For Dagens Nyheter, the European Parliament’s adoption of a new system of rules for asylum rights is a “historic” step forward. The bill voted on June 12, which will pave the way for a common procedures and a standard timeframe for the processing of asylum applications, is the fruit of ten years of negotiations, points out the Swedish daily.

The new system, expected to come into force in the second half of 2015, aims to improve conditions for asylum seekers, minors in particular, and to compensate for imbalances between member states: in 2012, some 330,000 applications were registered in the EU, but less than 1 per cent were accepted in Greece as opposed to 14 per cent in France and 15 per cent in Germany, reports the newspaper. The daily continues:

… whereas southern countries welcome the bulk of refugees, only a dozen people obtained asylum in countries like Latvia, Estonia and Slovenia.

According to the terms of the new bill, applications will have to be registered in three to six days. The time required to examine applications will be limited to six months, and only under exceptional circumstances may it be extended to 21 months. While largely aligned with the Dublin II regulation on asylum, the text also stipulates asylum seekers cannot be transferred to the first country where they entered the EU if they risk being subjected to inhumane or degrading treatement.

As soon as the European Parliament awarded the European Citizen’s Prize 2013 to Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH), a Spanish anti-evictions group, controversy erupted in Spain, notes El Mundo. MEPs from the Spanish People’s Party (PP), which also runs the Madrid government, expressed "outrage" at the decision and asked the jury to overturn the ruling.

Among the policies supported by the PAH are the escraches, protests which take place outside the homes of Spanish elected officials, which PP MEPs have branded as violent and contrary to the values of the European Parliament.

The shortlisting of the PAH was proposed by Spanish MEPs from the European United Left (GUE/NGL) and European Greens (Greens/EFA) and selected from among 41 others from 21 European countries. The award, launched in 2008, is intended to recognise "the work of individuals or organisations who fight for European values​​," but to columnist Salvador Sostres, the PAH is far from representing these values​​ –

Those people involved in escraches, who think that this is a revolution, should remember the masses thrown out on to the streets at the start of a period of totalitarianism, and that the worst enemy of freedom is chaos. Giving the prize to [President of the PAH Ada] Colau demonstrates that Europe is morally and ethically dying.

The major countries of the Eurozone are ignoring the Commission's recommendations while France and Germany are openly defying the it, notes El País.

"The crisis is eroding the influence of [Commission President José Manuel] Durão Barroso," reports the Spanish daily, adding that "the European Commission, which is in middle of a power struggle with Germany, is suffering from a credibility crisis."

Although the powers of the EU's executive branch have been reinforced in recently years, its recommendations and measures required of the member states are only followed "when the markets demand it or within the framework of a bailout plan," says El País.

Notwithstanding the “very nice atmosphere at the European summit on tax evasion and avoidance” on May 22, the event has left us with “few reasons to celebrate” —

Determined words were not able to hide the fact that member states are mainly passing the buck. Ireland believes that it has nothing to ashamed of in the Apple [tax optimisation] affair, and Luxembourg and Austria do not want to exchange their banking information if Switzerland refuses to do the same.

At the same time, Herman Van Rompuy’s declaration on the joint “fight against despicable practices” was “not greeted with much enthusiasm,” points out De Morgen.

If the 27 EU member states give their unanimous approval, European elections will be held between 22 and 25 May, 2014, and not in June 2014 as initially planned.

On May 21, the European Parliament endorsed the change to the electoral calendar, on the basis that “the turnout will be higher in the month of May than during the holidays in June,” explains De Morgen.

As a result, points out the daily, Belgian elections will also be pushed forward by a month, because under the terms of the “sixth [Belgian] state reform, European regional and federal elections must all be held at the same time.”

“European leaders want to jump the gun on the Lisbon Treaty,” announces Spiegel Online.

Citing diplomatic sources, the German news weekly’s website reports that the EU’s 27 government leaders will not agree to reduce the number of European commissioners — a change stipulated by the Lisbon Treaty.

As it stands, every EU member state has the right to designate a commissioner, and national leaders want this rule to apply to the next commission to take office following European elections in 2014.

According to Spiegel Online, their decision will be announced at the next European Council meeting on May 22 in Brussels. Continuing with 27 EU commissioners will require a unanimous decision, but no country has announced it will oppose the measure, notes the news website, which explains the logic of the council’s position:

If the number of commissioners was limited to 19, some EU member states would be absent from the Brussels Commission for the entire duration of the legislature.

“Each commissioner costs approximately €1.5m to €2m per year,” remarks Spiegel Online, which argues that in a time of austerity, “it will be hard to justify the financial implications of this decision to taxpayers.”

A spokesman for José Manuel Barroso has rejected allegations from two Green MEPs to the effect that the Commission President forced former health commissioner John Dalli to step down from his post without waiting for the results of a corruption investigation by the European Anti-Fraud Office.

The spokesman pointed out that Barroso demanded Dalli’s resignation because he believed that his Maltese colleague’s “position had become politically untenable”.

Dalli was allegedly aware that a close associate, Silvio Zammit, had demanded money from the Swedish tobacco lobby in exchange for favours from the former health commissioner.

“The New Sick Man of Europe: the European Union”: this was the title chosen by the Pew Research Center — an American thinktank which surveys and compares public opinion in 40 countries every year — for its study conducted last March, which surveyed 7,600 people in eight EU countries (France, Germany, Britian, Poland, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, and Greece).

The findings, remarks Libération, retrace “the blighted love story” between Europe and its citizens. “In 2012-13, support for the EU fell from a median of 60 per cent to a median of 45 per cent” — a slump that leads us to conclude that “the popularity of the European Union has reached a record low [...] in most European countries.”

“However”, argues the daily’s deputy editor, in spite of “these sombre results[…], there are several good reasons to sustain hope in the solidity of the [European] edifice” —

… Europeans have shown themselves to be paradoxically fond of the euro. [...] Some 63 per cent of French respondents want to keep the European currency, which is also favoured by 69 per cent of Greeks, 67 per cent of Spaniards, 64 per cent of Italians and even 66 per cent of Germans.

“The Germans are distinguished by the solidity of their faith in Europe,” explains Libération, with 60 per cent of the population on the other side of the Rhine in favour of the EU.

It is a far cry from the bitterness in Metropolitan France, where only 41 per cent of residents have a positive view of the EU. For “the first time, attitudes in France are similar to those in Greece,” remarks one of the authors of the report, Bruce Stokes.

German daily Die Welt notes that a “growing divergence of opinion on the EU” has notably emerged between France and Germany. At the same time, the newspaper remarks that —

… the French have less confidence in EU institutions than the Italians and the Spanish. [...] Confidence in national governments has also declined in France and the crisis stricken countries of southern Europe. In contrast, Chancellor Angela Merkel benefits from a positive image. Notwithstanding the harsh criticism of her austerity policies in numerous European states, 74 per cent of German respondents believe that she is doing a good job of managing the crisis.

At a press conference in Valletta on May 7, MEPs José Bové and Bart Staes presented a leaked report by the supervisory committee of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) on the investigation of former European Health Commissioner, John Dalli. It was on the basis of the investigation that Commission President José Manuel Barroso obliged Dalli to resign last October. Published on May 7, by news website Malta Today, the report questions some of the methods used by OLAF in the course of its enquiries.

Quoting part of a statement by Bové and Staes, the newspaper says —

EC President Jose Manuel Barroso should shoulder responsibility [for the scandal] because “he ruined Malta’s image along with Mr Dalli’s reputation”.

The two MEPs also criticised the Commission President for his failure —

… to see that the OLAF supervisory committee was informed of the case immediately and […] [the fact that he] allowed the report to be handed to the relevant authorities without adopting the five-day time-frame rule which enables the supervisory committee to verify whether the procedures were followed correctly in terms of the investigation.

The idea of giving the European Commission the role of “watchdog” is simply “chutzpah”, believes Dutch political scientist Alfred Pijpers writing in De Volkskrant.

In early March, Germany, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands proposed that the EU be given new instruments to combat democratic drift as in Hungary. Debated on April 22 at the Council by the foreign ministers of the 27 meeting in Luxembourg, the proposal won majority backing. ”With the exception of the Czech minister, who expressed his reluctance, all the ministers asked the European Commission to work up the idea in the short term,” noted the paper on April 24.

Tools to steer weak democracies onto the right path are currently lacking, explains De Volkskrant –

The only weapon that the European Commission disposes of at present is the ultimate weapon: the suspension of the right to vote [in the Council] and the suspension of the flow of money to the state in question. As this 'nuclear option' is rejected throughout the Union, [the states] support less extensive measures [such as] recommendations of sanctions backed by progressive fines.

The political scientist believes that the crisis in the Eurozone is being abused to transfer more powers to the European level and a better step would be to contemplate expelling failing democracies from the EU.

The crisis in the eurozone is being exploited by overzealous political leaders and European commissioners to place all kinds of national organisations under Brussels’ supervision, as in the ever stronger budgetary surveillance across Europe [...] Instead of widespread monitoring, it would be better to try to eject the country that behaves badly from the EU, if necessary by a change in the [European] Treaty.

It was a “debut with no inferiority complex,” writes La Stampa after Enrico Letta’s first European diplomatic tour. The Italian Prime minister, sworn in on April 29, met German Chancellor Angela Merkel on April 30 then French President François Hollande and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso on May 1.

He had to “make himself known in Berlin and Paris, where Italian destiny is decided much more than some think”. Despite his young age – only 46 – he “put on the shoes of a chief of government in a few hours”, notes the daily. But Europe’s confidence will prove much harder to win, adds the daily in an editorial

Letta’s early diplomatic tour was “a good idea”, estimates Il Sole 24 Ore, not only to underline “Italy’s more political stance on the continental stage,” but also to consolidate his position in the face of the disputes – namely on the refund of the housing tax asked for by PDL leader Silvio Berlusconi – that are already shaking the grand coalition supporting his government. The newspaper continues that Letta

From the German side, Die Zeit reflects on the "smart boy" who has succeeded the “smiling charmer" Berlusconi and the "courteous professor" Monti.

As for the idea of an alliance with France’s François Hollande in order to "seek a relaxation of the stability pact and [...] deficit targets," Der Standard finds this "completely exaggerated." The Austrian daily says that

Enrico Letta’s European trip, in the end, amounts to no more than a “pious pilgrimage”, considers ABC’s columnist Alfonso Rojo. Visiting Berlin first, the new Italian PM simply showed he knows who is in charge in the EU –

It appears the corruption scandal that cost Maltese politician John Dalli his job as European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy is beginning to backfire on the European Anti-fraud Office (OLAF), which investigated the case.

The Times of Malta reports that the investigation has been called into question by OLAF’s supervisory committee. In a report currently “stored in a vault of the European Parliament,” which was briefly seen by the daily, the members of the committee take the view that OLAF operatives “acted illegally when they interrogated [Dalli’s associate and businessman] Silvio Zammit.” They also argue that OLAF went “beyond its remit”, for example, when it “asked Maltese authorities for the suspects’ telephone records.”

This last observation is important, because, as the daily remarks on the front page of its April 29 edition, the existence of “phone calls coinciding with key events under investigation” is a key aspect of OLAF’s case. The “unambiguous circumstantial evidence” for allegations that Dalli was involved in influence trafficking hinges on a series of calls between Dalli, Zammit and his associate Gayle Kimberley “before, after or on the same day as the events took place,” as well as “inconsistencies between what Mr Dalli told investigators and the facts they uncovered.”

Dalli was forced to resign last October, when OLAF discovered Zammit had offered to intervene with the commissioner on behalf of a Swedish tobacco manufacturer in exchange for a vast sum of money.

However, according to the Times of Malta, the OLAF investigative report, part of which was published by MaltaToday on April 28,

does not include conclusive evidence proving that the former European Commissioner knew about the bribe requests allegedly made to tobacco lobbyists.

Tensions between France and Germany rose yet another notch on Friday, after months of clashing over which policies to adopt in order to end the economic crisis. The most recent conflict concerns a leaked draft of an internal document of France’s ruling Socialist Party, intended for discussion at a party conference.

The draft document rails against German Chancellor Angela Merkel's "selfish intransigence". Although a more watered down tone features in the final document to be adopted on April 30, this is a far cry from the "friendly quibbles" previously mentioned by French President François Hollande.

The point of view expressed in the draft is criticised by French conservative daily Le Figaro, which argues in a leader article that:

nothing could be more irresponsible than turning Angela Merkel and Germany's European policies into a scapegoat for the troubles brewing in our country. This strategy, maintained at the highest level in Paris, is part of a petty Machiavellian plot to make the German Chancellor lose the legislative elections [scheduled for September 22] so that Germany will be forced to abandon its calls for austerity and satisfy the demands of a southern Europe unable to reform itself.

For French daily Le Monde, "this little game is not only infantile, it is extremely dangerous" for several reasons:

First, because putting the blame for France's political and economic problems on the European Union feeds Euroscepticism. [...] Secondly, because if Ms Merkel remains impassive to the personal attacks of which she is the target in southern Europe, it is a whole other story when the attack comes from Paris.

On the German side of the Rhine, weekly Der Spiegel says that the discord between France and Germany hampers efforts to end the crisis:

François Hollande is placing his hopes in there being a new government after the German legislative elections, one that would be more ready and willing to make some compromises. He has no more expectations from the current government. A year after Hollande took office, the Franco-German relationship is in even worse shape than expected by the most pessimistic observers in each country. Berlin and Paris are in disagreement on nearly every policy for exiting the crisis.

The 2012 Activity Report of the OLAF Supervisory Committee has added to “doubts about the work of the European Anti-fraud Office,” remarks Die Presse —

Normally there should be no doubts. […] But the forced resignation of European Commissioner, John Dalli last October, in which OLAF played a major role, has reinforced the impression that it makes use of dubious methods.”

For the Viennese daily, the report presents an image of an organisation “which is feverishly trying to avoid external scrutiny […]. The entirety of OLAF, along with its director-general Giovanni Kessler, are responsible”. On its website, OLAF deplores what it terms “attempts at misinformation,” which aim “to give a false impression of issues relating to the investigation” of John Dalli.

The fourth issue of Europa, the supplement jointly produced by Gazeta Wyborcza, The Guardian, Le Monde, El País, La Stampa and Süddeutsche Zeitung, focuses on the dwindling public confidence in the European Union, which, as the latest Eurobarometer has revealed, is now at a record low. Euroscepticism, writes Parisian daily Le Monde —

in its multiple forms of populism, nationalism, distrust, resentment and revolt has spread across Europe. For many years, it was a British speciality. However, it has now emerged as the source of the Greek revolt, Italian political chaos, French disappointment, and German frustration at being the focus of so much hostility.

A sentiment that is shared by La Stampa director Mario Calabresi who points out —

… we are at a standstill, without a strong idea capable of restoring hope, and even more divided than ever. […] The crisis in the construction of Europe and our increasingly insular focus on our own societies and our social models has revived the selfishness and the enmities of the past. The doctrine of austerity may have failed to win hearts and minds, but it has brought with it a coldness that has added to the distance between peoples.

In El País researchers Mark Leonard and José Ignacio Torreblanca of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) argue that this state of affairs is largely due —

to the Fiscal Compact and far reaching national reforms demanded by the European Central Bank, which have led eurocrats to cross the line on national sovereignty and — going well beyond their brief for food safety — to extend their influence to pensions, income taxes, wages, the labour market and civil service jobs. All of these fields touch at the heart of the welfare state and national identities. […] In this new scenario, governments come and go, but policies, which remain fundamentally the same, are not called into question.

Will this trend result in the end of the Union? “Everyone is hoping that with a return to growth, Euroscepticism will finally abate,” write Leonard and Torreblanca. However, they also warn —

that enthusiasm [for Europe] will not be reborn without a radical overhaul of its behaviour towards member states and citizens.

This "shock of democracies" and this north-south opposition are the de-facto embodiement of the two-speed Europe that used to be mentioned in connection with defence, external affairs and free movement policies, notes the Spanish daily’s deputy editor, Berna González-Harbour. She continues —

… the tragedy is that we are no longer able to keep Europe moving peacefully along two parallel tracks, which, even if they never join, do not cut across each other. Today the two tracks are clearly divergent and inevitably oriented towards disagreement.

In the meantime, the six press titles in the Europa partnership have come up with an number of ideas to break the deadlock in the EU, which are summarised by The Guardian. They range from the abolition of the Strasbourg shuttle between the two seats of the European Parliament, to the creation of a European army, or the development of a “Eur-app” to broadcast the case for Europe on tablet computers and smartphones: “a leading idea that could provide Europeans with symbols and aims evoking emotions, attachment and solidarity.”

European External Action Service (EEAS) boss Catherine Ashton has failed. The EU has not spoken with a single voice on any key foreign affairs issue in recent years. This is the conclusion of a draft report by the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, which reviews the organisation and functioning of the EEAS, which was set up in December 2010.

“We’ve made one step forward, while we expected many more steps,” the committee's head, Elmar Brok, told Rzeczpospolita. Brok believes that EEAS has not adequately used the mechanism for enhanced cooperation written into the Treaty of Lisbon, which

makes it possible to agree upon operations by a selected group of countries as part of a single policy of the entire EU. Unfortunately, this solution has never been used even though it would be a perfect fit, eg for the intervention in Libya.

Brok says EEAS failure stems from a lack of unanimity on foreign affairs in the EU Council plus Ashton’s lack of broader vision or ability to set the foreign affairs agenda. Rzeczpospolita notes that in the eyes of the committee, the EEAS’s lack of real clout lies the institution’s faulty structure with lots of criss-crossing competencies that slow down the decision-making process.

The report does however acknowledge some achievements on the part of the EEAS, most notably when it fostered an agreement on the normalisation of relations between Serbia and Kosovo, and proved a good negotiator with regard to Iranian nuclear weapons programme.

“A real attack is underway against the heart of the European Union,” writes Christian Rocca, director of IL, the cultural supplement of Sole 24 Ore:

[It is] an attack launched from the interior of the continent; a home-grown reaction to the economic crisis. Europe has become its own enemy, responsible for all our national headaches, the target of all our corporate grievances. Things have not always been this way. Up to twenty years ago, Europe presented the dream, hope and challenge of a new departure: the peaceful liberation of the countries of the East, the reunification of Germany, the abolition of borders, the free circulation of ideas and people, Erasmus. Today, there is nothing but the Champions League to remind us that we are still a Union. For the rest: welcome to Euroland, the desolate land of the euro, a monetary union where the most ghastly words a European can hear are: ‘Greetings. I come from the EU and I am here to help you.’

To illustrate the “obvious rips” that have appeared in the Union flag in recent years, IL calls on four European intellectuals – the historian Niall Ferguson, former European Commissioner Peter Mandelson, MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit and the publisher and editor of Die Zeit Josef Joffe – to explain why. According to Rocca,

the most important threat to the European project today is the loss of legitimacy of the European spirit, its shaky credibility [...]. This time, the usual scream of “More Europe – we need more Europe!” won’t be enough to salvage it.

The “Dalligate” scandal, which rocked the European Commission, may finally be laid to rest without the truth ever being known. The European Parliament (EP) has effectively decided not to form a committee of inquiry on the affair, which resulted in the resignation of Health Commissioner John Dalli, amid allegations of involvement in influence trafficking last October, reports Mediapart.

The decision on April 11 not to appoint a committee of inquiry, which was also supposed to shine a spotlight on dubious institutional practices with regard to lobbying, was effectively taken by the main parliamentary groups in the EP — the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe — which refused to back the call for an investigation. The rejection of measure astonished several MEPs, notably in the Green parliamentary group which had submitted the proposal. Some suspect the Commission, which has refused to publish the European Anti-Fraud Office (Olaf) report on the matter, and the Parliament of wanting “to bury the affair”. According to Mediapart —

… the PPE will go to any lengths to defend its champion [Commission President] José Manuel Barroso, while the S&D will do all it can to support the highly controversial Director General of Olaf, Giovanni Kessler, who is also a member of the left-wing Italian Democratic Party. The interests of the two major parties were served by a common position: the scandal should be forgotten and attention should be focused elsewhere. [...] In the meantime, many people will be surprised by the rejection of the call for a “special committee” to look into the affair, which, over the last six months, has appeared increasingly shady, while the accounts of those involved appear more and more unlikely and contradictory.

German former Chancellor Helmut Kohl has said that the views on Europe of the late UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher were the source of the tensions between London and Brussels which continue today.

The 83-year-old ex-CDU leader described Thatcher, who died on April 8, as “difficult”, saying that their relationship during the 1980s was never “trusting and warm”.

“[She] wanted Europe, but a different Europe from that wanted by most of her European colleagues and me. From our point of view, this antagonism characterises British policy on Europe to this day,” he told The Times

The weekly, which has close ties to Viktor Orbán’s government, devotes its front page to European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, Viviane Reding.

The magazine claims that Reding, who is also the Commission Vice-President, embodies a “new type of European identity” because she hails from Luxembourg, “a postmodern country” set up by France and Germany “where 38 per cent of the population are foreigners, mainly from southern Europe.”

Reding is leading “Europe’s campaigns against Hungary,” because they serve as a means of achieving her ambition of becoming president of the European Commission after Barroso," argues Heti Válasz, which adds: “In seeking conflict with the conservative Hungarian government, she aims to secure the support of the left and the liberals in Europe."

“Everyone fends for himself,” begins Gazeta Wyborcza on its frontpage, summing up British Prime Minister David Cameron’s vision of the EU, which he laid out in an interview granted to five European dailies: Le Monde, El Mundo, Il Sole 24 Ore, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Gazeta Wyborcza.

In his view, faced with the competition from rising powers such as China, India or Malaysia, the EU has to be more “open and flexible”. The Warsaw daily notes that –

The word ‘flexible’ has came up several times in the conversation. It is a part of the European vision in which ‘not everyone in Europe does the same things at the same time’. Today, argues Cameron, Great Britain remains outside the Schengen area, while Poland and Sweden are outside the Eurozone.

GW writes that Cameron’s speech in January in which he called for reform of the EU has aroused fears among European politicians that other countries may seek to pick and choose elements of EU membership, thus undermining the Union.

For Christopher Hope, The Daily Telegraph’s senior political correspondent, Cameron’s interview has the feeling of an “apology”, while his ambition that his speech would silence Eurosceptics such as those from the UK Independence Party (Ukip) has not been achieved.

The fact that Mr Cameron has had to [repeat his EU reform strategy] all again, in five languages, less than three months later shows the Bloomberg speech failed and the rise of Ukip [...] has barely been slowed.

An interim European Union budget of €11.2bn is required, EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski warns. He has asked Member States and the EuroParliament to provide the funds for 2013.

The money is needed to pay down debts incurred in 2012 and will boost the EU budget to a record €144 bn for the year. An agreement between the Commission and the Parliament on the interim budget is required before the MEPs can vote on the 2014-2020 EU budget.

“Was European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, with or without his knowledge, manipulated by the tobacco industry into drumming his Health Commissioner out of office on October 16 over corruption claims?” wonders Libération, now that the evidence implicating John Dalli “appears increasingly flimsy.”

The daily’s Brussels correspondent has obtained a recording in which an employee of “Swedish Match, the producer of snus, which began the affair, acknowledges that OLAF, the Commission’s anti-fraud office, told him to give a totally false account of events”.

The daily explains that there are also doubts about a meeting which allegedly took place on February 10, 2012, and which plays a critical role in the case against Dalli.

According to Swedish Match, it was [on that day] that a deal was concluded between a friend of Dalli’s, Silvio Zammit, and Maltese lawyer Gayle Kimberley, agreeing that the Swedish company would pay €10m for a meeting with the European Commissioner and an additional €50m for the authorisation of snus. The corruption allegation relates to this meeting and a previous encounter between Dalli and Kimberley in Malta a month earlier, in the course of which Kimberley presented the commissioner with three pages on the non-harmfulness of snus. However, although he acknowledges that the first meeting took place, Dalli has consistently denied that there was a second one on February 10.

“In other words, the most important piece of evidence [in the case against Dalli] is based on two lies: one put forward by Kimberley, and another affirmed by OLAF,” explains Libération, which quotes the Commission’s vice president for agriculture, José Bové, who finds the affair “more and more dubious.”

“Germany wants to strengthen EU foreign policy,” begins Dziennik Gazeta Prawna after Berlin proposed giving the European External Action Service EEAS new powers over European neighbourhood policy, development and cooperation in order to “ensure a coherent, comprehensive and integrated EU approach to external action.” Currently, those areas fall under the control of two EU Commissioners. The proposal, to be discussed by EU foreign ministers at a meeting in Dublin on March 22, has already been endorsed by 13 countries, including Sweden, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. The daily says that for Warsaw –

The German proposition is favourable as it may increase the significance of the neighbourhood policy involving Mediterranean countries that border with the EU and six states of the Eastern Partnership (Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia). Strengthening their stability is in Poland’s national interest.

However, the German plan is likely to be opposed by the UK “which rejects all ideas pushing for more integration” and France “which guards the right to determine its own foreign policy and is set to put forward its own proposal to improve the way the EEAS operates”.

At Thursday’s European Council summit in Brussels, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso will present figures that Süddeutsche Zeitung describes as “worrying”. In 2013, nine of the Eurozone’s 17 member states will take on higher levels of debt than those allowed by convergence criteria, while European economic growth has almost ground to a halt, and one in eight Europeans is without a job. European Council President Herman von Rompuy has proposed devoting several hours to debate reforms that are likely to reverse this trend. A “group therapy session”, writes the newspaper, in which some of the participants will feel very uneasy —

In the Council building on Thursday evening, the 27 leaders of Europe’s member states will sit down to listen to what European Commissioner José Manuel Barroso has to say about the situation in Europe. The 'action teams' that he established to promote youth employment in Spain, Greece, Ireland and five other countries will have some good news. But none of David Cameron’s colleagues will want to be in the shoes of the British Prime Minister when he has to hear that in 2013, his country’s debt will be higher than the debt of Spain or Ireland. Thereafter, all eyes will be on French President François Hollande, when he has to admit that he will be unable to meet France’s deficit target for 2013.

In contrast, Germany is once again expected to show itself to be a model student. The Financial Times reports that the 2014 budget which was announced by Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble this week, ahead of the expected date, includes a number of cuts designed to balance the country’s books by 2015. “Berlin wants to show the way,” even if it leads to friction with countries which want to rein in austerity and invest in growth, notes the daily. Germany —

fears its eurozone partners will abandon fiscal rectitude if they see Germany blink domestically. […] Yet the economic case for more belt-tightening is weak. While the fiscal deficit is low and public debt manageable, the economy is slowing down. […] Were the locomotive of Europe to be put back on track, its struggling partners would follow. […] Germany has an obligation to do more than simply insist on eurozone-wide austerity, which is proving self-defeating. The best way to lead the eurozone by example is to kick-start a recovery.

The European parliament (EP) has rejected the EU 2014-2020 budget, branding it too austere. In all, 506 MEPs voted to modify the budgetary proposal submitted by member states. There were 161 votes in favour of conserving the document without changes and 23 abstentions.

The outcome of the vote was predictable, remarks Adevărul, which points out that —

… the elected representatives of the EU parliament took the view that the budget, which had been presented as a victory for common sense and a desire to strike a balance and move forward, was a hagglers’ bargain rather than a structured plan that adopts a responsible approach to the future of the EU.

As it stands, the Romanian daily adds, all of the EP’s parliamentary groups are competing to see who can be the most vocal and visible in the drive to overturn the budget. MEPs want to send a positive message to show that they care about European taxpayers. In the absence of an agreement, and while a deal is being concluded, the EU can continue to function on a budget frozen at the same level as last year’s. The daily concludes —

This latest episode is perhaps the most critical evidence of the urgent need to put an end to the current decision-making system and to modify existing treaties.

“The measures taken by European governments to save the single currency when it was on the brink may be all well and good, but they came at a very high cost when you consider the growing discontent with the European Union,” remarks the daily.

According to a recent Eurobarometer poll, citizens’ trust in the EU is in freefall in all member states, and not just the southern countries worst affected by the crisis.

“But there is one important caveat,” notes Ta Nea: “When they are asked if they would like their country to leave the Union or to give up the euro, the answer is negative.”

The European Council for Justice and Home Affairs (JHA), which is to meet on March 7, will not decide on the applications of Romania and Bulgaria to join the Schengen Area.

Decisions affecting the border-free area have to be unanimous. And Germany and Finland have already announced that they would veto the accession of the two countries, which they insist continue to be marked by a high level of corruption.

Finnish Interior Minister, Päivi Räsänen, even went as far as to declare that Bulgaria and Romania were too easily allowed into the the EU.

In an interview with Der Spiegel, German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich announced that his country intends to veto Romanian and Bulgarian accession to the Schengen Area at the next Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting on March 7.

Berlin has explained that its decision is justified by the level of corruption in both countries, while Bucharest insists that it has fulfilled all of the criteria to join the European free-movement area.

Romanian Foreign Minister Titus Corlățean declared that postponing accession would “remove credibility from the process,” and added that his country would “no longer be interested”.

“Brussels wins new powers to supervise national budgets”, writes Les Echos, in the wake of the agreement concluded between member states and the European Parliament. The “two pack”, as it has been dubbed in Brussels, will enable the Commission evaluate member state budgets and to recommend adjustments. For the business daily, the measure adds “the final touch to the new European governance”.

The “two pack”, which is set to come into force by the summer, is more “intrusive” than preceding texts, explains Les Echos —

From now on, national governments will have to present plans for next year’s budgets to Brussels before they are examined by their own parliaments. The Commission will then have the option of issuing an opinion, but not of imposing a veto. […] If its recommendations are not taken into account, the Commission can always threaten to slap financial sanctions on countries with excessive deficits.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung underlines that on the same occasion, the Commission announced that in the coming months it would examine the introduction of eurobonds and means to share the debt of eurozone countries. Finally, notes the German daily, the decision on the “two pack” —

is in tune with the fiscal compact that has long been endorsed by Europe’s heads of state, but [it] is clearer and easier to apply. The second regulation in the package lays down more stringent rules for countries that are receiving assistance or are in difficulty. These countries will now be subject to “more extensive surveillance” by the European Commission and the ECB. It also provides for direct technical assistance, like the establishment of a task force, along the lines of the one deployed in the Greek crisis.

"For the first time in the history of the EU" a European Citizen's Initiative (ECI) has been registered by the European Commission, says Spanish business daily Cinco Días. A petition of one million signatures from people in at least seven EU countries, was deposited on February 11 by Right2Water a non-governmental organisation. The petition is against the deregulation of water utilities as proposed in a directive on services. Signatories are also asking the Commission to propose legislation that would make the right to clean drinking-water a human right. For Cinco Días, this is a "democratic turning point" for the EU, because

For the first time, the European Commission will have to "share" with the people a right to initiate proposals, which it held exclusively until now. Only 10 months after the regulation on citizen's initiatives came into effect, European people have taken advantage of the options offered by institutions that usually only open their doors to listen to lobbyists.

The Commission now has three months to decide how it will respond to the petition and to justify its decision," explains Cinco Días.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is also full of praise for the initiative and notes that Germans and Austrians are the principal signatories of the proposal. In both countries water utilities are publicly-owned and

even the most sober media has become enraged by the idea that the EU will force local governments to privatise water distribution.

A small initiative has got underway to take on the nebulous interest groups that orbit around the European Parliament. Under the headline “Stick that in the law,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung introduces the brand-new project Lobbyplag, a participatory online platform and examines how the new Directive on data protection, currently being negotiated in parliamentary committees in Brussels, comes under the sway of the big Internet firms.

“If you want it, Lobbyplag is a free service for all members who would like to know where the amendments that wriggle into the legislation come from,” writes a mildly sarcastic Richard Gutjahr, co-initiator of the project, on his blog.

Joined by the now well-known Facebook critic Max Schrems and four other volunteers, Gutjahr has adopted work methods used by the “Europe vs. Facebook” initiative to compare proposals that lobbyists bring to MEPs with the amendments that get introduced by the latter.

The coincidences are sometimes amazing. The European Banking Association, for example, proposed that a company should be allowed not only to store data on its customers out of its own “legitimate interests”, but also to pass it on to other companies. This proposal can be found in “Amendment 70”, presented to the Committee on the Internal Market. Looking more closely, Lobbyplag discovers that the amendment was put forward by the Swedish MP Anne Hedh.

On this subject, notes EUobserver, Transparency International has observed that “several MEPs have copied and pasted amendments written by American Internet giants”, among them the bookseller Amazon and the Ebay auction site, “directly into the text of the Directive on personal data protection.”