Forgive me for being a cultural slave of the US, but the US mid-term elections have coloured my thinking this week of developments here in Europe.

Sarah Palin might think that the USA is the only country with Mama Grizzlies, her description of women standing up for what is right. But I would like to offer the EU version, Viviane Reding. Of course, she has nothing approaching Ms Palin’s Tea Party positions, but she has been causing waves recently in her justice portfolio by standing up to one of Europe’s more powerful politicians, Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

You may remember that in September she criticised France for deporting Roma back to Romania, claiming that it was in breach of EU law on the free movement of persons. M Sarkozy was furious, and suggested that her home state of Luxembourg should take a few Roma, if that was how she thought.

Now Ms Reding has again caused controversy. In an interview just before the last EU summit – the one at which our prime minister either did or didn’t have a transcendental triumph over the budget – she suggested that the Franco-German deal in advance of the summit might not be the best way to handle business: ‘To come up with chimeras about new treaties looks absolutely irresponsible to me," the commissioner told a German newspaper, referring to an agreement on EU financial regulation made by Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel in the French town of Deauville. ‘European decisions are not taken in Deauville, also not by two members alone. They are taken in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg by 27 member states, based on a solid proposal which is in the interest of all 500 million citizens." Hurray to that, you might think – to which president Sarkozy apparently responded by saying that she had insulted France as a nation and she would pay the consequences.

So, to quote Ms Palin again (which I do not like to do, since I agree with practically nothing she says, including her categorisation of female politicians), our Luxembourg pitbull with lipstick has been making her name in defence of her values.

She has been very active in her portfolio. Recently, for instance, the EU launched one of its repeated efforts at becoming relevant to the man or woman in the street. Commissioner Barnier for the Internal Market launched 50 proposals to create more prosperity and jobs in the wake of the financial crisis. Some of these are of direct relevance to lawyers, such as: the launch of an EU patent in 2014 – assuming the difficult language problems I have touched on before can be solved; appraisal of the possibilities for an ID card for professionals, including lawyers – the CCBE already has such a card; and much work on ADR and collective redress. At the same time, commissioner Reding announced 25 proposals to improve the daily life of EU citizens. Some of these also affect lawyers. Just to take the first three on her list: to make it easier for international couples – either married or registered partners – to know which courts have jurisdiction and which law applies to their property rights (eg a jointly owned house) by proposing a legislative instrument in 2011; to facilitate the free circulation of civil status documents – eg birth certificates – by proposing legislative instruments in 2013; and to enable citizens and legal practitioners to find multilingual information easily on justice via the European e-Justice web portal.

Her activism does not stop there. In the last few days, she has launched a consultation on the training of lawyers. We have been battling for a long time to have EU lawyer training considered on an equal level with that of judges and prosecutors, particularly in relation to funding. Commissioner Reding appears to have accepted the premise and is consulting on how to turn it into a reality. As a sample of some of the questions: what should EU policy be in order to promote the training of more legal practitioners in EU legislation and national judicial systems? Would an increase of funds at national and EU levels dedicated to European judicial training activities be part of the answer? And maybe more controversially: Is knowledge of a second language necessary for legal practitioners? Should any objectives be set for language training of legal practitioners at European level and, if yes, which ones? How might it be possible to promote exchanges between lawyers while not favouring only big practices but also smaller ones and while not financing intra-practice exchanges?

Sarah Palin tweeted after the Tea Party successes last week: ‘As always, proud to be American!’ How long before commissioner Reding tweets: ‘As always, proud to be a Luxembourger!’?

Jonathan Goldsmith is the secretary general of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), which represents over 700,000 European lawyers through its member bars and law societies

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