The European Union has had some notoriously ill-inspired rules and regulations. Now Frans Timmermans, a Dutch politician in charge of cutting red tape within the European Commission, the bloc’s executive, next week will present a “Better Regulation Package” – of which Real Time Brussels has seen a draft.

At the heart of it is beefing up the practice of drawing up impact assessments for every new piece of legislation, looking at the rationale and expected effects not only for the initial text proposed by the European Commission, but also for the emerging compromise with national governments and the European Parliament. Read More »

In this week’s Brussels Beat column, we discussed a possible solution to British Prime Minister David Cameron’s pledge to renegotiate the U.K.’s relationship with the European Union — given that a major overhaul of the EU treaty is impossible before the “in-out” referendum due by the end of 2017. In an interview Thursday with Alex Barker of the Financial Times, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond noticeably didn’t repeat his boss’s call made before the election for a “proper, full-on treaty change.”

But if the “Danish solution” we discuss in the column is a possible “how,” Brussels is also occupied with the “who.” Who will be the central players in the negotiations on this side of the English Channel?  Who in Brussels will take the “Brexit” — British Exit” — file, as it is being casually referred to in the corridors of EU power?

Over the jump: five top actors to watch. Read More »

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the European Union is set to approve a military mission to take on criminal gangs smuggling people from the Libyan coast to Europe, with foreign and defense ministers expected to back the broad outline of the plan when they meet in Brussels next Monday.

We reported that some of the more ambitious options to tackle the gangs may need to be pared back in the face of international concerns, especially in Russia and China, about approving a binding United Nations Security Council resolution allowing use of force in and around Libya. Russia in particular wants to avoid any repeat of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led military action, underwritten by UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which ousted former Libyan dictator Col. Muammar Gadhafi in 2011.

On Wednesday, as the EU laid out new plans to confront its migration crisis, we were one of a number of media outlets to obtain a draft of the mission plan. The draft includes a number of ambitious measures to stifle the smuggling gangs, including a possible presence on the ground and targeting of vessels and assets on the Libyan shore. Read More »

Judging by a tweet posted on the day Britain was re-electing the Tories back into power, one might be forgiven to think Guy Verhofstadt is an Anglophile.

He was certainly not one back in December 2011, when Mr. Verhofstadt, taking the floor in the European Parliament, refused to speak in English, saying it was “not an appropriate language.” This was just after the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, had vetoed an attempt by fellow European leaders to change the European Union’s treaties. In the end, he lost, as they did adopt the change, anyway, by an inter-governmental agreement.

Mr. Cameron, freshly re-elected Prime Minister, can look forward to direct encounters with Mr. Verhofstadt,  if he insists on treaty change as an outcome of the negotiations with the EU ahead of a promised referendum on Britain’s membership. Read More »

Within the European Commission, Jyrki Katainen is known as the “roadshow vice president,” President Jean-Claude Juncker’s apostle travelling throughout Europe and spreading the word about an investment fund  projected to unlock€315 billion in investments.

But with the fund likely to be set up in September, Mr. Katainen has already set his eyes on his next mission: working with the Brits on European Union reform ahead of their in-or-out referendum.

“We don’t know what to expect from the negotiations, because we don’t know exactly what kind of issues they would like to raise. Obviously, [the] internal market is very important for the U.K. , so I can imagine that this is one of the issues which they will want to influence in the future,” Mr. Katainen told Real Time Brussels.

As the commission’s vice president for “jobs, growth, investment and competitiveness,” Mr. Katainen said he sees the deepening of the EU’s single market  as a project where Britain could “play a crucial role” — and even create some pro-Europe momentum. Read More »

Negotiations between Greece and its international creditors—the other eurozone countries and the IMF—have been advancing slowly, despite warnings from Greek officials that the government is close to running out of money. What are the outstanding issues? Read More »

Next week starts with a meeting between the heads of the European Commission, the European Council, the European Parliament, the Eurogroup and the European Central Bank. It ends with a Friday after a Thursday holiday here in Belgium; that means many a eurocrat will “faire le pont,” i.e. build a bridge to the weekend, i.e. take Friday off. Read More »

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has signaled he could propose changes to the country’s constitution that would include stripping out a reference to Kosovo as a Serbian province and could help its bid for European Union membership.

While the current government has always maintained its opposition to recognizing Kosovo’s 2008 independence, the move could make it much easier for a future Serbian administration to do so. Mr. Vucic’s comments, made in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, come at a time when EU-brokered talks aimed at normalizing ties between Kosovo and Serbia have lost some of their zest. Read More »

It’s been six months since European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker took office, with the promise of a “more political” EU executive. Big on the big things, small on the small. Cutting red tape. Reconnecting with the jaded public. And recasting the commission as a strong player in European politics, on par with governments in Berlin, Paris or London.

So how has the “political commission” done so far?  From redistributing power among commissioners to picking the right (or wrong) battles, over the jump is a rundown of  Mr. Juncker’s strategy up until now. Read More »

A Hungarian far-right politician accused of spying for Russia is still safe from prosecution, as the European Parliament will take at least until September to decide whether to lift his immunity. Hungarian prosecutors a year ago asked the EU parliament to waiver the immunity of Béla Kovács, so he can be put on trial for espionage, facing up to 8 years in prison if found guilty.

At a parliamentary hearing behind closed doors on Wednesday, Mr. Kovács defended himself and persuaded fellow lawmakers that Hungarian authorities did not provide enough information to back up such serious allegations. Read More »