International

The European Union's Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, found it necessary in a recently submitted article to remind the British once more that the internal market is one and indivisible. If the UK doesn't accept free movement of persons and of services, then there will be no free movement of goods. There is a reason for this rigidity. Whatever we may hear about a social Europe, the core of the existing form of European integration remains the insistence that there is one market and that this can't be avoided by national action. The Brexit referendum revolved around the questions of free movement of persons and services, rather than trade in goods. Rather than reconsidering matters in the light of these concerns, Barnier is slamming the door in Britain's face. This is a foolish response to the UK, but also to other member states where people have similar concerns.

Just a week to go until the summer recess, but there's still hard work to be done around the European Commission's proposals for the protection of whistle-blowers. What's striking about these proposals is that they offer protection to all whistle-blowers everywhere, except in the EU institutions themselves, which go unmentioned in the proposed legislative text. This fits a trend, where the Commission is happy to tell the member states what they must do, but lags behind when it comes to its own practices.

Attention has been so focussed on the debate around immigration that other important issues have been hardly noticed. The heads of EU member state governments, for instance, last week voted to establish a European Defence Fund. I am not in the least surprised that these leaders took no notice of the criticisms of the militarisation of the European research programme from ourselves and others, but that they should ignore the call from more than 800 scientists to at least spend no money on the development of killer robots was less predictable.  The combination of artificial intelligence and weapons is - literally and figuratively – deadly. The EU, however, finds this of sufficient interest to develop it further. Nothing, absolutely nothing, remains of the original ideal of peace. 

SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong is urging authorities in the Netherlands to be extremely circumspect when it comes to the extradition of Dutch citizens to Poland, Hungary and other EU member states where the rule of law is under pressure.  Explaining his concerns, De Jong said that “a report published today by the NGO Fair Trials International, Beyond Surrender Putting human rights at the heart of the European Arrest Warrant,
reveals that following extradition to Poland, amongst other countries, many people accused of crimes are kept in inhuman conditions. In such a case it's important to be able to trust an independent judge who will rule as to whether it's really necessary to remand a suspect in custody and if so, ensure that he or she will be well-treated and receive adequate care. Fair Trials give the example of a heavily pregnant woman extradited from the Netherlands to Poland, where she gave birth in custody where there was inadequate care for her baby, which was ill. Under normal circumstances it's important in such cases to be circumspect with regard to extradition, but if the judge isn't independent I'd rather not see vulnerable people extradited to Poland at all. We shouldn't be taking those risks.”