Britain - Elections Miliband leads ‘new generation taking charge of Labour’

Edward Samuel Miliband, aged 45, leads a party of waning fortunes since Tony Blair held power. He is on record as saying he believes he is the best person …“to move us on from New Labour… to get back in touch with the concerns of working people.”

Some of course call him ‘Red Ed’, given his Marxist father and his left-wing mother.
Their Oxford and London School of Economics-educated son, however, won the support of the unions while sticking up for middle income earners, vowing tax cuts and better services with accountability.

In a rousing speech, he said: “Everything in this manifesto is funded. The deficit will be cut every year. And I offer this manifesto as proof — a better plan, for a better future for our country.”

Ed Miliband’s older brother David, policy chief for Blair and then foreign minister under Brown, eased out of politics when Ed won the Labour leadership in 2010. Ed had left a journalist career behind him and now became head of the Opposition, record young, at 40. David seemed not to bear him any hard feelings.

Miliband was favourable to devolving authority to lower levels of government, although critics on the left complained he was too far right, yet slowly the party began performing better. Labour also won more seats in the European elections, ahead of the conservatives though behind UKIP.

Read more: Miliband leads ‘new generation taking charge of Labour’ | euronews, world news

EU Parliament: More than 30,000 lobbyists and counting: Brussels under corporate siege

When the Polish MEP Róża Thun was elected five years ago, she thought the job would be fairly straightforward. She hadn't reckoned with the lobbyists.

Take mobile phone charges. She saw the fact that EU citizens pay eye-watering sums in other EU states as an anomaly that needed fixing. But it wasn't that simple. "We had telephone companies and lobbyists who started to invade us," she recalls. "They obviously didn't want to reduce roaming charges because it would hit them in the pocket."

To stroll around the vast, ugly and permanent building site that is Brussels' European district is to brush up against the power of the lobbies. Every office block, every glass and steel construction within a kilometre of the EU Commission council and parliament is peopled by some of the globe's biggest corporate names.

Thousands of companies, banks, law firms, PR consultancies and trade associations are there to bend ears and influence the regulations and laws that shape Europe's single market, fix trade deals, and govern economic and commercial behaviour in the European Union of 507 million people.

Lobbying is a billion-euro industry in Brussels. According to Corporate Europe Observatory, a watchdog campaigning for greater transparency, there are at least 30,000 lobbyists in Brussels, nearly matching the 31,000 staff employed by the European commission and making it second only to Washington in the concentration of those seeking to affect legislation. Lobbyists sign a transparency register run by the parliament and the commission, though it is not mandatory.

By some estimates, they influence 75% of legislation. In principle, lobbyists give politicians information and arguments during the decision-making process. In practice, the corridors of the parliament often teem with individuals, who meet MEPs in their offices or in open spaces such as the "Mickey Mouse bar" (nicknamed so because of the shape of its seats) inside the parliament.

They explain their concerns, provide a "position paper", and send in suggestions for amendments to legislative proposals. Of course, the final decision is taken by MEPs. But examples are legion of the tail wagging the dog.

Lobbying is such a crucial part of the climate in Brussels that it has spawned manuals, a documentary (Who Really Runs the EU?) and even "the worst lobby awards". Not surprisingly, the biggest movers and shakers agitate for the biggest industries with the most to gain – and lose – from European legislation.

Basically, if you are in Bruxelles or Washington - the lobbyists have taken over and politics have not much to do with Democracy anymore.

EU-Digest

Greece - Power Play: Tsipras ready for reforms, to replace Varoufakis in bailout talks

As Greece moved closer toward bankruptcy, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras seemed more eager to strike a deal with his international creditors.

Tsipras was finally ready to cut pensions, speed up privatizations and increase Value Added Tax (VAT) in luxury islands like Mykonos and Santorin. These proposals would be soon presented to the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), media reports said on Monday.

"We need to find a solution by mid-May," Nikos Filis, parliamentary representative of Tsipras' party Syriza said on Greek radio.

Tsipras was finally ready to negotiate after he spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem in separate phone calls on Sunday. He then met Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, causing the media in Greece to speculate that Varoufakis might eventually be removed from the position of chief negotiator in Greece's talks with its creditors.

Tsipras' decision could be traced back to a Eurogroup meeting in Riga last week, where eurozone finance ministers accused Varoufakis of being a "gambler" and leading his country in the wrong direction. "They want his head," said a headline in the Greek daily Ta Nea.

Euclid Tsakalotos, the deputy foreign minister, would henceforth lead all bailout talks for Greece, Tsipras said. However, Varoufakis would still remain finance minister, although his close confidante was being replaced with Nikos Chouliarakis, who has worked with the IMF, the EU and the European Central Bank before.

Read more: Tsipras ready for reforms, to replace Varoufakis in bailout talks | News | DW.DE | 27.04.2015

EU telecoms reform to address competition from WhatsApp, Skype - by Julia Fioretti

The European Commission will take into account increased competition from cable operators and alternative services such as WhatsApp (FB.O) when it overhauls Europe's telecoms rules next year, a move that will be cheered by the telecoms industry.

A draft seen by Reuters of the Commission's strategy for creating a digital single market says telecom operators compete with "over-the-top" services "without being subject to the same regulatory regime".
"It is necessary to design a fair and future-proof regulatory environment for all services," the document says.

The bloc's telecom firms such as Orange (ORAN.PA) and Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) have long called for lighter-touch regulation, after years of declining revenues and competition from new entrants, to enable them to invest in network upgrades.

Telecom companies point to increased competition from services such as Skype (owned by Microsoft (MSFT.O)) and online messaging as a reason for easing the regulatory burden.

Considering Skype, or any other "voice-over-IP" application, as a substitute for traditional phone services could lead to those companies being subject to the same obligations as traditional operators, such as offering emergency calls.

The new European executive, which took office in November, has made investment in superfast broadband a priority. But incumbent telecom operators say the current set of rules does not provide incentives to invest in their networks. The Commission will unveil its proposals for an overhaul of the telecoms framework in 2016, the document states. Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip is expected to unveil his digital single market strategy on May 6.


Read more: EU telecoms reform to address competition from WhatsApp, Skype | Reuters

Europeans Fight U.S. Trade Deal With Fear of McHospitals, Fracking Under Eiffel Tower (and they should)-by Leo Cendrowicz

It will afflict Europe with American abominations on an almost Biblical scale: cheap and dirty food, toxic waste, mind-numbing movies and television, gas-guzzling cars, all while scrapping healthcare and erasing labour rights.

That, at least, is how angry European activists are painting a planned trade deal between the European Union and the United States. A legion of horrors has been evoked about an agreement known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, which is currently under negotiation.

Dozens of groups have sprung up to oppose the planned pact, like Stop TTIP (whose website describes the deal as “a corporate coup that will put power and money into the hands of corporations and away from the elected government.”) and No TTIP (“TTIP would lock in the privatization of our public services, erode government protection for people and the environment and threaten a new round of unjust economic reforms forced on the poor”).

U.S. and E.U. officials are currently in New York this week for their ninth round of talks to hammer out the details of deal. But on Sunday, tens of thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Berlin, Brussels, Vienna, Madrid, Helsinki, Warsaw, Prague and other cities in simultaneous colorful demonstrations against TTIP.

Europe’s anti-TTIP campaigners characterize the plans as a diabolical plot to allow the likes of McDonalds to take over hospitals, Exxon to frack under the Eiffel Tower, and Google to take over parliaments. “It’s the most contested acronym in Europe,” admits Cecilia Malmström, the E.U. trade commissioner, who is in charge of the European side of the negotiations.

Work on TTIP will continue for the moment. Planned for over a decade before its formal launch in 2013, the negotiations are expected to last at least another two years. But the real test will come when the ratification process begins in European and American legislatures – some 898 amendments have so far been proposed in the European Parliament’s TTIP wish list.

 If anger continues to swell, it could dilute TTIP or derail it completely. If that happens, TTIP’s many opponents would celebrate. Whether their interests would be served by the trade pact’s demise is another matter. But even TTIP’s supporters accept that in its current form, the agreement has become a lightning rod for almost every European discontent.

Read more: Europeans Fight U.S. Trade Deal With Fear of McHospitals, Fracking Under Eiffel Tower - The Daily Beast

GM Foods: EU Commission proposes GM opt-out for member states "why not total ban?"

The European Commission has proposed a new law which would allow individual EU countries to restrict or prohibit imported genetically modified (GM) crops – even if they have been approved by the bloc as a whole. The US says the move is "not constructive."

According to EU Food Safety Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis, the plan would "grant member states a greater say as regards the use of EU-authorized GMOs in food and feed on their respective territories."

It will now go to the European Parliament and member states for further consideration. There is concern that giving nations the opportunity to opt out from EU laws goes counter to many EU initiatives which traditionally seek a common stance on EU policies.

The proposal – which covers human food and animal feed – comes as a knock to the US, which wants Europe to fully accept its GM crops as part of an EU-US free trade deal.

Note EU-Digest: This EU Commission proposal is not a solution - the EU must ban the use of genetically modified foods throughout the EU period.

Read more: EU Commission proposes GM opt-out for member states — RT News

Mercury in Vaccines: Anti-vax group defends comparing immunisation withThimerosam additive to rape

In a press release issued recently, one that almost no mainstreain Australia m media sources have bothered to report, it was announced that Dr. Brian Hooker had finally received documents from the CDC through a Freedom of Information Act that revealed the CDC had access to data linking Thimerosal in vaccines to autism, non-organic sleep disorders, and speech disorders.

Two members of Congress helped Dr. Hooker draft his letter to the CDC, after having spent nearly 10 years submitting over 100 Freedom of Information Acts to no avail.

This information is very damaging to the CDC, which has stated for years that there are no studies linking the mercury of Thimerosal in vaccines to autism.  

In another recent testimony given by the CDC in the November 2012 Congressional Hearing on Autism, they claimed there are no studies linking Thimerosal to autism. Thimerosam however is still used today in the flu shot that is administered to pregnant women and infants.

An Anti-vaccination group in Australia has defended an advert which appears to compare immunising children with being raped. The Australian Vaccination Skeptics Network posted an image of a woman with a man threateningly holding his hand over her mouth on its Facebook page earlier today.  

This information, so far, has been completely blacked out of the mainstream media.

EU-Digest