Archives for March 2008

The left took around 30 big towns and cities off Mr Sarkozy’s party and the vote is widely being seen as a rebuke to the president of ten months.

He’s letting it be known that the message has been heard and he’ll calm down a bit.

Today, at a solemn ceremony to mark the death of the last French soldier who fought in World War I, was an ideal opportunity to try out the new demeanour.

He can do it. During the election ten months ago, many were surprised that he kept a tight rein on himself, and there were no outbursts and no surprises. But after the election it was a different matter.

I talked to Sophie de Menthon, president of a small business organisation who recently wrote an open letter to the president in Le Monde newspaper, saying that she voted for him because of his dynamism, conviction and good sense but was now disappointed.

Although I was trying to getting her to talk about the perception that he hadn’t pressed ahead with economic reforms, she - like many French people - came back to the same worry.

“He promised a lot and I thought he seemed to understand the economy and he was going to get people back to work and deal with the 35 hour week. I thought, as soon as he was president, everything would change.

“But what was very important and disturbing was that, the first months, all we saw was his divorce, him meeting a top model and getting married. People want something else.”

The sense that there has been too little change, too much in the gossip columns, is very widespread.

Not that you can really accuse Mr Sarkozy of standing still. Indeed another of Sophie de Menthon’s complaints was that he seemed to dash from one problem to the next, suggesting he could solve everything.

Politicians complain about this too.

Ideas powerhouse

At home and abroad he is a powerhouse of new ideas. But many of them are not thought through, or even discussed in advance.

What frustrates both foreign diplomats and French civil servants and ministers is his ability to come up with an amazing new idea which they then have to interpret, explain or defend, whether it is the Mediterranean Union or Holocaust education for children.

This is about style and mood. I re-visit Riss, a cartoonist for Charlie Hebdo and co-author of a brilliant picture book on Sarkozy’s rise to power.

He dashes off cartoons so quickly it’s unbelievable, quickly sketching a cartoon of Sarkozy jumping with energy, his wrists covered with flash watches.

This time of a Sarkozy as a glum farmer shoving manure: hard working, diligent, and not having too much fun.

I ask him what the French want in a President, looking for a short answer for a TV piece. But instead of replying in words he just says "well, something like this..." and starts to sketch another picture.

What does he think of Sarkozy’s promise to change his style? He draws the President of Bling, in wrap-around shades despite the rain and lightning all around him.

“He will never change. Whether it rains or it storms he can’t change. It’s beyond him.”

I'm taking a break over Easter so this will be my last post for a while.

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Could Shannon have been found earlier if there had been common European guidelines for police to follow?

Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott wants the European Union to adopt a common alert scheme for missing children.

He says that Shannon Mathews would have been found much earlier if there had been one in operation.

The scheme he favours is based on the American Amber Alert, and it would have meant that all members of the extended family would have been interviewed.

In the US, 80% of cases involving missing children involve a relative. Mr McMillan-Scott has met with Alain Lamassoure who is advising the French President on ways the EU can be more involved in cross-border activity.

He wants the French to press the idea when they take over the EU presidency in the summer.

The commission will probably be keen: the justice commissioner says he likes to see the EU as “the guardian angel” of children. What do you think?

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What should we watch for after this summit?

Probably how the Germans mitigate the pain involved in cutting greenhouse gases.

They, and of course other countries, are worried about their heavy industry and their cars, and how they will fare if Europe has tough rules, but no one else does.

So Mrs Merkel got agreement on this form of words:

"The European Council recognises that in a global context of competitive markets, the risk of carbon leakage is a concern in certain sectors such as energy intensive industries particularly exposed to international competition that needs to be analysed and addressed urgently in the new ETS directive so that if international negotiations fail, appropriate measures can be taken."

"Carbon leakage" is rather loaded jargon for companies or production going from a country with tight environmental rules to one with lower regulations, so the net effect of tough legislation is more carbon dioxide in the world's atmosphere.

It means that before the European leaders negotiate at the 2009 Copenhagen summit on climate change, they will have a fallback position.

The European Union would still go ahead with proposals to cut carbon dioxide emissions but there will be plans in place either to impose tariffs on carbon intensive goods from countries that won’t sign up, or to exempt certain industries from the general EU rules.

One would outrage the free traders, the other would annoy environmentalists.

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Watch me eat my words.

Gordon Brown has got what he wanted on VAT and it's far more than any of us in Brussels expected.

Only a few hours before, people in the commission were saying that he couldn’t just appear with a new form of words on Day Two of a summit rather than go through the lengthy preparatory meetings.

The final text isn’t out yet but I understand it will be along the lines of “the European Council asks the commission to come forward with legislative proposals to examine whether VAT can play an important role in encouraging the use of energy efficiency goods”.

A gloating Downing Street aide made those of us who’d got it wrong squirm as he pointed out that the letters “VAT” were in the text twice.

The suggestion is that this is in return for giving the Germans something on “energy intensive industries” but I haven't got the latest on this yet.

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Gordon Brown’s proposals for cutting VAT on environmentally friendly goods have been slapped down.

At last night's news conference, cold water was poured on the idea. Mr Brown got hardly any support from his fellow prime ministers and presidents at the dinner.

A planned joint letter with President Sarkozy hasn’t emerged. It all came as a bit of a shock to Number Ten. They are now working hard to get some form of words in the official conclusions that at least look as if they could nod towards the idea.

Why this failure? After all the mood here, of extreme alarm about climate, forging a few handy alliances can’t be that difficult.

But it seems little of the spadework has been done. Although Mr Brown has certainly talked about this before, it's not a running campaign, and seems like an idea whistled up in the last few days. There has been no real effort to get people here in Brussels or the capitals to lend their weight to it.

Deadly mechanics

It is all rather odd. In Westminster, at least in the many years I watched him, Mr Brown employed mechanics. Not in the American sense of hit men, although they could be deadly.

These were people, often former trade unionists turned MPs, who loved rolling their sleeves up and getting covered in oil as they tinkered with the engines of power. They knew exactly how things worked, and how to make things work for them.

They reminded me of Scotty in Star Trek, jerry-rigging the warp drive to get a few more ounces of power out of it so the Captain could get out of his latest scrape.

They would shout up to the bridge: “I‘ve done all I can: I can give you a few extra votes, but it cannae hold much longer!”

The Captain would back Mr Blair into a corner with a putative rebellion, get the general secretary of his choice, or whatever conference vote he wanted fixed.

Free-floating charisma

It was all rather different to Mr Blair's style of apparently free-floating, charismatic exhortation.

But Mr Brown doesn’t use the mechanics based here in Brussels.

The diplomats of the UK representation don’t look or sound much like Scottish trade unionists, and I suspect Mr Brown doesn’t have much time for the Foreign Office.

But he shouldn’t be fooled by the double firsts and summer dresses. These urbane alchemists are in essence the same as the mechanics.

Like the mechanics back home, they know which wires carry the power, when to cut them or cross them, when to sweet talk and when to talk tough.

When I have suggested in the past that Mr Brown might get more out of the EU if he engaged a bit more, some of you have taken that as pro EU bias.

I think this case shows why it is not. Mr Brown has a policy objective, to lower VAT on certain goods. He could, of course, achieve that by withdrawing Britain from the EU or the VAT regime.

But that is clearly not his policy and indeed he has made it clear in an interview with me that he thinks it's appropriate to set VAT at a European level. So if he wants to get his way, he has to get the support of other leaders and the commission.

And to do that he's going to have to learn to trust and use people who understand the set of tools that allows you to tinker with the Brussels machine.

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It’s a natural reaction to pull the shutters closed when it's blowing a gale outside.

But at this summit Gordon Brown is determined to persuade his colleagues that, while the world's financial system may be suffering something a little more serious than bracing fresh air, they mustn't batten down the hatches.

In the first round of talks here, Europe's leaders have been chewing over the latest financial turmoil in the markets.

The form of words that they're discussing is full of suggestions that the EU should stand ready to take "regulatory and supervisory actions" and develop "improved tools for financial crisis management".

They're also talking about the increasing role of investment by oil-rich countries. The commission is due to come up with a paper at the end of June on these Sovereign Wealth funds.

But Gordon Brown is worried that some leaders who want to beef up the rules may send exactly the wrong signals in a crisis when investment is scarce.

He's concerned that Europe could look inward and protectionist, and I am told that is what much of the discussion on Friday will be about.

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Gordon Brown, in an eco-friendly mood, travelled to the summit by train.

You can see his interview with me about climate change and his VAT proposals, and why he thinks its appropriate the tax is handled at a European level by clicking here.

I also had the chance to ask him about the future of the British commissioner, his old pal and ally (no, I jest) Peter Mandelson.

Some time ago, Mr Mandelson said that he didn’t want a second term in the job (the commission changes with the Parliament in 2009).

Reliable sources tell me he came off a plane tired and was confronted by journalists who had the story that Gordon Brown wanted to sack him.

His immediate and unconsidered reaction was that he had other things to do and didn’t want another term. He has spoken to the Prime Minister who asked him why he didn’t want it and what his intentions were.

Mr Mandelson’s view is that it's too early to make a decision and that the discussion can be had next year. It's this view that was reflected in newspaper stories at the weekend.

So I asked Mr Brown about it all. “Mr Mandelson has said he doesn’t want to become the next commissioner, but he wants to do only one term," he said.

"But Peter Mandelson has done a great job as a commissioner.

"I talk to him regularly about what we can do about trade. He is leading negotations to get a trade agreement and I will be talking to him about how to move that forward.”

But, I persisted, what if he had changed his mind, as reported in the newspapers: would he back him and give him the job?

“I haven’t seen those reports. But I think its important to say he’s done a great job as a commissioner. And of course it's his wish that he wishes to do something else - but the important thing that we know is that we are proud of what he has achieved for Britain”.

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Europe’s prime ministers and presidents will meet in Brussels today for their spring meeting. What will they be talking about?

•Green tax

The chancellor announced some green-friendly measures in the Budget but he didn’t go as far as the prime minister would have liked.

For that Mr Brown has to come to Brussels. Much of today’s summit of the European Union’s prime ministers and presidents will be spent endorsing the details of a plan aimed at fighting climate change.

But Mr Brown thinks they should go further and cut tax on green-friendly goods, whether energy-efficient refrigerators or loft insulation. But the EU’s rules say that sales tax - VAT - has to be set at a minimum of 15%. There are a whole load of exemptions for individual countries, but even then VAT can’t be set below 5%.

Will he succeed? You would think the other European leaders would be enthusiastic.

Their diplomats have already signed up to a text which urges the adoption of coherent policies which improve energy efficiency and “recognise that addressing energy and climate change is also a matter of shaping values and changing citizens’ behaviour.”

The French president is apparently signed up.

But the German leader Angela Merkel won’t back the plan. The last time this was raised, so many other countries asked for exemptions on their pet projects that it was abandoned.

But if this is a serious way to fight what the EU identifies as one of the biggest threats of our time, should they be prepared to squirm a little as they open a can of worms?

•Energy row

Mr Brown also intends to fire a few shots in the long-running war over Europe’s economic direction. The current battle is over a determination to break up huge energy companies. It’s happened in Britain, but not in France and Germany.

Fans of economic liberalism, such as the commission and the British government, say the single market can’t work properly while electricity companies own both power stations that generate the energy and the grid that distributes it (the same goes for gas companies too).

While the two are linked, it makes it very difficult for any other company to get into the market, so there’s no real competition.

The British government argues that making the single market work properly would mean more opportunity for British companies, and lower prices for consumers in the rest of Europe.

Ministers say that it would also benefit consumers because it makes energy supply more certain by encouraging fresh investment in equipment.

The commission’s first simple proposal to break up the companies was met with howls of protests from France and Germany.

They, along with Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Luxembourg, Latvia and Slovakia, have come up with an alternative plan. They argue in a letter that splitting up the companies’ network doesn’t cut prices or encourage investment and has “negative social consequences”.

They propose instead that there should be Chinese walls between the two halves of an operation.

The commission has hit back in a speech by the tough Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes who argues this falls short of what has already been agreed and doesn’t do the job required.

For a while now, the commission, clearly feeling aching muscles in this tug-of-war, has been urging Mr Brown to “pull on the other end of the rope” and perhaps haul Mr Sarkozy across the line.

Diplomats say Mr Brown will give “strong support” to the commission and will pull as hard on the rope as is needed to keep the main proposals alive.

The commission is feeling confident. Not because of any support from Mr Brown but because of one word, “E.ON”.

It’s the Germany energy giant which has agreed to break itself up and sell off its energy grid to avoid legal action by the commission. This row will be aired today, but perhaps not resolved until the next big meeting in June.

•How climate change could flood Europe: not with water but with people

Foreign affairs high representative Javier Solana will present his rather alarming vision of the political impact of climate change.

He suggests that, as island states and coastal areas disappear beneath the waves, and as fertile areas in Africa dry up, there will be increased conflicts over land, water and food.

These conflicts could fuel radicalisation. Shortages and disorder could mean a refugee crisis for the European Union. It’s a rather apocalyptic vision, perhaps appropriate given this bizarre website which I have just stumbled across.

•Taking Sarko too 'littorally'

The French have watered down their plans for a Mediterranean Union. This was originally a wheeze proposed by Nicholas Sarkozy during his election campaign, apparently to appease the Turks, whom he doesn’t want inside the EU.

The Germans felt that it could be a threat to the European Union itself, creating a club from which the landlocked and those next to rougher seas than the Med were excluded.

More practically they were concerned about EU funds being siphoned off to the Maghreb via this new organisation. They appear to have come to some agreement where it would supplement an existing link-up of countries in the region, called the Barcelona process.

The French President has also given way by turning a planned celebration of the Mediterranean Union on 14 July in aris into a summit of the European Union.

As ever, none of these may turn out to be what dominates the summit, indeed it may turn out, as people have been saying for weeks, that this is a summit with a lot substance, but no story.

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Those who want to stop the Lisbon Treaty may be in the mood for grasping, not at straws, but snus.

This is what’s known as “moist oral snuff” but is basically chewing tobacco in a sort of tea bag. It seems that Finland is so exercised about a European Union ban on the product that there is a suggestion that they could reject the treaty.

Or at least the Aland Islands' government could reject it. The islands are a semi-autonomous province of Finland, which voted separately to the rest of Finland to join the EU and have special exemptions from certain European Union rules.

Now it wants more... or else.

Snus ban

Although snus was banned in the European Union in 1992, an exception was made for Sweden when it became an issue in their 1994 referendum about joining the EU.

Ships from the Aland Islands want to be able to sell it in Swedish waters. Although the Aland government could vote against the treaty and simply be outside its scope, YLE news reports that Finnish government ministers don’t find this acceptable.

I can’t see the European Commission risking the treaty over the issue, and it looks very much as if the Finns are playing hardball to get concessions, but interesting nonetheless.

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The ecstatically happy crowd of men and women waving red socialist flags are roaring and shouting, waiting expectantly for their man to appear at the podium in the shape of a big red “Z”.

The noise is so great that I can’t hear my cue from the TV studios in London and my producer, the multi-talented Sean Klein, adds another skill to his repertoire. He has to sit at my feet and bang my leg when it's time to to talk, like the owner of a performing horse.

'Super Zapatero'

The crowd chants “Super Zapatero” and it takes some minutes for the newly re-elected Prime Minister of Spain to quiet them down. When he does, he promises to govern “for all of Spain”.

Super Z, with his circumflex eyebrows, may not be the most obvious superhero, but he has performed a stunning feat: when all the opinion polls were predicting he might just squeak home he has actually increased his party’s number of MPs.

But hang on, what’s this? Over at the headquarters of the opposition PP, Rajoy is on the platform, cuddling his wife, a big smile on his face.

His supporters may be a little more subdued, but they are cheering and waving their blue flags with enthusiasm.

There’s not a despondent face in the crowd and a spokesman calls the result “magnificent”.

Electoral maths

For the opposition have also increased their share of the vote and number of MPs. How to explain this weird (to British eyes) electoral maths? Well, some of the smaller parties have suddenly got a lot smaller.

No doubt psephologists will be crawling over the results for some time to come.

So here are some initial thoughts about the reasons for the vote. At this stage, this is guesswork and only scientific in the sneeze that these are disprovable theses.

It may be that Spain has voted for a two party system. Many observers have commented that the traditional division between two Spains - socialist secularists and Catholic conservatives - has got sharper in the last four years.

Perhaps many have seen this as the real choice. Or perhaps, with the economy taking a nose-dive, people think only the bigger parties can provide the answer.

The losers

Who has taken the hit? The biggest losers are the ERC, a left-wing Catalan party which goes down from eight seats to three. That’s interesting because the CiU - the Catalan conservatives - increase their number of MPs from 10 to 11.

The IU, a pact of greens and communists, go from five seats to two. The Basque PNV lose one seat as do the Canary Islands Cooalition and Aragon nationalists, who no longer have anyone in Parliament. A new party, led by a former socialist concerned about more power for the regions, wins its first seat.

So perhaps left-wingers, at least, have decided that Zapatero is their best hope, and wanted to make sure the conservatives didn’t take power. It's possible that the government's policy of giving more power to Spain’s regions was enough for some, who are then happy to vote nationally in national elections.

Given that the desire of some Catalans for independence, and the real fears of some Spaniards that their country could be on the verge of flying apart, socialists will argue that their relaxed approach to regional government has paid off.

But Zapatero is still short of a working majority and taking votes from other left-wing parties won’t make the coming negotiations any easier. Spain is in for another interesting four years.

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Partial results suggest that Zapatero has increased his number of MPs from 164 to 169.

If the projections are right, it is a bit of a surprise, as most polls were predicting he would win but lose seats. It's even more curious because the turn-out was down on last time around and a high turn-out was thought to favour the socialists.

The socialists' first reaction was that the winner was democracy and their first thoughts were for the family of the man murdered on Friday.

The killing of a former socialist councillor in the Basque region dominated the end of the Spanish election campaign, although perhaps did not change its mood.

That effect was highlighted because no electioneering was allowed by law from midnight on Friday to when the polls closed, so the only political news in the papers or on TV was the reaction to the murder.

The natural reaction was that the people might turn more towards the conservative PP because throughout the campaign, indeed throughout the last four years, they have criticised the government for being soft on Eta terrorism.

But it may simply have encouraged people to vote, to show their faith in democracy.

Brave daughter

In particular, the empassioned and rather brave statement of the dead man's daughter called on people to vote in his memory and reminded people he was a socialist.

And when the opposition leader Mariano Rajoy went to pay his last respects he was told off by the Basque socialist leader for having said in the past that they had betrayed the victims of terrorism and was asked not to repeat this.

So, despite the politicans' initial instincts to show unity, the positions they have taken up are as sharp as anything else in this rather bitter campaign.

Many commentators said that the murder wouldn’t affect the result - and perhaps they were right -but it certainly made for a very sombre backdrop.

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It was an emotional looking Zapatero who clasped his Basque socialists comrades as he arrived in the north. All Spanish parties had agreed to call off the final hours of campaigning because of the murder of a former Socialist councillor. Everyone assumes Eta were to blame.

The leader of the conservative PP has also been to the home town of the murdered man to meet his widow. Senior politicians are likely to attend the funeral later today. They immediately called off campaigning and cancelled planned rallies.

I have no way of knowing if every door knocker and leafleter ceased their activity. And in fact because no campaigning is allowed today they have only forfeited a couple of hours of coverage.

As I write Spanish TV is replaying solemn statements from the two leaders, although Spanish law forbids them to broadcast ordinary political statements.

In the Spanish Parliament other leaders gathered to issue a statement condemning the killing and showing solidarity against Eta, which not issued any statement claiming to have committed the murder.

But was it right to react in such a way?

Politicians are always quick to say that terrorism will not influence them. Yet whether it is introducing harsher laws or starting peace talks, it does. But in this case have the Spanish politicians sent out the wrong signals?

It is understandable why they have reacted as they did. After the terrible bombing that killed a 191 people three days before the last election it raised awful memories. When the conservatives blamed Eta rather than Islamists it seemed to change the result. This time they wanted to show dignity and unity.

This was also the first Eta murder on Spanish soil for two years so it wasn’t merely the continuation of a long running campaign. Of course it is right to pay tribute to the murdered man and attempt words of comfort to his family. But won’t the murderer be sitting at home, watching TV, chuckling that he can jerk the strings of a nation? Is it right to cancel the normal democratic process?

I am glad my job is to raise questions not take decisions that answer them.

By the way, in reply to some e-mails I have got I take it the lack of comments on recent items is a technical problem rather than a boycott campaign. It's as frustrating for me as for you (my questions are not rhetorical) and we are trying to fix it.

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Police in balaclava masks stand by the red and white tape that cordons off the crime scene, a very ordinary looking series of flats, divided by low hedges. It was here that a former councillor of the socialist party was shot three times in the neck, and he later died in hospital.

The conservative leader Mariano Rajoy has been quick to blame Eta. He said: "Everybody knows what I think: those who are guilty of this crime are the terrorists, the Eta murderers, and the only option is the defeat of Eta through the law, through the instruments of the rule of law, with the state security forces and bodies and the incorruptible will of the 45 million Spaniards who make up this great nation, which is called Spain."

It is a fair bet that Eta is to blame for this murder, and the police certainly think that they were responsible but they haven’t yet made a statement.

Rajoy’s alacrity is perhaps surprising seeing that most people think his insistence on blaming Basque terrorists for the Madrid train bombings lost him the last election.

Campaigning has been suspended and Zapatero and Rajoy will meet in parliament later tonight. Basque terrorism has been a big issue in the election with the opposition accusing the government of being too soft. But in all such cases politicians tread a very fine line between saying what they really think and being accused of exploiting terrible events for political gain.

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The conservative challenger, Mariano Rajoy, looked happy and relaxed, clutching a microphone, dressed in a brown jacket and open-necked blue shirt, surrounded by pretty teenage girls.

He told the crowd a secret: when he made his speeches and his policy, he had in his head an imaginary friend, a little girl, Victoria Esperanza: Victory Hope.

Like a crooner, he holds the mic out to his female chorus who echo “Victoria, Victoria, Victoria”. Cheesy, I suppose, but I thought pretty effective. The crowd, of course, loved it.

I wasn’t there but instead in Aranjuez, the town built by Spain’s eighteenth century royal family as a summer retreat.

The old livery stables now house a poly and a cultural centre and I went there to see a small socialist rally. Zapatero’s party is in power, and they are determined not to lose it.

Turn-out

Most reckon they will win if they can motivate the voters to go to the polls on Sunday, but a low turn-out could see victory for the conservative People’s Party.

This small town rally began with a film of three famous singers belting out a tune in support of Zapatero: the hook-line - “don’t let joy be overtaken by disaster”.

At the end, they make the sign for Zapatero: a crooked finger over the eye, mimicking the man’s right-angled eyebrows. There’s no doubt, as I reported here earlier and will in my piece on the Ten O’Clock News tonight, that the economy is the background to the election, and the main concern of many people.

Two Spains

But here, among the activists, nearly all the people I talk to suggest that what they are campaigning for is the continuation of a socially liberal project: gay marriages, the fight against domestic violence (something mentioned a lot by both Zapatero and his supporters) and the legalization of abortion.

They say a conservative victory would turn the clocks back.

One of the main speakers, the town’s mayor, says that the conservatives have changed: when Spain was coming out of the dictatorship, all parties wanted to work together, but now the PP are negative.

He says they see democracy as a tax they have to pay, but believe power rightfully belongs to them.

Subtly, and not so subtly, the socialists are trying to brush the opposition with the tar of Franco. It is an obvious electoral ploy, designed to motivate not just the left but those who like the liberal, relaxed, new Spain.

It’s not just socialist supporters but objective analysists who tell me that Rajoy has moved to the right; allied himself more closely with the conservatives in the Catholic church, and cut out more moderate conservatives such as the mayor of Madrid.

There is a feeling here that the sharp conflict between the “Two Spains” that led to the civil war and survived throughout the dictatorship is re-emerging.

Of course, one can overstate this. And in one sense it is entirely natural that, in the effort to become a democratic country, differences had to be rather unnaturally submerged. Now the normal tensions between two visions of society are out in the open again.

'Man of moderation'

But Spain’s equivalent of the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Gustavo de Aristegui, tells me that this is simply not true. He says to associate them with the dictatorship “is so untrue its simply vile. We probably have more sons, grandsons and granddaughters of democrats that the other side”.

But what about the suggestion that Rajoy has taken the party to the right?

“I have worked with him for many years and he is a man of great moderation,” he says.

“We are probably more to the centre than the British Conservatives. The campaign is nasty, not because of the people involved, but because the issues are grave.”

He says the main issue is the economy. When I speak to him (by ‘phone), he’s campaigning in his constituency of Zamora.

He says a 65-year-old woman has just told him that the macroeconomics may be all right but she can’t buy bread with macro economics.

Mr de Aristegui says his private calculations show they will win at least 162 seats: enough for “Victoria”, although this may be more “Esperanza” than hard maths. However, he says there is a hidden conservative vote.

We will see on Sunday. Saturday is a day for reflection, not campaigning, and there is a news blackout we have to respect on this site until eight o'clock British time, but more after the polls close.

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I watched several MPs in the Commons argue that there shouldn’t be a referendum because people wouldn’t read the Lisbon Treaty.

It’s something I discussed on the Jeremy Vine Show and it’s certainly true that it’s a difficult and abstruse document.

But the Irish government clearly credits its people with more intelligence and has published legislation to go ahead with a vote on the treaty.

No date yet, but the rumour is Bertie Ahern will announce it during next week’s European summit.

While European politicians were most nervous about the prospect of a British referendum, an Irish “No” is not an impossibility.

Of course, the Irish rejected the Nice treaty in 2001. The Irish government broadly blamed it on a lack of time spent campaigning and will not make the same mistake again.

Although after the Nice “No” they were required to vote again, I am pretty sure that would be impossible in the current climate.

So an Irish “No” would be a very serious business. It would surely kill off the treaty of Lisbon, as surely as the French and Dutch killed off the constitution.

Which would leave the leaders of the EU is a very tricky position: would they really spend the next two years trying to tweak the text again so that it looked sufficiently different, to go through the whole process again?

Rejection signs?

Some are already suggesting the foundations for rejections are there.

Euractiv cites an opinion poll that shows 33% of voters are undecided.

An interesting paper from the Centre for European Reform lists more factors that could encourage a “No” vote: from the investigation into the financial affairs of Bertie Ahern, which may make the government unpopular, to the Irish Independent reprinting articles from the Daily Telegraph (although it wrongly states the Telegraph doesn’t have a correspondent in Brussels).

In Ireland, the argument is already underway. There’s a new group call Libertas campaigning against the treaty. Its arguments are not the traditional British ones about sovereignty and an increase in the power of “Brussels” but about hard economics.

Their argument is the contention that: “The threat of the Treaty provisions is that the EU could force Ireland to behave like a ‘rich’ economy in terms of regulatory and other breaks for Foreign Direct Investment. The implications of this are potentially devastating.”

Tax veto

European Affairs Minister Dick Roche has hit back, saying the Reform Treaty preserves the existing treaty arrangements whereby taxation matters must be decided by unanimous vote.

He says taxation matters are and will remain a decision for member states: any member state can veto any proposal on taxation.

He adds: “We need to ask ourselves what message a No vote would send to the US boardrooms where investment decisions are made. If we are seen to park Ireland in some Eurosceptic backwater, what message will we be sending out?”

The Commons debate was good but things always get more lively when a whole nation is involved, and this is going to be an interesting debate to watch.

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“We expect the Germans to bang the table,” one source told me.

And there will be a quiet murmur of approval from the British minister if they do. The commission representative might quietly applaud. But none of them seems quite sure what they can actually do.

The Germans would like something to be done about tiny states that act as tax havens.

This is not surprising as they are in the middle of a still unravelling scandal about rich people avoiding paying tax by hiding it away in Liechtenstein.

'Bullying tactics'

They’ve been accused of bullying and a top Swiss banking official had to apologise for accusing them of using Gestapo tactics.

A German spokesman told me in brisk Anglo-Saxon language that a report in the Financial Times that they had prepared a paper on the way forward for today’s ecofin meeting was nonsense.

But most here think it would suit the Germans if the European Union as a whole could act, rather than leave it to them alone. They were already going to report on negotiations with Hong Kong and Macao and this is certain to lead to a wider discussion.

Sources tell me the commission is, in theory, keen on toughening up the rules. It feels the current savings directive is full of loopholes and lacks teeth.

It will almost certainly announce that a planned review of this directive will be brought forward from the autumn to the early summer.

But what they can do? Britain would be keen on putting pressure on the small countries to at least abide by OECD rules on openness.

But how to put pressure on them? One particular loophole is the tax dodgers setting themselves up as “foundations”, so ducking the rules that cover individuals.

Commission Sources say some countries, such as France and Luxembourg, may be against any loophole-closing. And even if ministers could reach agreement, designing new rules is difficult.

But what about the principles? Should there be European Union rules on this? Is such tax evasion morally wrong or a clever use of accountants? I would love to hear a billionaire explain why they should be a foundation.

6PM BRUSSELS

They should have expected it but I am told ministers were rather surprised that the German finance minister hijacked the meeting and lectured them for ten minutes on the inequities of tax havens, demanding the loopholes should be closed.

I'm told "he went off on one". The commission's response was rather more bland.

It's possible new laws may be on the way: but it'll take a time, as things do in Brussels.

The commission will speed up its review and have something on paper by the end of June.

This is the UK Treasury's response: "Tax evaders should not be able to hide behind banking secrecy laws. We need
clear pressure from Ecofin and the commission on Lichtenstein to provide more information to make sure people are not acting illegally to evade their tax obligations.

"The EU Savings Directive has already led to a big increase in transparency and co-operation across borders to prevent tax evasion.

"The UK supports the commission's proposals to bring forward the timing of the review into the Savings Directive."

Watch this space.

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I had rather more sympathy than usual with the politician, whom I know to be a highly intelligent chap with very well-developed powers of analysis, as he aimlessly wandered around failing to make his point in a radio interview at the weekend.

I was still feeling a bit annoyed with myself for my performance on Radio Four’s Feedback programme.

Not that the interview was anything other than courteous and gentle, but on listening back to myself, I felt I was too busy agreeing with listeners who felt we should do more on European politics and not enough explaining how much we do in fact do.

But the complaints the programme had taken up were interesting. One strand was about the lack of coverage of the Lisbon treaty in Parliament which I have written about before.

But Charles Bell had a more specific complaint. I like specific complaints: unlike general accusations of bias, you can do a bit of soul searching or simple research and answer them.

His argument was that the BBC didn’t lie, but revealed pro-EU bias by editorial decisions that suppress certain European stories. He singled out the recent revelations about a secret report on MEPs’ abuses of their expenses.

I’m going to give you chapter and verse on this because I think, in general, while we at the BBC are good at engaging in quasi-philosophical arguments about coverage, I think we sometimes shy away from discussing the nuts and bolts of decision-making.

This can give the impression of a monolithic institution where all heads nod at the same time, rather than the seething arguments and sometimes chaotic process that exist in the real world. Mr Bell says he did not hear the story mentioned on Radio Four.

My colleague Dominic Hughes broadcast a news report on the 7am bulletin on Radio Four and the story was also in a number of newspapers. Today interviewed the MEP behind the revelations, Chris Davies. A portion of this interview was then used on the 8am bulletin.

It was immediately obvious that this was a story that the editors liked.

Someone once described a news story along the lines of something surprising, but not too surprising. This story fitted that cynical definition.

Fat cats

It chimed with the perception of the MEPs as fat cats, and was a good follow-on to the recent running story about MP Derek Conway’s office expenses.

I was phoned by the editors of both the TV news at Six and Ten and we agreed that this was likely to be a better story than Gordon Brown’s visit to the commission in Brussels, which was happening later that day.

News 24 did a live interview with Chris Davies and leader of the Labour MEPs, Gary Titley, and I recorded them for my planned piece.

Just as I was leaving the office for Gordon Brown’s news conference, an important story broke: the foreign secretary’s statement on “extraordinary rendition”.

This would push us down the bulletin’s running order but the editors assured me they still wanted to run with the MEPs’ expenses.

A few hours later, I was justabout to put my coat on and go down to the Parliament in Brussels to do some pieces to cameras, when the news broke of the verdict in the Suffolk murders.

I realised immediately the game was up. Both the Six and the Ten would want to run extensive reports and background pieces. MEPs’ expenses would be squeezed out.

The editors took a little while longer changing their running orders, but I knew the ‘phone-call was coming. The Radio Four Six o’clock bulletin took the same decision, although they kept a piece I had done on Brown’s visit.

Editorial choices

Editors have limited time in their bulletins and have to make difficult choices. Personally, I am at least as interested in MEPs’ expenses as the murders, especially when the question “why did he do it?” can’t be answered.

But I know I’m weird. If I had been in the hot seat and editing TV bulletins I would have easily overcome my own dislike of crime stories and would have made exactly the same decision.

That’s not quite the end of the tale. Rather to my surprise the Today Programme liked the story so much that they did it again on Saturday, even though nothing had really changed.

So, no pro-European bias, rather the reverse: initial enthusiasm for a story that backed up a stereotype which fell victim to something that happened: otherwise known as a much stronger news story.

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