Switzerland's misleading model

The EU helps Eurosceptics when it allows Switzerland to be in the single market while pretending to be outside of it.

Last week, when Dutch Eurosceptic politician Geert Wilders unveiled a much-anticipated 'nexit study' (Netherlands exit from the EU), Switzerland featured prominently in the press conference.

The wealthy Alpine nation, about the same size as the Netherlands geographically, was held out as the paradise which would await a country if it leaves the EU.  Mark Pragnel, an analyst at British firm Capital Economics, which conducted the study, said Switzerland’s bilateral system of treaties with the EU is a model that the Dutch should emulate. “We think the Swiss option is viable for the Netherlands,” he said.

The argument is not new. Switzerland often features prominently in British debates about leaving the union. Not being in the EU hasn’t harmed economically thriving Switzerland, so why would it harm the UK? In fact, Switzerland’s success is often held out as being the result of, rather than in spite of, the country not being subject to EU law.

But this narrative is false. Switzerland is in fact part of the EU’s single market and it has to follow most EU law. Like the European Economic Area (EEA) countries Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, Switzerland exists in a ‘fax democracy’. Its ten bilateral treaties with Brussels, which mirror EEA membership in all but name, bind the country to follow EU law in agriculture, transport, trade, public procurement, environment, free movement and border control.

Target fatigue

The EU's attitude toward targets has changed dramatically over the past five years.

Back in the heady days of 2008, before the European Union was plunged into a period of crisis around both its currency and its legitimacy, setting hard targets for solving the climate change problem was all the rage. Flash forward to 2014 and the world is a very different place.

The European Commission is planning to come forward later this month with a proposal to set new climate targets for 2030. These would follow the '20-20-20' package set in 2008: 20% emissions reduction based on 1990 levels, 20% share of renewable energy and 20% increase in energy efficiency. The first two targets were binding, while the third was indicative.

For 2030, the Commission is going to try a different tact. The emissions target strategy will remain roughly the same – a binding target increased to 40% for 2030 (though this is still subject to some internal wrangling in the Commission). But for the renewable energy target, there is likely to be a shift in strategy. The draft proposal being submitted for review within the Commission tomorrow will make the 2030 target non-binding, without individual legally-enforceable targets for member states.

Caving in on the cave-in

The humiliating saga of the ETS aviation dispute has exposed the limits of respect for EU law, both outside and inside Europe.

It's not looking good for the European Commission's proposal to undo an EU law that would have charged all airlines for the emissions of flights taking off or landing in Europe. An increasing number of member states and MEPs are coming out in opposition. But they don't have a problem with the retreat. They say the Commission isn't retreating far enough.

Last week Germany, France and the UK told a meeting of member states that they want to change the proposal to a more complete surrender.

In October, in response to intense international pressure, the Commission proposed to change the law so that emissions that take place outside EU air space are exempt. But Germany, France and the UK want to exempt foreign airlines from the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) entirely - even for the portions of flights that take place within EU airspace - because anything less would not be politically acceptable to China, India, Russia and the United States.

Climate nationalism

Many having given up on the international process delivering solutions to climate change, and eyes are turning to national solutions to fill the void.

While covering last week's UN climate summit in Warsaw, I found myself encountering very different moods depending on which section of the venue I was in. While I was in the rooms surrounding the main plenary chamber, constructed on the field of the city's mammoth National Stadium, I could feel an overwhelming aura of pessimism. Exhausted-looking delegates on the sidelines spoke of demoralising gridlock and a negotiating process on a knife's edge.

But travel upstairs to the ‘national pavilions' located at the top of the stadium, where individual countries hosted events and showcased their climate actions, and the mood couldn't be more different. The Chinese pavilion was exuberantly showcasing their regional emissions trading schemes. The Americans were trumpeting the new emissions standards for power plants. In the EU pavilion, individual member states were announcing new financial contributions to fighting climate change and deforestation left and right.

Quebec: no need for readmission

Given that it is the only significant independence movement in the developed world outside Europe, the cause of Quebec secession is often used as an example in discussions of separatism in the European context. And so it was perhaps not surprising that at an event at the European Parliament last week about independence movements within the EU, a Quebecer was on hand to share his experiences.

The European Free Alliance (EFA), a collection of seven separatist members of the European Parliament from Scotland, Wales, Corsica, Flanders, the Russian community in Latvia and the Basque Country, hosted the event on “the right to decide” last Wednesday (13 November). The group sits in a sometimes uncomfortable common group with the Greens, who notably had little by way of promotion of the event on the group’s website.

In addition to Quebec, the event looked at the independence referendum situations in Scotland, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Wales and Galicia.

Europe has long had a strange relationship with Quebecois separatism. The situation in Belgium is often compared to that of Canada. France has been a strong supporter of Quebecois separatism, while simultaneously suppressing separatist movement sin Corsica, Brittany and Savoy. But are there really lessons for Europe from Quebec’s experience?

International nationalists

The far right has a poor history of working together in international forums. An alliance brokered by Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen is seeking to reverse that trend.

"There is nothing harder to set up than a nationalists' international," wrote political scientists Michael Minkenberg and Pascal Perrineau when they analysed the performance of the radical right in the 2004 European Parliament elections. The latest attempt to disprove that truism was launched last week by Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s Front National (FN), and Geert Wilders, the Dutch maverick anti-Islam campaigner.

At a press conference held at the Dutch parliament in The Hague this week, Le Pen and Wilders announced a pact to work together to build an alliance in the next European Parliament to slay “the monster in Brussels” and wreck the Parliament from within. Given the patchy – to say the least – record of populist and nationalist groups’ attempts to join forces at European level, it was hardly surprising that scepticism dominated the initial reaction.

In the last Parliament, far-right groups briefly forged an alliance under the “Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty” group banner. But that pact fell apart after Romanian and Italian nationalists rowed over Alessandra Mussolini calling Romanians “habitual lawbreakers”. Perhaps it is not surprising that nationalists whose principal policy platform is being anti-foreigner have trouble co-operating with “foreigners”.