tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434195938658297102024-03-13T15:07:32.369+00:00Democracy MovementThe Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.comBlogger133125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-26079573441744746562015-02-04T12:49:00.000+00:002015-02-04T22:55:46.167+00:00Revolutionary implications of the Greek election<div class="yiv5479407517yqt5661593461" id="yiv5479407517yqtfd28963">
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<span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">comment from </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">the DM campaign team</span></span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />__________________________________________________</span></span></span></h4>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eznUdJDBy3A/VNKfJtzIb_I/AAAAAAAAAtw/bN41SIuhzsk/s1600/greece%2Bburnt%2Bflag%2Bweb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eznUdJDBy3A/VNKfJtzIb_I/AAAAAAAAAtw/bN41SIuhzsk/s1600/greece%2Bburnt%2Bflag%2Bweb.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The
victory of the Greek far-left in the country's recent general election could have two very
important knock-on effects for Britain. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The first is psychological; the
second relates to the £10 billion our then chancellor, Alistair Darling,
was obliged by Brussels to contribute to the initial Greek bailout fund
in 2010. This money is now seriously at risk.<br /><br />On
a positive note, the success of Syriza, together with the votes gained
by the centre-right, eurosceptical Independent Greeks and the overtly
anti-euro Communist party, is an act of brave collective defiance by a
national electorate.<br /><br />The Greeks have been told repeatedly by successive
conservative and social democratic governments in Athens, as well as by
the EU elite and mainstream media, that 'there is no alternative' to
accepting the terms of the austerity and reform packages imposed by the
'trioka' of Brussels, the IMF and the European Central Bank.<br /><br />All kinds
of terrible consequences have been predicted for the Greek people should
they dare to fail to defer to their external, neo-colonial rulers.<b><br /><br />In
Britain a similar, if more low key at this stage, campaign is being run
by the largely taxpayer-funded pro-EU lobby</b> and its allies in the CBI,
Goldman Sachs, and other manifestations of big business.<br /><br />We
are told that, should we leave the EU, 'three million jobs' could be lost; that old myth destroyed conclusively 15 years ago by the National
Institute for Economic and Social Research, the body that had been paid
by the New Labour controlled <i id="yiv5479407517yui_3_16_0_1_1422272662301_9018">Britain in Europe </i>campaign<i id="yiv5479407517yui_3_16_0_1_1422272662301_9018"> t</i>o
perpetuate it!<b><br /><br />All political movements trying to perpetuate the
status quo use fear to try to prevent voters even contemplating the
possibility that positive change is possible.</b> The pro-EU lobby enjoys
psychological hegemony at present because it has succeeded as a
consequence of its massive financial advantage in dictating the terms of
debate; the focus at present is solely on the supposed 'risks' of
change.<br /><br />Alexis Tsipras and his party were able to win, in part, because
they had the guts to challenge and deconstruct the self-serving
interpretation of 'common sense' being communicated by the Greek and
international political and business elites. <br /><br />This
is what the pro-independence alliance now needs to do in the British
context: <b>we have to take on the myth that the EU is a constitutional
Godhead that must be deferred to for all time.</b> We have to start changing
the way in which the debate about EU membership is framed: we need to
point out that there are serious risks to our future economic
prosperity, as well as political viability, if we stay in.<br /><br />The EU is a
declining economic and demographic bloc which is in the process of
becoming ever more centralised in order to cope with the inherent flaws
and contradictions of the Single Currency system. Inevitably if we
continue to remain inside, we will become hit with ever more laws and
demands for money dictated by the Eurozone bloc of countries voting as
one caucus in the Council of Ministers. <br /><br /><b>The
second implication of the Syriza triumph might not be so good for us as
a nation:</b> The new Greek premier, Alexis Tsipras, has threatened to
renege on his country's debts. This could have serious implications for
Britain. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">We were coerced into putting up £10 billion towards the initial
bailout package. Our then chancellor, Alistair Darling, at a meeting of
the council of ministers in May 2010, initially refused to commit UK
taxpayers money on the grounds that as a non-euro country we could not
be expected to contribute. The EU then threatened to evoke Article 122
of the treaty, a measure which commits member states to provide
assistance to those countries experiencing 'natural disasters'. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /><br />Had Mr
Darling taken it to a vote, he would have been defeated because of
Qualified Majority Voting. And this was all despite the treaty
stipulating that there should be no bailouts of governments in the
single currency<b>.<br /><br />This
episode shows that the rule of law does not actually apply in Brussels</b>;
the Commission as the guardian of the treaty, backed by the legally
elastic interpretations of the ECJ, can redefine the rules as they so
wish. Yet we are told by the CBI and the pro-EU lobby that Britain will
lose 'influence' if we leave the EU. <i>What</i> influence?<br /><br />For
the time being, let's focus on the positive aspects of this Greek drama.
The election result may herald the refusal of mass electorates to comply
with the elite as never seen post-war. <b>This could be a revolutionary moment
in more ways than one. </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">For more EU and campaign news, follow us on Twitter: <b><a href="https://twitter.com/DemocracyMovemt" target="_blank">@DemocracyMovemt</a></b></span></span></h4>
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The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-53019411393908391452015-01-08T16:42:00.000+00:002015-01-26T20:59:42.846+00:00EU's TTIP trade deal is above all a threat to democracy<h4>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">writes DM campaign director <i>Stuart Coster</i></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />__________________________________________________________</span></span></h4>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u61eR1l-pp4/VMAZcIOTzmI/AAAAAAAAAtg/QokyOt_Ytrc/s1600/ttip%2Bdemocracy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u61eR1l-pp4/VMAZcIOTzmI/AAAAAAAAAtg/QokyOt_Ytrc/s1600/ttip%2Bdemocracy.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span></span>Controversy is growing around the free trade deal the European Union is currently negotiating with the USA.<br />
<br />
Talks over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), launched 18 months ago, have run into a wall of public protest over its potential impact on public services, the high levels of secrecy surrounding the negotiations and, in particular, the deal's investor dispute clauses.<br />
<br />
Beyond concerns about whether the deal will threaten key public services like the NHS and lock in the existing privatisation of services that already have commercial involvement, the negotiations are finally opening the eyes of numerous commentators and activists particularly on the left of the political spectrum to the EU's corporatist and anti-democratic nature.<br />
<br />
John Hilary, executive director of anti-poverty campaign War on Want, has gone as far as <a href="http://www.waronwant.org/attachments/HILARY_LONDON_FINAL_WEB.pdf" target="_blank">calling the proposed TTIP deal</a> “an assault on European and US societies by transnational corporations.”<br />
<br />
<h3>
Secrecy</h3>
<br />
The motivation for the deal comes from desperation in both the US and Europe to light fires under flatlining economies, following the impact of the financial crisis. Since tariffs barriers between the EU and US are already low, averaging around 3%, elimination of these would not offer such a big step forward. <br />
<br />
So the
main focus of the TTIP negotiations is on reducing 'non tariff barriers' to trade and investment, like the harmonisation or mutual recognition of product regulations and the reduction import/export bureaucracy. Within the detail here, much of which remains shrouded in secrecy - and it seems will stay that way until the complete 'take it or leave it' deal is unveiled - lies the extent to which the negotiations will impact on public services and standards.<br />
<br />
Speaking in last week's <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmhansrd/cm150115/debtext/150115-0003.htm#15011570000001" target="_blank">debate in parliament</a> about TTIP, independently-minded Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith said: "At this stage, no one can talk with any real certainty about the
minutiae of TTIP—that is just not possible—but we can see the direction
of travel. For my part, I think it is incredibly worrying." Sentiments that were repeated across the party divide, from the Labour MP Geraint Davies who secured the debate to the<b><b> </b></b>Green party's Caroline Lucas and Eilidh Whiteford for the SNP. <br />
<br />
Until suspicions are resolved about the extent to which the EU, beyond meaningful accountability, will accept on all our behalves reductions in our product standards to ease US trade, the main opposition to TTIP is focused on its provisions for "investor-state
dispute settlement" (ISDS). Rightly so, because within the ISDS clauses lies the most dangerous aspect of the TTIP deal of all - a sinister threat to democracy.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Democracy inhibitor </h3>
<br />
ISDS mechanisms aren't new. They have long been included in bilateral trade agreements around
the world. But in the past these have generally been deals between
Western nations wanting to invest in developing countries but looking to protect themselves against the expropriation of their assets by perhaps legally unreliable and politically volatile regimes. <br />
<br />
Today, however, in deals like TTIP, the process is not only being included between continents with stable governments and well-developed justice systems but it is even being <i>extended</i> to include government policy decisions that may impact on an investor's future profits.<br />
<br />
ISDS would allow companies to sue governments for
compensation over claims law changes amount to 'unfair treatment' - and worse, not even in public courts. Under the process, private supra-national arbitration tribunals would meet in
secret to make the decision for or against a government and on the amount of investor
compensation.<br />
<br />
No-one has yet satisfactorily explained why what is being termed as a special, corporate "parallel system of justice" is required between jurisdictions that appear to have perfectly well managed inward investment to date. Yet, as Goldsmith points out in his comments to parliament, what the mechanism would create is a "permanent inhibitor for legislators". For example, if the government felt a pesticide had to be banned in the public interest, they would have to think twice about the potentially huge cost should an affected investor sue. <br />
<br />
Even if the EU does not allow TTIP to
directly undermine welfare and regulatory standards, particularly in areas like food, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, critics of the deal see the ISDS mechanism as a way for large,
multi-national corporations to - in the future - bully governments out of tightening
standards, or possibly into reducing them, on the grounds that such
'unfair' changes compromise their investments.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Public cost</h3>
<br />
In his pamphlet on TTIP, War on Want's John Hilary cites the case of Slovakia; <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b>"When
the people of Slovakia voted in a leftist government in 2006 as a
response to the unpopular privatization of health care, one of its first
moves was to restrict the powers of private insurance firms to extract
profits from the public health system. In retaliation, a number of
health insurance companies sued the Slovak government for damages, with
Dutch firm Achmea eventually seizing €29.5 million in public assets by
way of ‘compensation’. In a groundbreaking case filed in 2013, Achmea is
now attempting to use the same powers to block the Slovak government
from setting up a public insurance scheme that would provide health
cover to all the country’s citizens."</b></i></blockquote>
<br />
Zac Goldsmith, in his recent contribution to the Commons TTIP debate, <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmhansrd/cm150115/debtext/150115-0003.htm#150115-0003.htm_spnew93" target="_blank">gave another example</a>;<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i>"Canada has been sued 35 times under current ISDS mechanisms. In one
appalling case, Canada was sued by Ethyl Corporation for $250 million,
via an ISDS mechanism, after it banned the highly toxic chemical MMT,
which is an additive for fuel. Despite unequivocal evidence of harm—no
one disputes the scientific case—Canada not only had to settle with
Ethyl but reverse its ban."</i></b></blockquote>
<br />
Other abuses have been highlighted, such as the case in Australia where tobacco giant Philip Morris used a 1993 trade agreement with Hong Kong as the basis for a
legal move to stop a change to cigarette packaging. And a case in Germany where energy company Vattenfall sued the government for <br />€3.7 billion in damages because two nuclear reactors were
switched off as part of Germany’s withdrawal from nuclear power
generation.<br />
<br />
According to a pretty startling recent Friends of the Earth report, even before TTIP comes into effect European nations are
already facing <a href="https://www.foeeurope.org/hidden-cost-eu-trade-deals" target="_blank">claims of compensation due from public funds of at least €30 billion</a> because of ISDS chapters in
existing trade agreements. Even this only represents information on compensation sought that is publicly available - and that's for less than half of the cases pursued by investors. Public information about compensation actually paid out by governments is even more limited - amounting to <br />€3.5 billion relating to just 14 of 127 cases.<br />
<br />
It seems overwhelmingly clear that an ISDS process should have no place in any EU-US trade deal.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Politics at play </h3>
<br />
David Cameron is especially keen to seal a TTIP deal as a signal that he can secure EU reform and make Brussels 'deliver for Britain'. But this claim is unlikely to appease even those EU critics who support wider free trade, since such a deal with the USA was on the cards over 20 years ago yet Britain was unable to pursue it having already abdicated control of its trade policy to Brussels. <br />
<br />
That 20 year delay before the EU came around to the idea of a US trade deal, they will argue, has cost the UK tens of billions in lost jobs and prosperity. And they will go on to ask how much longer we must wait, and how much more could it cost us, before the lumbering EU seeks trade deals with future economic powerhouses like India and China?<br />
<br />
The European Commission's response to the growing weight of public opposition to TTIP and particularly its ISDS clauses - displayed through a public consultation that has in any case <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140626/09350427687/why-european-commissions-consultation-corporate-sovereignty-is-sham-how-to-respond-to-it-anyway.shtml" target="_blank">been dismissed as a sham</a> - will be over the next few months to hold a round of meetings with its favourite 'stakeholder' lobby groups. Currently negotiations on the ISDS mechanism are suspended, but many suspect the EU's aim is to have its chosen stakeholders propose the 'right' answer that the ISDS clauses simply need minor, cosmetic changes and implementation can proceed as planned.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>Big questions </b></h3>
<br />
The incompetence of Brussels in exposing European governments to massively expensive legal actions by major corporations for loss of profits due to democratically decided and even mandated changes of policy appears to be a scandal yet to be fully exposed and could well prove to be one of the biggest final nails in the EU's coffin.<br />
<br />
Questions about TTIP go way beyond whether you are pro- or
anti-privatisation; pro- or anti-free trade. If a majority of people have voted
for a government that will restrict private involvement in healthcare, or re-nationalise a public service, then companies have no right to powers that could subvert such a government from implementing that majority-mandated policy. <br />
<br />
That's why, above all, the biggest challenge for TTIP supporters is whether they are pro- or anti-democracy. <br />
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">__________________________________________________________</span></span></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">For more EU and campaign news, follow us on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/DemocracyMovemt" target="_blank">@DemocracyMovemt</a></span></span></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span></span></h4>
The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-52844589541022728442014-01-13T13:07:00.000+00:002014-02-11T14:53:58.206+00:00No, the EU didn’t help to prevent a Third World War<div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ghB5u8ugc9k/UvogfZ9f_uI/AAAAAAAAAtI/_5h8AHIpdBk/s1600/blog_blackadder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ghB5u8ugc9k/UvogfZ9f_uI/AAAAAAAAAtI/_5h8AHIpdBk/s1600/blog_blackadder.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>by Marc Glendening</b> <br />____________________________</span> <br /><br />Expect the history wars that broke out last week between
Michael Gove and Tristram Hunt over the causes of the First World War
- and whether or not <i>Blackadder Goes Forth</i> should be shown to school children during this anniversary year of the start of the conflict - to intensify.<br /><br />World War One is in the process of becoming intensely politicised,
since the EU has already started its drive to use the conflict to
justify a further centralisation of power. <br /><br />During the run-up to the Euro
elections and a possible UK referendum on membership, the pro-EU lobby
is seeking to unleash a big scare campaign to parallel the one it is
running about Britain becoming economically isolated should it choose
independence.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">For example, the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz,
when asked to comment on the Gove-Hunt dispute said – I assume with
absolutely no sense of irony:</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“One essential difference between 1914
and 2014 is that we have the EU to ensure that democratic values cannot
and will not be undermined … European integration is the answer to the
catastrophe of the first half of the 20th century, where our continent
was facing wars, the Shoah </span></i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">[Holocaust]</span><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">, totalitarianism, poverty and
injustice.”</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Brussels can really plumb the depths of bad taste concerning this
type of stuff. In a last ditch attempt to swing the French and Dutch
referendums in 2005, Margo Wallstr</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span class="st">öm</span>, then a Commissioner, organised a
publicity stunt in a Nazi concentration camp and said: </span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">“There are those
today who want to scrap the supra-national idea. They want the EU to go
back to the old purely intergovernmental way of doing things. I say
those people should come to Terezin and see where that old road leads.”
</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Mass race-based homicide, needless to say, did not follow on the streets
of Paris or Amsterdam following the declaration of the results.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">EU myths </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />In its preparation for a possible referendum, the pro-independence
movement needs to take on the great foundational myth of the EU –
namely, that it has saved Europe from war and genocide. We must argue
that it was the defeat of German and Austrian imperialism in 1918, and
of fascism later, that ultimately paved the way for the peace. <br /><br />
Nation-violating ideologies caused wars, not the existence of
independent countries per se. The subsequent peace has had absolutely
nothing to do with the EU, which in any case did not start to manifest
itself until about ten years after 1945, and which has had no
responsibility for collective European security.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">We need to show that it is precisely the project that the Brussels
elite is pursuing with unhinged messianic vigour, one that combines an
up-dated form of imperialism with the emasculation of democracy, that
could lead our continent back to dark times. Not, obviously, full-scale
wars – but probably the unleashing of extremely unhealthy forces within
some of the member states. <br /><br />This is likely to intensify as the EU gains
more control in the years ahead without the democratic mandate of
referenda. It will be the Martin Schulz types who we should then point
the finger at if fascistic parties do well in the forthcoming Euro
elections and beyond.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">False thesis</span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Our second key task is to deconstruct the Brussels thesis that an
international system of diplomacy based on nation states led to the two
big 20th century wars. The EU is very keen to challenge and silence
an analysis of WW1 that identifies the specific genesis of the conflict
in terms of the ideological motivations of the German political elite.
<br /><br />Tristram Hunt is not just smart but charming. He took the trouble to
come and speak to a small society I help run, the Sohemians, about <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Frock-Coated-Communist-Revolutionary-Friedrich/dp/0141021403" target="_blank">his great biography of Engels</a>, so I’m something of an indebted fan. However, his attack on Gove serves to bolster the disingenuous EU line. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10552981/Boris-Johnson-Tristram-Hunt-should-resign-over-First-World-War-comments.html" target="_blank">In his response</a>,
Hunt argues that “any attempt at a First World War blame game is
futile”. He tries unconvincingly in a very post-modern way to muddy the
waters by talking about “multiple histories” and whether Russia and
Serbia were also factors. He is, however, entirely right when he says
that we shouldn’t engage in an orgy of music hall circa 1914 “Bash the
Hun” jingoism, but then who is saying we should?</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /><br />Hunt and his allies therefore seek to establish a moral equivalence
between many of the countries that went to war in 1914. When I
participate in schools-based and other debates, the claim is often
made that Brussels has succeeded in achieving peace by binding together
France and Germany. <br /><br />The implication is that France was equally to blame
for having been invaded in 1870, 1914 and 1940. Just be thankful, then,
that Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg signed the Treaty of Rome, who
knows what they might have done had they not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Of course, this post-modernist getting away from the cause and effect
specifics of the causes of World War One doesn’t work so well when it
comes to the Second World War. Even the most X-Factor obsessed youth
knows exactly who started that one. So, the Brussels <i>apparat</i>
has to employ a slight modification. <br /><br />The trick now is to present fascism
as having been the logical extension of the commitment to the nation
state – namely, ‘nationalism’. This is conveniently defined not just as a
belief in upholding national sovereignty but as a belligerent ideology
that wishes to visit aggression on outsiders. Though, interestingly, no
explanation is given as to why such an ideology has only manifested
itself in some countries and not others.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Spooky parallel</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />There is another problem with this strategy: Fascists didn’t believe
in nations. There is, in fact, a spooky parallel between the mindset of many
within the pro-EU camp of today and the outlook of fascists in the
inter-war period, as John Laughland in his book <i>The Tainted Source of
Europe: The Undemocratic Origins of the European Idea</i> (Warner Futura,
2000) made clear. <br /><br />An international system based on sovereign states was
seen by fascists, among others, as having been analogous to dangerous
chemicals being kept within close proximity of each other in a rather
poorly-managed laboratory.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />What was apparently required instead were overarching, transnational
structures that would keep the individual elements under control.
Fascists applied their rejection of pluralistic liberalism at the level
of society to the international sphere. They wanted their idea of the
omnipotent corporate state writ large on a continental basis. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Authoritarian tendencies </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />As
Laughland pointed out, this was why so many of the early enthusiasts for
the idea of European political unity; the Belgian Paul-Henri Spaak (one
of the so-called ‘founding fathers’ of the EU), together with Delors,
Mitterand and d’Estaing, had personal histories of fascist involvement.
Here, the British Fascists under Mosley’s leadership called for ‘Europe a Nation’. Fascists were among the trailblazers for Pan-European unity. <br /><br />The vast
majority of today's EU enthusiasts are of course not politically totalitarian and
certainly not racist; they have no desire to stomp around in strange
uniforms (though there is something of a flag fetish problem in
Brussels). There are, however, authoritarian tendencies within the EU
elite: a rejection of the idea of an international spontaneous order
based on flexible, voluntary co-operation and trade. There is an
enthusiasm for top-down, technocratic structures that strictly contain
the expression of democracy – and clearly, too, a desire to prevent the
peoples of Europe from deciding in referenda if they wish to be part of a
Pan-European system of governance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Neo-imperial</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Jose Manuel Barroso <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1557143/Barroso-hails-the-European-empire.html" target="_blank">has himself famously claimed</a>
that this emerging system has ‘the dimension of empire’. It is a new
manifestation of this concept: not built this time like the Roman,
Habsburg, British and other empires on violent conquest, but rather by a
coming together of a new political class, a cabal from across the EU
that wishes to by-pass democracy within their own countries. <br /><br />The EU is
an neo-imperial structure that emanates from a class interest, not a
military force emanating from a particular people. It is a post-modern
empire built on the foundation of treaties and passerelle clauses to
which the ordinary peoples of the member states are not invited to give
or withhold their consent.</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /><br />The First World War was kicked off by an imperialist ideology and one
hundred years later a more successful, more subtle and far less bloody,
thankfully, version of it is in the process of creation. But what will
it lead to?</span><br />_____________________________________________________<br /><br /><b>written by Marc Glendening</b> - Political director<br />This article was first published on <i><a href="http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2014/01/marc-gledening.html" target="_blank">ConservativeHome</a></i><br /><br />For the latest campaign news and EU developments, follow us on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/DemocracyMovemt" target="_blank">@DemocracyMovemt</a></span><br />
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The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-86401878183170292662013-10-14T15:59:00.001+01:002013-10-14T17:17:26.121+01:00EU membership is incompatible with Labour ideology<div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>by Marc Glendening </b>- Campaign director<b> </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-znfiIOOPBlM/UlwL2wBkUHI/AAAAAAAAArQ/uStoUzoedZ8/s1600/blog_rm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-znfiIOOPBlM/UlwL2wBkUHI/AAAAAAAAArQ/uStoUzoedZ8/s1600/blog_rm.jpg" /></a>Ed Miliband's promise to freeze
energy prices, whilst simultaneously supporting movement towards a European
Single Market in energy, indicates that he, like most of the Labour mainstream,
have not thought through the implications of EU membership for social democratic
politics.<br /><br />They refuse to confront the inconvenient contradiction that exists
between adhering to certain types of left-of-centre objectives and blind
adherence to the EU status quo.<br /><br />In
addition to the Labour leader's commitment to block energy price rises, he recently announced a plan to force UK companies to create a new apprenticeship for a British citizen
for every worker they employ from outside the EU. However, it would be illegal under
Single Market rules for a Labour government to restrict apprenticeships to UK
nationals.<br /><br />Then there was the vote at the Labour conference on September 25th to
renationalise the railways and postal services. Again, not possible so long as
Britain remains within the EU.<br /><br />Brussels is in the process of liberalising these
areas of public provision that, on the railways, started with 1991's <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31991L0440:en:NOT" target="_blank">EU directive 91/440</a> requiring a division between the operation of transport services and infrastructure management, both with budgets and accounting "separate from those of the State." <br />[Article 4]<br /><br /><a href="http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/post/legislation/index_en.htm" target="_blank">Various EU postal services directives</a> have already seen the most profitable parts of the
Royal Mail put out to tender and the latest requires "full market access" to the Royal Mail's business, leaving no realistic option other than privatisation.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Legal appeals</b></span><br /><br />As the <a href="http://www.headoflegal.com/2013/09/25/is-eds-energy-freeze-lawful/" target="_blank"><i>Head of Legal </i>website argues</a>, were Labour
after 2015 to impose price restrictions on the energy companies this could
result in legal appeals by the companies to the European Commission. The EU
directives relating to gas and electricity do allow for state intervention in
some circumstances relating to 'public interest' and it could be around how this
is defined in practice that might open the door for legal challenges.<br /><br />Whether
or not a future Labour government was acting in a non-discriminatory manner
(that is to say, not giving certain types of business an advantage over their
competitors, in the UK and also across the Single Market) could also be the
key to whether price controls in this area were considered acceptable by
Brussels. Poland is in the process of being taken to court by the Commission for
price regulation. <br /><br />If
the Labour leader seeks to make his price restrictions more acceptable to the
energy companies through the offer of state subsidies to cushion their loss of
profit, he could also find himself being challenged by the Commission, again on
the grounds that this would give UK-based companies an advantage over firms operating
from the continent who would not by definition receive this benefit of the freeze
in prices. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Contradictions unchallenged </b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">There
seems little inclination on the part of most of those on the centre and right of
the party to take on honestly the severe restrictions that EU membership places on
Labour to pursue centre-left polices.<br /><br />At the Fabian Society debate <i>Preventing a Lost Decade: How Can We Make Europe Work for Growth?</i> at the recent Labour conference, I asked Catherine
Stihler MEP how she could reconcile being, as you might expect given her
position, an ardent supporter of EU membership and opponent of a referendum,
with the Laval and Viking rulings by the European Court of Justice?<br /><br />These
rulings essentially render national minimum wage laws and nationally determined
agreements between employers and unions an irrelevance by allowing firms to
transport workers from their own countries and to undercut local labour. <br /><br />The
interests of multinational companies now officially take precedence over
democratically determined national laws and those of trade unions.<br /><br />You would
have thought, for someone who purports to represent the party of trade unionism
and who places the interests of workers over those of big capital, this should
not represent such a huge personal dilemma. However, Ms
Stihler had no coherent response, that I could ascertain anyway, as to how she
resolves this ambiguity.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ideology hits back</b></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The truth is that all theoretically left-of-centre MEPs
have got around this dilemma by, in reality, prioritising the interests of the
Single Market and the EU in general over the political philosophy to which they
supposedly adhere.<br /><br />The truth is that, as Karl Marx would have argued,
contradictions can't remain contradictions in practice.They get worked out by
what people actually do, not what they say.<br /><br />There
are, however, a growing number within the Labour party and trade union movement
who do now get it and are prepared to confront the inherent contradiction
between desiring social democratic objectives and Britain being in an
organisation that is <span style="font-style: italic;">constitutionally</span>
committed by EU treaty to the disciplines of the Single Market.<br /><br />My
hope is that more on the left will pipe up and force Mr Miliband to explain what,
should he become PM, he will do if Brussels tells him to abandon his energy
and apprentice-related promises.<br /><br />And what will he do if the Commission insists
that the EU Services directive is finally applied to the NHS? Does the Labour
leader have any political bottom line when it comes to EU membership?<br /><br />I think we
should be told.<br /><br />------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><b>written by Marc Glendening </b>- Campaign director, Democracy Movement<b> </b></span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">For the latest campaign news and EU developments, follow us on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/DemocracyMovemt">@DemocracyMovemt</a></span></span><br />
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The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-4512141963927630672013-07-23T19:54:00.002+01:002013-07-25T14:46:53.852+01:00Hague speech signals further retreat from EU renegotiation<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">by Marc Glendening</span></span></b><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6THIF2hhJUU/Ue7Kea84gwI/AAAAAAAAApg/eOIcZGcKBos/s1600/hague_openeurope.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6THIF2hhJUU/Ue7Kea84gwI/AAAAAAAAApg/eOIcZGcKBos/s1600/hague_openeurope.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Foreign Secretary William Hague's <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/foreign-secretary-speech-on-the-european-union-and-its-future" target="_blank">recent speech</a> to <a href="http://www.openeurope.org.uk/" target="_blank">Open Europe</a> indicates that the
government has already given up on the pretence that it can negotiate back substantial
powers from the EU. <br /><br />It is now trying to manage expectations in the long run-up
to a possible deal with Brussels should the Tories win the next general
election. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />The
rhetoric now is about 'reforming' the EU with regard to future legislation, not
re-visiting the powers that have already been transferred from Westminster to
Brussels. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />The idea is to get unanimous agreement between all the member
countries for some as yet unspecified changes, rather than trying to
decentralise back to the UK control over key areas. <br /><br />You can't now even slide a
non-branded cigarette paper between the government's emerging position and that
of the Labour and Lib Dem leaderships. Even the pro-EU <i>British Influence in
Europe</i> and <i>Business for a New Europe</i> are also talking about 'reform' and, just
like the foreign secretary and David Cameron, are very vague as to what this
actually means. <br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Vague card</b></span><br /><br />One of the few specific proposals William Hague has come
out with recently, is enabling national parliaments in EU states to club
together to give a 'red card' to new EU laws. This, by definition, will not
affect the 30,000 or so directives and regulations that have already been
passed. <br /><br />Nor is it clear, given the sheer volume of Brussels-initiated
legislation, how the House of Commons together with other national parliaments
could block new measures. Regulations are imposed automatically on the member
states, they are not up for debate and they account for the vast majority of EU
legislation. </span>Directives are largely introduced into UK law through the use
of statutory instruments and so are also not even debated, let alone voted on in
Parliament. <br /><br />So who, then, would decide which pieces of proposed EU legislation
were to be brought to the attention of MPs and Peers? How many prospective
directives coming out of Brussels could realistically be put before parliament?
In any case, how could this feasibly be co-ordinated with other national
parliaments? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">At present the EU treaty enables national parliaments to
give the Commission a 'yellow card' but it is only obliged to think again for a
while and can then press ahead regardless. In other words, this supposed check,
just like the concept of subsidiarity, is pure window dressing. An insult to the
collective intelligence of all European citizens.<br /><br />Because of the logistical
nightmare involved with trying to organise this delaying tactic, it has never
succeeded in practice (<a href="http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn06297.pdf%E2%80%8E" target="_blank">House of Commons Library SN/1A/6297</a>, <span style="font-size: xx-small;">pdf</span>).<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><strike><br /><br />Renegotiation</strike> Reform</b></span> <br /><br />This really
is bottom of the barrel stuff from our government. The Tory leadership, having
realised that their renegotiation campaign was going nowhere and that they
risked an embarrassing failure should they actually put a list of serious
demands to Angela Merkel and the other EU leaders, have decided to dispense with
what Cameron now dismisses as 'shopping lists'. <br /><br />The strategy now is to go for
the safer option of soft focus 'reform' and vague rhetorical promises of change
in the future, rather as Harold Wilson did with his similarly bogus
renegotiation prior to the 1975 referendum.<br /><br />My suspicion is that David
Cameron is hoping that he might be able to wriggle out of holding a referendum
should his party remain in office after the general election, possibly by
blaming the Lib Dems should he need to put together another coalition. <br /><br />Failing
that, the calculation might be that, even if the promise to consult the British
people about continued EU membership has to be delivered, odds are that
there is a natural majority against leaving. As with Wilson forty years ago, the
hope will be that the mere pretence that there has been some sort of renegotiation will be enough to
win comfortably. <br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Stark choice</b></span><br /><br />While it is true that the <span style="font-style: italic;">Little Europeans </span>start as favourites to win
should there be an in-out referendum, given the major task involved in trying to
get the electorate to vote for radical change, the government's backtracking on
its renegotiation commitment is good news. <br /><br />It will provide greater clarity
concerning the stark choice confronting the British people: to stay in an
increasingly centralised and undemocratic EU (with or without yellow, red, green or pink card systems) or to become a self-governing democracy, trading and
interacting with the whole world.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br /><b>written by Marc Glendening<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: small;">- Campaign director, Democracy Movement</span><b> </b></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fo<span style="font-size: small;">r the latest <span style="font-size: small;">campai<span style="font-size: small;">gn news and EU deve<span style="font-size: small;">lopments, follow us on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/DemocracyMovemt">@DemocracyMovemt</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-87950278281326269842013-04-29T16:36:00.000+01:002013-04-29T16:36:03.114+01:00Is Cameron watering down his EU renegotiation pledge?<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>by Marc Glendening
</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HaLIUvgDKBk/UX6P2Bn_LJI/AAAAAAAAAoI/qBsg2duKzws/s1600/cameron_europe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HaLIUvgDKBk/UX6P2Bn_LJI/AAAAAAAAAoI/qBsg2duKzws/s320/cameron_europe.jpg" /></a>Before his hurried return to London following the death of Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron undertook a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22061662">much<span style="font-size: small;">-</span>publicised tour</a> of other European countries to promote his campaign to see the EU 'reformed'.
<br /><br />Leaving aside the question of <a href="http://democracymovementblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/eu-renegotiation-is-not-feasible-from.html">how realistic it is</a> to actually bring about a fundamental change in the terms of our membership <span style="font-size: small;">of</span> the EU, there is an interesting change in tone coming from the prime minister. <br /><br />In his long<span style="font-size: small;">-</span>awaited speech on Europe back in January, the prime minister committed himself to try to renegotiate with the EU the balance of law-making powers between Brussels and Westminster. <br /><br />The implication was that, should Mr Cameron win the next general election (clearly a big 'if'), he would seek to persuade the other 26 political heads of state to sign a new treaty by 2017 returning a range of significant competences to Britain. <br /><br />Ed Miliband, in his response, attacked the idea that this was desirable or possible and instead said that Labour would seek a vaguely-defined 'reform' of the EU which would not require treaty change.
<br /><br />In his recent <span style="font-size: small;">trun<span style="font-size: small;">cated</span></span> tour, Mr Cameron too spoke of 'reform' and talked in terms of trying to get all member countries to agree to certain<span style="font-size: small;">,</span> again unspecified, changes. So does this mean that he has given up on the idea of a special deal for Britain? <br /><br />If so, it is a recognition, though not an honestly conceded one, that a thorough-going renegotiation is indeed impossible. This follows <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/01/david-cameron-eu-survey-merkel">the boycott</a> by the French, German and other EU governments of the 'balance of competences' review that William Hague invited them to participate in. This was conclusive proof, were it needed, that Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande have no intention of allowing the UK to re-write the current <span style="font-size: small;">EU </span>treaty.
<br /><br />It is not clear where all this leaves Mr Cameron's apparent promise to hold an in-out referendum in 2017. The government has refused to answer what it refers to as hypo<span style="font-size: small;">t</span>hetical questions about what would happen if it failed to bring about a successful renegotiation within two years of being re-elected. Would it still honour the referendum pledge?
<br /><br />When the 'balances of competences review', being overseen by Europe minister David Lidington, is completed David Cameron will come under pressure to list specific measures that he will want to see implemented by the EU, whether as a consequence of a renegotiation or collectively agreed reform resulting in a generalised decentralisation. <br /><br />The Conservatives will then need to define what is the bottom line for them<span style="font-size: small;">;</span> what would qualify as a success and a failure. At present David Cameron is saying that he wants Britain to remain in the EU, but at any price? <span style="font-size: small;">E</span>ven if he does not succeed in getting back any major powers whatsoever? </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br /><b>written by Marc Glendening<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: small;">- Campaign director, Democracy Movement</span><b> </b></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fo<span style="font-size: small;">r the latest <span style="font-size: small;">campai<span style="font-size: small;">gn news and EU deve<span style="font-size: small;">lopments, follow us on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/DemocracyMovemt">@DemocracyMovemt</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><b><br /></b><br />
The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-68291878385740764842013-04-04T13:38:00.002+01:002013-04-04T13:54:46.973+01:00No more euro flim-flam<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>By Marc Glendening</b></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><b><br /></b>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xG1LSF1rvBY/UV1xNEzHoAI/AAAAAAAAAno/iFvLk_k8wv8/s1600/malcolmx.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xG1LSF1rvBY/UV1xNEzHoAI/AAAAAAAAAno/iFvLk_k8wv8/s1600/malcolmx.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sometimes there is a time for cutting through the mushy
triangulated BS of modern mainstream politics.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Europe is the question
that now brooks no unambiguous answer. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Yet the political elite,
supported by the many fellow travellers who follow in its slipstream,
want, for their different reasons, to keep a dense fog hanging over this
issue.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I don't think Malcolm X was specifically speaking about the EU when he
said, "there will be no controlled show... no flim-flam... if you're
afraid to tell the truth you don't deserve freedom," as captured in <i>No
Sell Out</i>, Keith Leblanc’s 1983 hip hop tribute.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">However, those of us who want a real debate about the EU, regardless of
our different preferred outcomes, should now seek to apply Mr X's
commendable clarity of approach to this issue. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This is why my
organisation, the all-party Democracy Movement, is launching a <a href="http://www.democracymovement.org.uk/">new campaign</a>,
<b><i>Fast Forward: beyond the outdated EU</i></b>. We want to take head-on the
commission/big business, financed pro-EU lobby and force them into an
honest war of ideas on what exactly would be the implications of Britain
leaving and staying in. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">We know that the in-out referendum David Cameron has apparently
promised us will truly be a no flim-flam moment. There will be no
post-modern, third way option on the ballot paper. Political
rationality, courtesy of the European enlightenment, will reassert
itself. To quote Malcolm X again: "You're either this or that."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Bogus debate </b></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The current debate within the political mainstream is horribly bogus.
The Tory eurosceptics, with a few honourable exceptions, are playing
along with the fantasy the prime minister has been trying to sell to us.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Namely, that should the Conservatives win in 2015, it will be possible
to negotiate a new treaty with Brussels and that within two years this
will result in a torrent of powers being returned to Westminster.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The grandees of the pro-EU elite, as exemplified by Peter Mandelson,
Ken Clarke and that other great political Malcolm - I speak, of course, of
Rifkind - are selling us another fairy story. This is that there will
be no fundamental further implications for Britain if we remain inside
the EU. This is the soft line the Centre for British Influence in Europe
is peddling.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Compare and contrast the degree of political clarity expressed by the
two Malcolms: The benighted Scottish version declared his admiration
for Cameron's Europe speech not only because he committed himself to
continued EU membership, but also because the PM did "not reveal any
significant details as to how radical, or otherwise, his negotiating
objectives will be", according to Rifkind's <a href="http://www.malcolmrifkind.com/news/david-camerons-europe-speech">January piece</a>.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Presumably Malcolm R doesn't want us to even know before we vote in
2015, what exactly the Tories will be trying to get back from Brussels
should they win? And people wonder why there is a political disconnect
between the elite and the people.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Reality of 'in'</b></span> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The stark reality is that if we vote in the referendum to stay in, we
will be signifying our acceptance of EU rule once and for all. Brussels
already makes approximately half our laws, according to <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/RP10-62.pdf">research paper 10/62</a><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> (pdf)</span> from O<span style="font-size: small;">ctober</span> 2010 published<span style="font-size: small;"> by</span> the House of Commons Library.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Next year negotiations will commence on a new treaty designed to save
the euro by transferring a raft of new economic powers to the centre.
The eurozone members will then vote as a single, majority bloc within
the council of ministers, a body in which Britain has only 8.4%
of the votes.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The idea that this will have no repercussions for the non-euro
countries is bizarre, as John Stevens, the principled pro-EU campaigner
and chair of the new UK European People's party, has argued.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">How long will Brussels, Stevens asked at a recent <a href="http://www.peoplespledge.org/">People's Pledge</a>
debate, allow us to competitively devalue against the eurozone
economies?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">At some point, if we are to remain inside, Britain will be made to put
up or shut up about joining the euro. The euro, not the single market,
will become the defining feature of the new EU, stated Stevens, and this
is what all members will be required to join.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Post-EU future </b></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Democracy Movement in its new campaign will seek to challenge the
British people to confront not only the political reality of remaining
within the EU, but to project ahead and contemplate what being shackled
to Brussels will mean for us economically.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Our assertion is that there is a decisive, unstoppable shift in power
taking place away from Europe to the Commonwealth and other fast<span style="font-size: small;">-</span>growing parts of the world. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Britain because of its language, history and
geographical position, together with the communications revolution,
needs to look forward to a post-EU future.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The single market is of declining significance to us, accounting for
only 9% of our GDP, a figure that will fall as we export a
growing percentage of goods and services to the non-EU world. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Our
message is we must stop being little Europeans, as much as we should
avoid being little Englanders.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It is said that education minister Michael Gove has a poster of Malcolm
X in his office bearing the legend: "By any means necessary." This
should not come as any surprise to us. Here is the one government
minister to have said that, in a future referendum, he would vote to leave
the EU. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He understands that the time for euro flim-flam is well and
truly over. Let the real debate begin. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br /><b>written by Marc Glendening<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: small;">- Campaign director, Democracy Movement</span><b> </b></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This article was first published on <a href="http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2013/03/28/comment-no-more-euro-flim-flam-please-we-re-british">Politics.co.uk</a>. Fo<span style="font-size: small;">r the latest <span style="font-size: small;">campai<span style="font-size: small;">gn news and EU deve<span style="font-size: small;">lopments, follow us on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/DemocracyMovemt">@DemocracyMovemt</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><b><br /></b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2013/03/28/comment-no-more-euro-flim-flam-please-we-re-british"></a>
The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-63433424546318111052013-03-25T17:09:00.000+00:002013-03-27T13:29:57.314+00:00Cyprus bank account grab exposes EU's new feudalism<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">by <span style="font-size: small;">Marc Glendening</span></span></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></b></span></span> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-338zXoHJSWk/S9mAkIIhekI/AAAAAAAAAac/ov7cwoolv58/s1600/euro_handcuffs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-338zXoHJSWk/S9mAkIIhekI/AAAAAAAAAac/ov7cwoolv58/s1600/euro_handcuffs.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The peasants of Cyprus are now
truly revolting, following a decision by Angela Merkel and the other Eurozone
heads of government to force Cyprus to grab private bank savings to contribute </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">€</span>5.8
billion towards an EU-IMF bailout. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This edict demonstrates that the rule of law accounts for very
little in the European Union. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">One of the big claims always made by supporters of
Brussels-based governance was that the individual EU member states would be
subject to a system based upon predictable and impartially applied rules,
enforced by a Commission and Court of Justice above sectional, national
interest.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The EU, they have argued, was
therefore a continuation of the political project commenced by the European
Enlightenment in the late eighteenth century. It has heralded, allegedly,
another move away feudalism of the ancien regime. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">However, the situation in
Cyprus proves what some of us have been arguing for some time. Namely, that the
brave new world of the EU represents in reality a return to pre-modern,
pre-democratic Europe. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">By Brussels fiat, savers' private property has been seized
in an act of retrospective taxation. This is an arbitrary act of raw power
befitting Louis XIV. A decision taken in private, passed on as a fait accompli
to the EU's local agent in Nicosia, 'president' Nicos Anastasiades, and then
imposed by him without reference to the national parliament - the same <span style="font-style: italic;">elected </span>body that last week voted against
divesting savers of their already taxed income. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">How convenient that Brussels and
the Cypriot president have found a (</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">constitutional?) </span>way to circumvent the
impertinent reservations of parliamentarians.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This is not the first time
Brussels has made it all up on the hoof and disregarded the apparent rule of law
that supposedly lies at the heart of the treaty. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In 2003, Germany and France both
broke the Stability and Growth Pact rules that supposedly accompanied the
single currency. No action was taken by the Commission for exceeding budget
deficits of 3% and levels of national debt exceeding 60% of GDP. Portugal and
Greece did, however, have their collars felt.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">As many politically
dissident Germans have argued, the various euro bailouts have contravened the
supposedly strict Maastricht rules designed to prevent members of the single currency from
becoming responsible for the debts of others. They claim, as a result, the EU
treaty is now incompatible with the Germany constitution. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When Alastair Darling
was summoned to Brussels to discuss the eurozone crisis the day after the
British general election in 2010, he thought there was no way Britain as a
non-euro member could be forced to contribute to the bailouts. Wrong! The
European Court of Justice and the Commission suddenly decreed that Article 122
of the EU treaty - a measure originally related to helping member states that had
experienced a natural disaster - now covered those countries experiencing
economic problems. Our then chancellor was forced to stump up £11 billion in
loans.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">At the beginning of the Cyprus
bailout scandal we were told that this savings grab would be a one off. Now <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21920574">we learn from</a> Jeroen Dijsselbloem, chair of the eurozone finance ministers,
that this 'solution' might indeed be applied to other single currency countries
as well. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In Brussels anything goes and anything is possible. The European
Enlightenment was about the rule of law and making the exercise of power
accountable and transparent to the people. The EU is about reversing this
process.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br /><b>written by Marc Glendening<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: small;">- Campaign director, Democracy Movement</span><b> </b><br /><br />Fo<span style="font-size: small;">r the latest <span style="font-size: small;">campai<span style="font-size: small;">gn news and EU deve<span style="font-size: small;">lopments, follow us on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/DemocracyMovemt">@DemocracyMovemt</a></span></span></span></span></span></span><b><br /></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-23884942797640425832013-02-18T21:56:00.004+00:002013-02-18T21:56:25.470+00:00EU's environmental failures expose its structural flaws<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a7XLNTrphOA/USKWlS83StI/AAAAAAAAAnY/i_TCfxguHy8/s1600/pollution.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a7XLNTrphOA/USKWlS83StI/AAAAAAAAAnY/i_TCfxguHy8/s1600/pollution.jpg" uea="true" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><em>EUobserver</em> </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">reports today</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> yet another high profile failure in the EU's grand-style, centralised policy-making, adding to a list that includes, most notably, the huge waste and imbalances of the Common Agricultural Policy, the depleted fish stocks of the Common Fisheries Policy and the euro austerity crisis. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Around 75 'green' NGOs <a href="http://euobserver.com/environment/119096">are calling jointly</a> for the EU to scrap its flagship environmental scheme for trading carbon emissions - the ETS - accusing the scheme of actually increasing carbon emissions instead of reducing them.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">According </span><a href="http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/ets/index_en.htm"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">to the EU</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">, the ETS scheme is "a cornerstone of the European Union's policy to combat climate change and its key tool for reducing industrial greenhouse gas emissions cost-effectively." </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It covers more than 11,000 power stations and industrial plants in 31 countries, as well as airlines. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">But environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth and Carbon Trade Watch, say that by distracting from the task of reducing consumption and dependency on fossil fuels, the scheme has caused emissions to rise. <br /><br />They also highlight how the EU-ETS facility to import cheaper emissions permits from abroad in return for the polluter supporting 'offset' projects in developing countries has provoked land-grabs, human rights violations and related environmental damage in poverty-stricken regions.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>'Life support'</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In recent months the EU-ETS has been described as being <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/15/eu-urged-revive-emissions-traing">on "life-support"</a> due to a collapse in the price of its carbon permits - the opposite of the scheme's intention. The EU hoped that higher carbon permit prices would incentivise businesses to cut emissions or invest in clean technologies.<br /><br />Companies have blamed government handouts of too many free permits in order to limit the initial impact of the scheme on the highest polluters and are supporting a European Commission proposal to suspend future permit auctions, hoping that consumption of credits in the interim will prop up prices. MEPs on the European Parliament's environment committee are due to vote tomorrow on the Commission's proposed reform.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><br />The scheme's faults mirror the EU's similarly <a href="http://democracymovementblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/eus-rush-to-biofuels-key-factor-in-food.html">ill-judged rush</a> to promote biofuels through dramatic targets and offering generous subsidies to grow fuel crops. The result has been large-scale deforestation in developing countries as land was cleared for growing these newly lucrative crops, together with a dramatic rise in food prices as farmers cashed in by switching millions of acres from food production.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: large;"><strong>Faulty structure</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">There are huge questions here, of course, about the merits or otherwise of biofuels and about how best to manage and preserve our natural environment. </span><strong><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><br /><br />But t</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">he far more fundamental question these failures should provoke is about whether the EU represents the best structure for effective decision-making on the now wide range of policy areas affecting our lives over which it has control.</span></strong><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">The course of the EU's development has now demonstrated repeatedly through the increasing number of 'grands projets' emerging from its structure that over-centralised decisions, made by institutions too far removed from democratic accountability, are much more likely to be of poor quality and detrimental to Europe's security and prosperity. <br /><br />Break down the elements of EU decision-making and its easy to see how this comes about. <br /><br /><strong>First policy ideas are boiled down to the lowest common denominator</strong> in order to secure majority support in the Council of Ministers, often involving persuasion based not on the merits of the policy in question but on horse-trading over the benefits a country or countries could gain from a completely separate forthcoming EU decision. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><strong>Second, the counter-balancing and constructive pressure of having to answer to voters</strong> on pain of losing their jobs, perks and privileges is not something felt by the vast majority involved in make EU decisions. Not even large numbers of MEPs who, thanks to the list system the European Parliament employs, enjoy safe seats by virtue of being near the top of their party's slate of candidates.<br /><br /><strong>Third, majority voting on most policy areas in the Council of Ministers prevents those countries that disagree with an EU policy or strategy (perhaps rightly) opting out of its effects</strong>, resulting in these poor quality decisions and the resulting damage being imposed uniformly on a pan-continental scale.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>Finally, when policies go wrong, the cumbersome structure and huge turning circle of the EU means that changing course and limiting the damage takes years.</strong> Despite EU biofuels policy having being roundly criticised now for several years, no change is expected </span><a href="http://euobserver.com/environment/117557"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">before 2020</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">. Even then, the EU's inherent faults mean new decisions are unlikely to be better constructed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">EU unfit</span></strong><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">The growing evidence of failed policies confirms the view of many that the EU's structure simply isn't fit to make decisions of the quality required in the huge areas of policy with which it is today entrusted. <br /><br />Its activities on the environment have shown vividly the damage its poor decisions can cause, but this is likely to be the tip of the iceberg relative to the effect of EU decisions in the many other policy areas in which it governs with longer or more obscure feedback cycles. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><br />Damage to the environment is bad enough. The detrimental impact of intrinsicly poor EU decision-making on a wide range of policies imposed over an entire continent should give far greater cause for worry with respect to Europe's future prospects. <br /><br />The best solution would be for the accountable leaders of the EU's member governments to open their eyes and take steps to reinvent fundamentally the EU's structure to become more flexible, dynamic, accountable and attuned to Europe's 21st century needs rather than those of the 1950s. <br /><br />Since the multiplicity of interests propping up the existing structure makes this highly unlikely, it is Britain's relationship with the EU that must in fact be rebuilt from first principles - those of trade, co-operation and cultural exchange, rejecting outdated and flawed centralisation.<br />
</span>The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-49414793546423502242013-02-06T17:35:00.000+00:002013-02-06T17:49:10.815+00:00EU admin costs to be focus of new budget summit<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">EU leaders will meet in Brussels tomorrow for talks aimed at reaching a deal on the next seven year EU budget (Multi-annual Financial Framework) starting in 2014. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Negotiations on the new MFF broke down in November, according to the Prime Minister due to the dissatisfaction of several countries over the EU Commission's refusal to cut administration costs. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The most recent MFF draft, circulated by EU Council president Herman van Rompuy before the last summit and <a href="http://www.openeuropeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/open-europe-publishes-and-analyses.html">revealed by Open Europe</a>, proposed spending of €973.5bn. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">However, it also proposed large reductions to the UK rebate and showed the Administration budget remaining at €62.6bn - a 12.8% increase over the €55.5bn in the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/budget/figures/fin_fwk0713/fwk0713_en.cfm#cf07_13">2007-13 MFF</a> - rather than falling with other public administration cuts in EU member countries.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The Commission, supported by the European Parliament, <a href="http://europa.eu/newsroom/highlights/multiannual-financial-framework-2014-2020/index_en.htm">originally proposed</a> a 5.8% rise in the overall budget framework to €1.033tr, which included a 6% share for Administration.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Speaking to the European Parliament this week, the French President <a href="http://www.euractiv.com/priorities/hollande-seeks-defuse-european-p-news-517599">Francois Hollande said</a> that he would accept a reduced EU budget settlement worth around €960bn, which aligns with a German figure circulated at the time of the last summit.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The British government's initial proposal was for a budget of €886bn but is now thought to be arguing for a total of around €940bn over the seven year period.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">However, EU Parliament president Martin Schultz last week warned that MEPs would reject any deal that strayed too far from the Commission's original proposal.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">EU taxes</span></strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Herman Van Rompuy has indicated that he will not circulate any new calculations before talks begin on Thursday. It is also not clear to what extent discussion over direct EU taxes are forming part of the EU budget negotiations. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The EU Council president before Christmas tried to turn the spotlight on Britain <a href="http://euobserver.com/news/118227">by proposing</a> that proceeds from a new Financial Transactions Tax - in which Britain will not participate - should be contributed to Brussels and the amount offset against a country's contributions to the EU budget.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In 2011, the European Commission <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-11-468_en.htm">also proposed</a> replacing the existing VAT-based contribution to the EU budget with a "modernized VAT" to arise "directly from the citizen to the EU".</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The plan is thought to entail VAT levied at a fixed percentage by all member states in addition to national rates - likely to be a 1% uniform rate, rather than the 0.3% share of UK revenues the EU collects currently - and then transferred directly to the EU budget.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">On the new MFF, David Cameron has pledged "at best a cut, at worst a freeze" in the seven-year spending limits, although Britain's contribution may rise in any case. On 31 October 2012, rebel Conservatives and Labour MPs teamed up defeat the government, with a majority voting for a real terms cut in the EU budget.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">2013 budget rises</span></strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The EU's next MFF requires unanimous approval of EU member governments. If no agreement is reached in time to allow for legal ratification of the new deal by the end of 2013 - under a political, rather than legal, <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained/budg_system/legal_bases/aii/aii_en.cfm">Inter-Institutional Agreement</a> - the 2013 budget will be rolled over year-by-year with a built-in 2% rise to cover inflation.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Voting in Strasbourg just before Christmas, MEPs approved a €132.8bn (£107.2bn) annual EU budget for 2013. This included a 1.85% increase in the EU's admin costs from €8.277bn (£6.7bn) to €8.430bn (£6.83bn), at a time when member states on the other hand are making cuts to public services and national administration costs.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">At €8.3bn (£6.7bn), EU administration costs amounted to 5.6% of the EU budget in 2012, but this will rise to 6.35% in the 2013 budget, showing that the EU's running costs - such as pay and perks for EU staff, plus the cost of buildings and facilities - are growing as a proportion of the overall budget despite Europe's financial difficulties.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Much of this is very visibly wasted on excessive EU pay, perks and grandiose facilities, together with EU self-aggrandisment. Examples include the EU's £45m tribute to itself, the House of European History, and a £250m refurbished 'Résidence Palace' building for the EU Council and its president Herman van Rompuy, due to open next year.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The 2013 deal also includes an extra €6bn (£4.86bn) added to the 2012 budget to cover EU overspending last year. This is less than the €9bn (£7.29bn) the Commission was demanding, likely resulting in a further request for additional funding being made by the EU as early as September 2013.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The addition of this extra €6bn to the 2012 budget gives the appearance that EU spending in 2013 will fall in comparison. But this does not take into account extra requests for funding predicted by the Commission later next year.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Cameron's challenge</span></strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This process of annual and subsequent amending budgets to make up funding shortfalls is making the patterns of the EU's actual spending more and more opaque. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">EU Ministers must still formally approve the 2013 deal, but difficulties are not foreseen since the EU's annual budgets are agreed by majority vote. Member governments demanding a budget freeze or cuts are likely to be over-ruled by the majority (17) of net beneficiaries. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">David Cameron was powerless to stop Britain's payments to the EU rising in 2013 and must now focus on the 2014-2020 budget framework negotiations to stem our liability to funding the EU's ever-increasing demands for public money.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Tomorrow's summit is a key test of the Prime Minister's EU negotiating abilities because if he cannot get a meaningful cut in Britain's contributions to the EU budget when he has billions of pounds in UK contributions to put on the table, confidence in the prospect of a broader renegotiation of the EU's powers will be significantly undermined.</span>The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-86757721479584324162013-01-23T16:33:00.001+00:002013-01-23T17:37:37.716+00:00Referendum welcome but Cameron's EU strategy risks embarrassment of failure<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The national debate on Britain's
future relationship with the European Union must step up a gear following David
Cameron's speech this morning. <br /><br />While doubts remain over whether
the Prime Minister will both be in office and able to deliver renegotiation and
a referendum after the next election, the proposition that there will be a
definitive test of public opinion on EU membership within the next few years
cannot be dismissed.<br /><br />Pro-democracy campaigners must now
step up their efforts to rebut the disingenuous arguments being made by groups
such as Business for New Europe, the Centre for British Influence in Europe,
the European Movement and others, particularly in relation to trade, jobs and
foreign inward investment.<br /><br />One example is the scaremongering by the
pro-Brussels lobby that, if the UK were to decouple from political
centralisation, we would be locked out of the EU Single Market, have to pay high
trade tariffs and, as a consequence, three million jobs would be put at risk.<br /><br />In reality, especially given the trade
surplus the EU enjoys with the UK, it's absurd to imagine that Britain could
not negotiate free access to the Single Market in the same way as Switzerland,
Norway and many other non-EU countries. </span><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><br /></b>Responding to the Prime Minister's speech,
Democracy Movement director Stuart Coster commented: <b><br /></b><b><b><br /></b></b></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><b>"David
Cameron's commitment today to an in/out EU referendum in 2017 is a welcome step
forward.</b></b></span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b></b><b>"However, securing significant powers back from the EU via
negotiation from within simply isn't feasible because it would require the
agreement of 26 other member governments who show no signs of subscribing to
David Cameron's vision of the EU's future.</b><b><br /><br /><b>"The true choice is whether to
be in today's EU lock, stock and barrel, or to seek the new, more flexible, more
democratic relationship David Cameron rhetorically supports by employing Article
50 of the EU treaty and notifying Brussels that we plan to exit the EU's
structures.</b></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b><br /><br />"Holding out the prospect of
something other than a 'status-quo-or-go' EU referendum risks the Prime Minister
having to admit embarrassing failure."</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /><b>"The most indefensible
referendum position is sadly the one Labour leader Ed Miliband is adopting: that people
shouldn't even be permitted to vote on Britain's relationship with the EU in
case we vote to leave. The words of someone who has neither faith in his case
for EU membership nor respect for democracy."</b></span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
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The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-21296871515104141702013-01-22T13:49:00.000+00:002013-01-22T13:51:43.521+00:00How credible will David Cameron's EU speech be?<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In advance of the Prime Minister's long-awaited EU speech tomorrow morning, the DM has an article today on <a href="http://www.publicserviceeurope.com/article/2974/how-credible-will-david-camerons-eu-speech-be">Public Service Europe</a> looking at the credibility of his EU policy<span style="font-size: small;">. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The artic<span style="font-size: small;">le as pu<span style="font-size: small;">blished is</span></span> reproduced below:</span>
</span></span><br />
<h1 class="a-title" style="padding: 0px;">
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
This Wednesday, David Cameron is to finally deliver his much-anticipated
speech setting out his position on the renegotiation of some of the
European Union's powers, bringing them back to Westminster and on
holding a referendum. The prospect of the British prime minister making a
statement about the United Kingdom's relationship with the EU has
sparked a flurry of comment about whether or not Britain should
renegotiate its membership of the<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>union and, if so, which powers the
country should seek back.</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />
Cameron's every word is likely to be pored over by pressure groups on
both sides of the debate and, not least, by a large number of his own
backbenchers. They are looking for a clear indication that the
Conservative Party leader shares their concerns about the EU's powers
and will give them a popular referendum pledge with which to fight the
next election. But there is one question it seems certain that the
speech will not answer and, unfortunately, it is the question on which
the entire credibility of Cameron's EU policy and the prospect of a
referendum depend.</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />
Beyond the desirability of renegotiation, which has so far been the main
focus of debate, how feasible is it that Cameron will secure the
necessary agreement of other member states to a renegotiation and a
return of European powers from Brussels to Westminster? If the prime
minister intends to make a referendum pledge dependent on his view of a
positive outcome from such discussions, few will take seriously the idea
that they will get the chance to give 'fresh consent' to Britain's
links with Brussels - unless the process by which negotiations will take
place is made clear.</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />
There are only three methods by which treaty amendment discussions can
be launched and Cameron's difficulty is that two of them require the
cooperation of the 26 fellow member states. The prospects of this
happening are looking increasingly bleak. In recent weeks, prominent
figures including Ireland's Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore, Polish
Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti
have lined up to denounce the idea that any single country should be
permitted to revise its membership of the EU.</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />
French President Francois Hollande's comments after December's meeting
of the European Council summed up the mood. "I think the treaties are
there to be abided by," he said. "Europe isn't a Europe where
competences could be withdrawn." Where, in this, does Cameron believe
lies the support he needs to negotiate, never mind secure agreement to, a
return of powers to Westminster?</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />
The method the prime minister and his supporters tend to cite is that
forthcoming negotiations over moves towards EU 'fiscal union' should be
used to try to broaden discussions - to giving the UK opt-outs from
other areas of the treaty. The EU, they say, "is changing" and Britain
should take its chance to put its own changes on the table.</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />
While there will undoubtedly soon be discussions, mainly centred on the
eurozone, about passing further budgetary sovereignty to Brussels -
since other EU members could dismiss his proposals as irrelevant, this
strategy would involve Cameron having to play extreme hardball with the
EU. He would have to refuse to approve changes purportedly designed to
ensure the euro's survival, until UK opt-outs were granted.</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />
As well as being politically very dramatic and therefore unlikely, this
would leave the UK open to charges of both blackmail and hypocrisy;
since the British government has said that it supports greater fiscal
union for the eurozone countries in order to reduce the effects of euro
instability on the UK economy. The second method is for the government
to invoke Article 48 of the EU treaty. This opens a convoluted process
to revise the treaty involving a succession of conventions and
conferences at the end of which other European governments and
institutions are likely, also, to collectively reject any repatriation
proposal.</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />
That leaves the third method, which is the only way to guarantee that
discussions about the EU's powers cannot simply be dismissed by other
European leaders and, therefore, is the only way that Britain can
underpin the credibility of Cameron's EU strategy. If he hopes on
Wednesday to dodge the accusation that he is seeking merely to introduce
more delay and distraction into the EU debate, rather than respond to
clear public concerns about the union's powers, he must make clear that
he plans to employ Article 50 of the EU treaty.</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />
Only by giving notification that the UK intends to decouple itself from
the EU's growing political centralisation can the PM convince his peers
that he is serious about achieving change. And only then can the country
focus on a necessary debate about how best to shape future relations
with our European neighbours - such that they meet the needs of
business, retain the benefits of cultural exchange but also, crucially,
respect democracy and national diversity.</span></span></span>
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The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-24095775172577584192013-01-16T16:20:00.002+00:002013-01-16T16:20:27.661+00:00EU renegotiation is not feasible from within<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This Friday, the Prime Minister is expected to make a speech setting out his position on returning some decisions from Brussels to Westminster and on holding a referendum on the outcome.<br /><br />Much of the recent debate that has been provoked by the prospect of this speech has been about whether or not Britain should renegotiate its membership of the EU and, if so, which powers we should seek back.<br /><br /><b>No attention whatsoever has been paid by mainstream commentators to the methods by which any renegotiation could occur.</b> <br /><br />Essentially, a phony debate has been conducted, no doubt encouraged by Number 10, about the <b>desirability</b> of renegotiation and not its <b>feasibility</b>. But the PM's evident interest in 'substance' over 'process' in fact highlights the vulnerability of his EU policy.<br /><br />Because all the potential methods of initiating a discussion with the EU about the balance of powers between Westminster and Brussels - short of informing the EU that the UK is leaving - are highly unlikely to deliver a formal negotiation, nevermind agreement.<br /><br />The credibility of David Cameron's forthcoming speech, and the likelihood of any referendum, depend entirely on the Prime Minister setting out a feasible method of securing a renegotiation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Three methods</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">There are only three methods by which David Cameron can attempt to initiate discussion about a return of powers from the EU to Britain. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><b>1. Use forthcoming negotiations over the proposed EU 'fiscal union' treaty to try to secure UK opt-outs from other areas of the treaty.</b> This is the method David Cameron and other supporters of renegotiation tend to cite. But there are many problems with this strategy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">First, because other member states could easily dismiss any attempt to broaden the negotiations beyond proposed treaty changes, it would involve playing extreme hardball with the EU by refusing the approve changes designed to secure the future of the euro until UK opt-outs were granted. As well as being politically dramatic - a potential tactic that has already been described as 'blackmail' by the German government - this would leave David Cameron open to charges of hypocrisy, since the government has said that it supports greater fiscal union for the eurozone countries in order to reduce the effects of its instability on the UK economy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It is not credible relative to his position on the eurozone, politically likely nor desirable for Britain's relations with other European countries, for the Prime Minister to threaten to withhold his consent from the new treaty unless agreement is reached on a return of powers to Britain. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><b>2. Invoke <u>Article 48</u> of the EU treaty</b>, <b>which opens a convoluted process to revise the treaty on a proposal from a member government, the Commission or the European Parliament.</b> But there are many hurdles in this process that the government is unlikely to overcome. Such a proposal must first achieve majority support within the European Council. Then, the proposed amendments must be approved by a Convention drawn from representatives of all the member states governments and their national parliaments, the European Parliament and the Commission. The EU official chairing this body will be responsible for determining the "consensus" opinion of the Convention on the proposed amendments. Formal votes will not be taken. Once this has concluded its deliberations, a conference of representatives of the member countries will decide finally what amendments should be made to the EU treaty.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><b>3. If this fails, the only other option is for a government to invoke <br /><u>Article 50</u> of the treaty.</b> This covers the arrangements for arriving at a new relationship between a member country wishing to leave the EU and the European Council, the body on which the other political heads of state are represented. Given that David Cameron says he does not support Britain leaving the EU this is clearly not an option he would consider viable. But it is the only method by which a significant renegotiation can be guaranteed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Who will agree?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Prominent figures across Europe have already denounced the idea that Britain should be permitted to renegotiate its membership of the EU. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Eamon Gilmore, has said that there cannot be <b><i>"different forms of membership… There cannot be flexibility on the core conditions. You cannot have a European Union if you end up with 27 different forms of membership."</i></b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, has already gone on record as saying to David Cameron: <b><i>"Please don't expect us to help you wreck or paralyse the EU."</i></b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Speaking after December's meeting of the European Council, French President Francois Hollande indicated his opposition to repatriating EU powers, saying: <b><i>"When a country makes a commitment, generally, it’s for life. So I think the treaties are there to be abided by. And so far I haven’t heard Mr Cameron at a European Council asking to opt out of certain competences ... Europe isn’t a Europe where competences could be withdrawn."</i></b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said that, rather than renegotiate, Britain must be asked the fundamental question: <b><i>"Do you want to remain in the European Union?"</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, said: <b><i>"If every member state were able to cherry-pick those parts of existing policies that they most like, and opt out of those they least like, the union in general, and the single market in particular, would soon unravel."</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Delay, distraction?</b></span><br /><br />Where, in this, does David Cameron believe lies the support he needs to secure agreement to British </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">opt-outs? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The unfeasibility of renegotiation makes the PM's strategy look far more like delay and distraction than a response to public concerns about the EU's powers. <br /><br />This Friday, the mainstream media must focus on exposing the feeble foundations of his EU policy. If David Cameron is serious about renegotiation, he must first notify the EU that Britain will leave. </span><br />
The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-16426365236659598122013-01-15T17:34:00.000+00:002013-01-15T17:34:09.803+00:00DM letter: Pryce so wrong on the EU<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The DM has a letter in today's <i>Evening Standard</i> in response to a comment piece published yesterday by the economist Vicky Pryce.<br /><br />In <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/vicky-pryce-we-could-be-moving-towards-a-referendum-just-as-the-european-economy-is-turning-the-corner-to-recovery-8450814.html">her article</a>, Pryce repeated a number of claims<span style="font-size: small;"> and </span>myths about the impact of the EU, some so detached from reality it's hard to imagine from where they can possibly have emerged, <span style="font-size: small;">bey<span style="font-size: small;">ond <span style="font-size: small;"></span>simpl<span style="font-size: small;">y someone's</span> fevered imagination</span>.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The full version of the DM's response is reproduced below<span style="font-size: small;">:</span><br /><br />---------------------------------------------------------------------- <br /><br />Dear Sir,</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />No wonder Vicky Pryce thinks this is no time to seek a new deal
with the EU (Comment, 14 January). Her understanding of the EU's impact is wrong
in every key respect.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />She says "85% percent of our budget contribution comes back to the
UK", but Treasury figures for 2010-11 show the figure is just over 57% - a net
cost of £8.8bn that year alone. Pryce also says "regulations are mostly
national", despite a House of Commons Library study from October 2010 showing in
fact just over half of new laws now have their origins in Brussels.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />Her concern about the EU market becoming more difficult to
access surely makes the highly unlikely assumption that Britain could not
achieve a free trade agreement as part of any new relationship with the EU - a
deal that our trade deficit with the EU shows would be in the interests of EU
businesses far more than that of UK plc. </span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />Overcoming ignorance about the EU through a proper national debate
on the basis of facts and giving us all the chance to make an informed decision
about Britain's best path to prosperity in the 21st century is exactly why David
Cameron must promise to hold an EU referendum.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />Yours faithfully, </span></span><br /><br />----------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Pryce's article comes on the back of a <span style="font-size: small;">recent </span>propaganda onslaught <span style="font-size: small;">by political and</span> business elites seeking not only to intimidate the Prime Min<span style="font-size: small;">ister from seeking</span> any change in Britain's relationship with the EU to<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>bring decisions back to Westminster, but also to deny the rest of us a real choice about Britain's future and how we are governed.<span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />In his speech <span style="font-size: small;">on<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Friday, David Cameron </span></span></span></span>is expected to announce an intention to renegotiate aspects of the EU's powers and hold a<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>referendum on the outcome sometime after the next general election (IF there is a new 'fiscal union' treaty, IF other countries agree to rene<span style="font-size: small;">gotiate, IF </span>they agree to hand back EU powers, <span style="font-size: small;">and IF he wins th<span style="font-size: small;">e</span> 2015 election outright)</span>. <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />Despite <span style="font-size: small;">the likely <span style="font-size: small;">dependence of such a pledge on a range of improbabl<span style="font-size: small;">e developments, the te<span style="font-size: small;">mperature of the EU debate is nevertheless<span style="font-size: small;"> rising. T</span></span></span></span></span>he last few wee<span style="font-size: small;">ks have seen the opening skirmishes<span style="font-size: small;"> of<span style="font-size: small;"> a referendum battle<span style="font-size: small;">, which </span>David Cameron's speech on Friday may well exacerbate<span style="font-size: small;"> over</span><span style="font-size: small;"> the coming months and years into full political</span> war about the <span style="font-size: small;">best course for </span>Britain's democracy and future prospe<span style="font-size: small;">rity.</span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> </span><br />
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The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-25166517214341434902012-12-12T18:45:00.001+00:002012-12-12T18:58:02.028+00:00EU's admin costs to rise in 2013 to €8.4bn<div>
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--hOv7Kpgvak/UMjOSY51x9I/AAAAAAAAAlU/zlJj-qtF8lc/s1600/moneydowndrain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--hOv7Kpgvak/UMjOSY51x9I/AAAAAAAAAlU/zlJj-qtF8lc/s1600/moneydowndrain.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial;">Voting in Strasbourg today, MEPs have approved a €132.8bn (£107.2bn) EU
budget for 2013.<br /><br />The <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-12-975_en.htm">2013 budget</a> includes a <b>1.85% increase in the EU's admin costs from
€8.3bn (£6.7bn) to €8.43bn (£6.83bn)</b>, at a time when member states on the
other hand are making cuts to public services and national administration
costs.<b><br /><br />EU administration costs amounted to 5.6% of the EU <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/budget/figures/2012/2012_en.cfm">budget in 2012</a>,
at €8.3bn (£6.7bn). This will rise to 6.35% in the 2013 budget</b>, showing that the
EU's running costs - such as pay and perks for EU staff, plus the cost of
buildings and facilities - are growing as a proportion of the overall
budget, despite Europe's financial difficulties.<br /><br />The deal also includes an extra €6bn (£4.86bn) added to the 2012 budget to
cover a shortfall in the EU's funding for this year. This is less than the €9bn
(£7.29bn) the Commission was demanding, likely resulting in a further request
for additional funding being made by the EU as early as September 2013.<br /><br />The addition of this extra €6bn to the 2012 budget gives the appearance
that EU spending in 2013 will fall in comparison. But this does not take into
account extra requests for funding predicted by the Commission later next
year.<br /><br />This process of annual and subsequent amending budgets to make up funding
shortfalls is making the patterns of the EU's actual spending more and more
opaque.<br /><br />EU Ministers must still formally approve the deal, but difficulties are not
foreseen since the EU's annual budgets are agreed by majority vote. Member
governments demanding a budget freeze or cuts are likely to be over-ruled by the
majority (17) of net beneficiaries.<br /><br />David Cameron is therefore powerless to stop Britain's payments to the EU
rising in 2013 and must now focus on the 2014-2020 budget framework negotiations
in a bid to stem our liability to fund the EU's ever-increasing demands for
public money<b>.</b> <br /><br />A new meeting of the European Council - comprising the heads of state and government of EU member countries - is expected in early February to try to hammer out a deal on the EU's spending framework from 2014-2020.</span></div>
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</span>The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-88284160559432929192012-12-10T16:15:00.001+00:002012-12-11T02:44:57.057+00:00EU's 2013 budget to rise 2.9% amid UK spending cuts <span style="font-family: Arial;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Cem8hkbS9s/UMYHJ0Y4kLI/AAAAAAAAAlE/ejubrPT-QYQ/s1600/rompuy_palace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Cem8hkbS9s/UMYHJ0Y4kLI/AAAAAAAAAlE/ejubrPT-QYQ/s1600/rompuy_palace.jpg" /></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The European Parliament's budget committee this evening <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fTEXT%2bIM-PRESS%2b20121210IPR04502%2b0%2bDOC%2bXML%2bV0%2f%2fEN&language=EN" target="_blank">approved a deal</a> that will see the EU budget in 2013 rise by 2.9% to €132.8 billion
(£107.2bn).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">MEPs, meeting this week in Strasbourg, will vote in plenary
on Wednesday 12 December on whether to approve the above-inflation increase in the EU's 2013 spending.</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <br /><br />The <a href="http://euobserver.com/news/118431" target="_blank">deal was agreed</a> by negotiators for the European Commission, Parliament
and Council on Friday 30 November, <b>but the details were withheld until last Tuesday, while UK attention was focussed on the Chancellor's upcoming Autumn
Statement.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">EU Ministers must also approve the deal but difficulties are not likely,
since the EU's annual budget is agreed by majority vote. Member governments
demanding a budget freeze or cuts are likely to be over-ruled by the majority
(17) of net recipient countries.<br /><br /><b>The deal is likely to increase Britain's 2013 contribution to the EU budget by
several hundred million pounds.</b> This means that some of the money saved through
cuts to public spending outlined in George Osborne's own budget statement last
week is likely to be spent in 2013 not on reducing our deficit or supporting
growth, but on increased UK payments to the EU.</span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Commission demands</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Prior to recent negotiations, the European Commission had <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-12-1267_en.htm#PR_metaPressRelease_bottom">been demanding</a> a 2013 budget of just under €138 billion
(£111.5bn). <br /><br />Administration costs amounted to 5.6% of the<a href="http://ec.europa.eu/budget/figures/2012/2012_en.cfm" target="_blank"> EU budget in 2012</a> - €8.3bn (£6.7bn) - and the proportion proposed for 2013 has not yet been
revealed. Much of this is very visibly wasted on excessive EU pay, perks,
grandiose facilities together with EU self-aggrandisment.<br /><br />Examples include the EU's £45m
tribute to itself, the House of European History, and a £250m refurbished
'Résidence Palace' building for the EU Council and its president Herman van
Rompuy, due to open next year.</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br />Fu<span style="font-size: large;">ture</span></span> framework</b></span><br /><br />Annual budgets are a translation of the
current Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) covering 2007-2013. The EU's next
MFF, setting funding rules from 2014-2020, is currently being negotiated and
requires unanimous approval of EU member governments.<br /><br />Talks on the new MFF broke down in November, <a href="http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/checkeuropean-council-ends-without-a-deal/" target="_blank">according to the Prime Minister</a> as a result of disatisfaction by several member states over the
European Commission's <a href="http://www.democracymovementblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/leaked-budget-draft-shows-eu-admin.html" target="_blank">intransigence on cuts to administration costs</a>. EU taxes
have <a href="http://www.democracymovementblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/commissioner-eu-should-take-control-of.html" target="_blank">also been proposed</a> in the context of the bloc's future funding and it has
been suggested that member governments could not agree on whether the EU
should be given powers to tax citizens directly. A further summit is expected in
January.<br /><br />On the new MFF, David Cameron <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/9659652/David-Cameron-to-hold-robust-talks-on-cutting-EU-budget.html" target="_blank">has pledged</a> "at best a cut, at worst a
freeze" in the seven-year spending limits, although Britain's contribution may rise in any case. On 31 October, rebel Conservatives and Labour
MPs teamed up to defeat the government, with a majority voting for a real terms cut
in the EU's spending.<br /><br /><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">If no agreement is reached between governments and EU institutions in time to allow for legal ratification of the new
deal by the end of 2013 - under a political, rather than legal, </span><a href="http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained/budg_system/legal_bases/aii/aii_en.cfm"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Inter-Institutional Agreement</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> - the
2013 budget will be rolled over year-by-year with a built-in 2% rise to cover
inflation.</span></span></span></span><br />
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</span>The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-45091038732069346622012-11-23T15:10:00.000+00:002012-11-23T15:10:58.089+00:00Leaked budget draft shows EU admin costs to rise 13%<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">A draft of the
EU budget leaked today has revealed no change in a proposed significant rise in
the EU's administration costs.<br /><br />The
latest draft, circulated by EU Council president Herman van Rompuy and
revealed by </span><a href="http://www.openeuropeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/open-europe-publishes-and-analyses.html"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Open Europe</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;">, shows the
Administration budget at <span class="st">€62.6bn -<strong> a 12.8% increase over
the <span class="st">€</span>55.5bn in the</strong> <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/budget/figures/fin_fwk0713/fwk0713_en.cfm#cf07_13">2007-13
MFF</a> - rather than falling with other public administration cuts in EU member
countries.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /><br />The
European Commission, supported by the European Parliament, </span><a href="http://europa.eu/newsroom/highlights/multiannual-financial-framework-2014-2020/index_en.htm"><span style="font-family: Arial;">originally proposed</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> a 5.8% rise in the
overall budget framework to <span class="st">€</span>1.033tr. </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">This included a
6% share for Administration, taking the cost up to <span class="st">€</span>62bn.</span><br /><br /><span class="st"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The EU's administration costs have become the focus of today's
negotiations in Brussels, with the Prime Minister taking aim in particular at
the pay and perks of EU officials. It would be particularly difficult for him
politically to return without securing a significant cut in the EU's admin
costs.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>It is
also not clear to what extent discussion over direct EU taxes are forming part
of the EU budget negotiations.</strong></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial;">Herman van Rompuy last week tried to turn the spotlight on Britain
</span><a href="http://euobserver.com/news/118227"><span style="font-family: Arial;">by
proposing</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> that proceeds from a new <strong>Financial
Transactions Tax</strong> - in which Britain will not participate - should be
contributed to Brussels and the amount offset against a country's contributions
to the EU budget.<br /><br />Last
year, the European Commission </span><a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-11-468_en.htm"><span style="font-family: Arial;">also proposed</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <strong>replacing the
existing VAT-based contribution</strong> to the EU budget with a "modernized
VAT" to arise "directly from the citizen to the EU".<br /><br />The
plan is thought to entail VAT levied at a fixed percentage by all member states
in addition to national rates - likely to be a 1% uniform rate, rather than the
0.3% share of UK revenues the EU collects currently - and then transferred
directly to the EU budget.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">If no agreement
on the EU budget is reached in time to allow for legal ratification of the new
deal by the end of 2013 - under a political, rather than legal, </span><a href="http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained/budg_system/legal_bases/aii/aii_en.cfm"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Inter-Institutional Agreement</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> - the
2013 budget will be rolled over year-by-year with a built-in 2% rise to cover
inflation.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></span></span></div>
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The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-14883202608078901422012-11-20T14:22:00.003+00:002012-11-20T14:27:54.516+00:00Commissioner: EU should take control of taxes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4vfzP33im0o/UKuPadpOGGI/AAAAAAAAAkg/acr9uclzrAo/s1600/eu_hmrc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4vfzP33im0o/UKuPadpOGGI/AAAAAAAAAkg/acr9uclzrAo/s1600/eu_hmrc.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">EU Commissioner Viviane Reding has said that the EU should
take control of taxes from national governments.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />Speaking at a <a href="http://euobserver.com/political/118154" target="_blank">debate in Berlin</a> last week, the EU justice
commissioner said: <i><b>"The veto right in the EU council has to be
scrapped. Qualified majority voting should be extended to more policy areas, for
instance taxation".</b></i></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />Such a move would prevent any single member country, or
even minority of countries, blocking Council of Ministers decisions to impose
new EU taxes.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />Discussion of EU taxes is likely to form part of the EU
budget negotiations at a summit of leaders later this week (22-23 November),
sold as a way for member states to be 'unburdened' from contributions to the EU
budget.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />However, the burden of funding the EU would simply be
passed to people and businesses directly and, most importantly for many in
Brussels, the EU's right to govern and increase those taxes in future would be
conceded.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span>ax plans</b></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />EU taxes have come back on the agenda as a way for the
EU to raise more money in "own<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>resources" and bypass the problematic task
of requesting ever-increasing amounts of money from national governments.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />Member countries currently pay towards
the EU budget based on their gross national income, as well as VAT and customs
duties.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />The EU has already benefited financially from recent rises
in VAT, imposed in many of its member countries as part of austerity programmes.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />The Commission has also tried to drive through an EU
<b>Financial Transactions Tax</b> (FTT) on banks which, due to
opposition from a number of governments, is now only set to be adopted by ten
member states. Without a veto, the FTT could have been imposed on all EU members
by majority voting and particularly threatened the City of London's financial
sector if the UK were forced to participate.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />Budget Commissioner Janus Lewandowski has also proposed
the EU collecting a <b>climate tax</b> on air traffic that would put
up the price of holiday flights and expressed interest </span><span style="font-size: small;">in governing other areas of taxation, pressing
governments as a first <span style="font-size: small;">step </span>to agree to co-ordinate the way <b>corporation tax</b> is
calculated and to impose minimum rates of <b>fuel taxes</b> on energy
bills and road transport, linked to levels of carbon emissions.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Decision time</b></span><br /><br />The right to directly tax businesses and citizens is one
of the few powers left exclusively to national governments within the EU. For the EU to gain this power would require a change to the EU
treaty, ratified by each member country<span style="font-size: small;">.</span><br /><br />It would be politically
impossible for David Cameron to agree to such a change. However, this latest
statement by Viviane Reding once again reveals the intentions of those driving
the EU to take further fundamental powers from member countries towards becoming
a fully-fledged pan-European government.<br /><br />Advancing EU political integration brings
into sharper focus the fundamental decision about Britain's future we must soon
make between undiplomatically blocking political union if that is what other EU countries want or letting them go their own way and seeking for ourselves a new,
looser, more flexible relationship with our European neighbours that respects
democracy.<br /><br />-------------------------------------------------------------</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /><b>Read<span style="font-size: small;"> <span style="font-size: small;">more ...</span></span></b></span></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Summary - Revision of the Energy Taxation
Directive</span></span>
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-11-238_en.htm">http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-11-238_en.htm</a><br /><br />Lesiglation - European Commission proposes to overhaul
energy taxation rules<a href="http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/excise_duties/energy_products/legislation/index_en.htm"><br />http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/excise_duties/energy_products/legislation/index_en.htm</a><br /><br />Q&A - Enhanced co-operation on Financial Transactions
Tax<a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-12-799_en.htm"><br />http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-12-799_en.htm</a><br /><br />European Commission - Common Consolidated Corporate Tax
Base<a href="http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/company_tax/common_tax_base/index_en.htm"><br />http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/company_tax/common_tax_base/index_en.htm</a></span></span></div>
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The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-24609359420951335162012-11-01T16:30:00.000+00:002012-11-01T17:38:51.562+00:00Our politicians can't stop the EU budget rising<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-42S84ZMQ52s/UJKWAefmsJI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/Tdrf0WU1c7c/s1600/StC_postcards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-42S84ZMQ52s/UJKWAefmsJI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/Tdrf0WU1c7c/s1600/StC_postcards.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Amid the entertaining political theatre of yesterday's EU budget vote lies a far more fundamental debate than whether the amount Britain's pays into the EU budget should be frozen or cut. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />A debate that will soon come much more to the fore.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Much of the Westminster Village reaction to the government's <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20163924" target="_blank">defeat in Parliament</a> last night by 13 votes is inevitably rotating around whether
David Cameron is in control of his party; whether he will wield his veto to
block a rise in the EU budget; whether Labour will support that veto and what will
happen if the Prime Minister tries to secure MPs' approval for a deal that does
not involve a budget cut. <br /><br />Throw in some simplistic comparisons to John
Major's Maastricht woes in the early 1990s and a mixture of
the above is what the political commentariat are serving up for today's consumption.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>But all that is a side show.</b> Sure, a bit of discomfort for David Cameron and
the fate of a few billion pounds rests on one option or another and the Democracy
Movement, more than most, wants to see Britain's payments to the EU cut - in
fact, far more dramatically than anything currently being considered.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Back in 2005, when the EU's last 2007-2014 Multi-Annual Financial Framework
(MFF) was being debated, the DM launched its <i>Stop the Cheques</i> campaign,
contrasting the cost of the EU with various cuts being made then to public
services (see campaign postcards pictured above). A theme that is today, thanks
partly I'm sure to our efforts making the case to MPs over the years since - but no
doubt mostly due to the subsequent financial and debt crisis - a very strong
aspect of debate on the subject among MPs across the party divide.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Impossible freeze</b></span> </span> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">No, the real punch to today's events will be delivered when the EU meets to
hammer out a deal on the EU budget on 22-23 November. <br /><br />For David Cameron to deliver his policy he must very likely veto an
EU deal, but even then the EU budget will continue to rise with inflation anyway. It is certainly beyond his power to deliver Parliament's view that there should be real-terms cuts, as demonstrated by yesterday's vote. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Then, or soon
after, all the current chatter about EU budget vetoes, freezes and cuts will be shown to have been pointless. The various positions over which our
Goverment (freeze or veto), Labour opposition (cut but no veto) and Parliament (real terms cut) have so publicly clashed
this week will be revealed as a total waste of time due to the nature of the brave, new,
post-democratic EU in which we are currently embroiled.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Pointless veto</b></span></span> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The domestic democratic agony we have just witnessed will have served
only make more glaring the reality: <b>It is actually impossible to freeze, and certainly to cut, the EU budget.</b> There is nothing our Government or Parliament can do - even if working in unison - to stop the amount we hand over to the EU rising without completely re-writing our treaty links.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Seventeen of the EU's twenty seven member countries are net recipients from
the EU budget, changes to which must be agreed unanimously. If no agreement is
reached, the budget reverts to a cut-and-paste, year-by-year agreement with an in-built increase in line with inflation.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It is blatantly in the interest of the vast majority of net recipient
countries to block any attempt to freeze the EU budget and certainly to cut it
since, if unanimous agreement is not reached, the budget rises anyway.
<br /><br />The system is loaded in favour of the budget recipients and a
perpetual increase. Both our Government and Parliament will be shown to be
completely impotent, their views on the changes that should be made to the budget over-ruled
and self-serving EU treaty clauses enacted to keep public cash flowing to Brussels at an ever-increasing
level.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Real question </b></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Our financial exposure to the EU will be demonstrably out of control, regardless of the cuts being suffered by public services. Our
democratic institutions powerless to secure change. So what then? What does this say about democracy in today's EU-dominated Europe and is that powerlessness a future we wish to pursue?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Thanks to the brilliant work yesterday by MP Mark Reckless and supporters of his amendment,
this is the far more fundamental question that will shortly hit home about
Britain's relationship with the EU than would have hit the headlines through any fleeting
debate about whether we should hand over a bit more, or a bit less,
cash.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The soon-to-be-apparent real achievement of yesterday's events will be to have highlighted <span lang="EN-GB">to a fuller extent the nature of the increasingly post-democratic state in
which EU member countries are currently confined. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So bring on the EU summit later this month and the start of the real debate - about how to secure a more democratic future for Britain and hopefully Europe too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-68126935992188285912012-10-18T12:45:00.001+01:002012-10-18T12:45:39.045+01:00Cameron is only talking about an 'in-in' EU referendum<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">by <span style="font-size: small;">Marc Glendening</span></span></b> </span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SN8lBUfoJt0/UH_p625IOSI/AAAAAAAAAkA/UVfZ6IZAdrk/s1600/cameron_gaffe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SN8lBUfoJt0/UH_p625IOSI/AAAAAAAAAkA/UVfZ6IZAdrk/s1600/cameron_gaffe.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">David
Cameron might not exactly be in the Derren Brown class when it comes to
pulling off extraordinary illusions<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">. B</span></span>ut he did pour some cut price,
'70s magic act dry<span style="font-size: small;">-</span>ice over the issue of an EU referendum during the
week of the Tory conference. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He wanted to kick the EU referendum into
the long-grass and so he gave the
impression that, were he to win the next general election, he would
re-negotiate a new relationship with Brussels and then put this to a
popular vote at some unspecified point in the
lifetime of the next parliament. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />The impression the
prime minister was trying to create in the minds of the 70% plus of
voters who want a referendum was that we would eventually have the
chance to either accept the deal he had struck, or, if we rejected it,
we would then leave the EU. He tried to sound unequivocal, and therefore
sincere, when he said that an EU referendum would be the "<span style="font-style: italic;">cleanest, neatest and simplest way</span>" to decide the issue. <br /><br />However,
when questioned by Labour MP and People's Pledge supporter, Natas<span style="font-size: small;">c</span>ha
Engel, at PM's questions (Wednesday October 16) on how Cameron would
vote in a referendum on EU membership, he said: <span style="font-style: italic;">"I
don't want an in/out referendum because I'm not happy with us leaving
the European Union, but I'm not happy with the status quo either. I
think what the vast majority of this country wants is a new settlement
with
Europe and then
that settlement being put to fresh consent. That's what will be going
in our manifesto." </span><br /><br />Putting to one side the
disconcertingly undemocratic implication that referendums should not
enable people to vote for outcomes the prime minister does not
personally share, his response confirms that in the referendum he is
suggesting might one day take place, we will be presented with two
options: either we accept the deal that emerges from the re-negotiated
deal the government can strike with Brussels, or, if we reject it,
whatever the status quo will be at the time will persist. So, this will
only constitute, in reality, if it ever happens, an in/in referendum.
<br /><br />The trouble facing David Cameron is now several fold: First,
everyone who cares about the EU referendum issue no longer buys the
Cameron act. Remember, in 2007 he gave "<span style="font-style: italic;">a cast iron guarantee</span>"
that he would hold a referendum
on
the Lisbon treaty. When challenged as to whether this promise would
hold if the treaty had already been ratified, Cameron refused to confirm
that he couldn't in that context give the British people a
retrospective referendum, which a straight-talking politician would have
done.<br /><br />Second, he has just come to an agreement with Alex
Salmond on a straight in/out referendum on Scotland's relationship with
Westminster. The Scottish vote will not only result in increasing
numbers of people asking why the whole of the UK cannot have a similarly
existential poll regarding where ultimate political over their lives
resides, but it will also inevitably result in speculation north of the
border that there might be a need for a second, EU referendum. This is
because in the context of a vote for independence, the European
Commission has recently confirmed that Scotland would have to apply for
membership and sign up for the
euro. <br /><br />Third, there is the outside possibility that Labour, under the astute
policy guidance of Jon Cruddas, might decide to promise us a real in/out
referendum. This would cause the Tory leadership the kind of acute
problem Harold Wilson's Common Market referendum gambit posed for
Edward Heath in the two 1974 elections. <br /><br />Fourth, and most
importantly, events will probably overtake David Cameron and the
re-negotionatist faction. Within the next three years, two new EU
treaties establishing banking, fiscal and political union might well
have been ratified. These will have major implications for Britain,
Denmark, Sweden and the other countries outside the single currency. The
eurozone members will be able to caucus and vote as a block and so
impose a whole range of measures on the non-euro governments.
Ultimately, it will be up to the European Court of Justice to interpret
whatever treaty will emerge and what the supposed opt-outs David Cameron
has negotiated actually mean. <br /><br />By being as disingenuous as he
has been, the prime minister's various statements on the referendum
question have served only to encourage a deconstruction of his magic act. More end of the Westminster pier than Penn and Teller in
Las Vegas. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />-----------------------------------------------------------------</span><br /><b>written by Marc Glendening</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This article was first published on the <a href="http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2012/10/marc-glendening-lets-be-clear-cameron-is-only-talking-about-an-in-in-referendum.html" target="_blank">ConservativeHome</a> blog</span></span>
<br />
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<br />The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-51241222065458546482012-09-26T17:21:00.000+01:002012-09-26T17:28:23.088+01:00Eurozone turmoil latest - excellent summary<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HifUMp5Z7hU/UGMlT_Ujp2I/AAAAAAAAAjo/PLTFAdXD5LQ/s1600/bfsbeermat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HifUMp5Z7hU/UGMlT_Ujp2I/AAAAAAAAAjo/PLTFAdXD5LQ/s1600/bfsbeermat.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Those looking for a quick, straight-talking update on the continuing financial turmoil in the eurozone could do little better than to read Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's pieces for the <i>Daily Telegraph</i>. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This extract below in particular from his <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100020330/be-very-careful-beloved-spain/" target="_blank">latest article</a> provides a perfect summary of recent developments and their implications: </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">--------------------------------------- </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Events in Europe are now moving fast. Portugal has been in havoc for
the last week. Spain is in ever greater havoc. Much of southern Europe
has become unpredictable.</span></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Is it the fault of the monetary union and the euro? Yes, of course it
is. While large parts of the world are in deep economic crisis –
including Britain – the damage is concentrated with lethal intensity in
the EMU victim states. Spain’s unemployment rates is already 25pc, and
the full austerity has yet to bite.</span></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It is made much worse by the unpleasant discovery that elected
governments can do nothing to escape the trap. They have lost control
over their own destinies.</span></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Spain and Portugal are trapped in chronic slump with over-valued
currencies. While they have clawed back some lost labour competitiveness
by cutting wages, this has merely – and necessarily – compounded the
debt-deflation disaster. It has pushed them closer to bankruptcy.</span></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Draghi bond plan can certainly put off the day of reckoning. It
can lower borrowing costs across the board and cushion the slump. But it
cannot in itself stop the slow asphyxiation of these societies.</span></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We are moving from the financial phase of this crisis to the
full-blown political phase. It really is playing out like the 1930s.</span></i></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Final thought from recent media comment on the euro crisis, however, should go to Chris Morris, the BBC's correspondent in Athens, who says of Greece in his <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19493374" target="_blank">latest article</a>:</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So after three governments, two bailouts and an economic contraction of
Great Depression proportions, this country isn't out of the woods.</span></i></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Time, then, to stop avoiding the heart of the problem and start planning an orderly restoration of a national currency? At this stage, there's no pain free solution and clearly no viable alternative to a Greek departure from the euro.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span>The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-7945042656039891892012-07-19T14:07:00.000+01:002012-07-19T14:08:44.495+01:00Follow us on Twitter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The Democracy Movement is now on Twitter, the <br />micro-blogging website. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">For the latest EU-related news and DM comment, please follow us: </span><a href="http://twitter.com/DemocracyMovemt" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">@DemocracyMovemt</span></a><br />The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-32841210317249406792012-07-09T18:05:00.000+01:002012-07-19T14:07:52.021+01:00David Cameron's mood music on an EU referendum<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>______________________</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>by Marc Glendening</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">David Cameron's vague statement last week that the government might hold an EU referendum at some unspecified point in the future, but not involving the option of us actually quitting membership, has been roundly ridiculed. <br /><br />Deservedly so. This was the prime minister doing a traditional political 'taking you for a fool' act, reminiscent of his predecessors Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. <br /><br />With so many mainstream politicians in this post-rational, post-modern era, political declarations are more about making mood music, creating vague impressions, conveying a sense of aesthetic well-being, rather than about actual, hard content. <br /><br />However, those of us who really do want a in/out referendum should take some heart from the fact that DC felt the need to come out with the disingenuous statement he did. <br /><br />Given that even a few weeks back the official No 10 line was that very few of us wanted the chance to vote on the EU and that the campaign for a referendum could be airily brushed aside, it is clear that Cameron, being the arch opportunist that he is, now appreciates the degree of momentum behind our democratic movement. <br /><br />In part this is because of the number of Labour politicians now calling for a referendum or saying that one is inevitable: Peter Mandelson, Peter Hain, Alan Johnson, Natasha Engel, Keith Vaz among many others including, most significantly of all perhaps, Jon Cruddas, the MP now in charge of Labour's policy review and a signed up supporter of the People's Pledge <a href="http://www.peoplespledge.org/" target="_blank">EU referendum campaign</a>. <br /><br />This issue places the prime minister in a particularly difficult position as someone who says there is no alternative to being in the EU, but simultaneously tries to maintain his EU-sceptical credentials by claiming that he wants to see various powers re-negotiated back to Westminster from Brussels. <br /><br />The reason he continues to rule out an in/out referendum is that he neither wants to be forced to campaign to stay in an unreformed EU (given that the EU cannot be fundamentally changed through negotiation), so blowing his EU-sceptical credentials for all time - but nor does he want, self-evidently, to associate himself with the out of the EU movement. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Within the next two to three years the EU will move towards a further centralisation of power - fiscal union - in order to save the euro from collapse. This will have huge implications for countries like Britain, Denmark and Sweden that are in the EU but outside the single currency. <br /><br />Semi-detachment from the Pan-Europeanist project will simply not be an option. We will be confronted with an all or nothing scenario. The 'third way', re-negotiationist position rhetorically championed by Cameron and others will be finally exposed as impossibilist nonsense. <br /><br />That moment has not yet arrived, but it soon will do.</span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong><br />_____________________________________<br />by Marc Glendening, DM campaign director</strong></span>The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-14321936383664909382012-06-08T15:12:00.000+01:002012-06-08T15:12:06.321+01:00DM responds to Lord Owen's 'European Community' plan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The Democracy Movement has a letter in today's <em>Times</em> about Lord (David) Owen's <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/lord-owen-urges-eu-referendum-7826715.html" target="_blank">widely-publicised</a> proposal for a referendum on Britain's participation in a restructured "European Community". <br /><br />The former Labour foreign secretary yesterday set out his vision of Britain's membership of a separate organisation from an increasingly integrated EU, which would </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">encompass a new, wider single market plus co-operation on foreign, environment and security policies. <br /><br />Such a Community, he says in a new book <em>Europe Restructured</em>, could also include other non-EU countries like Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and the Balkans. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The Times, Friday 8 June 2012<br /><br />Dear Sir,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Lord Owen's support for an EU referendum and for fundamentally altering Britain's relationship with the EU is welcome, but his mechanism for achieving his plan is flawed.<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />A core eurozone appears increasingly likely, but none among the 26 other EU member countries shows any sign of wanting to restructure the EU to establish a wider and looser "European Community", handing wide-ranging powers back to national parliaments. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">A referendum on Britain's participation in such a Community would ask voters to endorse a concept that is not on offer and so change nothing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Lord Owen's plan is an important contribution to a growing debate about Britain's future relationship with the EU. But any prospect of engagement with EU structures on his, or any fundamentally different, terms can only be achieved through first holding an in/out vote and voting for Britain to approach the EU afresh.<br /><br />Yours etc.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Alongside, a letter from Roland Rudd, chairman of the think tank Business for New Europe (and a </span><a href="http://www.bnegroup.org/about/people/roland-rudd1/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">former board member</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> of the failed pro-euro campaign Britain in Europe) criticises calls for an EU referendum on the grounds that they increase business uncertainty. <br /><br />If Mr Rudd favours business certainty above all else, perhaps he could tell us whether he supports Greece, together with other financially unstable countries, leaving the euro as soon as possible? <br /><br />Rather than the perpetual EU indecision and the uncertainty about whether resources can be found to continue the bailouts that has characterised the euro crisis so far, surely business will at least know where they stand? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">In reality, successful companies are always changing and looking for opportunities in change - better deals, expanded markets and lower costs - and they no doubt understand that successful countries must do the same. <br /><br />Along with his colleague, BNE director Phillip Souta - also a <a href="http://nucleus.uk.net/comment/item/phillip-souta" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">former Britain in Europe campaigner</a> and co-founder of Young Federal Union - it appears that Mr Rudd and Business for New Europe are too ideologically encumbered with support for the EU project to take such a pragmatic and truly outward-looking business view.</span><br />The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-243419593865829710.post-47885296127051075772012-05-25T17:53:00.000+01:002012-05-25T18:29:07.479+01:00Revealed: The reason the pro-EU lobby don't want a referendum<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>----------------------------------</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>by Marc Glendening<br />----------------------------------</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L5U7jDpFZqM/T7-vU4SMJaI/AAAAAAAAAio/QlLjhtYGKio/s1600/congress_crowd_london.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qba="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L5U7jDpFZqM/T7-vU4SMJaI/AAAAAAAAAio/QlLjhtYGKio/s1600/congress_crowd_london.jpg" /></a>'We can't have a referendum because I can't think of any good arguments for the EU': The true anti-democratic nature of EU-elitism exposed! <br /><br />Gaby Hinsliff had a very interesting and revealing article in <em>The Guardian</em> (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/21/ed-miliband-anti-europe-fire" target="_blank">'Ed Miliband, you stoke this anti-Europe fire at your peril'</a>, May 21) earlier this week.<br /><br />She was commenting on the growing number of prominent Labour figures - Peter Mandelson, Ed Balls, Alan Johnson and now new party policy supremo, John Cruddas - who have all recently argued that there will need to be a referendum on EU membership.<br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The possibility that Ed Miliband might boldly go where Harold Wilson dared to venture during the two 1974 general election campaigns and cause havoc for Cameron and Clegg by making the promise that he would, if prime minister, give the British people the chance to decide who governs them, fills Gaby with fear. <br /><br />Why? Because, she concedes: <strong><em>"Any future yes-to-Europe campaign is now seriously short of compelling arguments."</em></strong> Yes, the project of building a centralised, top-down, Brussels based system of government has indeed, some of us would argue, been rendered redundant by the liberalisation of world trade, the shift in power from west to east, the new technology and demographic change (among other factors). </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Gaby is like a mystic who having seen her belief in supranatural powers demolished by the onward march of science still cannot let go of her pre-modern faith. This would be fine if this was just a personal matter. She could happily wrestle with her inner contradictions till the cows come home. <br /><br />However, there are sinister implications in relation to her opposition to an EU referendum. She is effectively saying that she wishes the political class will continue to deny us the right to decide who gets to make the key decisions over our lives, because she does not have the arguments to persuade us to share her EU dogma. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">There is an implicit, well perhaps not so implicit, authoritarianism with many - but by no means all - on the pro-EU side. While there are honourable pro-EUists, such as former Europe minister Keith Vaz and Ian McKenzie, director of the People's Pledge <a href="http://www.peoplespledge.org/" target="_blank">EU referendum</a> campaign, who do believe the people should be entrusted with a say, the likes of Shirley Williams and Denis McShane are adamant that we should not be given a vote on this question. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The majority of EU-elitists are up-dated versions of nineteenth century Tory elitists who thought the working classes and women were too imbecilic to have the franchise extended to them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Sadly, Gaby Hinsliff appears to come in this category too. At the conclusion of her article she writes: "It's immoral to refuse a vote on Europe lest the people give the 'wrong' answer': but it's certifiably mad to start this fight without knowing you could win." </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This is classic <em>Guardian</em> 1984 double-think/newspeak, professing to believe in democracy whilst simultaneously ruling it out unless the right result can be guaranteed beforehand. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">At least the trad Tory opponents of universal franchise had the grace to honestly and proudly proclaim their anti-democratic politics. </span><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">-------------------------------------------</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">by Marc Glendening</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">-------------------------------------------</span></strong></span></div>
</div>The Democracy Movementhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174233062485049186noreply@blogger.com0