Two brothers and a son - Family Video Horror

Marxist Milibands confronted on constitutional conspiracy

Deleted Comment on Miliband's leadership Guardian article

I might have posted this under my series of "Treasures from the threads" but as The Guardian saw fit to censor it that seems inappropriate. It is rather long and I have linked it from here. This solution has the added advantage that I do not have to sully my own blog by linking to the complete garbage set forth by the mechant Miliband yesterday.

Belgium split threatens Europe not just the EU and the Lisbon Treaty!

We watch in amazement as events unfold which cry out for a statesman of stature to step forward and cry "ENOUGH" Look at this poll from Belgium as reported in EU Observer, linked here. Consider these statements: 1. Forty nine percent of people in the south-lying Belgian region of Wallonia said they would support "rattachment" - a re-joining - with France in the event of a break-up with the northern Dutch-speaking region of Flanders. 2. On the French side, 60 percent of respondents would like to join-up with their Belgian neighbours, up from 54 percent in previous surveys. The majority in favour is even higher in bordering regions such as Pas-de-Calais. A re-negotiation of the Lisbon Treaty is surely the least significant result of any such break-up. Touch one border within Europe and a dreadful precedent will have been established. The results will be internal as well as external. France, for example, will be impacted as the balance of the country will have been altered, reducing the weight of the South and West in favour of the North and East, as clearly already understood in the quoted paragraph numbered 2 above. Within the EU the balance of MEP seats and EU Council weighting votes will be a matter of concern to all. The relative balance of power between France and Germany will shift and relief might be sought elsewhere such as in the Alsace. What will be the result for the Belgian monarchy? Queen Elizabeth II of Britain would do well to reflect on possible outcomes as the United Kingdom now looks likely to follow the fracturing example set by Belgium. The loss of a national currency must be one sure cause of this disaster. No state could have drifted into this situation over so many months had its currency reflected the growing crisis. Britain's totally incompetent governance gives no confidence that the continuance of the pound sterling will prove a barrier to a similar split given the dreadful indebtedness incurred by Gordon Brown. How can this collapse into chaos be halted? One solution would be to unanimously and immediately abandon the Lisbon Treaty and propose an urgent preparation of a constitution based upon a pillar of direct (possibly IT based technology) and subject to a simultaneous pan-EU referendum. Each day that passes with yet more dodgy ploys appearing to get the Lisbon Treaty approved costs ever more in the reputation and authority of the EU's present political leaders, particularly those of the present rotating President and his Commission counterpart.

Letter to The First Post

Cameron must take charge of EU debate (Link)

If David Cameron really wants an early general election, then he should promise to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty irrespective of what happens in other EU member states.

At present the Tory pledge is that we would have a referendum, but only if the treaty had not come into force.

Therefore while there is still the slightest chance that the Irish might vote "yes" in a second referendum, Labour must remain in office to block the Tories and save the treaty. That could mean hanging on until the bitter end - Thursday May 6th 2010.

Cameron could "cut the Gordian knot" simply by announcing that even if the Irish did reverse their decision, he would still allow the British to have their say.

Not only would that take the pressure off the Irish people and government, a friendly act, it would also relieve Labour of the burden of holding the fort for the EU - thereby freeing them to replace the disastrous Brown with a new leader, who could then go to the country and seek his own mandate.

Yours faithfully,

Dr R D Cooper

FIRST POSTED JULY 30, 2008

Latest Irish proposals breaches Lisbon's provisions

Details of how the unscrupulous EU plans to illegally break the Lisbon Treaty to try to bribe the Irish into a second referendum giving the "correct" result are published by the political editor of the Irish Independent in his newspaper this morning, linked here. I have posted on what IS and what IS NOT possible under the terms of Lisbon and Nice regarding Commissioners, which summaries are linked here , here and most importantly HERE. Ireland cannot have a permanent EU Commissioner under the terms of an unamended Lisbon Treaty although such is perfectly legal and feasible under the terms of the Nice Treaty which continues as the latest enforceable EU Treaty.

Ganley meets Klaus

Resistance to the EU tyranny is still alive, read here.

Poisoned politics

The stench from the completely underhand attempts to ram through the Lisbon Treaty will spread across Europe from Dublin like stinking clouds of mustard gas over the World War One battlefields of the Somme and Verdun. The Red C poll in Ireland clearly showing more voters would vote against the Treaty than at the actual referendum is a clear signal of the contempt the electorate in that country holds for the spectacle put on by the EU's leaders since the result became known. The latest fracture in Ireland's political scene is reported in this morning's Irish Times, linked here. The London Times meanwhile has its most significant articles in the business section, the UK Government's borrowing plight here, but even more worryingly this harrowing tale of the problems at Merril Lynch, linked here. It is difficult to pick one paragraph to highlight the disaster at that institution long considered a pillar of the West's capitalist system, so try these: ....The group has made an overall loss of $18.7 billion in the past four quarters, after taking about $40 billion worth of writedowns on CDOs and other mortgage-related investments. Mr Thain called last night’s CDO sale a “significant milestone in our risk-reduction efforts”.... ........Merrill Lynch acquired the CDOs that it sold yesterday for $30.6 billion. By the end of the second quarter this year they had declined in value to an estimated $11.1 billion and Merrill agreed yesterday to sell them to Lone Star, the private equity fund, for $6.7 billion. Meanwhile the BBC Today programme , this morning, is regularly pushing an extension of the mortgage rescue scheme which would put taxpayers at further risk for potential losses in the trillions where individual UK citizens have already been placed in debt by their government of almost 200,000 pounds per head. What a time for the EU leadership to destroy any remaining credibility the democratically elected governments of the 27 nation state membership might retain by fraudulently trying to salvage the Lisbon Treaty which will deprive those individual states of some of the tools many will need to protect their national citizens from this economic hurricane as best they may.

Czechs will not ratify Lisbon Treaty before Ireland

The report comes from no less a source then the font of much federalist propaganda Euractiv and is linked here. Brilliant news! The report begins: Eurosceptic Czech President Vaclav Klaus has confirmed that he will not sign his country's Lisbon Treaty ratification unless Ireland ratifies it first. The statement was made following a meeting with his Polish colleague and fellow Treaty critic Lech Kaczynski on 24 July.....

Barack in Berlin

It occurred to me watching the speech of Barack Obama yesterday in Berlin how desperate Europeans were becoming to find a politician who might hold out the possibility for both hope and change. The result in yesterday's by-election in Britain's Glasgow East constituency indicated huge disgust with the present Labour Government, but also surely the political machines of all the main parties. It was the hugely efficient Clinton controlled US Democratic Party political machine that Obama effectively destroyed to win his party's nomination. The spectacle of the EU leaders being prepared to dump the reduction of EU Commissioners from 27 to 18 (or two thirds the EU membership) after 2014 to salvage the Lisbon Treaty from the Irish defeat - when they have repeatedly stated the necessity for the various constitutional treaties as for increased efficiency from a streamlined Commission - does not just demean the political party Leaders presently in power but the ratifying National Parliaments and many other politicians who have gone along with this sordid deception. When the EU disintegrates, as it now so surely must, the likely effects seem increasingly likely to also shatter the previously existing order especially if there are to be no national leaders to be found who the European electorates can turn to or trust. Belgium is falling asunder, Britain is both bankrupted (partly by the grotesque size of its payments to the corrupt and repeatedly unaudited EU) and splitting apart on a wave of nationalism as witnessed yesterday in Glasgow East. Neither of which events would be possible without the sham alternative government of the EU hovering in the shadows. If (or when) the EU self-destructs how will the fractured nation states then manage to recover, will Belgium and the UK be the only ones to face other nationalist pressures as they struggle to form a new consensus? Other strains seem certain to appear if there continues to be not one single politician of note and repute to step up and expose the Lisbon process for the disgusting conspiracy it really is, scrapping the reduction of EU Commissioners even if just contemplated is surely now evidence enough of the true nature of those behind this EU project.

Ode to meesery?

Wishing all who feed off the EU a miserable summer

Czech Constitution - Core or non-Core - such is the question

The hoops these anti-democratic totalitarians will leap through to rob us all of our rights get more bizarre by the day, read this just in from the Czech Republic whose government seems now to be arguing that constitutional areas conflicting with the Lisbon Treaty should be ignored while sections not-conflicting can be considered core AND democratic as that is what the Government has decided.

Monkey business over EU Commissioners

The TFEU after Lisbon is quite clear on the numbers of Commissioners as follows: ==================================== SECTION 4 THE COMMISSION Article 244 In accordance with Article 17(5) of the Treaty on European Union, the members of the Commission shall be chosen on the basis of a system of rotation established unanimously by the European Council and on the basis of the following principles: (a) Member States shall be treated on a strictly equal footing as regards determination of the sequence of, and the time spent by, their nationals as members of the Commission; consequently, the difference between the total number of terms of office held by nationals of any given pair of Member States may never be more than one; (b) subject to point (a), each successive Commission shall be so composed as to reflect satisfactorily the demographic and geographical range of all the Member States. ===================================== How then can Vincent Brown in an article in the Irish Times today state the following: However, while the Lisbon Treaty states that the number of commissioners shall be 18 or no more than two-thirds of the number of member states, it gives the European Council the discretion to decide otherwise. So the European Council could decide that henceforth, if the Lisbon Treaty is passed, there shall be a commissioner from each member state. So the shape of a possible deal with the Irish could be as follows: that the European Council, at its meeting in October or December, gives a solemn undertaking that if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified by every member state, including Ireland, it will exercise its discretion to have one commissioner for every member state. This would meet the objections of some people in Ireland to the Lisbon Treaty, perhaps a sufficient number of Irish voters. The suggestion is that the European Council can immediately and deliberately override a specific clause in the TFEU, that Commissioners post 2014 be selected on a basis of rotation, permanent members one from each member state cannot possibly be deemed to be rotating therefore the intent of the Treaty, as ratified by Parliaments all across the EU is immediately trashed. If this happens Lisbon effectively means the rule of law is finished within the EU post Lisbon. Will the Irish really agree to that? Let us remember that much of the claimed raison d'etre for the Constitutional/Reform/Lisbon process was the streamlining of the EU Commission. Will this bunch of crooks and shysters really stop at nothing to get this terrible Treaty through?

"A Paine in the EU " from the USA

An interesting item on Declan Ganley from the USA is linked from here. Note the harrowing comment from Damian Hockney about immunity from prosecution for the EU's enforcers.

Nice and Lisbon on Commissioners

The question of Ireland's situation under Nice versus Lisbon on having its own Commissioner seems to be becoming a live issue. What say the Treaties? The facts provided by the EU itself, linked and quoted below, clearly show the Irish will be much more likely to retain a Commissioner under the terms of Nice, which following their referendum now remains in force. As Nice requires unanimity on the number of Commissioners which are to be less than the total number of the 27 member states Ireland can quite sensibly insist those terms are met if in future Malta and Cyprus alternate one Commissioner. No such option appears to be possible under the Lisbon Treaty which requires a reduction to 18. NICE (From EU link here)

Article 4 of the Protocol on the enlargement of the European Union, annexed to the Treaty of Nice, specifies that as of 1 January 2005 the Commission shall include only one national of each of the Member States. The Treaty of Accession, signed in Athens on 16 April 2003, amended this provision because the new Commission will take up its duties on 1 November 2004 and will include, as stipulated, one national of each Member State.

The Protocol on enlargement also provides that, when the EU consists of 27 Member States, the number of Members of the Commission shall be less than the number of Member States. The exact number of Members of the Commission is to be set by the Council, acting unanimously, and Members will be chosen according to a rotation system based on the principle of equality, the implementing arrangements for which are to be adopted by the Council, acting unanimously and in accordance with the following principles:

• Member States shall be treated on a strictly equal footing as regards determination of the sequence of, and the time spent by, their nationals as Members of the Commission; under no circumstances may the Commission include two Members of the same nationality;
• each successive college shall be so composed as to reflect satisfactorily the demographic and geographical range of all the Member States of the Union.

This rotation system will apply as from the date on which the first Commission following the date of accession of the 27th Member State of the Union takes up its duties (i.e. in principle as of November 2009). In other words, the Commission which will take up its duties in 2004 will therefore be extended to include one national of each country which has joined the Union by that time.

LISBON (From EU link here)

European Commission

Its main job is promoting the European public interest. The new treaty reduces the number of Commissioners - from 2014, only two thirds of member countries will have a Commissioner (e.g. with 27 countries, there would be 18 Commissioners), but the posts will rotate between all countries. The number of Commissioners can also be changed by the European Council (by unanimous vote).

In another major change, there will be a direct link between the results of the European elections and the choice of candidate for president of the Commission. (Ed. - This bit was news to me!!)

The president will also be stronger, as he/she will have the power to dismiss fellow Commissioners.

Declan Ganley of Libertas on a 25 page EU Constitution

The link to the full presentation in pdf format is here. The need for democratic reform of the EU which this blog, its forerunner and my own novel 'Millennium Blitzkrieg" on pages 129 to 131 (written in the mid to late nineteen-nineties) have tried to promote, in recent years for something along the lines of the Swiss Confederation arrangements, seems echoed in the following section: A 25-page constitution that could be put to all the citizens of Europe for a vote that upfront sets out the aspirations of the European Union that doesn't try to hide things, I believe, is something that the citizens of Europe can buy into and support. I think the citizens of Europe will respond very well to vision, to some ideals being set down, to some objectives being laid out instead of thinking and knowing that there is some hidden agenda. This isn't a conspiracy theory, Giscard D'Estaing boasted to La Monde last summer, when he didn't realize that I was going to have to have a referendum. He said with regard to the Lisbon treaty public opinion will be led to adopt without knowing it. The policies we would never dare present to them directly. All of the earlier proposals will be in the new text, Lisbon, but will be hidden or disguised in some way. Does that sounds like a democrat to you? It doesn't to me. The Belgian Foreign Minister, I think it was, said about the Lisbon treaty, "It is unreadable. It is a success." It's sad. And it's very sad that the word, the phrase "European leadership" is an oxymoron today, when you think about it, in so many respects, that we have a need for mediocrity in Europe, a need for mediocrity, that is fearful, or even contemptuous of its need to draw its legitimacy from the citizens of Europe, and that has to change, because we don't want Euroskepticism to rise from the grave that we put it into. And if they tried to dig up the Lisbon Treaty from the grave that we've just put it into, Euroskepticism will arise with it, and I don’t know how we're going to put it back in its box. We mustn’t do that.

EU's Sarkozy in Dublin

A good summary from the Irish Times is here. Another view is in the Irish Independent from here. It appears that the reality now is that the Treaty of Nice will provide the legal basis for the EU for years ahead, while quite illegally that institution will choose to operate as if Lisbon had been ratified thus bringing the anti-democratic wannabe super-state into ever growing public contempt. Most immediately the June 2009 elections to the European Parliament will be on Nice Treaty membership that I listed below last week. The French President who has been offering the carrot of an Irish Commissioner continuing as a reward for Lisbon Treaty ratification by the Irish, was yesterday confronted with the fact that Nice states the reduction from 27 to 18 Commissioners requires unanimity. Refresh your memories on the late-night end to the Nice Treaty negotiations and what we are now lumbered with from The Economist article "So that's all agreed then, Dec 14 2000: NICE" from here. Almost exactly three years later I was commentating on Ironies, linked here, on the Presidential ambitions of the evil Tony Blair for even the planning to foist what became the EU Constitutional Treaty/EU Reform Treaty/ Lisbon Treaty upon Britain, which I planned to merely selectively quote, but is here in full to better illustrate how much we owe the Irish and how grateful we must remain that at least we are presently only burdened with the dreadful Nice Treaty and its equally obnoxious forerunners: Blair's Presidential Ambitions Several commentators, including this blog, have tended to assume that Blair's enthusiasm for the provisions and directions of the document drawn up in the Convention led by Valery Giscard d'Estaing were motivated by his possible ambitions to fill the presidential office it envisioned. The apparent total disregard of his government for the historical democratic rights and individual freedoms of the people of this country, including the gross misrepresentation of the nature of the proposed treaty by his Foreign Secretary and himself to Parliament, left little other logical explanation. Suspecting such duplicity as being solely driven by personal ambition is one thing, but suspicion is what it would normally have to remain when dealing with the inner desires of another man. Extraordinarily, however, in the statement issued by Number 10 of the press conference delivered by Blair and Straw, following the breakdown of the IGC, we now have more or less concrete evidence in the Prime Minister's own words that such is indeed his ambition. Among what is mostly incomprehensible double talk, if not at times just plain gobbledegook, is this statement: I don't think in the near term it is going to be a dramatic problem, but I think as time goes on, unless Europe has a really effective way of working, and I think that means that you need a full time coordinator of these Council meetings, you know you can see with what has happened today and in the past few days, I mean the Italian Presidency has performed heroics, but it is difficult for them, each successor country to take that on, so I think there are areas there where in time it will be extremely important, for Europe to operate effectively, that we have this new agreement. It could perhaps be argued that the Prime Minister is merely suggesting any competent coordinator or President could fill such a role, but that case for me is weak. To argue a negotiation failed for the lack of something only a successful outcome could deliver is somewhat disingenuous. The point being made also seems to me irrelevant to the question asked, indicating this was the item already at the forefront of Blair's mind. What Blair said boils down in essence to this: 'Europe can't work without a strong leader' Blair as PM sees himself as such. No strong leader envisages himself working for another - Blair must therefore consider himself as the man to lead the EU. In my view, therefore, to create an EU Presidential Post became Blair's principal objective and the remaining constitutional treaty terms under which the people of Britain and all other nation states in Europe would lose many of their democratic rights became matters of minor importance. I believe that it is up to the people of Britain who have seen their own institutions of government and political conventions despoiled by this self-driven, but otherwise directionless man, to ensure he is exposed and removed from power before he has further opportunity to coordinate a similar fate for the whole of Europe. Hutton and other looming difficulties happily make this appear an increasingly practical proposition. Britain, to my mind, certainly cannot afford a resumption of constitutional negotiations while its negotiating team is headed by one who so obviously displays his own personal agenda lies with the 'opposing' side. The entire Press Release is linked from ( here) (The link no longer works and merely reaches a statement from Patricia Hewitt) Luckily I quoted the section that best illustrates the point of the posting. President Sarkozy it will be recalled first backed Blair as first EU President for it was only through the conspiring of the timing of handover between Brown and Blair that Parliament could be best delivered for sacrifice. When such was accomplished Blair's name was removed from the prospective Presidential candidate list, as I also frequently predicted on my blogs, thus making the planned trashing of the nation's democracy, liberties and sovereignty somehow even more grotesque. When and how will Blair and Brown be brought to account?

Collapse?

While Brown addressed the Israeli Knesset the City had to digest the latest ITEM report from Ernst and Young, which included the following in its introduction: The economic outlook goes from bad to worse… Economic prospects have deteriorated badly over the last three months. Oil prices, which had just passed $100 a barrel when ITEM’s last forecast was made in early April, are now just shy of $150. Food and energy costs are set to push CPI inflation above 4%, delaying the prospect of further base rate cuts. The all-important service sector survey balance fell back to 47.1%. More of a surprise in view of the healthier prospects for exports, the balance for manufacturing fell by nearly 4 points to 45.8%, lower than at any time since 2001. The FTSE100, which was trading at around 6000 at the time of ITEM’s Spring forecast, is now testing 5200. The LIBOR-base rate premium has moved back up close to 1%, so market interest rates are higher despite the base rate cut in May. The wholesale markets remain frozen and the mortgage market has moved from feast to famine. Commercial and residential property prices are falling and the CIPS purchasing managers balance for construction plunged to 38% in June, the lowest since this survey started in 1994. …with the housing market collapsing… New mortgage approvals crashed in May. The figure of 42,000 was down 28% on April and 64% on a year earlier. The number of families moving house fell back to 100,000, about 40% down on the ‘Economic outlook for business’ summarises the latest UK quarterly forecast by the ITEM Club, and gives its assessment of the implications for business Ernst & Young is the sole sponsor of the ITEM Club, which is the only independent economic forecasting group to use the HM Treasury model of the UK economy. Its forecasts are independent of any political, economic or business bias............

EU's ignored voters to get pan-EU referendum in 2009

The report that the Libertas movement, that ditched the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland, is to stand candidates all across the continent next June will finally give the EU's voters their chance to have a say on the trashing of their democracies and cut the cash lifeline to the corrupted ruling political parties responsible for this disgrace. One report comes from Washington and Australia, linked here. The following is from the article:

"We will tell people that Libertas is the box you put your X in if you want to vote 'no' to the Lisbon Treaty. It's clear, it's simple," Mr Ganley said.

"The message will be: we are now giving you a referendum and it's going to take place in June of next year at the European elections."

Mr Ganley spoke as French President Nicolas Sarkozy prepared for a visit to Ireland.

No Commons statement from Foreign Secretary

In spite of an earlier promise this was all parliament and the people of Britain were given on the scrapping of their democracy, abandonment of sovereignty and independent governance and an effective return to "absolute monarchism", no statement just this bland written report:

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Lisbon Treaty (Ratification)

The Minister for Europe (Mr. Jim Murphy): Following the enactment of the EU (Amendment) Bill, the Government completed the ratification process for the Lisbon treaty on 16 July by depositing its instrument of ratification in Rome.

REPORT ends!

Under the Lisbon Treaty this country will be ruled by EU Commissioners and the Council of Europe, where Britain's representative will exercise his vote according to plenipotentiary powers from the Monarch - not from Parliament. The Westminster Parliament cannot amend legislation passed to it from the Council or the Commission via the European Parliament which itself has ZERO legislative authority! The full sordid story of how this feat was effected in the parliament to be trashed may be read in the monthly archives of this blog. My warnings, and those of several others have fallen upon deaf ears just as were those on the disastrous economic shenanigans of Blair and Brown. What next? Who knows - few, it seems, care!

Germany's state broadcaster UK Ratification report

Deutsche Welle, the German State broadcaster chooses the image above to report the UK's shameful ratification of the failed Lisbon Treaty: The text of their report is linked here. So why did so many of our relatives and forefathers sacrifice their lives in the name of "freedom"? Strangely the Countdown word game programme (favourite of the generations who know what freedom really means) had the obvious letters to compose "SEDITION" today, surely a clear warning to any who might wish to dissent to the just announced lodging of the treacherous Lisbon Treaty ratification documents in Rome?

Britons Betrayed

The Independent reports, read here in full:

Under the UK's ratification process, both houses of Parliament must pass the treaty.

The Queen then gives Royal Assent, and signs goatskin "instruments of ratification" along with the Foreign Secretary.

These are then sealed, bound in blue leather, and deposited with the Italian ministry of foreign affairs in Rome.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said all these stages had now been completed.

"The documents were lodged in Rome yesterday," he said.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband is due to deliver a statement to Parliament on the matter later.

Sarkozy runs scared of open debate over Lisbon!

The full report is in the Irish Times, linked here. The essential quota as follows:

Anti-Lisbon group Cóir yesterday called on Mr Sarkozy to withdraw his "imperious and insulting" declaration that Ireland would have to vote again. Cóir spokesman Richard Greene said: "It is simply deplorable that any foreign politician would come to a sovereign nation and attempt to tell voters what to do."

© 2008 The Irish Times

Treasures from the threads - Number Eighteen

A column in the Telegraph by Iain Martin, linked here, brought this response: A man was selected to replace a high level manager. His predecessor gave him three envelopes labeled "1", "2", and "3". His predecessor told him, "When you find yourself in dire straits, and only in really dire straits, open an envelope its numerical order." Time passed, and the man found himself in dire straits. He opened the first envelope. Inside the note said, "Blame your predecessor". So he did. After a while, the man found himself once again in dire straits. He opened the second envelope. The note said, "Reorganize". The man did so, and all was smooth, for a good bit. Then things got really dire again. The man opened the third envelope, and inside were the instructions: "Prepare three envelopes." NuLabor blamed everything that went wrong on Margaret Thatcher. It worked for a while. NuLabor reorganized . . . again and again and again. NuLabor is still reorganizing. This ploy no longer works. It is now time for NuLabor to prepare 3 envelopes. You Brits have significant deficit spending, and your EU masters have said that your government can't borrow anymore. This should be most interesting. Posted by LarryOldtimer on July 17, 2008 2:13 AM

Latest Bruges Group facts on EU's bankrupting of Britain

THE FLOOD OF EU LAWS

From 1st May 2008 to 15th July the EU has passed 282 laws which will impact on the UK. That is TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY TWO!

Since May 2007 the total is 1,798. Examples of the laws recently introduced are below:

• Nest feathering - better pay, pensions and expenses for Brussels bureaucrats Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 420/2008 adjusting with effect from 1 July 2007 the remuneration and pensions of officials and other servants of the European Communities
• Control over credit Directive 2008/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on credit agreements for consumers and repealing Council Directive 87/102/EEC
• Involvement in civil law mediation Directive 2008/52/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on certain aspects of mediation in civil and commercial matters
• More funding for tobacco farmers Council Regulation (EC) No 470/2008 amending Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003 as regards the transfer of tobacco aid to the Community Tobacco Fund for the years 2008 and 2009 and Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 with regard to financing of the Community Tobacco Fund
• Control over the marketing of apples Commission Regulation (EC) No 460/2008 amending Regulation (EC) No 85/2004 laying down the marketing standard for apples
• More control over Customs Regulation (EC) No 450/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down the Community Customs Code (Modernised Customs Code)
• Control over telecommunications equipment Commission Directive 2008/63/EC on competition in the markets in telecommunications terminal equipment (Codified version)
• Control over the marketing of eggs Commission Regulation (EC) No 598/2008 amending Regulation (EC) No 589/2008 laying down detailed rules for implementing Council Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 as regards the marketing standards of eggs
• Restrictions on the UK's fishing industry Commission Regulation (EC) No 614/2008 2008 establishing a prohibition of fishing for tusk in Norwegian waters of IV by vessels flying the flag of the United Kingdom
• Control over driving licences - relating to licences for driving clutch pedal vehicles Commission Directive 2008/65/EC amending Directive 91/439/EEC on driving licences
• Movement of social security schemes Regulation (EC) No 592/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons, to self-employed persons and to members of their families moving within the Community
• Control over firearms Directive 2008/51/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 91/477/EEC on control of the acquisition and possession of weapons
• Price of eggs Commission Regulation (EC) No 448/2008 fixing representative prices in the poultrymeat and egg sectors and for egg albumin, and amending Regulation (EC) No 1484/95
• Petfood Commission Regulation (EC) No 399/2008 amending Annex VIII to Regulation (EC) No 1774/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards requirements for certain processed petfood
• Price of fruit and vegetables Commission Regulation (EC) No 389/2008 establishing the standard import values for determining the entry price of certain fruit and vegetables

Each time the anti-democratic EU legislative process passes a law, a new cost is added onto British businesses. As members of the European Union there is nothing that our own democratic process can do to overturn those decisions.

Gdansk Shipyards to further discredit the EU Reform process?

Euractiv, the strongly EU federalist website with good contacts inside the corrupt Brussels regime, reports on the continuing degradation of democracy the attempts to salvage the Lisbon Treaty might now involve, read here. The Irish continue to come under pressure from present EU rotating President Sarkozy to hold another referendum, a report on which is available here.

Treaty of Nice European Parliament Membership

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT Legislative powers : Zero Costs: Astronomical Member States EP seats Germany 99 United Kingdom 72 France 72 Italy 72 Spain 50 Poland 50 Romania 33 Netherlands 25 Greece 22 Czech Republic 20 Belgium 22 Hungary 20 Portugal 22 Sweden 18 Bulgaria 17 Austria 17 Slovakia 13 Denmark 13 Finland 13 Ireland 12 Lithuania 12 Latvia 8 Slovenia 7 Estonia 6 Cyprus 6 Luxembourg 6 Malta 5 Total 732

The EU after Ireland’s NO

I have been silent on the Irish No, for which this blog campaigned so hard, as the consequences were certain to be confusing for a considerable period of time. President Sarkozy’s address yesterday to the European Parliament at the beginning of the period of the French six monthly rotating Presidency of the EU now seems a fitting moment to record some early impressions. The reaction of the majority of the leaders of the main member states of the EU has been predictably disgusting. What better proof of all the worst accusations that this blog and its forerunner have hurled at the EU down the years can there possibly have ever been? The behaviour of the British governing party, its two chambers of Parliament and the nation’s present monarch have been particularly grotesque. Lodging in Rome the ratification papers effecting the mandate of the 28-30th June 2007 meeting of the Council is or will be an affront to every principle of British constitutional democracy. Happily at the beginning of next year under the Czech Presidency a new era will begin for the nations of Europe. I suggest a priority for that Presidency will be a beginning of a phase shedding the supra-nationalist elements of the NICE Treaty (which federalists find so offensive in a national context) and pursuing an agreement on the properly accountable operation of a body responsible solely for the running of a free trade area and such other areas as may be agreed from time to time by simultaneous referendum of the entire population as safeguarded by protections available to minorities in the direct democracy of the cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. The non-democratic close-shave of the Lisbon Treaty and nightmare consequences of a continuing acqui communitaire must never be allowed to be repeated.