Handing Britain to the EU

Financial regulation, indeed the very setting of the national budget for the UK are soon set to be powers handed to the EU. In a post elsewhere yesterday I linked a report from which comes the following quote: One consequence of this likely timetable is that a decision to adopt or reject the de Larosière proposals may well be one of the first European decisions taken by the new British government elected in the (.......) General Election. Piquancy is added to that prospect by the fact that on these matters the Council will decide by qualified majority and not by unanimity. A negative vote in the Council of any incoming government would probably not be enough to block the setting up of the European Systemic Risk Board and the European System of Financial Supervisors. In the past few days I have been quoting from the writings of Bernard Connolly. The actions taken by the EU to rid themselves of this percipient economist were taken to extreme lengths, read here. We need today to no longer ponder as to why this was necessary for Mr Connolly had predicted that the allowance of the PIGS into the Euro could only be explained by a need to promote today's economic crisis to allow the final power grab that will certainly destroy democracy and personal liberty across all the 27 former nations that now comprise the EU. I quote below selected passages from Mr Connolly's book, 'The Rotten Heart of Europe' my version being the Faber and Faber paperback edition ISBN 0-571-17521-X: Page 396: "At the point at which the Community, the Union or whatever, stops being an arrangement for the mutual advancement of national interests and instead becomes a vehicle for the imposition by 'neo-functionalists' of their idea of the 'interests of the Union', it will break down in conflict and in chaos, for the neo-functionalists have next to no popular support and no legitimacy" Page 391: "But if the ECB is ever created, it will not act in a disinterested way in trhe interests of the Community,as a whole, simply because there is no such thing as Community interest. Either it will act in French interests or it will not..." Page 100: " As Nölling points out, EMU was all about power and about national interests, not about a mythical Community interest. If countries were ever to engage themselves in an exercise that so explicitly gave priority to the Community interest (whatever that may be) over national interests, then the whole EMU projectwould be put in jeopardy. Ideas of 'solidarity', 'community', 'fraternity' and the rest were fine as cover for the power-play of European monetary politics, but heaven forfend that anyone should ever try to put them into practice!". Page 392: " Still the cynicism of the French technocrats,traitors to their own people, and the arrogant, overbearing, menacing zeal of the German federalists, not to mention the grandoise ambitions of Helmut Kohl, remain on a collision course. The result of this clash of forces cannot yet be predicted with any precision. But it will be extremely unpleasant for the peoples of Europe". The European System of Financial Supervisors is desribed as followed in the above linked report. +++++ The European System of Financial Supervisors (ESFS) will consist of three new European Supervisory Authorities, i.e., a European Banking Authority (EBA), a European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), and a European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA.) These new European Supervisory Authorities will take on all the missions of the current Committees of Supervisors, but in addition exercise increased responsibilities, defined legal powers and greater authority. They will also contribute to the development of a single set of harmonised rules, improve the supervision of cross-border institutions by developing common supervisory requirements and approaches and help settle possible disputes between nationalsupervisors. +++++ To confirm all this has been the original long-standing intent, the figure at the centre of all the devious tricks over ERM described in Mr Connolly's book is none other than Jean-Claude Trichet, the present spider in the web of the ECB at the heart of today's financial crisis!