Something to do this Saturday

Bruges Group EU threatens freedom and economy

KEY QUOTES FROM THE SPEAKERS

Alex Deane, Barrister and the Director of Big Brother Watch, will say; “The European Union’s Arrest Warrant and Investigation Order grant foreign police the right to carry out ‘real time’ interception of communications, monitor a person’s bank account, demand bodily samples, DNA or fingerprints from a person in another EU state. Foreign authorities are able to order British officers to conduct undercover-spying missions, and pursue people for 'crimes' not recognised in UK law, like the Portuguese offence of criminal defamation. "The countries able to wield the new powers include states like Bulgaria, Romania and Greece (which has been the source of the worst example of the EAW yet, the case of Andrew Symeou). It is not racist to point out that the notion that such countries have justice systems of equivalent quality of our own is farcical. "None of this even requires sign-off from a judge. Not only does the EIO allows any EU police force to start investigations and gather evidence on UK soil, no judicial authority is needed to verify whether there are reasonable grounds for believing an offence to have been committed. In this country the police can’t investigate on a whim, they have to have reasonable grounds to believe that someone is up to no good. Potentially, a corrupt police officer in the pay of the Mafia in Southern Italy, could come to the UK and obtain your DNA and bank balances without obtaining permission from a judge. "These powers are bad for justice and bad for the standing of the European Union. They should be scrapped.” Hugo van Randwyck of the Bruges Group will argue that; “EFTA/EEA is the simplest alternative to EU/EEA, reducing new regulations from over 1000 a year to 300, would be like a tax cut to businesses, so helping job growth. “A choice between 7.5% unemployment and 3.5%, it can be implemented within weeks of a referendum, and likely get the most votes. “EFTA/EEA is an off-the-shelf working alternative to the EU/EEA, also with lower financial contributions. “It's not about leaving the EU, it is about expanding exports to the EU and creating jobs, and moving from a trade deficit with EU countries to a trade balance, about 1 million new jobs.” Steven Woolfe, Founder of the Hedge Fund Lawyers Association, will say; “The European Commission backed by the large numbers of EU Parliamentarians are engaged in a concerted and coordinated attack on the UK’s successful financial services industry. Their aim is to break the Anglo Saxon model of banking, fund management and insurance by establishing the UBER Regulator, the European Securities and Markets Authority to oversee a glut of regulations that will raise costs, reduce competition and diminish the economic dominance of the City of London in Europe.” German Economist, Professor Roland Vaubel, will argue for the City of London and expose the EU's strategy of raising rivals' costs; “None of the financial regulations recently adopted by the EU would have prevented the outbreak or the severity of the financial crisis. Nor has the crisis shown that financial supervision ought to be centralised at the EU level. The crisis has not been caused by banks or regulators consciously taking excessive risks due to regulatory arbitrage. Instead, the banks and the regulators erroneously thought that their provisions against risk were sufficient. Now that the error has been exposed, the banks and the national authorities are drawing the necessary lessons, and they have a perfectly sufficient incentive to do so. “There is no reason to believe that the EU will be a better regulator than the national authorities have been. Quite the contrary. EU financial regulation is another example of the strategy of raising rivals' costs well-known from the EU's regulation of labour markets and the arts market. Under qualified majority voting, the majority of highly regulated countries have an incentive and the power to impose their high level of regulation on the minority of more market-oriented countries in order to weaken the latters' competitiveness.” Vaubel will also present empirical evidence to substantiate his claim. He argues that the European Treaties do not permit qualified majority voting on process regulations such as these, and he suggests that the next Treaty amendment is an opportunity to clarify this issue. Dr Richard Wellings will say; "EU environmental policy is threatening to hinder Britain's economic recovery. In particular, meeting EU climate change targets are likely to cost British business hundreds of billions of pounds over the next decade. Substantial capital investment will be required to construct wind farms and nuclear power stations and this will divert resources from the productive private sector. Worse still, one consequence will be significantly higher electricity prices - the effect on manufacturing industry could be particularly devastating. By raising energy and transport costs, EU policies also threaten to increase 'fuel poverty' and reduce the mobility of people on low incomes. This will put pressure on the government to increase welfare benefits and pensions, and raise taxes to pay for it. “This 'triple whammy' from EU environmental policies may have a grave impact on the public finances. George Osborne is relying on robust economic growth over the next few years to reduce the deficit, yet EU policies will have a significant negative effect on the wealth-creating private sector." Caroline Boin will say; "The EU has given over €66 million to environmental NGOs over the past decade, which only helps these same green groups lobby EU politicians for more influence and more funds. This un-democratic Brussels love-in must stop. "The EU’s onerous green restrictions harm European consumers and businesses but most worrying they are also forced upon trading partners in developing countries. In practice, this means that bureaucrats in Brussels are keeping potentially life-saving technologies such as insecticides or genetically modified organisms out of reach of the world’s poorest people."

Click here for more information on the speakers, and the full line-up of those addressing this event

LOCATION: The Great Hall, King's College London, The Strand, London WC2R 2LS from 10:30 am.