally, a third of all food produced for human
consumption is lost or wasted — around 1.3
billion tons per year, according to the Food
and Agriculture Organization. And in in-
dustrialized countries, nearly half this
waste occurs at retail and consumer level.
A LACK OF AWARENESS
The reasons for food waste vary widely —
and can be as simple as insufficient plan-
ning of shopping and meal preparation, or
misunderstandings of “best before” and
“use by” date labels. Portion sizes in res-
taurants and canteens contribute, and all
catering services face difficulties in antici-
pating customer demand. Overproduction
or unpredictability of demand can gener-
ate waste at the level of farmers and food
manufacturers, as can inadequate storage,
packaging or transport at all stages of the
food chain. But the underlying issue is a
lack of awareness.
The European food industry says it has
put in place practices to reduce this waste.
It aims to use 100 percent of agricultural
raw materials, for example by using parts
concerns over “potential over-
simplification of some of the
labeling schemes recently dis-
cussed,” which could, it says,
damage companies. The field is
now so tangled that an EU data-
base is being created this year
to provide food business op-
erators with a handy guide
to identify the numerous
EU and national manda-
tory labelling rules.
The complexity of the in-
dustry makes for complexity of
implementation. A restaurant
multinational that holds fran-
chises from Burger King and
Domino’s Pizza has to juggle
carefully with different ingre-
dient disclosure practices from
different partners while aiming
to meet European rules on the
information it must provide on
its menus, says Isabel Cid Romero
of Zena, speaking from her com-
pany’s direct experience.
“No matter where the ingredi-
ents come from, no matter which
supplier is involved, no matter the
brand, the fact is, each restaurant
or take-away or home delivery
outlet is the last step, the last link
in the food chain, in contact with
the consumer — and is respon-
sible for providing the consumer
with the information for every
dish to be served,” she says.
Duty-free shops in EU air-
ports, frequently serving clients
from outside the EU, and air-
lines, serving clients beyond EU
airspace as a matter of course,
also have to make delicate bal-
ances between their European
responsibilities and obligations
and other operational or legal
considerations.
that do not go into the main product to
produce renewable energy or animal feed.
The industry is looking into ways to rec-
ommend how to reduce household waste,
such as by informing consumers about
how to interpret ‘best before’ and ‘use by’
dates — because when food is wasted at the
end of the chain, all the resources invested
in a product’s lifecycle are lost.
Within the EU, the European Com-
mission has initiated a series of public in-
formation campaigns to improve under-
standing, and it offers tips on sustainable
approaches. But the potential gains from
more effective management go way beyond
individual household budgets. Reducing
food waste could reduce the resources
necessary to produce food, saving money
and reducing the environmental impact
of food production and consumption. The
EC is currently redrafting a proposal for
national targets to cut food waste.
The EESC has recently urged recovery
of unsold food, with coordinated action
among member states to promote dona-
tions to food banks. And a EP resolution
in April stressed that “the right to food is a
basic human right and can be achieved only
when all people have access to suitable, safe
and nutritious food to meet their dietary
needs for an active and healthy life.”
It called on the Commission to ensure
that the EU pavilion at Expo 2015 raises
awareness of the need to address urgent
problems in the entire food supply chain, in-
cluding the long-term sustainability of food
production, distribution and consumption,
to tackle food waste and to combat the prob-
lem of malnutrition, poor diets and obesity.
DC Digest POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 13

Republican tensions endanger trade bill

The fate of
Barack Obama’s
fast-track
trade authority
proposal remains
in doubt
By VICTORIA GUIDA
WASHINGTON — Democrats in
in the US House of Representa-
tives are in open warfare with
President Barack Obama over his
pitch for fast-track authority to
negotiate trade deals, but conser-
vative dissenters are conducting
their fight quietly behind closed
doors — even though they may be
the key to approving the deal.
So far, about 40 to 45 of the
245 House Republicans, most of
them in the far-right wing, are
hard “nos” on a bill their own
party leaders support as fervently
as Obama, according to the inde-
pendent assessments of three
House aides. If they are able to
boost their numbers by even a
handful of votes, it would imperil
the legislation, which passed the
Senate late Friday, because Dem-
ocrats are expected to provide at
most 25 “yeas” toward the 217
votes needed for passage.
But while Democratic oppo-
nents and their allies in the labor
movement are raising the specter
of lost manufacturing jobs if the
massive Asia-Pacific trade deal
and an even bigger pact with the
European Union are approved,
a number of conservative dis-
senters have rallied around their
worry about giving Obama too
much power.
EYE TO EYE ON MANY ISSUES
Under the fast-track bill, Con-
gress would surrender the right
to amend the final trade deals and
agree to give them up-or-down
votes. “I’m concerned about giv-
ing this president the authority”
to negotiate such deals, explained
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who
heads the roughly 40-member
House Freedom Caucus and is
Sen. Rand Paul of Ken-
tucky and Jordan.
US President
Barack Obama
Hensarling’s spokes-
woman, Sarah Rozier,
is pushing for
EU and Asia-
said he “supports TPA
and he’s encouraging
Pacific trade
deals. GETTY
other members to do
the same.”
But when a major-
ity of the GOP confer-
ence huddled Thursday
morning to talk about
the trade issue at a
meeting organized by
its chairwoman, Rep.
Cathy McMorris Rodg-
ers (R-Wash.), and led
by House Ways and
Means Chairman Paul
Ryan (R-Wis.), a lot of
the members still had
questions about the
basics of how the fast-
track process works
a powerful conservative voice — for example, how its protec-
within the House Republican tions would be stripped if the
Conference. “I would think a president brings back a bad
majority of the House Freedom deal, the panel’s trade subcom-
Caucus now is opposed to it for mittee chairman, Pat Tiberi
a variety of reasons,” the Ohio (R-Ohio), said.
Republican added. “I had one person, when I
Jordan noted his caucus has walked out, who said, ‘I have a
not taken an official position on better understanding. I’m getting
the bill and some of its members closer [to supporting fast track],’”
are undecided. Indeed, lawmak- Tiberi told POLITICO. Republi-
ers on the right who see eye to eye can sources say the fast-track bill,
on many issues are divided over which passed the Senate after a
the trade promotion authority frenzied debate on Friday, could
legislation. come up in the House as early as
On the pro-side stand mem- the first week of June.
bers like Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Ryan and Majority Whip Steve
Jeb Hensarling, both of Texas. On Scalise (R-La.) are increasingly
the opposing side are the likes of confident that they can limit the
conservative defections to those
who have already declared their
opposition, House Republican
aides said.
“I don’t think they’re saying
they’ve got [enough support to
pass the bill], but they’ve opened
a path to get it,” one of the aides
said. “I don’t think there are all
that many undecided. It’s a ques-
tion of people whose minds might
be able to be changed.” Jordan
told reporters this week that he
thought the GOP leadership still
didn’t have the votes to pass the
fast-track bill, “but they’re work-
ing on that, so they may be close.”
IS IT ALSO WORTH THE PRICE?
Which side the undecided Re-
publicans take will soon become
clearer, now that the Senate has
spoken. But the product that left
the upper chamber could pose
problems for House conserva-
tives. To appease Democrats,
Senate leaders agreed to pair the
fast-track bill with Trade Adjust-
ment Assistance, a retraining
program for workers displaced by
trade deals that most Republican
members dislike.
“Many House Republicans are
growing increasingly concerned
about the Senate bill,” a House
Republican aide told POLITICO.
“Now, not only do they need to
decide whether this TPA is good,
but if it’s also worth the price” of
the retraining program.
Adam Behsudi contributed to this
report.

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Payments innovation – at the heart of the digital single market

The May 6 launch of the digital single
market (DSM) action plan signaled a
reboot of the European Commission’s
ambition to make a single online mar-
ketplace connecting consumers and
businesses from Tenerife to Tallinn.
The opportunities underpinning the
DSM are significant. The challenges
equally so. To unlock the economic
growth in the DSM, consumers will
have to fully trust in e-commerce,
whilst businesses must constantly in-
novate to keep the online retail expe-
rience as convenient as possible.
The rise of the digital consumer has
transformed behaviors and expecta-
tions. The online shopper expects to be
able to buy what they want, when they
want, using any device. At the same
time, and for businesses to thrive in the
digital age, consumers must trust that
the payment systems supporting the
brands and business they interact with
will work, and that their private informa-
tion will be protected.
But trust is only one part of the
payments solution. Convenience and
innovation in the way goods and ser-
vices are exchanged also represent
important pillars in how payments are
driving digital growth in Europe.
Every day – by some estimates –
up to two-thirds of online shopping
baskets are abandoned, often out of
frustration in the payments process.
Payments have to be easy and con-
venient if they are to support growth.
Being able to make your purchases
with just a few clicks, transferring
money at the touch of a button, con-
necting seamlessly to the digital mar-
ketplace as a small business – these
are the demands of the market.
The payments industry is respond-
ing to these demands. As it is be-
coming ever easier to shop or to sell
online, so it is becoming easier to pay
and be paid. Digital wallets, peer-to-
peer payment facilities, tokenization
and cloud-based mobile payments
technologies have made it easier,
faster and safer for consumers and
small businesses to connect to the
digital marketplace.
The pace and scale of technologi-
cal and consumer change means
that partnership and collaboration
are needed – big and small, banks
and businesses, existing players
and start-ups working together. We
are already seeing innovative retail-
ers driving growth by investing inter-
change fee savings in faster, more
convenient and differentiating check-
out experiences.
At Visa Europe, we are as excit-
ed about the potential of the digital
single market as consumers are. In
2014 we saw e-commerce grow 17
percent year on year to €280 billion
and in total the DSM could save con-
sumers €11.7 billion per year and un-
lock as much as €415 billion per year
in growth potential as well as creating
hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
Regulators recognise that innovation
is driving growth and businesses are
investing in the technologies of the
future.
To support investment in innovation
requires regulation that is co-ordinat-
ed and avoids replication.
The €200 million that Visa Europe
is investing every year to support in-
novation and make payments more
convenient and secure than ever be-
fore represents an important yet still
small part of the effort required to de-
liver on the vision of a DSM.
We believe in the potential of digital
growth and are calling on all actors
to support innovation-led growth and
the creation of a true single digital
market.
14 POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28 2015
I
FELIPE VI FROM PAGE 1
In between sips of manzanilla
and mouthfuls of jamon iberico,
both experts staunchly insisted
that a sixth name be added to that
short list: Juan Carlos I, the king
who abdicated last year in favor
of his son, and who did more than
any man alive to ensure that de-
mocracy took root in Spain after
the death in 1975 of Francisco
Franco.
Juan Carlos ceded the throne
to his son, Felipe — now King Fe-
lipe VI — who at 6 feet 6 inches
stands a head taller than his
father (who stands two heads
taller than most Spaniards of his
own generation). It is apt that the
Spanish for “Highness” is alteza,
a word that also means loftiness
in a physical sense. As we talked
of Felipe, my lunch companions
expressed the view — guardedly,
because he’s reigned for less than
a year — that the young king could
one day not merely match his fa-
ther in monarchical consequence,
but possibly exceed him. This was
high praise indeed from two very
discerning palace-watchers.
* journalists and the like. “This
Felipe VI, just 47, is a remarkable
man, not least because he’s the
first Spanish monarch to marry a
commoner, and a divorcee at that.
Queen Letizia — whose name, as
she is wont to explain to English
speakers, means “happiness” —
was a news anchor. In fact, Fe-
lipe first saw her on TV, fancied
her greatly, and asked an aide to
set up an informal dinner at a
friend’s home. “And boom,” says
Ramon Perez-Maura, deputy edi-
tor at ABC, Spain’s leading con-
servative newspaper, and one of
my lunch companions. Felipe and
Letizia hit it off, to the conster-
nation of Spanish traditional-
ists, who’d have preferred their
Crown Prince to cast his eye on a
woman from the aristocracy. And
as we all now know, they married.
If there were fears that a plebe-
ian would be a misfit as a king’s
consort, they have been laid to
rest. “You can see how Letizia
has evolved from being insecure
when seated at a banquet table for
dinner, to being fully in control,”
says Perez-Maura. “She has be-
come far more comfortable since
she became queen.”
My other lunchmate, Charles
Powell, author of the first Eng-
lish-language biography of Juan
Carlos, adds that “Felipe mar-
ried for love, which shows char-
acter on his part. She keeps him
grounded, a lower-middle-class
woman who is part of the meri-
tocracy that characterizes the
Spanish transition to democra-
cy. She is the first queen of Spain
who’s done a serious day’s work,
and has earned a salary.” She has
also been resolute in severing
ties with her former journalist
colleagues and associates. “She
can’t have done otherwise,” says
Powell.
Letizia offers an obvious con-
trast to Queen Sofia, her mother-
in-law. Although she has lived in
Spain since 1962, Sofia has always
spoken Spanish with a mild Ger-
man accent. This may be the re-
sult of her having been born into
the House of Schleswig-Holstein-
Sonderburg-Glücksburg; but she
is also vegetarian, non-nocturnal
and opposed to bullfighting. The
thoroughly Spanish Letizia,
by comparison, is an excellent
public speaker, with a limpid
anchorwoman’s diction — and
undeniable wattage. “Remem-
ber,” says Powell, “that Fe-
lipe first noticed her on the TV
screen.”
* explanations that the trip was
Powell explains that Felipe “has
had the benefits of a formal edu-
cation, at university in Madrid
and at Georgetown in the US.
This is something his father
never had, poor man. He went
to Spanish military academies
in the 1960s!” The young king
is “the first university-educated
king Spain has ever had, and that
implies discipline, rigor, and the
ability to listen. It also makes
him capable of improvising in-
telligently.” Felipe’s years in col-
lege, Perez-Maura adds, “make
him someone who has a capac-
ity to study issues. His father’s
main strength as king was his
warmth, and his capacity to se-
duce people.”
Juan Carlos sought to make
up for his lack of formal educa-
tion by being very — some would
say excessively — colloquial in
his informal conversations with
was fun at first,” says Powell,
“given the contrast with Franco.
In later years, however, it often
made him sound rather paternal-
istic. He came over as a little too
folksy, something Felipe is care-
ful to avoid. Paradoxically, Felipe
is more respectful — and formal
— in his informal contacts.”
This is just one of many con-
trasts between Felipe and his fa-
ther, who was a bon vivant with
a mastery of seduction that — it
is no secret — extended beyond
matters of state. Juan Carlos
was, as Powell puts it, “a self-
TWEET STREET
@NickMalkoutzis: Q from journo to
Varoufakis: “What’s your response
to Schauble saying he wouldn’t want
to be in your position?” “That he’s
right” Greece
@Maxime_Nalepa: Awe ... Who’s
the cutest? C’est qui le plus mignon?
#berlusconi #Instagram
@Martin1Williams: Never under-
stood decimals - can’t see the point.
POWER COUPLES
Spain now has
a royal family
King Felipe, Princess Sofia, Princess Leonor and Queen Letizia
after the First Communion of Leonor. Carlos Alvarez / Getty
made monarch.” The monarchy
in Spain is “under-institution-
alized. It’s the monarchy as a
‘crowned republic.’” After 36
years of Franco’s dictatorship,
“everything about the monarchy
rested on Juan Carlos’s charisma,
and when he lost that charisma,
he had to go.”
@philipoltermann: Very smart
move by Cameron to make sure his
new adviser on EU affairs won’t get a
chance to vote in the referendum he
is advising on.
@IanDuncanMEP: Even after 1 year
in @Europarl_EN, I still make school
boy error of turning up for @EP_
Environment meetings on time
@serenacoolbeans: One of
my dreams just came true
@POLITICOEurope has written
about Ireland #MarRef
@ABridgwater: EU Digital Single
Market No easy acronym
The story of the old king’s fall
from grace is almost operatic. It
wasn’t the string of mistresses
that eroded his stature in the
eyes of Spain: Spain is not that
sort of country. Juan Carlos was
damaged by the financial scan-
dal that swirled around the royal
household in a time of severe
By JULES JOHNSTON
@MaximEristavi: You were so close,
Vladimir, so close #RUS
#Eurovision2015
@tarapalmeri: If you fold this
week’s @POLITICOEurope in half it
looks like @ConchitaWurst is @
JunckerEU’s baby h/t @
JohnstonJules
Forum
economic crisis. His son-in-law
— Iñaki Urdangarin, the Duke
of Palma, husband of Princess
Cristina — became mired in al-
legations of major corruption and
money laundering.
Amid all of this, the king
himself — who bore no personal
responsibility for Urdangarin’s
shenanigans — angered Spanish
public opinion by shooting an el-
ephant dead for sport while on va-
cation in Botswana. The kill came
to light because the king broke his
hip while hunting. To ram home
the decadence of it all, Spanish
newspapers did the math, and
estimated that his hunting holi-
day had cost twice the average
annual salary in Spain. Official
paid for by a Syrian businessman
and not by the Spanish taxpayer
served only to diminish the king’s
majesty still further. The story
went global, and Vanity Fair ran
a piece titled “The Reign in Spain
is Mainly on the Wane.”
*
José Antonio Zarzalejos had been
editor of the avowedly monar-
chist ABC until 2008, so he in-
duced gasps in Spain by effective-
ly calling for the king’s abdication
in a widely read blog in February
2013. He is still a monarchist, and
as impressed with Felipe VI as he
was unimpressed with the late-
era Juan Carlos.
“The present king is the politi-
cian with the highest reputation
in Spain today,” he says. “He has
won the respect of public opinion,
especially in Catalonia — some-
thing which Juan Carlos had
lost.” Of Queen Letizia, Zarza-
lejos says that “she connects very
well with those Spaniards who
have no connection with the ar-
istocracy or the world of money.
We’ve never had a queen in Spain
with her life experience. You can
see that she’s a very good influ-
ence on Felipe. She’s made him
less rigid. She’s humanized him
enormously.”
Felipe, says Zarzalejos, is con-
structing “a new royal family for
Spain, and making a personal
effort to be financially austere,
in keeping with the times.” Po-
litically, he is a king who knows
that he “has to legitimize himself
by doing the quotidian things
right, doing his job day in and
day out — unlike his father, who
derived his legitimacy from his
role in great events of state and
history.” This is a point ampli-
fied by Perez-Maura, the ABC
newspaperman. “The monarchy
has developed over the last 40
years with Juan Carlos as king.
Modern, democratic Spain has
only had one king — one model.
The model could change if Felipe
succeeds in making an enduring
institution of the monarchy.”
It seems likely that Felipe will
succeed. The Spanish royals have
lived in much less of a bubble
than their English counterparts.
Spain now has a nuclear royal
family: dad, mom and two kids,
who like to spend time together.
The king and queen have gone to
college. As Spain strains to resist
the secession of Catalonia and to
quell a recession that has robbed
its youth of employment, it helps
to have a monarchy that seems
so thoroughly “in touch.” Some-
times, the appearance of normal-
ity is as comforting as normality
itself — perhaps never more so
than in the case of kings.
Forum
Making Marine Le Pen look ‘moderate’
F
WILD WEST FROM PAGE 1
France’s most notorious far-right
politicians. Ménard was elected
last year with the support of Ma-
rine Le Pen’s National Front par-
ty, to which he does not belong.
Since he took office in March
2014, the French Algeria-born
Ménard has been turning his
town into a laboratory for in-
your-face, far-right policies that
often make Le Pen look moderate
on issues like security and immi-
gration. His success, not least in
attracting attention to himself
and his policies, isn’t unnoticed
by the National Front or France’s
two mainstream parties, which
struggle to keep up with a poli-
tician who says he does not care
what the Parisian press writes
about him.
DIRTY HENRI ‘ARMED 24/7’
And yet write they do. Among
Ménard’s most widely publicized
moves have been plans to ban ha-
lal menus in school canteens; an
11pm curfew for children under
13; a ban on drying laundry in
public view; a vow to bring back
1930s-style school uniforms for
primary school students; and a
public-relations campaign cele-
brating his decision to equip the
Béziers police with handguns.
In a country where there is
little public enthusiasm for guns
and no real equivalent of an
American frontier spirit, that last
initiative prompted criticism that
Ménard was conducting “Wild
West” policies in what was once
a quiet, if economically troubled,
town. Posters were plastered
around the city showing a gleam-
ing handgun next to the Dirty
Harry-esque caption: “Béziers
police have a new friend.” Then,
to clear up any confusion, it adds:
“Armed 24/7.”
While not all of Ménard’s
policies are actually enforced,
the common thread between
them is their ability to generate
headlines — often supplied by
his office at considerable cost.
His use of taxpayer resources on
publicity has prompted outrage
among his political opponents
in France’s ninth-poorest town,
who argue that he is cutting so-
cial welfare programs to feed
his own propaganda. While the
mayor slashed the town hall’s
operating costs by more than €2
million in 2015, according to an
investigation by newspaper Me-
diapart he hiked the budget for
communications and publicity
by more than 150 percent, from
€193,900 to €518,400.
“Le Journal de Béziers,” the
municipal newsletter, has a sep-
arate budget of €162,000, which
Ménard put to use in the latest
Marianne issue to talk about a
controversy that he himself had
sparked during an appearance on
France 2 television in early May.
On that occasion, Ménard
claimed that almost two-thirds
of children in the Béziers school
system — 64.6 percent, according
to his count — were Muslim. This
statement went against French
law, which forbids drawing up
statistics based on ethnic origin,
religion or sexual orientation,
and set off a wave of condemna-
tion from critics who accused
him of resurrecting Nazi-style
religious profiling.
The statement, which Ménard
later qualified by saying that he
did not keep a file on Muslim
children, prompted a police raid
on his offices that failed to turn
up the illegal list. The inquiry
was subsequently dropped. Mé-
nard told POLITICO that he had
come up with the statistic by
counting Muslim-sounding first
names from a school register, but
did not use it for administrative
purposes.
A few days later, Ménard used
his publication to remind every-
one in town of the offending sta-
tistic — 64 percent — and argue
that France should be tallying
up its minorities, as is common-
ly done in the US and UK. In an
Robert Ménard in front of a poster, reading: “From now on, the Municipal Police has a new friend.”
interview at his office, Ménard
argued that he was the victim of
a herd mentality among French
journalists who he said refused
to engage on issues he raised be-
cause of the politics he represents
and their own fear of breaking ta-
boos. He defended his use of com-
munications in Béziers as the only
way to spark discussion about a
subject as thorny as ethnic statis-
tics, which are banned in France
due to the republican principle of
strict equality before the law.
STATISTICS AND THE REPUBLIC
He spoke about the need for sta-
tistics to highlight areas where
the concentration of a certain
populations — Muslim, in this
case — were preventing integra-
tion and deepening the alien-
ation of minority groups from
mainstream French society.“My
method is the only way to ad-
dress such questions,” he said.
“The problem is that all of these
people [mainstream politicians]
are afraid of their own shadows
... I don’t have a political appara-
tus, and I am free to say and do
exactly what my soul and my con-
science dictate.”
Ménard argued that statistics
were needed in poor and immi-
grant-heavy towns like Béziers,
where he said that up to 90 per-
cent of students in some schools
were descendants of immigrant
parents who spoke French poorly
and had little chance of escaping
an enclave environment.
To break up an excessive con-
centration of minority students
and promote diversity in one
immigrant-dominated school,
he had drawn up plans to divide
it into three smaller units spread
around the city — which would
not have been possible without
some notion of the school’s reli-
gious and ethnic makeup.
“God knows that I’m a fervent
opponent of immigration,” he
said. “But once these children,
who are French, are here, my
only concern is that they become
little French people and that
things go as well for them as they
possibly can. That’s not possible
when you deny the reality in the
name of a pseudo-equality that in
fact is anything but that.”
Ménard, who was born in Oran
in 1953 and moved to France
when he was nine, has caused dis-
comfort among French Socialists
with his talk of statistics. While
Prime Minister Manuel Valls
warned in January that France
was subject to a “territorial, so-
cial and ethnic apartheid,” few
mainstream politicians are will-
ing to talk about the thorny issue
or the notion that French society
may suffer from widespread and
largely unmeasurable discrimi-
nation, notably in the workplace.
One of the rare officials to
openly embrace the idea of using
statistics is Socialist MP Philippe
Doucet, who has argued for their
use in some circumstances, but
who also criticized Ménard’s po-
sition as “shameful” on Twitter.
While Doucet said it was fair
to use statistics to make sure
social housing was fairly distrib-
uted (but not in schools or work-
places), he said that Ménard’s use
of Muslim-sounding first names
to come up with his statistic
amounted to religious labeling.
“It’s true that what Ménard
said is a real pain for us; it pre-
vents what is otherwise a le-
gitimate debate,” Doucet told
POLITICO. “With the idea of
equality, we’re talking about one
of the founding principles of the
French Republic that goes back
to the Revolution. You cannot
simply overturn that in one day
and certainly not in the way that
Ménard has prescribed, where
he is essentially deciding who is
Muslim and who is not based on
their first names.”
A CLIMATE OF FEAR
In coming weeks, Ménard will
surely apply himself to a new
problem and his proposal will be
forgotten. Legalizing ethnic sta-
tistics would probably require
constitutional reform, which
is unlikely. Yet the debate sur-
rounding them shone a light on
Ménard’s true skill: making sure
that he remains squarely in the
headlines. Local opponents to the
mayor, including Socialist and
Communist members of the town
council and a newly launched on-
line newspaper called “En Vie à
Béziers,” or “Alive in Beziers,” ar-
gue that this search for attention
is precisely what is wrong with
his approach.
While Ménard has become
known for publicly attacking crit-
ical journalists, his opponents
SYLVAIN THOMAS / GETTY
argue that many of his headline-
grabbing initiatives are devoid of
substance. His initiative to bring
back school uniforms fizzled; the
measure against drying laundry
in public view is next to impos-
sible to enforce (clothes can still
be seen drying in Béziers win-
dows); and the local economy is
still moribund, with an unem-
ployment rate stuck around 15
percent, five percentage points
above the national average.
They also argue that by going
after his critics personally, Mé-
nard has instilled a climate of
fear in Béziers that prevents free
debate of his policies. One social
worker, who declined to be named
due to a fear of losing his job, said
that the mayor had cut off mu-
nicipal funding to a community
center in a tough neighborhood
after its boss told a newspaper he
was disappointed by the results of
a local election in which Ménard’s
allies had done well.
Even so, Ménard’s approach
has so far proved successful in
keeping local conservatives and
business owners on-side — and
it has brought him success at
the ballot box. A year after his
election as mayor, far-right can-
didates supported by Ménard in
POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 15
the canton of Béziers beat their
Socialist rivals by 55 percent to 45
percent in local elections in April.
That success raised the ques-
tion of why Ménard, who says he
shares “80 percent” of Marine Le
Pen’s ideas, has kept her party at
arm’s length as she prepares to
run in France’s 2017 presiden-
tial elections. Le Pen has given
speeches in Béziers; Ménard is
locally allied with National Front
candidates; and both parties say
they are perfectly comfortable
with their current arrangement.
Yet Louis Aliot, the National
Front’s vice president, hinted at
tension between Ménard and his
party — which has tried hard to
avoid the sort of controversies
that Ménard embraces — when
he told the local Midi Libre news-
paper last year that the Béziers
mayor had hired staffers who
were “far more radical than the
National Front will ever be.”
Indeed Ménard, who says
that his father was a member
of the OAS paramilitary group
in French Algeria that fought
against Algerian independence,
frequently outflanks the National
Front to the right and is far more
socially conservative than Le Pen.
MARINE AND ME
Ménard told POLITICO that the
main reason he wouldn’t join the
National Front was because he
treasured his independence. Yet
he acknowledged disagreements
with Marine Le Pen over several
policy issues: from her relatively
weak opposition to President
François Hollande’s 2012 move to
legalize gay marriage (Ménard, a
practicing Catholic since his mar-
riage and staunch opponent of gay
marriage, said he felt closer to her
niece, Marion-Maréchal Le Pen,
with whom he had participated
in several rallies against the re-
form); her embrace of the wel-
fare system and statist economic
philosophy (Ménard said that he
was far more liberal); and her po-
sition on exiting the eurozone in
the event of a National Front vic-
tory in the 2017 race.
“To say that we need to aban-
don the euro seems a bad idea to
me,” Ménard said. “First, we can’t
do it alone; we’ll have to negotiate
with our partners. Secondly, it’s
stressful for many people who
wonder what will happen if we
suddenly withdraw. You can’t just
throw that in their face, we need
a pragmatic approach because a
Europe of nations is indispens-
able and we need to guard it
dearly.”
On gay marriage, he added:
“I told Marine that she was not
offensive enough on that front,
and I think she paid attention
because she now says that she
plans to undo the law if she is ever
elected.” While Ménard has so far
expressed no national ambitions,
there are signs that his brand of
politics in Béziers is influencing
Le Pen, rather than the other way
around.
A National Front source close
to Le Pen told POLITICO that
the party leader was contem-
plating a broad rethinking of its
policy positions after December
regional elections. On the menu
for change? Tougher social poli-
cies, more business-friendly pro-
posals and — this may please Mé-
nard — a careful withdrawal from
the stated position on exiting the
eurozone.
16 POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 Forum

P
THE DIRTY DOZEN

Putin had a lot of help undoing the country

By LINDA KINTSLER der writes in Bloodlands. “Those

When Russian President Vladi-
mir Putin sat down to plot his
invasion of Ukraine in February
2014, he didn’t have to start from
scratch. Generations of Russian
rulers have invaded Ukrainian
lands to starve, deport and en-
slave the native populations, and
Putin has drawn avidly from
their playbooks. Ukraine’s oli-
garchs have been equally ruth-
less in despoiling the country,
some even funding the very
rebels who’d like to conquer it.
Here’s a rundown of those who
have done the most to devastate
Ukraine.
1 sult of Catherine’s Russo-Turkish
2 tute themselves died. Those who
launched a series of campaigns to
expand her empire into Ottoman
territory, taking the Crimean
peninsula in 1783 and establish-
ing a Russian military presence
on the Black Sea — without which
Putin would have had a much
more difficult time annexing
Crimea last year. Much of pres-
ent-day south and east Ukraine
came under Russian rule as a re-
wars, and her newly conquered
territory became known as Novo-
who refused to steal or to prosti-
gave food to others died. Those
who refused to eat corpses died.
Those who refused to kill their
fellow man died. Parents who re-
sisted cannibalism died before
their children did.”
Some say that Stalin helped
solidify Ukraine’s national
identity by recognizing it as a
distinct state within the Soviet
Union. “Except for Crimea, to-
day’s nationalist Ukraine is a be-
queathal of Stalin,” Russian his-
tory Stephen Kotkin argues. “It’s
true that he executed countless
officials of Ukrainian (and every
other) ethnicity. But as the Soviet
state expanded, he promoted still
more Ukrainians to take their
places.” Still, the tenuous strain
of self-determination he afforded
Ukraine is a poor excuse for mass
murder.

Twelve people
rossiya, New Russia, a term sep-
aratist rebels recently brought
back into vogue in Donetsk and
Luhansk. Catherine the Great 4
resettled her new land with na-
tive Russians, imposing serfdom
upon local Ukrainians.

BOHDAN KHMELNYTSKY JOSEPH STALIN

1595—1627 1878—1953 unknown. Ukraine’s chief pros-
VIKTOR YANUKOVYCH
As leader of the Zaporizian cos- From 1932 to 1933, Stalin or- 1950 — ecutor has accused him of fleeing
sacks, Khmelnytsky led his ban- chestrated the mass starvation with some $32 billion, now being
dit army into a successful rebel- of over three million Ukrai- STEPAN BANDERA In his four-year term as president, used to fund separatists in the
lion against the Polish rule of nians, a murderous campaign 1909—1959 Yanukovych and his cronies man- east.
Ukraine in 1648. After fighting that 16 countries, including the Perhaps the most controversial aged to steal at least $350 million
sprang up again in 1651, he asked United States, now recognize as figure in Ukraine’s recent his- from Ukraine’s coffers, money
Tsar Alexis to absorb and pro- genocide. Wealthy farmers or tory, Bandera was a nationalist with which Yanukovych built his
tect Ukraine as an autonomous “kulaks” were stripped of their leader who resorted to terror- lavish countryside estate, now 6
region of Russia. The union was possessions, members of the in- ism and Nazi collaboration to used to house political refugees.
finalized in 1654, when the Cos- free Ukraine from Polish and A puppet of Putin, Yanukovych
sack army signed the Pereyaslav Soviet control. He became head once fiercely advocated for
Agreement, ceding Ukraine to of the Organization of Ukrainian Ukraine to join both NATO and
Russia. “The polarized inter-
pretations of what transpired in
3 Nationalists in 1933, and later the EU, but buckled to Kremlin
formed the Ukrainian Insurgent pressure and declined to sign an
Pereyaslav later formed the basis Army (UPA) to help create an
for equally polarized conceptions ethnically pure Ukraine, free of
of the nature of the Ukrainian- Jews, Poles, Russians, and other
Russian relationship,” Roman
Solchanyk writes. The agree-
minorities. During the Maidan
Revolution, Bandera’s likeness
5 VIKTOR MEDVEDCHUK
1954 —
ment spurred the Polish-Russian was proudly displayed by pro- One of Putin’s closest associates
war, which left Kiev fully under testers in Kiev’s Independence and chief of staff to former Ukrai-
Moscow’s control. Ukraine be- Square, and his name has be- nian President Viktor Kuchma,
came known as “Little Russia” telligentsia were deported to Si- come a calling card for the far- Medvedchuk has found himself
— a term Putin lovingly invoked beria, and farmland was collec- right political party Right Sector. in a curious position this year, as
in 2009, four centuries later. To tivized and put under the control The party’s aim is the same as one of the Ukraine’s lead nego-
commemorate the 300th anni- of Communist party leaders, who Bandera’s: to “build a nationalist tiators in its war against Russia.
versary of the Pereyaslav Agree- gorged themselves while watch- Ukrainian state and stage a na- Putin is the godfather of one of
ment, in 1954, Nikita Khrushchev ing peasants around them perish. tionalist revolution,” as one party EU Association Agreement in No- Medvedchuk’s children and the
gifted the Crimean peninsula Stalin’s goal was to undermine all leader put it. Bandera’s followers vember 2013, triggering protests US deemed him one of a hand-
what was then the Ukrainian So- nationalist sentiment in Ukraine, have been dubbed “Banderovtsy,” that sparked the revolution. Ya- ful of Russians “who use their
viet Socialist Republic. decimating the population to and are regarded as the “worst nukovych fled Ukraine in Febru- resources or influence to sup-
ensure the land would remain traitors” of their homeland by ary 2014 after bloody confronta- port or act on behalf of senior
under his control. Watchtow- some; the term is frequently ban- tions between his security forces Russian government officials”
CATHERINE THE GREAT ers were erected throughout the died about in Russian media and and pro-democracy protesters when it sanctioned him follow-
1729—1796 countryside to keep Ukrainians official statements to drive home killed over 100 of his citizens, ing Russia’s invasion of Crimea.
Like Putin, Catherine the Great from finding food elsewhere and the point that the Ukrainian gov- and has lived in exile in Russia Medvedchuk has since served as
was willing to trade in her repu- talking to countrymen from ernment is a “fascist junta.” Ban- ever since. The extent of the dam- a “courier” between Putin and
tation as a European ruler for the neighboring villages. “The good dera was assassinated by the KGB age he wrought on the Ukrainian Ukrainian President Porosh-
sake of territorial conquest. She people died first,” Timothy Sny- in 1959. people and their economy is still enko. In 2013, he founded a pro-
 POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 17

cused of bribing Indian officials

via US banks. Then there’s Igor
Kolomoisky (net worth $1.3 bil- 11
lion), who was fired as regional
governor of Dnipropetrovsk in
March, after hiring armed men
to occupy the headquarters of
a state oil pipeline company.
Ukrainian President Poroshen-
ko, an oligarch in his own right,
has made it his mission to de-
pose his rivals from their feudal
perches, but only to solidify his KETCHUM INC.
own power. From 2006 until March 2015, the
American PR firm Ketchum Inc.
worked with Putin and members
of his inner circle to hone their
9 images abroad, earning some
$60 million along the way. As one
former Ketchum consultant told
The Daily Beast, the company’s
job “means helping them disguise
all the issues that make it unat-
tractive: human rights, invasions
of neighboring countries, etc,” in-
cluding Russia’s wars in Georgia
and Ukraine. One lobbyist work-
ing for the Russians likened the
ARSENIY YATSENYUK job to “trying to polish a turd,” in
1974 — an interview with POLITICO last
Yatsenyuk came into the spot- year. Over the past several years,
light as acting prime minister however, Russian officials haven’t
ANASTASIA VLASOVA / EPA, WIKICOMMONS (2), EPA (7), GETTY (2), CORPORATE LOGO following Yanukovych’s ouster, been following Ketchum’s advice;
and promptly set out on a global and the firm’s revenues from its
diplomatic tour pleading for help Kremlin work were dropping
from foreign leaders. He seemed when, in March, Russia decided
determined and hopeful, “in his to get rid of their services alto-
element.” But in the year since, gether. “We decided not to renew
Yatsenyuk has retained control the contract because of the anti-
over parliament through a catty Russian hysteria, the informa-
style of politics. He has been tion war that is going on,” Krem-
rumored to give his ministers lin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
last-minute assigenments at in- told CNNMoney. Ketchum re-
convenient hours. Long known tains its contract with Gazprom.
to be corrupt, he and his “Peo-
ple’s Front” party are finally
coming under state scrutiny. In
a panic, Yatsenyuk has made a
12
who ruined Ukraine
concerted effort to consolidate
support on the far-right, and has
introduced wasteful, impractical
anti-communist laws to distract
from the growing political pres-
sure. The man who intended to
lead Ukraine away from its cor-
rupt past has carried corruption
into its future.
Russian group aimed at steering after, when she and her mentor, most to undermine the country VLADIMIR PUTIN
Ukraine away from the European former President Viktor Yush- in plundering its assets and ma- ANGELA MERKEL 1952 —
Union. This year, however, he has chenko, came into power, they nipulating its politics, there are 1954 — The dirtiest of the dozen. Putin
represented Ukraine in informal ran a government composed of The German Chancellor, who has had his eyes set on Ukraine
talks with pro-Russian separat- political veterans who failed to speaks fluent Russian, has taken since at least 2008, when he infa-
ists as well as in negotiations enact promised reforms, under- the lead in the EU’s negotiations mously told President George W.
with the rebels over prisoner
exchanges. Perhaps that’s why
mining their own revolutionary
cause. “In the end, the bitter
8 with Putin over the Ukraine cri-
sis, and deserves praise for her
Bush that “Ukraine is not even a
country.” His invasion of Ukraine
the Minsk ceasefires have been personal infighting that soon dogged diplomacy. But under was the perfect vehicle to drive
anything but. developed between the Yush- her leadership, the EU has left his approval ratings to a three-
chenko and Tymoshenko camps Ukraine by the wayside: Sanc- year high, distracting the Russian
robbed the Orange Revolution of tions were too long delayed, as people from their increasingly
its chances to cement a progres- was aid to the bankrupt coun- precarious economy and dissuad-
sive legacy for Ukraine,” Mark try. Continuing advances by ing them from attempting their
7 Medish, a senior White House separatist militias were greeted own Maidan Revolution. Since
and Treasury official in the Clin- only with expressions of “great then, well over 6,000 Ukrainians
ton administration, writes. In some standout offenders. Rinat and an untold number of Russian
2011, Yanukovych’s government Akhmetov (pictured above), soldiers have been killed, leaving
sentenced her to seven years in Ukraine’s richest man, is worth swathes of eastern Ukrainian
jail on shaky allegations that she $7.7 billion and helped bring territory destroyed. Putin has
overstepped her power as prime Viktor Yanukovych to power. His 10 propped up faux-governments in
minister, removing her from the fortune derives from steel and Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk
political spotlight. But she al- coal holdings in eastern Ukraine, regions and resumed Russian
ready had ample time to bequeath some of which are now located oppression of the long-suffer-
YULIA TYMOSHENKO her sclerotic style of politics unto in rebel territory. Akhmetov has ing Crimean Tatar community,
1960 — the next generation of politicians, been accused of fomenting sepa- all while pretending he knows
Derided as “Putin with a braid,” especially current Prime Minis- ratism in the east and funding nothing about this “civil war” in
Tymoshenko served as Ukraine’s ter Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who led rebel groups — separatist leader Ukraine. There are signs that the
prime minister following the Or- her “Fatherland” party while she Oleksandr Borodai went so far cost of war may finally be wear-
ange Revolution, in 2005, and was in prison. When Tymoshen- as to brag about his special rela- ing on the Kremlin: Representa-
then again from 2007 to 2010. ko tried to re-enter politics upon tionship with Akhmetov in last concern” from Merkel and the tives of the separatist republics
She earned her millions, and her her release from jail after Yanu- month. Dmytro Firtash is now EU, even as civilian casualties announced last week that their
“gas princess” nickname, in the oil kovych’s ouster, she was decid- worth just $500 million, but he continue to mount. Thanks to “Novorossiya Project” — New
business during the boom years edly unwelcome. made billions by cutting deals the EU’s inaction, there are now Russia project — will shut down
after the fall of the Soviet Union. with Russian gas giant Gazprom, a million internally displaced because it violates the terms
She emerged as a hero of Ukrai- money that he also put to work refugees in Ukraine; and thanks of February’s Normandy peace
nian politics during the Orange THE OLIGARCH getting Yanukovych elected. The to the EU’s continued stalling on talks. If true, that would be the
Revolution of 2004, when she led While it’s impossible to pick Austrian government recently visa liberalization for Ukraini- first diplomatic agreement Pu-
protests against fraudulent presi- which among Ukraine’s ruling rejected a petition to extradite ans, many of them will struggle tin has chosen to honor since the
dential election results. Shortly class of oligarchs has done the Firtash to the US, where he is ac- to find new homes. start of this devastating conflict.
 18 POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015
CHARLES MCQUILLAN / GETTY
I
After the historic vote for gay marriage, the Catholic Church’s options are clear: evolve or fade away
By DONNY MAHONEY
DUBLIN — “I always had confi-
dence in the Irish people,” said
Irish Senator David Norris early
in the afternoon outside Dublin
Castle as word of a definitive vic-
tory for Ireland’s gay marriage
referendum was beginning to
spread from the count centers.
Norris had spent 40 years fight-
ing for recognition for Ireland’s
LGBT community. “This is a re-
sounding statement, a statement
to the entire world. This is the
way forward. Because this is the
Irish people speaking. It’s not a
court, it’s not a government. This
is the people themselves welcom-
ing gay people into the Irish fam-
ily. It is a great day to be Irish.”
A LOUD AND CLEAR YES
The result was overwhelming.
They said yes in the cities, they
said yes in the towns, they said
yes in rural communities. They
said yes in 42 of Ireland’s 43 elec-
toral constituencies. After it was
confirmed that 62 percent had
supported same-sex marriage,
hundreds of people gathered for
hours on Dame Street and on the
steps of Dublin city hall, cheer-
ing at passing traffic and waving
rainbow flags. Any time a car
honked, a loud roar went out.
When a man wearing a placard
that urged sinners to repent en-
tered the fray, he was serenaded
by chants of “God loves gays!”
The Dixie Cups’ classic “Going
to the Chapel” was sung over
and over again. Many wedding
A landslide
in Ireland
proposals were made. Many were
accepted.
No country had been ever been
tasked with the decision that Ire-
land faced this week. For months,
polls had pointed to a strong ma-
jority in favor of same sex mar-
riage, but a tradition of close ref-
erendums on cultural issues and
the victory (later reversed in the
courts) of Proposition 8 against
same-sex marriage in California
in 2008, tempered expectations.
Civil partnership was introduced
here in 2010, but even up to vot-
ing day, many wondered if Ire-
land was prepared to pass a ref-
erendum on same-sex marriage.
The ballot paper posed a simple
question — should marriage be
gender-blind? To answer that
question, the people of Ireland
had to wrestle with a more fun-
damental issue: Is the love that
two men or two women have for
each other the same love that a
man has for a woman?
Ireland gave a loud and clear
yes to both questions.
The result reflects the rapid
change that Ireland has under-
gone in less than a generation.
In 2007, Ireland’s then-justice
minister Brian Lenihan ruled
out a referendum on gay marriage
saying it would be “divisive and
unsuccessful” and “jeopardize
the progress we have made over
the last 15 years.” Few at the time
questioned Lenihan’s pragma-
tism. This was a country where,
up until 1993, homosexuality
was a crime. This was a country
where, in 1982, a gay man named
Declan Flynn was hunted down
by a pack of teenagers and bru-
tally killed in a Dublin park. This
was a country where his killers
were charged with manslaughter,
not murder, and given suspended
sentences, which meant they nev-
er served a day in prison.
TWO MILLION VOTES
Ireland is a different country
today. In a way, it was the ideal
country for a referendum on this
GAY RIGHTS
issue. It is a tiny country; some
two million votes were cast Fri-
day. There is no such thing as
seven degrees of separation in a
place this small. That tight-knit
sense of community allowed for
a national conversation about the
place of gay people in Irish life.
Those discussions happened on
television and social media, but
more importantly, they took
place on doorsteps and around
dinner tables and pub counters
up and down the country. Many
well-known public figures — for-
mer presidents, elected parlia-
mentarians, journalists, sports
personalities — chose to come
forward and share their experi-
ences either of being homosexual
or having homosexual children.
It was these interventions — and
not the broad political consensus
behind the Yes vote — that won
the referendum.
For gay rights campaigners,
it was a time to celebrate, but
also to remember those who had
no choice but to leave Ireland
because of their sexuality, and
those who did not have the op-
portunity to see this day.
“One thing I’m reminded of on
this wonderfully positive day is
the many people I knew or knew
of who sadly took their own lives
because they were made so un-
happy. I remember this day and
I wish [this] day had been there
for them,” Norris said.
Norris also expressed his grat-
itude to the nation’s young voters
who decided this vote. Never be-
fore have so many people below
the age of 45 participated in an
Irish referendum. Turnout was
nearly double the other referen-
dums Ireland held this decade.
The cause of same-sex marriage
mobilized a generation of young
Irish men and women who, un-
like their parents, do not define
themselves by their religion.
Many would not even consider
themselves lapsed Catholics.
The incredible youth vote is all
the more remarkable considering
that thousands and thousands
of these voters no longer live in
Ireland. The country has been
ravaged by austerity measures
introduced after the government
bailed out the country’s banks.
Young Irish people did what
young Irish people do when hard
times strike: they emigrated. At
least 180,000 people have left in
the last four years, most of them
in their twenties.
But on Friday, just when many
Yes campaigners started to fear
the turnout of a conservative
“silent majority,” the so-called
The incredible
youth vote is
all the more
remarkable
considering that
thousands and
thousands no
longer live here.
“generation emigration” — gay
and straight — returned to par-
ticipate in the referendum. The
hashtag “hometovote” was trend-
ing on Twitter throughout poll-
ing day and social media analysts
tracked people flying to Ireland
to vote from every continent.
It’s clear that this result is the
death knell for the Church as the
moral arbiter in people’s lives in
Ireland. In 1995, Ireland legal-
ized divorce by referendum, but
that vote only passed by 9,000
votes. In the intervening years,
the Catholic Church in Ireland
has had its moral credibility
obliterated by a litany of reports
that detailed shocking and sadis-
tic abuse carried out by priests
and nuns upon some of the most
vulnerable in society. The refer-
endum confirms finally what has
long been known: the Catholic
Forum
Church will never again be the
dominant institution of Irish life.
Today is Pentecost Sunday,
the day the Church was born. I
attended a family mass in the
Dublin neighborhood of Rath-
mines this morning. There were
about 100 people in attendance,
many of them immigrants. The
priest began by recognizing that
there were yes voters and no vot-
ers among the congregation. He
called for “a new Pentecost for the
Church, a renewal of the spirit,”
though he did not dwell too much
on the consequences of the refer-
endum. The archbishop of Dublin
was more blunt. On Saturday, he
called the result a “wake-up call.”
The Church’s options are clear:
evolve or fade away.
THE NEXT BATTLEGROUNDS
The great untangling of Church
and State is underway in Ireland,
and for many, the next battle-
grounds will be in schools and
hospitals, most of which are still
Church-run and abide by Catho-
lic teaching. Abortion rights ac-
tivists will take encouragement
from this result, but a referen-
dum on that issue, the fourth in
Ireland’s history, would be far
more divisive. There will be a
general election here next year,
but political commentators were
quick to play down expectations
of looming political change.
Wherever this referendum
takes the country, it is clear a new
chapter has begun in Irish life.
For years, many have wondered
what, if any, social force would
emerge to seize the public imagi-
nation that was once so transfixed
by the Catholic Church. Well,
that force arrived on Saturday,
when mainstream Irish society
declared that homosexual love —
the love of their brothers, sisters,
cousins — is natural and normal.
It’s a defining statement of a
mature society.
Donny Mahoney is an American writer
and journalist based in Dublin.
Opinion
A ‘mosque’ at the Biennale
By MICHAEL MOYNIHAN
F or the pornographically
wealthy and intellectu-
ally insecure, there’s no
more anticipated event on the
2015 European social calen-
dar than the Venice Biennia-
le, the massive art fair that,
says its curator, exists “at the
confluence of many socio-
political changes and radical
historical ruptures across the
fields of art, culture, politics,
technology, and economics.”
It possesses all the raw ma-
terial of a Tom Wolfe novel:
extravagant parties promot-
ing extravagantly priced art,
created by radical chic artists
who profess to loathe ex-
travagance. For the 2015 fair,
contradictions will be further
heightened with visitors to
the main pavilion greeted by
actors reading aloud from
Karl Marx’s masterpiece
of failed economic theory,
Das Kapital (they’ll drone
through all seven volumes
in seven months, footnotes
included).
But this year’s real ideo-
logical cause célèbre comes
from Swiss-born stunt art-
ist and paint-by-numbers
provocateur Christoph
Büchel, whose installation
“The Mosque: The First
Mosque in the Historic City
of Venice,” a Muslim house of
worship constructed within
a disused Catholic church,
was just shuttered by Italian
authorities, citing an uncon-
vincing litany of minor legal
infractions (like missing
paperwork) and safety viola-
tions (like overcrowding).
According to his tormentors
in city hall and from the local
Catholic diocese, Büchel’s
work isn’t art but a fully
functioning mosque, which
necessitates a very different
series of permits.
Well, they might have a bit
of a point there. The Mosque
is so conceptual — there is,
to the unsophisticated eye,
little “art” to be found — that
it has already attracted a
stream of worshippers who
have embraced it as their
regular place of prayer. Not
your typical Bienniale at-
tendees. And as noted in the
title of Büchel’s piece, despite
a sizable Muslim population,
there isn’t a single sanctioned
mosque in Venice.
At first blush, the why of
Büchel’s work isn’t exactly
clear. And as demonstrated in
the aftermath of the Charlie
Hebdo massacre, an artist’s
intention is always at the
mercy of a critic’s ideology. Is
it a jab at rising anti-immi-
grant sentiment in Europe?
Or is he lamenting Europe’s
move away from religion,
in contrast to the influx of
religious immigrants?
Büchel has explained
that The Mosque is a fairly
straightforward comment on
the resistance of European
countries to accommodate
the religious traditions of
Muslim immigrants. Indeed,
across Europe, voters and
governments have estab-
lished a complicated thicket
of rules and regulations
targeting Islam.
In 2009, voters in Büchel’s
home country of Switzerland
voted in favor of a ban on the
new construction of mina-
rets. Austria has recently
banned foreign funding of
mosques and required imams
to be conversant in German.
Italy has seen a number of
proposed prohibitions on
new mosque construction,
while France’s nationwide
ban on the full-face veil has
been replicated in a number
of Italian towns. And so on.
Like with the post-Charlie
Hebdo massacre arrest of Ho-
locaust denier and anti-Sem-
ite Dieudonne on charges of
“condoning” terrorism, there
has been relative silence from
those who full-throatedly de-
fend plays, novels, cartoons,
and films cancelled or never
produced because of the ob-
jections of offended Muslims.
This is perhaps unsurpris-
ing considering the overlap
between those who profess a
love of freedom, who rightly
venerate Spinoza and Vol-
Welcome to taire, who urge the Muslim
world to embrace religious
2015, where pluralism and tolerance, and
those who campaign in sup-
provocative art port of bans on headscarves
is neutered on and minarets.
It wasn’t long until the un-
the flimsiest convincing claims of safety
violations were supplement-
of pretexts ed by claims of safety con-
EPA (2)
cerns. If an artist’s depiction
of Muhammad can provoke
murderous rage, perhaps
recasting a mosque as an art
project could do the same.
According to the New York
Times, local officials “warned
that [The Mosque] posed a
security threat because of
possible violence either by
anti-Islamic extremists or
Islamic extremists upset that
a mosque has been created
inside a church.” Find a pro-
vocative art exhibit, lecture,
or play closed by authorities,
and you’ll inevitably find a
bureaucrat kowtowing to an
aggrieved religious group in
the name of “safety.”
One would expect the art
world to line up four-square
behind Büchel. Not so much.
The Icelandic Art Center,
which commissioned The
Mosque, blasted the Ven-
ice Bienniale for its supine
response, complaining that
POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 19
it’s “not a venue for truly free
artistic expression.”
Others seem to have as-
similated the newly popu-
lar sensitivity to all things
religious. The art critic Hrag
Vartanian sniffed that he
didn’t think Büchel’s work
“has done much to promote
understanding,” nor did he
“do the essential legal and
community work required to
realize his vision.” (Imagine
Robert Mapplethorpe putting
down the bullwhip, pulling
up his pants, and embark-
ing on “community work” to
“promote understanding”
amongst those who found his
work offensive.)
Anna Somers Cocks,
founding editor of the
influential Art Newspa-
per, slammed Büchel for
“play[ing] frivolously with
fire,” blaming the artist for
having “provoked the xeno-
phobes and ignorant into
making hurtful statements.”
Like the now-infamous Mu-
hammad cartoons published
by Jyllands-Posten, which
spidered across the globe,
leaving a trail of dead bodies
and charred Danish embas-
sies, Somers Cocks confident-
ly claimed that “we can count
on this episode being tweeted
and Facebooked all over the
Muslim world and the offence
will be amplified immeasur-
ably, adding to the general
paranoia.”
In other words, the prob-
lem isn’t censorious Catho-
lics, but Muslims who could
potentially be stricken with a
bad case of paranoia. (No sign
of this yet, but why take any
chances?)
To be sure, not all religions
treat “blasphemous” art with
equal measures of aggression
and violent stupidity. But this
false equivalence — killing
cartoonists isn’t the same as
pulling funding for a piece
of art — has created a type of
cowardly consistency. When
the Associated Press refused
to make the first post-attack
cover of Charlie Hebdo avail-
able to its media subscribers,
it also quietly removed its
stock image of artist Andres
Serrano’s “Piss Christ,”
figuring it was hypocritical if
they didn’t conform to every
religion’s blasphemy rules.
So welcome to 2015, where
provocative art is neutered
on the flimsiest of pretexts,
where religious sensitivity
trumps artistic freedom,
where artists are advised to
consult with the subjects of
their work, lest they take of-
fence. And the willingness of
governments, galleries, and
media outlets to submit to
diktats from swivel-eyed re-
ligious believers is now both
ecumenical and de rigueur.
Michael Moynihan is a columnist at
the Daily Beast and host of the Vice
News show The Business of Life.
20 POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015
La Défense
skyline in
Paris. EPA
BY ANNE HIDALGO
P
aris didn’t wait until the
end of the 21st century
to assert itself as the
city of perpetual renewal.
The city’s dense history and
never-ending capacity for
change, its countless pioneers
— architects, inventors, and
scientists — have conferred
the city with a key role in
Europe and in the world. As
Paris has grown increasingly
prominent over the centuries,
this role has been character-
ized by territorial ingenuity
and urban innovation.
Today, Paris is an open-air
laboratory, connected and
flexible, populated by indi-
viduals who will determine
its future and provide us with
the means for getting there.
The city’s primary strength
lies in its awareness of the
high stakes it faces. Global
urban growth brings real
challenges for urban plan-
ning, as well as our ecological
footprint, connection with
the countryside and quality
New episodes in English of
IN THE LOOP are available on
POLITICO.eu every Friday
of life. With natural resources
drying up, we’ve got to keep
things in check.
The unprecedented pres-
sure on our resources means
we must find ways to consume
less, and to consume more ef-
ficiently, while limiting our im-
pact on the environment. Paris
faces major challenges when it
comes to energy, waste treat-
ment, revegetation, provision-
ing, mobility, and logistics. At
the same time, the spectacular
boom in digital technologies is
offering up new solutions for
surmounting these challenges.
It is in this pragmatic state
of mind that the Council of
Paris chose to embrace the
sharing economy. This will
help guarantee healthy and
balanced living conditions
for our citizens, preserve the
environment for our children,
and support the emergence
of a job-creating economy in
both the short and long-term.
In this spirit, we are prepar-
ing to make crucial deci-
sions that will ensure Paris
remains a smart and sustain-
able city for the long haul.
In its innovative approach
to urban design, Paris has
inspired cities around the
world: its drainage system,
Haussmanian architecture,
electricity network, and
metro have all served as mod-
els. Recent innovations like
Vélib’ and Autolib’ have been
met with worldwide acclaim.
Seeking out, testing and
exploring new possibilities
is the only way to find fresh
solutions and set examples
IN THE LOOP
POLITICO’s weekly podcast covers the
latest news and debates shaping politics
in the European Union. In the second Polish
language podcast, POLITICO’s Matt Kaminski,
executive editor, and Jan Cieński, energy and
security editor, discuss the upcoming Polish
presidency of Andrzej Duda, and in particular,
what it means for foreign policy and the EU.
worth imitating. We must
relentlessly pursue promis-
ing developments regardless
of the technical or political
difficulties that may come up
along the way.
Over the past few years,
Paris has become a testing
ground for new technologies
in all sectors. Advances in ur-
ban agriculture, for example,
have produced excellent
yields, both in quantity and
in quality. We will continue
to open up more agricultural
sites to help feed the city, as
part of a larger project favor-
ing short distribution cir-
cuits. This in turn will help us
achieve another imperative:
lightening urban logistics
and reducing delivery vehicle
traffic. We have also chosen to
Parisian castles
in the air
The French capital has become a
testing ground for new technologies
scale up revegetation in Paris,
which will hopefully reduce
the city’s temperature.
To continue our unrelent-
ing fight against pollution,
we will introduce even more
collective, clean transport al-
ternatives in order to reduce
individual car ownership.
Reducing the number of cars
on our roads is part of a wider
effort to reconquer the city for
its citizens. The transforma-
tion of the Seine riverbanks,
which will phase out traffic
lanes in favor of pedestrian
zones, is currently underway.
In addition to embracing
the sharing economy, Paris is
also building a “circular econ-
omy” of renewable and recy-
clable energy. Metropolises
like Paris are brimming with
untapped energy sources — in
basements, sewers, tunnels,
and data centers. It’s up to us
to harness this energy.
To propel Parisian innova-
tion, we need to pursue an
aggressive investment policy
that will free up more space
for start-up development in
the city. Over 130,000 square
meters of space for start-up
incubators has been created
in recent years. By 2020, we
will have created an addi-
tional 100,000 square meters
of innovation infrastructure,
mostly located along Paris’
so-called “Innovation Arc.”
In 2015 and 2016, two giant
start-up incubators will open
in Paris, including the Halle
Freyssinet, the largest such
incubator in the world. And
because innovation is best
fostered by exchange and
interaction, 30 percent of
start-ups hosted in Parisian
incubators will be of foreign
origin by 2020.
In Paris, we are convinced
that a smart, sustainable
city is, first and foremost, a
forum that allows its citizens,
researchers and innovators
to drive the decision-making
process of urban projects
from conception to roll-out.
Consequently, I want open
To propel
Parisian
innovation we
need to pursue
an aggressive
investment
policy that will
free up more
space for start-
up development
in the city.
Opinion
data to be the motor of inno-
vation and the catalyst of our
collective intelligence. Every-
one should be in a position to
submit ideas for improving
the way our city works.
For this vision to succeed,
Parisians must get involved in
the political life of their city.
The citizen’s voice is a critical
element of political decision-
making, and I have made
consistent efforts to give Pa-
risians a say in the strategic
decisions affecting the future
of our municipality. As such, I
decided to earmark 5 percent
of the annual investment
budget — some €71 million
per year — for projects that
Parisians submit, select and
vote on themselves. This ap-
proach is part of the largest-
ever participative budget in
the world.
Participative democracy
will allow us to design the
city’s future as Parisians
themselves imagine it. We
have launched a call for proj-
ects, inviting all professionals
to submit their ideas on rede-
signing 23 major sites across
the capital. This proactive
approach to urban innovation
enriches our overall urban
planning policy, as evidenced
by the rebirth of the heart of
Paris with its modernized Les
Halles complex, the striking
new Law Courts project going
up in the Batignolles district,
and the forthcoming trans-
formation of some of Paris’s
most popular spots. Not only
celebrating past glories, but
daring to build those of the
future: that is the choice we
have made.
“If you have built castles
in the air, one day, your work
need not be lost; that is where
they should be. Now put the
foundations under them,”
Henry David Thoreau wrote.
This is what we are doing in
Paris, imagining and imple-
menting new possibilities at
the human level, laying the
foundations for our dreams.
Anne Hidalgo is the mayor of Paris.
News POLITICO
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 21

Brussels nervous over Polish political shift

POLAND FROM PAGE 1
of the center-right European
Peoples Party, the largest group-
ing in the European Parliament.
“That is creating a lot of concern
here.”
Under the Polish constitu-
tion, the president can veto laws
and “on foreign policy cooper-
ates with the prime minister,”
who governs the country day-to-
day. Even with the presidency’s
limited powers, Duda’s arrival
changes the mood in Warsaw as
well as Brussels. The parliamen-
tary election this fall will either
blunt or confirm PiS’s return to
the heart of power in Poland
The possible second coming of
Kaczyński isn’t going down well
in Brussels. During his 16 months
as prime minister, Kaczyński had
terrible relations with Berlin. He
used German wartime atrocities
as a bargaining chip in EU negoti-
ations, and was suspicious of any
EU ideas that in his view would
weaken Poland’s national sov-
ereignty. His views on gay mar-
riage and the death penalty were
and remain out of the European
mainstream.
Poland’s emergence as an
EU power coincided with
Kaczyński’s departure in 2007.
A new tandem of Prime Minister
Donald Tusk and Radek Sikor-
ski, his Oxford-educated foreign
minister, were embraced by Ber-
lin. It helped too that Poland’s
economy continued to outper-
form its neighbors. Poland was
the only EU country to avoid
recession after the onset of Eu-
rope’s economic crisis in 2009.
While Spain and Italy were
distracted by their economic
troubles and the UK was as usual
debating whether it even wanted
to be in the EU, Poland part-
nered with Germany on energy
and other policies and sought
to punch above its weight in the
diplomatic arena, particularly on
Ukraine and Russia. In Brussels,
Poles snagged plumb posts.
Andrzej Duda with his wife Agata Kornhauser-Duda (r) and daughter Kinga Duda (l) EPA/ PAWEL SUPERNAK
A recent study of national
“political muscle” by the Brue-
gel think tank found that Poland
now holds the seventh-highest
total of top-ranked EU jobs —
just behind Belgium, which has
home field advantage in Brussels.
It is the only one of the “big six”
EU countries (Germany, France,
UK, Italy, Spain and Poland) to
see an increase in the percentage
of those jobs from 2009 to 2015.
“The UK, Italy and Spain have
all seen relative declines in their
Commission and parliamentary
appointments,” the study said.
POLISH WAVE EBBING
The high point of that Polish
wave was Tusk’s appointment as
president of the European Coun-
cil last year.
Yet even before Duda became
a Polish household name, War-
saw’s influence in Brussels was
ebbing, observers say. In recent
months, Italy has shaken off
some of its political torpor and
chaos under the energetic new
prime minister, Matteo Renzi.
Spain’s economy is recovering,
and Madrid is now angling for
prestigious jobs like head of the
Eurogroup of eurozone finance
ministers.
“You know with waves — they
rise and then they fall,” said a
senior Polish official at the Com-
mission who requested anonym-
ity.
Tusk’s departure from War-
saw brought to power Ewa
Kopacz, a former health minis-
ter with little Brussels exposure
or political charisma. The multi-
lingual Sikorski became speaker
of parliament, leaving the top
diplomat’s
post to Grze-
gorz Schety-
na, a PO party
baron who
had shown no
prior experi-
ence in for-
eign affairs.
At the very
least, Poland’s
political elites will be for the
coming months consumed by
campaigning, leaving little time
for EU matters. “Of course all
the attention is going to be on
national politics,” said Mikołaj
Dowgielewicz, a former Europe
minister now with the Council
of Europe Development Bank.
“Poland’s place in the EU will be
determined after the parliamen-
tary elections.”
It is the possible reappear-
ance of Kaczyński, who is 65, that
causes far more consternation
among Eurocrats than Duda. The
lawyer from Kraków is an MEP
(he is currently closing up his of-
fice) who hasn’t been vocally hos-
tile to the EU, although PiS does
belong to the European Con-
servatives and Reformists bloc,
which is cool towards ambitious
federalist ideas. “He hasn’t given
the impression that he is a Euro-
skeptic,” said Andreas Schwab, a
member of the EPP, which also
includes Civic Platform.
Duda doesn’t seem to share
Kaczyński’s hostility toward
Germany. His wife, Agata Korn-
hauser-Duda, is a German lan-
guage teacher in Kraków. “I don’t
think he is personally anti-Ger-
man,” said Marcin Zaborowski,
head of the Warsaw-based Polish
Institute of International Affairs.
“Until the parliamentary elec-
tions the party will be fighting
for centrist voters so it won’t em-
phasize that radical anti-German
view. But the party does have a lot
of anti-German stereotypes.”
The issue for Duda in Warsaw
and in Brussels is how closely he
will be tied to Kaczyński, a domi-
neering politician who has shown
little past tolerance for rivals.
Duda has already announced that
he is resigning from PiS — it is
something of a tradition for Polish
presidents to claim they are above
party politics — but Kaczyński’s
influence still looms large.
“Kaczyński steered the cam-
paign. Please believe me, these
were the decisions of Jarosław
Kaczyński,” one of the former
prime minister’s top lieutenants,
Mariusz Kamiński, told Poland’s
RMF FM radio this week.
Kalina Oroschakoff and Maïa de La
Baume contributed to this article.

Head of Communications &

WARSAW RISING External Relations Department
Percentage of top EU positions by country, includes heads of cabinets and deputies, directors-general and Managerial Position
deputies (Commission), chairs of committees, the secretary-general and directors-general (Parliament)

18 European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Parma, Italy

1999
2009 Do you want to play an active role in an
16 organisation that makes a difference to the
2015
lives of 500 million EU citizens? The European
Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is at the heart of
14
the EU’s risk assessment system for food and
feed, providing scientific advice which helps
12 to ensure that people across the continent
have access to safe, nutritious food.
EFSA is looking for a dynamic and inspiring
10 manager to lead a communications department
of around 50 people on all aspects of our
communication, cooperation and relationship
8 management.
You will be joining the organisation at an
exciting time, as momentum builds behind a
6 number of high-profile changes aiming at
transforming EFSA into an open science
organisation.
4 please consult the detailed vacancy notice as
Main responsibilities
• Provide expert guidance and help ensure
2
consistency of message across the business;
• Develop and direct a contemporary
0 communication strategy including EFSA’s
staff and experts as key audience;
GERMANY
• Have full budgetary management responsibility
across all communications channels.
Main skills
• Experience in developing and successfully
implementing cooperation and/or partnership
propositions from the outset;
• Experience in developing and implementing
communications programmes both alone
and in partnership with external providers;
• Experience in managing a team of staff and
leading middle managers;
• Hands-on experience in budgetary and
financial management;
• Excellent knowledge of both written and
spoken English.
If you are interested
well as the eligibility criteria and competencies
required at:
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/jobs/
vacancies.htm
Application online closes on 15/06/2015

ITALY
UNITED
KINGDOM

FRANCE

SPAIN

POLAND

• Identify key stakeholders and develop midnight Italian time.

strategies for scientific cooperation and
networking;
Source: Official Directory of the European Union (2015, 2005 and 1999), Bruegel Calculations
22 POLITICO
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First published
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May 21, 2015

“No EU enlargement here!”

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