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EU is showing its true nature as a dictatorship’

Posted by Jon Gaunt on Monday, November 21, 2011 · Leave a Comment

21 November 2011: Interesting article and video recently on Russia Today with John Laughland saying that the recent undemocratic transfer of power is not going to save the Euro.

He believes that it is a very ugly development in Europe, where people are being put in power because they serve the interests and demands of the European Union, not because they have got any electoral support in their home countries.

As for the way out of the crisis, Laughland believes that Greece’s outgoing prime minister, George Papandreou came up with the best solution when he suggested that the monumental austerity package and the associated debt bailout program be put to a referendum.

If you believe that the British public should be allowed to have their say on a EU Referendum please sign our petition. We would love to hear your views either on our site or join us on . We would love to hear your views either on our site or join us on Facebook and Twitter

Who do you think you are kidding Mrs Merkel ?

Posted by Jon Gaunt on Friday, November 18, 2011 · Leave a Comment

18 November 2011: Jon Gaunt says “I don’t want to be ruled by Brussels and I certainly don’t want the German’s running the UK. However according to this column in the Daily Telegraph the Germans have a secret plan to dictate to us the UK public that we can’t have a referendum on the EU.

However In the immortal words of Dads Army,

Who do you think you are kidding Mrs Merkel
If you think we’re on the run,
We are the boys who will stop your little game.
We are the boys who will make you think again.
‘Cus who do you think you are kidding Mrs Merkel?
If you think old England’s done?

If you believe that the British public should be allowed to have their say on a EU Referendum please sign our petition. We would love to hear your views either on our site or join us on Facebook and Twitter

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Really like Nigel Farage, can he save the UK from the evil clutches of the fascist EU?

The UK's vanishing European influence
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Kirsty Hughes, 24 November 2011
Subjects:

International politics
Economics
Democracy and government
Culture
EU
Can Europe make it?

The UK has a choice over whether to be a small player on the margins of Europe. But to become so without any serious national debate is surely a major error.
About the author
Kirsty Hughes is an analyst of European affairs who was formerly senior research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) and coordinator for the European Policy Institutes Network (EPIN)

As the euro crisis slithers ever more out of control, the UK's coalition government appears insouciant at Britain's ever decreasing influence in European Union politics and decision-making. While David Cameron is already talking up the euro crisis as an excuse for the UK's – cuts-induced – faltering rate of economic growth, the UK's actual influence in Brussels is at its lowest ebb for decades.

The fact that the EU accounts for around half of British exports, or that in a multipolar world the EU urgently needs a joint approach to key global issues (including climate change, the Arab Spring, human rights, the role of Russia, China etc) appears not to bother Cameron and his Conservative colleagues at all (although Nick Clegg did call a small LibDem meeting in October to discuss how to maintain any UK influence from the margins).

The Merkel-Cameron meeting in Berlin last Friday threw into sharp contrast the different roles of Germany (playing the central political role for better or worse in determining how the EU manages the euro crisis) and the UK (Cameron having pressed for re-assessment of the EU's working time directive in return for allowing German-driven treaty change to underpin further integration of the eurozone). While Britain and the Tories continue their obsession with relatively minimal EU social directives, the big strategic, political challenges and continental decisions are left to the other member states.

Cameron is not alone: many British commentators appear unable to see quite how marginalised the UK is in a two-speed EU (and that such a two-speed EU has existed already for several years). They are surprised that the UK's combination of schadenfreude at the euro crisis and disengagement from any major political role in the EU, leads to criticism and irritation in other European member states.

Over the years, the UK has not only opted out of the euro, but also the Schengen passport-free zone, and various aspects of EU cooperation on justice and home affairs. The Cameron government is doing its utmost to limit any development of the EU's common foreign and security policy. While most EU member states have expressed concerned at the limited performance of the EU's foreign policy supremo Cathy Ashton, the UK government has cautioned her to do less not more, and is consistently acting so as to inhibit her and EU ambassadors from speaking too often for the EU as a whole.

Along with these opt-outs, the UK's perennial outbursts of euroscepticism – seen most recently in the Tory backbench rebellion on the House of Commons vote on having a referendum on the UK's position in the EU – have marred much of the four decades of the UK's EU membership. To be constantly criticising the economic and political club you are in, while accumulating opt-outs, does not amount to a coherent foreign policy strategy. So it is hardly surprising that the eurocrisis has finally unleashed a depth of irritation felt across the rest of the EU at the UK's positioning and behaviour.
Outside the euro crisis?

Even so it may seem inevitable, in the face of the euro crisis, that the UK is marginalised while the eurozone meet in summits of the 17 member states, with Merkel – with Sarkozy in tow – calling the shots. But the euro crisis and the management of the euro crisis are impacting on European (and global) demand, on growth, on unemployment, on European and global business and consumer confidence, on financial markets, and on banking sector viability. This is determining the economic health or otherwise (mostly otherwise) of the European economy of which the UK is a part, with wider political impacts across Europe which will also impact on the UK.

In a worst case (and not so unlikely) scenario, the break up of the eurozone could lead to the break up of the EU, with the return to the continent of protectionism, right wing extremism and, at worst, conflict. However reluctantly, the UK has chosen to be a member of the EU for almost 40 years now. But the UK is not in the room and not influential in any of the key discussions of how to handle the crisis despite its gravity. David Cameron and George Osborne pronounce on the euro crisis from afar as if Cameron thought he was prime minister of Canada.

Even after the desperate fiasco of the Iraq war and the EU splits that accompanied it, Tony Blair still sought and maintained influence at EU summits: there was considerable talk back then of the 'big three' of Germany, France and the UK, with smaller member states fearing this could be a dominating directoire of the 'three bigs' . Gordon Brown threw much of this influence away, his irritation at EU finance ministers meetings being well known, and his late arrival as prime minister at the signing ceremony for the Lisbon Treaty perfectly summing up the UK’s failure to play the EU political game.

But it is hard to imagine either Blair or Brown sitting on the sidelines in this most profound of European economic crises. Sweden and Poland (also not in the euro) have done what they can to ensure they still have a voice, including making token payments towards the EU's bailout fund. Such an obvious strategic move on the part of the UK would create a major outcry, beginning in the Conservative Party (with Labour far too cowardly to protest).
Keeping a low profile in the EU

Until the backbench-sponsored House of Commons debate on a UK referendum on EU membership this October, Cameron did his best to downplay EU issues at home. Lacking a coherent overall foreign policy – since having UK trade as the top priority appears to be a trade policy not a foreign policy – speeches by Cameron and Hague have repeatedly relegated the EU to a position behind the Commonwealth, keeping EU references to a minimum while talking up a multipolar world. The FCO's web page on top foreign policy priorities does not mention the EU; on a 'global issues' page of the FCO site, the EU comes about half way down a list of twenty.

When Hague finally mentioned the EU some way into a major foreign policy speech he gave in July this year, he said the following: "The EU is at its best as a changing network where its members can make the most of what each country brings to the table." Quite what this means is unclear – its purpose may simply be not to upset the Tory sceptics. Strategic it is not. The FCO website is at least a little clearer on the government's aims within the EU – in a section labelled 'The UK's relationship with the EU' (again as if the UK is outside the Union): "We’ll be working together with the EU on trade, on the single market, on economic growth, delivering real benefits for Britain and British people." But can Cameron sidelining the UK in the EU's deepest ever economic crisis really claim to deliver any of these benefits? It would seem focus on benefits for the UK is not the government's real aim or strategy.

Some Conservative commentators and MEPs have suggested that Cameron and Hague would rather be out of the EU, like Switzerland or Norway, while still in the single market. But Switzerland and Norway have to follow most single market rules while having no say in their formulation. It is more than a little bizarre that some sceptics want to take away the UK's voice and vote while still having to follow Brussels' rules – a genuine recipe for being under Brussels' thumb.

But there is little opposition to Cameron's sidelining of the UK in Europe. The LibDems, despite Nick Clegg's background as long-serving LibDem MEP are woefully quiet. Labour has said little, cautious in the face of a widespread public and elite euroscepticism which new Labour in government did so little to tackle. Douglas Alexander's recent speech on the EU called for 'a modern mature patriotism' and criticised the EU's tendency to use flags and anthems, as if it is a nation, before going on to emphasise once again the benefits of the single market. It could have been delivered by Cameron. Alexander went on to call for 'a hard-headed view' of Britain's national interests in the forthcoming EU treaty negotiations.

This is weak indeed. Where is the call by Miliband or Alexander joining with other EU social democratic leaders for Merkel and Sarkozy to stop appeasing financial markets, plan for a huge European 'green new deal' to tackle unemployment and promote inclusive growth and competitiveness – strategies, in short, not based on neoliberal free market economics?

The UK is heading not only towards irrelevance but the exit door in the European Union. None of the major UK political parties is facing up to any serious debate or discussion on this. Maybe Cameron is being prescient in talking to the EU as if from the distance of Canada: the UK, unless it changes course, will in its future have as much influence over the EU as Canada does over the US, whether on economic or foreign policy. Certainly, the UK has a choice over whether to be a small player on the margins of Europe. But to become so without any serious national debate is surely a major error.

In December 2008, Lee Rotherham produced an in-depth study for Open Europe looking at how the European Union spent at least €2.4 billion that year promoting itself, more than Coca Cola spends on advertising.

That budget goes on everything from the visitor centre - relaunched in October as the glorious Parliamentarium; to funding for trade unions to £5.5 million in funding for European Year of Equal Opportunities for All in 2007; to grants to environmentalist organisations like Friends of the Earth so they can lobby for more draconian climate targets and regulations.

Sally McNamara at the Heritage Foundation has argued that the United States Congress needs to investigate the money the EU spends there on ideological causes and promoting itself.

The latest example is this incredible video. It features a Greek woman who manifests herself from an urn and appears to be gloriously happy with the state of her country and Europe. Wait till she reads a newspaper and finds out what has become of the birthplace of democracy.

At one point in the video Mario Draghi - President of the European Central Bank - tells us "the single currency has become a symbol of integration and cooperation".

It is a symbol of integration pursued to the point of disaster and cooperation between politicians who have locked their countries into a currency that is - as Sajid Javid MP put it - a "bankruptcy machine".

Their best idea of what to do next is unsurprisingly more integration, but fiscal union won't fix the euro's long-term problems. As I wrote for the TPA website recently: "It is a convenient answer for politicians deeply committed to political integration in Europe but it raises some pretty difficult questions. If one of the problems is that the Greeks evade their taxes, will German tax collectors be dispatched? If the challenge for Italy is a combination of high debt and low expected growth, will the Estonians take on that massive debt or be let loose to impose supply-side reforms?"

Or, as economist John Kay put it in an article for Financial Times: "The Eurozone’s difficulties result not from the absence of strong central institutions but the absence of strong local institutions."

The euro is continually referred to throughout the video as "our money". Thankfully it is only their money, not ours, despite the efforts of politicians like Nick Clegg who were promoting the currency as late as 2009.

But we are still living with the consequences as economic growth here is depressed by uncertainty over the Eurozone’s future, so the video is pretty dark comedy.

Matthew Sinclair is the Director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, a free-market pressure group based in London. You can follow him on Twitter at: @MJHSinclair

Tags: 2012: The first ten years of the euro banknotes and coins, Matthew Sinclair, ecbeuro video, euro, euro anniversary, european union, eurozone, lee rotherham, open europe, taxpayers' alliance, will the euro collapse


The video is a scream!!!

3 December 2011 Last updated at 14:08 GMT Help

The leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, has voiced his concerns over the eurozone crisis.

Speaking to BBC News, Nigel Farage predicted the eurozone would shrink and morph into a currency area that is, in effect, controlled by Germany.

He added that the British economy is "very different" to other European economies such as Germany and France, and that the legislation coming from Brussels could be "damaging".
Read More

A happy ending for the euro?
Delors: Euro flawed from launch



Jacques Delors believes politicians are doing too little too late
Continue reading the main story
Global Economy

What's the matter with Spain?
What's the matter with Italy?
Is the euro about to capsize?
How might Greece leave the euro?

One of the main architects of the single European currency, Jacques Delors, has said the eurozone was flawed from the beginning.

He told Britain's Daily Telegraph that the lack of central powers to co-ordinate economic policies allowed some members to run up unsustainable debt.

As head of the European Commission from 1985 to 1995, he played a key role in the process that launched the euro.

The comments come amid growing doubts over the viability of the eurozone.

In his interview with the Daily Telegraph, Mr Delors says the debt crisis stems not from the idea of a single currency itself, but from "a fault in execution" by political leaders who oversaw its launch.

He says they turned a blind eye to the fundamental weaknesses and imbalances of member states' economies.

"The finance ministers did not want to see anything disagreeable which they would be forced to deal with," the 86-year-old Frenchman says.

Mr Delors insists that all European countries must share the blame for the debt crisis - which has led to fears for the survival of the euro.

"Everyone must examine their consciences," he says.
'Too little, too late'

Commenting on those - like the British - who objected to euro membership by saying the currency could not work without a state, Mr Delors said: "They had a point."

The reaction of the current generation of EU leaders, he added, has been "too little, too late".

Nigel Farage of the British eurosceptic UKIP party voices concerns over eurozone crisis

In particular Mr Delors identified "a combination of the stubbornness of the Germanic idea of monetary control, and the absence of a clear vision from all the other countries".

The BBC's Chris Morris in Brussels says the comments come ahead of a critical week for the eurozone.

On Friday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Europe was working towards setting up a "fiscal union", in an effort to impose budget discipline by members.

She and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have called for EU treaty changes.

The two are to meet on Monday, to agree on joint proposals to be put to a meeting of European leaders next week.

Many feel that if the EU is to survive, residents of its 27 member countries need to develop a stronger sense of a common European identity. But is it even possible to forge a European nation? The continent's leading thinkers have plenty of ideas, but national governments are reluctant to give up power.
Info

Europeans are searching for an idea: What should the Europe of the future look like? Could a federation of European nations function? How could a working government in Brussels be structured? And could a continent-wide democracy foster unity and solidarity among European nations? In a three-part series, SPIEGEL reports on new plans to restructure the European Union. This is Part 3. Be sure to also read Part 1 and Part 2.

Europe has a face. It can grin, and it has freckles. Almost everyone in Germany knows it. It's the face of Daniel Cohn-Bendit, 66, the Green member of the European Parliament and former revolutionary.

No one else can explain Europe the way "Red Dany" can. No one but this polyglot global citizen can convince people in almost every country on the continent to listen and to pick up at least some of the enthusiasm he exudes for Europe. "There will be a United States of Europe," he says. "I'm sure of that."

Cohn-Bendit does not plan to run in the next European election. He wants to enjoy his retirement. People like him are no longer dependent on the sensitivities of member states, or on political calculations. Instead, Dany can barge straight across the traditional territory of political interests. Seen from his perspective, Europe looks simple.

The Green politician envisions a united Europe organized roughly along the lines of the Federal Republic of Germany: with a government in Brussels, the European Commission, whose members are elected by the European Parliament (EP). The European Council in Brussels would serve as a second governing body next to the parliament, and it would also be involved in writing legislation for Europe. A united Europe's foreign and defense policy, as well as its financial policy and large parts of its economic policy, would be managed in Brussels.

United States of Europe?

That's what a United States of Europe could look like. Politicians of widely differing stripes, in Brussels and in many member states, including Germany, hold similar views. But who other than the brightly optimistic Cohn-Bendit has the confidence to express them? Anyone who toys with such models is quickly suspected of being a traitor to his or her country. What would fellow party members and voters at home think about the idea of concentrating all the power in Brussels?

Political scientists and intellectuals in many European think tanks have already taken the notion of a European federal state a few steps further. Some say that it would make sense to emulate the United States of America and replace the European Council with a senate. As in Washington, the emissaries from the individual states would not simply be members of the government, but would in fact be elected representatives of their respective states -- senators with direct democratic legitimacy.

In the United States, where many currently fear for the future of Europe, some people are also thinking about possible solutions. For example, Joseph Weiler, a New York expert on international and European law, proposes the establishment of a European constitutional court at the head of a united continent. Using Germany's Federal Constitutional Court as a model, it would contain and, if necessary, correct the power held in Brussels, as well as giving citizens the peace of mind that someone is keeping an eye on their government. To minimize objections from national constitutional courts, the higher Brussels court would consist of judges appointed by the member states.

There are plenty of plans for how Europe, as a major power, would adopt a united position vis-à-vis the financial markets and other global powers. Academics in many disciplines are developing models for a functioning European democracy, a body politic whose citizens would feel and act as "Europeans" rather than members of an individual nation-state.

Traditional Identities Losing Influence

One of their leaders is Jürgen Habermas. "Territorial growth and numerical expansion of the population already changes the complexity of the process of formation of public opinion and the political will," says Habermas, a hugely influential thinker on democracy. Of course, he adds, the "cooperation of the citizens of all the countries involved" requires certain preconditions: a functioning "deliberation" process, a Europe-wide public sphere and "inclusion," the equal and coercion-free opportunity for everyone to take part in a society of Europeans.

Those who are optimistic about Europe believe that the necessary conditions are constantly improving. "The claim that there is no European nation contradicts the systemic convergence of multicultural global society," says Habermas. Many others agree, and point out that the world's societies of the 21st century will be completely mixed up, and while traditional identities will remain in place, they will lose their influence. The nation of the Germans will not perish, and yet its society has already lost national exclusivity, now that one in five Germans comes from an immigrant family.

It is inevitable that a shared European identity will develop in tandem with national identity, says Frankfurt constitutional law expert Erhard Denninger. Even today, he notes, there is a "consensus on basic ethical issues." Respect for human dignity, the individual and democratic law unites Europeans, as does the absolute belief in the invisible hand of the market and the absolute need to control this market through the efforts of the social welfare state.

"The ethical exclusivity that characterizes a nation state is no longer appropriate in an era of no borders," says British political consultant Robert Cooper, who feels that national patriotism is obsolete. Cooper, who worked for the European Council in Brussels for many years and is currently a consultant to the foreign service of the European Union, now feels that eurocrats are "more patriotic" than his fellow Britons.

A New Sense of Patriotism

It is the patriotism of global citizens who are concerned about human rights, not unlike the German idea of "constitutional patriotism," associated with Habermas, where citizens feel a sense of patriotism based on their shared political values rather than a shared ethnic identity or language. Such a pan-national patriotism is also based on an international consensus that has produced new institutions like the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which stands guard over the ethical values of a postnational society.

With this much commonality, cultural differences are not an impediment to a shared society. Germany's pluralistic, federally organized society has experienced this first hand. To shape common policies, one doesn't have to like the same music, or even have the same ideas about punctuality, cleanliness or order. Besides, the global communication network of the Internet already shapes the hearts and minds of younger generations of European citizens more decisively than the traditions they experience around the family hearth or at the local pub.

In 2009, researchers conducted an experiment as part of a European Union project dubbed Europolis. They brought together 348 men and women from the continent's various linguistic regions for three days. Accompanied by moderators and interpreters, the participants were to debate two challenging subjects: climate change and immigration.

The polyglot group of Europeans did not come up with any answers after three days of discussion. Nevertheless, interviews conducted at the beginning and after the end of the debate led the scientists to recognize an effect across all language barriers, namely that opinions had changed. "There are no fundamental obstacles to the introduction of deliberative democracy in Europe," they concluded. In the hothouse of the conference room, a miniature version of a European nation had begun to emerge.

This isn't terribly surprising. A look at quadrilingual Switzerland shows that democratic discourse functions across language barriers. Of course, such discourse is only attractive when it is conducted by fascinating leaders. Only then will the national media do the job that Habermas would like them to do, calling it their "responsibility for the success of Europe." According to Habermas, the media "must open the eyes of readers to the points of view of others."

Boring and Complicated

This only works, say journalists, if there is something to talk about. "It's about time that interesting people were sent to Brussels," says Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, the chairman of Germany's liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) group in the European Parliament. The "stories we tell," says Lambsdorff, are "too complicated," and the people telling them are usually too boring.

Politics in Brussels is boring and complicated because the participants, unlike politicians in the member states, are not forced to undergo the trials and tribulations of democratic elections. Neither the commissioners nor the president of the European Commission are governing in Brussels because their ideas and speeches have ever convinced a single voter. Commissioners are sent to Brussels by the national governments, not by the national parliaments.

The members of the European Parliament, who at least are now required to approve the Commission as a whole, also have little to say to their voters. They are usually unknown at home. In nationally organized European elections, the faces of the top candidates on the lists appear briefly on uninspiring campaign posters. But the text on the posters usually deals with issues that have little to do with Europe and much to do with the national positions of the respective party.

So where should these exciting new European politicians come from? "Until now, Europe has played no role at all at the national party conventions," says Lambsdorff. And why should it? After all, the leadership that Europe needs is increasingly not being done in Brussels but through agreements among the leaders of the member states. The process of delegitimization keeps going. Elections to the European Parliament have become little more than a tedious but necessary task for the parties. Ordinary people, too, are equally unenthusiastic, as shown by the most recent voter turnout of 43 percent in the 2009 election.

Only an election featuring individual personalities can inspire the European public and yield respectable results. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, long a firm believer in Europe, says: "I would like to see the direct election of a European president. Then we will already have a much stronger European consciousness by the time of the first reelection." Schäuble envisions a president for Europe who would head the European Council and Commission, and would be armed with political power and new competencies. A European public sphere could emerge as a result of the contest for such a position.

A really excellent article. A must read for any who cares about the UK.

No change then! Dave is no hero.

Frederick Sheehan is the co-author of Greenspan’s Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve.

His new book, Panderer for Power: The True Story of How Alan Greenspan Enriched Wall Street and Left a Legacy of Recession, was published by McGraw-Hill in November 2009. He was Director of Asset Allocation Services at John Hancock Financial Services in Boston. In this capacity, he set investment policy and asset allocation for institutional pension plans.

˜˜˜

The Rotten Heart of Europe

To Americans, European problems may seem as remote as they did in 1939. There is a good chance, though, that the crumbling financial structure will not be “contained” or “ring-fenced”: the latter being the common description of how Europe had isolated itself from Italy’s difficulties. That lasted a week or so. We may soon discover the extent of American exposure to European financial insolvency.

The catalyst for this coming weekend’s European Union meeting is the failure of Europe’s daisy-chain finance. On Monday, December 5, 2011, Bill King (The King Report) wrote of the latest: “European solons are proposing another Daisy Chain Bailout scheme – bankrupt and near-bankrupt European nations will inject money that they must borrow from the IMF so they can in turn borrow the money that they borrowed and then lend to themselves.” Wendy’s toes are curled around the end of Captain Hook’s gangplank.

The creditworthiness of the fractured institutions is not trusted: the commercial banks, the national central banks, the ECB, the EFSF, and most importantly, the Bundesbank. On November 23, 2011, the Bundesbank attempted to auction €6 billion of 10-year German government bonds. It received bids for €3.8, or 61% of the total. Neil Jones at Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd. in London told Bloomberg: “If investors do not wish to buy bunds, they do not wish to buy Europe.” Right-ho.

The purpose of this dispatch is to dispel rumors that current front-page treaty talks have any economic meaning. The European and U.S. stock markets react with a 3% or 4% gain after vague announcements, but we are getting closer to a day when the false prophets are stripped bare.

The euro cannot survive in its current form. To understand this, we will return to its introduction. Some dates: The 1992 Maastricht Treaty formally established the intent of a single currency. The euro acquired electronic legitimacy on January 1, 1999. For instance, it was henceforth used in electronic bank transfers. The national currencies were locked at a specific rate to the euro on that date. On January 1, 2002, euro coins and bills became legal tender.

The euro was introduced after the finances of 10 (or 11, we’ll skip over this) countries had “converged,” meeting such criteria as national budget deficits less than 3% of GDP and a debt ratio less than 60% of GDP. It is now the currency of 17 European countries. Most, if not all, played games to meet these requirements. This was not a secret.

The preferred method of cheating has been to fabricate or ignore. On June 5, 2000, when Greece was admitted into the not very exclusive euro club, Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser told reporters: “Greece will become a member for sure. It meets all the requirements for membership.” A leading requirement was to not tell reporters the truth. French Finance Minster Laurent Fabius offered a more discreet assessment, as would be expected from a graduate of the École Nationale d’Administration (the training ground for advanced French bureaucrats): “Greece has made a huge improvement.”

The euro, and more generally, the European Union, has been a bureaucratic racket from the beginning. Brussels protects its own interests first. It does not weigh the success of its ventures by how the masses subject to its mandates fare. The euro had its flaws, but the paper pushers never answer for mistakes. Like the Federal Reserve or the Gang of Four, they are unaccountable. (The latter offers some hope.) Human tissue is Play-Doh in their hands to be molded into what Superior Persons call their “European Project.”

When trouble loomed, the Eurocrats looked the other way: “Except for being told by the EU and ECB to get its financial house in order, Greece was not punished for cheating. In 2005, Germany and France helped loosen the rules when they forced through the relaxation of the anti-debt “stability pact,” despite knowing that Greece had been above the 3% threshold for the previous three years.” (Gold Alert, May 27, 2011)

The great flaw was already evident: countries could spend and tax as they wished (or didn’t wish) while issuing bonds as if they were as creditworthy as the Bundesbank. It is only natural that Italy shoveled out bonds, borrowing and spending, until its debt grew to be the third largest sovereign bond market in the world, without a chance now of repayment at par.

Former European Central Bank Chief Economist Otmar Issing was quoted by Bloomberg on May 26, 2011: “Greece cheated to get in, and it’s difficult to know how we should deal with cheaters.” In fact, this is a matter of character, not law: “The grand plan outlined by France and Germany on Monday for European Treaty change breaks no new ground in terms of ideas – all the proposals already exist in various legal acts, the only problem is they have never been observed in practice.” (Reuters – December 5, 2011)

The Eurocrats are meeting this weekend to discuss a treaty that will – do nothing, even in today’s frantic quest to sign a scrap of paper that will satisfy potential bond buyers. A carrot was dangled, but quickly withdrawn. From Ambrose Evan-Pritchard in the Daily Telegraph: “[German Chancellor Angela] Merkel seems to have backed off on demands that budget breaches will be justifiable before the European court, so the Treaty chatter is mostly Quatsch, betises, and eyewash.”

By the way, the effectiveness or necessity of rules is not discussed nearly as much as whether they are breached. The rules seem to be an end in themselves. The real problem, of divergent national economies operating in a single financial system, while countries spend and tax with very different priorities, has not changed. It remains – just talk.

Recall that the catalyst is disintegrating finance. Aside from the Bundesbank auction, an unknown number of banks cannot borrow from each other, so are drawing on the European Central Bank, which, itself, is highly leveraged, is holding Greek and Italian bonds at par, and is cheating on its constitutional restriction that it cannot bail out nations. Europe has begged around the globe for capital investment, to no avail. Portugal carried its tin cup to Angola, a former colony. The Angolans responded “nyet.” Thwarted by its African sidekick, Lisbon officials validated Angola’s wariness by confiscating €5.6 billion from Portuguese pension funds to fill its budget gap. Isn’t technology wonderful? Tanks and troops slogging across continents warned of such heists in the past. Americans beware.

Of importance: the financial woes are REAL; the advertised solution is pretense. There is no financial “solution” as the loungers and idlers at European Union cocktail parties would define solution. They want a “fix” under the assumption the European Project could not possibly suffer from a design flaw. They designed it.

The Belgian bureaucrats expect the ECB to deploy enormous monetary firepower (€2 to €5 trillion) to relieve them of all this financial talk. To do so would break the law, not a consideration eurocrats or eurocratic periodicals mention. Bernard Connolly, in The Rotten Heart of Europe: The Dirty War for Europe’s Money (1995), wrote that monetary union “is not only inefficient but undemocratic. A danger not only to our wealth but also our freedoms, and ultimately, our peace. The villains of the story… are bureaucrats and self-aggrandizing politicians.” Monetary union “is a mechanism for subordinating the economic welfare, democratic rights, and national freedom of the European countries to the political and bureaucratic elites whose power-lust, cynicism, and delusions underlie the actions of the vast majority of those who now strive to create a European superstate.”

Connolly is now an economic consultant (Connolly Insight) who wrote this book after his eye-opening experience inside the Eurocracy. There is a single copy available on Abebooks, for $1443.52.

It was 97 years ago when German Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg asked the British ambassador in Berlin, Sir Edward Goschen, why England would defend Belgium’s neutrality. His Majesty’s Government had signed a treaty to do so, in 1839. Bethmann-Hollweg replied this was a “scrap of paper.”

It has been a deplorable century for the law, agreements, and treaties since that confrontation in 1914, the same year the International Gold Standard unraveled. Now, the stellar leadership mentioned above and in the United States are worming their way to a poetic conclusion. Currencies will not be worth the money they are printed on.

For years the Europhiles have claimed the intellectual high ground. Now they look stupid, and that’s why they’re lashing out at Britain
Frightened and on the run?
Frightened and on the run?
The Commentator
Written by The Commentator

on 18 December 2011 at 11am
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Let us be provocative, but only to illustrate a point.

All the clever people got it right about Europe. The Eurozone was structurally flawed, just as they said it was.

The smart set’s sustained critique of the tight integrationist model for the European Union has been vindicated. From foreign policy to tax policy, it was clear to anyone with an ounce of analytical ability that the diversity of nations across the continent would ensure that ambitions for a superstate would eventually collapse in chaos, or could only be pushed through by abandoning basic democratic principles. In the latter case collapse would follow at some point anyway due to the inevitable popular (or populist) backlash.

The intellect of the average Europhile? Too polite to answer the question.

Now imagine that you have devoted a considerable part of your life to supporting or even building the single currency and the wider EU project. How would you feel about the above characterisation?

The answer would depend on how your project is looking. If it’s all a roaring success, one suspects you might allow yourself to somewhat playfully brush it off. Even insults have little purchase over a product that’s coated in gold. It’s like having a problem with a supermodel and then venting your frustration by calling her ugly. You would be quietly reminded that you might just have missed the point. You’d be the one looking stupid.

But what if it’s not all going swimmingly but it’s not clearly about to go down like the Titanic either? At that point you’d probably be angry, and rightly so. There are no grounds at this stage for questioning people’s analytical abilities, let alone insulting them. That, at least, is what you would argue. The jury’s still out, you would say. And who said we were building utopia? Anyway, who do you think you are?

Now consider the scenario which most closely represents current realities. There is a real possibility that the whole thing is indeed going down. It’s not certain. But it’s clearly a scenario that cannot be dismissed.

You and your heroes admit as much. Summits aimed at “saving the euro” are being held, one after another in implicit acceptance that the single currency is truly threatened. You have a credit crisis which is global, but whose effects are being most keenly felt in the Eurozone.

The leader of France has said publicly that Greece should never have been allowed to join, thus accepting the charge that one size really doesn’t fit all. Independent institutions are now openly doubting the ability of European leaders to fix the crisis. On Friday, the ratings agency Fitch said: "Following the EU Summit on 9-10 December, Fitch has concluded that a 'comprehensive solution' to the Eurozone crisis is technically and politically beyond reach."

Remember, this is not coming from your traditional enemies. In fact, most of it is coming from your traditional supporters. Indeed, a substantial part is coming from you yourself.

So, under such circumstances, how do you respond to the imaginary characterisation we started with?

You can’t just brush it off. These are powerful charges. Your intellectual integrity is under attack. But neither can you go too hard on the offensive, let alone start asking: Who do you think you are?

Because what if your opponents were to respond to such a charge? What if they said: “Oh, that’s easy. We’re the ones that got it right, and by the way, with your record, who do you think you are even asking the question.”?

The appropriate response here is not anger, it’s fear: fear that you have been wrong all long; fear that you have made fools of yourselves; fear that it is you not they that were the small minded ones; fear that you have failed.

Now clearly, no-one’s emotional posture is determined in such a fashion. Nor are we charging that the Europhiles are all stupid, except in the sense that stupidity was self-imposed.

The purpose of the exercise is neither to insult anyone nor to suggest that our emotions can be chosen.

But as one hysterical broadside after another has been fired at Britain from enraged Europhiles across the water (and here in Britain too – try this from the ludicrous Will Hutton --) it is worth pausing to reflect on the political-psychological state of mind that is producing them.

For if we on this side are unwilling to descend to calling our opponents in the debate on Europe stupid and small minded they themselves have had no such inhibitions.

For years, the disposition of the Europhiles has been nothing if not superioristic, arrogant even: a self-appointed elite that looked down on the rest of us with contempt.

And if pride comes before a fall, that amount of pride always risked preceding one almighty fall if things went wrong.

Let us be clear. We are not gloating. If, or when – it is probably inevitable though it may take time -- the Eurozone collapses we will pay a heavy price too, as the Prime Minister and his Chancellor have made clear on many occasions. Nor are we possessed of anything other than profound concern for the well-being of our fellows in continental Europe. They will suffer terribly for the folly of their leaders and we do not yet know what political forces will be thrown up as crisis bites deeply into the fabric of the continent’s politics.

The point is that it is not just the Eurosceptics who now understand that the European project as we have known it is flawed.

The Europhiles know it too. And all that’s stopping them from admitting it is this: fear.

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When are people going to demand we get out of the EU, that video is truly scary!

Probably when it's too late! The problem with the UK is that it tends to be reactive rather than proactive. We like to wait for the shit to really hit the fan and when it finally does instead of dealing with it we like to spend millions on inquiries to find out why and then spend even more money pontificating over how it all could have been avoided.