Gaddafi

If the reports are to be believed and Colonel Gaddafi has indeed been killed in Sirte it will represent the dawn of a new day for Libyans who have suffered under his regime for more than forty years.

However it is in many respects a shame that he was not brought to trial in The Hague and his cronies may well now seek to flea prosecution on the global stage.

We must not forget that Gaddafi was not only a tyrant but also incredibly calculating and was able to woo his foreign counterparts who then allowed him to remain installed as a dictator for the four decades he ruled over Libya.

Come on Wales!

It is actually a sorry thing that I am not in Brussels tomorrow to watch what should be an exhilarating match as Wales take on Les Bleus in New Zealand.
As a nation we are so incredibly proud of our rugby, and to be in the finals of the World Cup would surely put Wales on the map across the globe.
As people across Wales set their alarms for an early start on Saturday I want to echo their cheers of support and cry out a resounding

COME ON WAAAAALES!

Every toe and finger is crossed.
This really could be, I hope and pray, our time.

Evidentally Turkey is not just for Christmas

I was recently invited to write this article for Public Service Europe. It raises interesting questions over who is working in Brussels, and how democratic a system is being employed.

Although I find there to be countless examples of why the EU flies in the face of democracy, I attempted to keep this item contemplative rather than empassioned, raising the key issues that I believe many readers would find interesting.

Here it is:

If complaints already exist about the level of legislative intrusion Brussels has on domestic governance, then imagine the consternation that could be felt with the revelation that such legislation is not only made by those 26 other nations who are members of the EU, but equally by a raft of other countries that are not.

Recently the Turkish Government appeared to gloat when they publicly announced that Turkish officials will be “shaping the EU’s future politics and legislation”. However they were not referring to finally being granted the membership that is so widely debated. Instead they were referring to the signing of a “memorandum of understanding” for the secondment of Turkish officials at the European Commission. The action, entitling Turkish foreign officials to steer policy alongside civil servants in Brussels, was ratified in Strasbourg at the end of last month by Minister for EU Affairs Egemen Bagis and Vice President of the Commission in charge of Inter Institutional Relations and Administration, Maros Sefcovic.

Turkish professionals with be employed at the Commission as “Seconded National Experts” - a scheme that allows applicants, usually from the EU member states, to work for the European Commission on secondment, while still receiving pay from their employers alongside generous subsidies from the EU. However the scheme also extends to non-EU member states, with Brussels labelling the recent agreement with Turkey a “milestone” for EU relations.

Turkish bureaucrats will work alongside Eurocrats in policy making and the implementation of EU politics, meaning effectively, Turks will have a role in shaping the EU agenda.

The majority of domestic laws, often estimated at around 75%, emanate from Brussels. To learn that Turkish officials will also be instrumental in creating legislation, despite Turkey not being a member of the Union, reveals what many may perceive as a democratically bankrupt and unaccountable lawmaking process. Laws affecting Britain can be developed by Turkish officials with no accountability to the British taxpayer and with questionable adherence to British interests.

As a candidate country for EU membership, Turkey is increasingly working within and alongside the EU. This is despite the fact that Turkey has been occupying a large part of Cyprus, a full EU member state for years and has been linked to potential security risks.

Alongside a customs union with the EU, which significantly increased the volume of trade between Turkey and EU member states, and EU foreign direct investment in Turkey to a tune of around €9 billion per annum, Turkish officials will now have SNEs in Brussels who will “work alongside Commission officials, helping to achieve the strategic objectives defined by a Directorate-General or Service for the benefit of EU citizens.”

Many would argue that increased cooperation between the EU and Turkey is no bad thing. However, without elected representatives in Parliament it is questionable whether they should have influence in the Commission.

It is not just Turkey given the privilege of having EU civil servants. A job advert for the EU Institute for Health and Consumer Protection stated that officials were wanted from “Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovnia, Croatia, FYR of Macedonia, Iceland, Israel, Montenegro, Serbia, Switzerland, and Turkey. Applicants of other nationalities cannot be considered for this specific call.” Indeed European law would likely prevent such a job advert being placed by a UK company that wished to specify that only certain nationalities apply.

Without doubt in a bid to pave the way for these other nations to eventually join the EU, work both on the ground in third countries, and within Brussels by third country nationals, is something about which the Commission remains tight lipped in the public sphere.

Yet it would appear that Turkey was calling somebody’s bluff by announcing their new found powers within the corridors of Brussels.

While civil servants across Europe are threatened with redundancies, pay cuts and pay freezes due to austerity measures, it is surely a bitter pill to swallow to learn that officials are being appointed from a wide range of non EU countries and also enjoy handsome remunerations on top of their pay.

Most importantly, I believe it is essential that the voting public are made aware of such contracts. After all, as an organisation that purports to be democratic, transparency and accountability should be the cornerstones of EU operations.

As The Grip Tightens

The news this week has left me reeling.Turkish officials been given a hand in drafting EU laws governing Britain. Civil servants from Ankara are being sent to work on policy matters alongside Eurocrats in Brussels. The European Commission already makes upwards of 75 percent of our laws. We now learn that some of them are to be written by Turks despite them not having membership of the Union.It is outrageous that laws affecting everybody in Britain can be written by Turkish officials who have absolutely no accountability to the public and won't reflect the interests of the UK.

On top of that levels of suspected fraud and other "irregularities" in the European Union budget have risen by 25 per cent to £1.6 billionm representing a cost to British taxpayers of £233million. Fraudsters stole at least £415million from Brussels projects in 2010, a figure that is only the tip of the iceberg.

In Parliament this week President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, openly backed the Tobin tax for Europe in his State of the Union address. In the past the idea of a tax on financial transactions has been rejected by the European Commission on the ground that it would damage Europe, reducing GDP and raising unemployment. But this opportunity to rob from the City of London, who in spite of EU laws has grown successfully over decades, to fund the errors of the Eurozone is a disgrace.

Perhaps the most worrying item in the news this week is a report that the European Commission has threatened to take legal action against Britain if ministers do not water down rules limiting foreigners' ability to claim benefits. Taxpayers could end up handing out £2.5billion to EU nationals, including out-of-work "benefit tourists." Levelling out welfare across the Union means one thing alone: with our generous system, Britain will be the destination of choice for workshy from across Europe.

On top of that, think tank Open Europe estimates some 30,000 young workers will lose their jobs in the UK due to new European Union employment rules due to take force this weekend. The Agency Workers' Directive could put 28,000 young workers' contracts at risk by making them too expensive to keep on.

Go on, treaty yourself!

There's an undercurrent of debate in Brussels at the moment as we reconvene in Parliament about how decisions made to rescue the Eurozone (again!) will affect the dotted i's and crossed t's of the various treaties of the EU.
Whilst Mr Cameron is to be found, head buried in hands, praying that his bogus "Referendum Lock" (cue hand gesture with interlocked fingers, lifted meaningfully up and down like some kind of manual portcullis) will not be dragged out from the annals of "Most Pointless Legislation Ever Promised" it would seem his right hand man, Gorgeous George, cannot help himself when it comes to cheerleading deeper integration, as long as it doesn't include us! (meaningful glance of reassurance at Dave, now sweating profusely and wringing the portcullis hands).
Up jumps Bill Cash
"But you SAID that any Treaty change and we could pick and mix what we wanted and didn't want" the veteran Europhobe whines.
Nick Clegg grinning smugly "Oh, silly Billy, but we NEED the EU to be one big happy family. Let's not go spoiling that!" (thinking nervously that any treaty change would indeed need to be ratified by all 27 members while the vultures from the Express and Mail circle the carrion of the Eurozone as it is picked over by the Union's finance ministers, waiting for a glimpse of fresh meat)
Meanwhile Iain Duncan Smith making an appearance on Andrew from Mars adds his two bit that he personally is very much in favour of repatriating powers, but those ghastly Liberal Democrats will have nothing of it.
Over in Brussels, Herman Van Rompuy is sitting in a high backed leather swivel chair stroking a long haired white cat, his scheming eyes glimmering behind metal rimmed glasses, as his henchmen bustle around him spreading out maps entitled the United States of Europe, in blue and gold letters, with the UK tippexed out.
Somewhere in the background is the echo of a ticking clock....

Franco-Saxon Fiscal Union?

The phrase two-speed Europe has been bandied about in recent weeks, and it seems even the most optimistic commentators have started to pluck their heads from the sand and brandish claims that fiscal and federal union is the only thing that could save the Euro.

For a long time, people like me have claimed that you simply cannot have a common currency without the homogenisation of economies, harmonising taxation and spending and thus surrendering a great deal of sovereignty. That is why it is vital the UK never joined the Euro, and it is why the currency has suffered so significantly in the global financial crisis. Yet when we were saying this even just a year ago, we were labelled doom mongers, trying to scare the public that the EU was more ambitious than it really was, that no one was trying to undermine domestic power and there is no need to force the Eurozone to club together and become more than just an economic bloc, but in all respects other than name, a federal superstate. Now everyone is proclaiming how it is essential these moves are made, as if they too had been stating the obvious for years and were also jeering at the Commission everytime another bail out was awarded which would have as much efficacy as trying to bail out a sinking ship with a thimble.

Now, all of a sudden, the two Eurozone powerhouses, France and Germany, in the wake of the portent of economic federalisation, called an urgent meeting to establish a Eurozone government.

This new government would be made up of heads of state that will meet when necessary and will elect a stable president for two and a half years. The man they have in mind is (somewhat laughably) that famous European figurehead Herman Van Rompuy. Who? Oh, you've forgotten him already! You know, that chap who was elected President of the EU...

The establishment of this government to oversee national budgets and taxation and so forth will require changes to domestic constitutions over the coming years, and it will be interesting to see whether voters are consulted. One imagines if they were few would lean favourably towards the proposition of further intrusion upon national powers, so as is often the case with the EU when it comes to unfavourable voxus populai, one imagines there will be no recourse to public opinion. Not really democratic, but afterall, when it comes to the EU, what truly is?

It will also be interesting to see how other Eurozone countries respond. After all, the proposals amount to them handing a large amount of budgetary power over to France and Germany.
Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy are optimistic that they can persuade all the eurozone nations to pass these domestic amendments by summer 2012, which is highly unlikely.
Yet also these agreements have failed to solve the problem. International markets are wondering what will happen if Italy requires a bail out. The EFSF currently contains 440bn euros which would be a long way off enough to save Spain and Italy if there economies deteriorate. Yet actually growth in Germany has slowed to a painstaking place and actually stagnated in France, so where they could seek additional funds in the Eurozone is unclear. For the same reason the German and French leaders also refused to issue eurobonds, meaning underwriting European debt using their own taxpayers' money, by acting as guarantors. Eurobonds would have allowed weaker economis to borrow at the same costs as France and Germany, but would ultimately have led to huge public outcry by French and German citizens who do not see it as their responsibility to rescue the economies of their common currency neighbours.

The negotiations therefore are looknig at long term solutions of establishnig a tighter knit Eurozone but does not resolve the real problem today. This is surely to be expected. Since the outbreak of the recession the Commission has sought opportunities to push for deeper integration, often championed by France and Germany.

Casting my eyes back over speeches last year and in 2009 it's interesting to see how words I said over 12 months ago that were shouted down are now being echoed by the IMF to the ECB to the BBC. Take for example this speech:

"What is the future of the Euro in the light of the problems in Greece, and for that matter, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland? It must be of some reassurance to the UK that we never joined the Euro. It seems promises of strength through solidarity couldn’t be further from the truth.

The problem for the 16 nations in the eurozone is who pulls the purse strings. With little fiscal coordination, and no treasury, membership to the Euro is by no means an elixir for good economic health.

It turns out that when all turns sour, they take the opportunity to seize greater control while you’re on your knees. We must wait to see how Greece will react to becoming an economic protectorate of the European Union and whether it will bring civil unrest. Is this really the European Dream? Who is next ? Spain? Portugal? Italy? Or Ireland?"

Evidentally, all the countries above slipped into economic turmoil.

Similarly I said last year that

"Ideological clinging to the euro will see monetary problems resurface in boom time and bust.

A single currency only works in tight knit federal environments. Perhaps, with this being the Commission’s ultimate intentions, they have put the cart before the horse."

I hope now people will begin to see that Eurosceptics are not extremists, right wing lunatics, heretics, scaremongers or ill intentioned. Perhaps we simply have common sense, which clearly means no common currency!

If only it were all one big funny joke...That we could laugh at

A cruise ship full of English, French, Germans and Italians, started sinking in the middle of the Med. The captain radioed for help, but the ship was sinking fast meaning passengers would have to jump into the sea and wait to be picked up. As he grappled with the impending disaster, he sent his Second in Command to give the passengers the instructions. Five minutes later he came back looking anxious. "What's wrong?" the Captain asked. "They all refused to listen" replied the Second. So the Captain went off to do it himself. He came back five minutes later. “Ok, done!” he stated. "How did you do that?" exclaimed the bewildered Second. "Well..." started the Captain "...I told the British it was traditional, I told the French it was fashionable, I told the Germans it was an order and I told the Italians it was forbidden!"

I like this joke. It certainly raises a laugh in Brussels. Perhaps what makes it so entertaining is the underlying truth in the words, a truth that underlines why a fiscal and federal union in Europe will never work.

Nevertheless, the EU remains unfailingly committed to their project. The ongoing crisis in the Eurozone is indicative of that. Greece should have been allowed to leave a year ago. The calls for the Commission to follow this course of action are getting louder and louder. Greece are set to default on repayments. Portugal needs a second bail out and has just discovered a €2 billion black hole left by the outgoing Government. The new leader Pedro Passos Coelho has told the nation that his government will not tolerate any interference by Europe. Italy are teetering on the edge of oblivion, their Minister of Finance stating rather emphatically that “If I fall, Italy falls as well…If Italy, a country too big to be rescued, falls, then the euro falls too!” Spain is also on the brink of collapse meaning the Eurozone’s third and fourth largest economies are set to go bust, which would surely cast the rest of the world back into recession. It’s no laughing matter. The only thing that stands between the Europe and solvency is EU vanity. Under no circumstances will the Commission admit the common currency has flunked or permit a return to former domestic currencies. There is a saying in Brussels that the EU has decided it is no longer correct to "spend a penny" - the new expression is to "Euronate."

Over the summer I will be taking time to get around as many fairs as possible to listen to people’s grievances. As always, I am especially keen to hear from farmers of their concerns about forthcoming changes in the Common Agricultural Policy. With compulsory greening of policy bound to bring a more red tape and a baseline freeze that will stop subsidies keeping up with inflation, farmers are right to be very concerned. To many people not in the agricultural sector, it’s hard to understand the broad impact European policy has. Hold on a minute, there’s another joke to explain:

You have two cows. Socialism: The state takes one and gives it to someone else. Communism: The state takes them both and gives you the milk. Fascism: The state takes both and sells you the milk. Capitalism: You sell one and buy a bull. European Federalism: You have two cows which you can’t afford to keep as milk is imported from member states with cheaper labour. You apply for EU aid to subsidise your cows and are given just enough to keep them. You sell your milk back to a government owned distributor who then puts it on the market at the low price that drove you to need subsidies in the first place.

One thing that can cheer us up this summer is looking forward to Wales having a football team in the Premier League. Whoever you support, Swansea’s promotion is fantastic for the country as a whole. There are also hints that Cardiff City Stadium, Parc Y Scarlets and Rodney Parade, as well as Liberty Stadium, could be full of stars. No, Malky Mackay has not signed Ronaldo, nor has Nigel Davies or Darren Edwards coaxed Dan Carter to play fly half. Sports grounds and team kits across Wales will all have to be adorned with the EU ring of stars if the Commission gets their way. Sadly however it’s not a joke, although I’d very much like it to be.

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