Maxed out Eurozone members meet into the night

Like a family of bankrupt spendthrifts the finance ministers of the Eurozone countries met into the night to fight over how they might start to pay off the massive debts and bailout obligations they have run-up over recent years.

The IMF in effectively blocking further advances by insisting Greek debt falls to 120% of GDP by 2020 means actual money transfers rather than vague promises will now have to be made.

Best not mentioned for the moment are the extra huge commitments run up by the ECB that future generations are almost certainly going to refuse to meet!

I will report again on this meeting on this blog when and if any real news emerges during the day

Vinegar and Brown Paper for Spain!

Nine hours of Euro Group meetings again last night, this time could not even summon up a sticking plaster for Spain, and worse, it would appear, the can they have been kicking down the road seems to have entirely disappeared. The summary of their meeting, from Reuters linked below,  must surely prove that the brick wall that always lay at the end of the road for the euro is now plainly in sight, even for the dimwits who waste their hours sitting in Ecofin meetings rather than leading productive lives!

Enough pathetic analogies, the deep sickness in the heads and actions of Europe's leaders is now fully in view for all their near-bankrupt citizens to clearly see, read Reuters summary of the agreement, from here, and note the following absurdity with which it begins:

"The Eurogroup has today reached a political understanding on the draft memorandum of understanding underlying the financial assistance for the recapitalization of financial institutions for Spain, to be provided via the EFSF until the ESM becomes available and then transferred to the ESM without gaining seniority status."

A political understanding, eh - not even any temporary political agreement any more! Doom indeed!

Footnote - If you are a citizen of Europe and believe my description of you as near-bankrupt is inaccurate look at how you value your worth, think of its connection to the meaningless euro, consider your own past votes in bringing this certain result upon your own country, now decide to do something about it and demand your own national politicians bring it to a halt - nothing in Europe can get better until you do!

A Press Statement of almost inhuman callousness and negligence!

Olliu Rehn on behalf of the equally culpable EU Commission also made an absurd statement, reported here by CNN which concluded as follows:

"The future of Greece is first and foremost in the hands of those who have the political responsibility," said Rehn. "The decisions they will take in next days and weeks will determine the prospects of the country and its people in order to put an end to an era of unsustainable public finances and a chronic lack of competitiveness."

Do these idiots not know that they TOO have political responsibility for they allowed (indeed encouraged) this situation to develop over many years. The Greek Crisis belongs to the EU, its institutions (ALL OF THEM) and especially the EU Commission and Ecofin!

Have Ecofin Finance Ministers more cash to waste on Greece?

The Finance Ministers of the Euro Group, who have been collectively regularly gathering since May 2009, with their own agent now assisting at the head of the IMF acrossd the pond, meet today to witter about the waste they have already caused and attempt to defer proper action even further. One report is here.

Other problems than Greece also loom as this quote from the linked report makes clear:

Greek debt is not the only tough issue EU officials need to tackle with at the meeting. The Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets Research team outline the difficulties connected with the revised blueprint of the fiscal pact: “While the new fiscal proposals seek to avoid potential problems, it cannot address the current financing needs of some of the euro area’s most fiscally vulnerable countries” as well as with the ESM fund: “Standard & Poor’s downgraded the EFSF last week from AAA to AA+, which raises concerns around the potential credit rating that will be associated with the new fund and the capacity to increase its size if needed.”

Ecofin - EU pooling of banking collateral.

From Spain comes this report linked here:

"Spain, Italy, Cyprus and France were in favor of limited pooling of collateral to banks, but Sweden, Germany, UK, Netherlands and Austria refused, while Denmark and Luxembourg expressed their reservations"

Reuters India report on rumours re S & P and the ratings of France

The Reuters report is linked here. The following quote marks it as speculative:

S&P declined to comment on the report, based on anonymous sources. If true, it would signal that the risk of a downgrade has risen after months of concern about the impact on French public finances of sluggish growth and the costs of the euro zone debt crisi ....

French Finance Minister Francois Baroin said the focus should not be solely on France and that while the euro zone debt crisis was serious, Paris was "clear-sighted" on it.

This blog was alerted to the report by noting an apparently missing paragraph from another Reuters report regarding Italian bond rates and the ongoing Euro Group Ecofin meeting, linked here, as follows:


In Brussels, Eurogroup ministers were expected to approve detailed plans to bolster their bailout fund to help prevent contagion in bond markets, under pressure from the United States and ratings agencies to stop the crisis spreading.

The report about France's credit rating came at a delicate time. Paris is the second largest guarantor of the EFSF bailout fund, and one of only six AAA states in the euro zone. S&P declined comment. French Finance Minister Francois Baroin, asked about the report, said the focus should not be solely on France.

Euro Ecofin Ministers defer any meaningful decisions yet again!

Like Cathedral Trustess meeting beneath their steeple which is itself infested with the death watch beetle and rot, yet shirking any commitment to make repairs or take preventative measures, the Ecofin Finance Ministers, will shortly be lucky to find any edifice at all remaining, in which to meet, nor common currency surviving for any further endless discussion.

Tory's must gag & STOP George Osborne

The Coalition Government's Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, is intent on committing Britain to a complete tax and governance regime within the EU, this can only further disadvantage Britain and finally fully destroy any hope for a return to independence and democracy for Britain. He must be stopped; Reuter's report on this urgent matter released this afternoon is linked here.

Osborne has been betraying the country to the EU since he first achieved office, I repeat this blog's posting of 17th May 2010, when he attended his first EU Ecofin meeting, supposedly on behalf of Britain, linked here:

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George Osborne at ECOFIN tomorrow 

As the Euro plunges this morning on Far East markets, read here, Britain's new Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, is scheduled to attend his first ECOFIN meeting, (background notes here) which is likely to be critical for the economic future of the UK. I suggest the following three crucial stances must be adopted if the country is not to be sucked further down towards economic disaster. Firstly on the One Trillion US Dollar euro currency rescue package supposedly agreed on 9th May: Bruno Waterfield and Open Europe have effectively argued that use of Article 122 as legal justification is an outrage. Britain's refusal to join the EU over many years will provide ample proof in the minutes of past ECOFIN meetings to back-up the assertion that the reason for such abstention from the euro was the certainty of the currency's collapse in the absence of concurrent fiscal and monetary union. History proves no currency union can last without economic union, that raison d'être was the driving force behind the euro project, the federalists disingenuousness in arguing it as a circumstance outside their control is bare-faced cheek! This crisis was foreseeable, always predicted by this blogger and successive UK Governments and therefore quite clearly totally within the control of all involved. Article 122 may well apply to the economic consequences of the Icelandic volcano but little else in today's circumstances. Secondly on the task force on enhanced economic policy coordination in the euro area Given the need for a new IGC next month and the likely requirement for re-ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by the 27 national parliaments, not just the European Parliament would appear to be illegally constituted but all Lisbon mechanisms similarly so. Can it therefore be legally correct or indeed even proper for the EU Council President Van Rompuy to lead this task force from 21st May? Even were Lisbon properly in force should the EU Council President be involved in a project involving a mere 16 of the EU membership? As his appointment and that of Baroness Ashton depend upon a Treaty now requiring re-legalisation, they should both perhaps be sent home, without pay, while matters are resolved.... are there none in the EU able to see this should be a wonderful opportunity to scrap the Lisbon Treaty once and for all? Can any detect any benefits the Treaty has brought? Thirdly speaking as a member of the IMF: Britain should make clear to its EU colleagues that the new Government considers that its IMF membership legally requires it to approve and contribute to loans to countries in economic difficulties in accordance with the founding principles. The EU and its Common Currency is not a country and therefore does not qualify for such loans or assistance. In the event a country such as Greece reverted to its national currency, the drachma, then such loans would become available presumably following an IMF advised devaluation. George Osborne can today and tomorrow, most help the EU countries by extracting his colleague's heads from the sands and opening their eyes to the real world, which still exists and may soon thrive beyond the EU bubble! He should set the tone ahead of Cameron's first Council Meeting by voting on every topic with one sole guiding principle - the best interests of Britain. Given the direction of the EU, this will in most instances require voting NO to almost everything that is now being envisaged! What a change from their predecessors stance, ever since the time of Margaret Thatcher's Government, that would make. What benefits to the whole European Continent that would also eventually bring!

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The Strauss-Kahning of EU Taxpayers Continues!

There are reports this morning that IMF Chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, held in custody in New York, in jail on an an island, created from garbage, has been placed on suicide watch. We must hope it is effective for the world needs to know every detail of this man's lifestyle and attitudes which the court should expose, not merely the simple answer as to whether he was guilty or not to the events alleged by the hotel maid.

These same attitudes, in the IMF/EU Bail Out packages to Greece, Ireland, and following this week's Ecofin meeting, Portugal as well, are evident in every high-handed action of those running both these organisations.

It is noteworthy that one of the individuals mentioned as a possible European candidate as a replacement for IMF Chief, former Olympic synchronised swimming contestant, Madame Christine Lagarde, has already confessed the decision of last May's Ecofin on the first Greek bail out was illegal! (Read full details of that on my posting of 9th April, linked here).

If Europe is to retain its right to decide the post of IMF Chief, which presently seems doubtful, then it should be someone who has run a country while maintaining a sound currency, leaving us only with Switzerland, from which I suggest two times former President Adolf Ogi.

This morning EurActiv reports that EU Finance Ministers are calling for taxes on international shipping and aviation. Looking at the reported lifestyle of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, with whom these devious creatures regularly rubbed shoulders and wined and dined, (see a fascinating image on EU Observer, linked here), can any doubt that the real motives of raising extra monies has nothing whatever to do with our planet's environment, but everything to do with ensuring they can continue to maintain the lifestyles their election has brought them, long after they have been booted from office, right up to their moment of deaths, and for their widows and families, for as long as possible thereafter, just as has been achieved by all their predecessors. All this while the tax-payers that support the rotten EU structures are ground into poverty and economic growth across the Continent, (except, of course, in Germany), is destroyed.

Being Strauss-Kahned will in future be used by this blog as a short-hand phrase covering this entire process!

IMF Crisis - Scuppered by a $3,000 per night hotel suite.

Enter "Sofitel" in a Google Search window and your first result will be this - "Sofitel Hotels: luxury with a French flair". No doubt many a Sunday luncheon table became the centre of much debate over the implications behind the arrest of the head of the IMF in New York testerday, and the French connection was surely not missed by many, but guilty or not of the sexual assault allegations, the damage for the IMF is already irreversible.

The resignation of his number two at the IMF., the American, John Lipsky, only last Thursday, adds all kinds of new areas of possibilties to the sordid incident, tending to lead one away from the obvious most likely culprit - old fashioned lust, unrestrained by any sense of moderation.

The IMF sits on the world's third largest gold reserves, worth at the end of last August, $83 billion, imagine how much their joint incompetent handling of the Eurozone crisis since then, resulting in the huge surge in the gold price, has enhanced those values! Yet among its 187 member countries are many of the poorest nations in the world.

Common sense should have warned those in power, that any mind having a hand in the invention of the 35 hour week, as a means of easing unemployment, would have long since lost any grasp on reality.

In the EU, where Domonique Strauss-Kahn, was in line to become the second most powerful player from next year, austerity with no point and no end, was today about to be delivered to its third peripheral victim country, the governmentless Portugal. Will this fate be delayed by the weekend events in a New York luxury hotel suite, will the Finnish voters be spared the betrayal about to be inflicted by their only recently elected politicians in today's meeting of Ecofin, will George Osborne be prevented from incurring ever greater, pointless and wasted taxpayer debts to an absolutely hopeless cause?

It could be an interesting week!

Ecofin, Strauss-Kahn's absence and Europe's Debt Crisis.

There is a first rate interview in FXStreet.Com, linked here, with Yanis Varoufakis, professor at the University of Athens, where the following answers to the interviewer's questions strike me as significant in relation to this week's Ecofin meeting and the distraction of key player Strauss-Kahn (see my posting immediately beneath this):

What would be the direct implications of a Greek debt restructuring for the PIIGS?

It depends on all the other measures that accompany such a restructure. In the absence of structural reform of the eurozone's architecture, a debt restructure, on its own, will be as inevitable as it is potentially destabilizing in the context of the banking sector crisis that is unfolding in parallel to the debt crisis.

Who in the periphery is next in line, and what would it take for markets to turn against them?

All it will take for the contagion to spread its ugly wings in (A) a Europe committed to the currenct policy mix and (B) time. As for the identity of the next domino piece, all eyes are, of course, on Spain. But the epidemic may surprise us by hitting another target instead. France beware!

Will another round of aid by the EU/IMF effectively help to calm fears of default?

Not in the slightest. Lending at high interest rates to the insolvent simply delays default but makes it more certain than ever (and more destructive when it happens).

In a situation such as that deliberately created in the world today, where national leaders have been rendered powerless by fuzzy yet interconnected Treaty obligations, powerful and unaccountable individuals control huge wealth far beyond any possibility of controls or accountability, where the line between the legal and illegal has been deliberately blurred in the name of expediency, we seem set for an interesting week.

Strauss-Kahn was to have been meeting with German Chancellor Angel Merkel this very morning!

The pulverisation of Portugal

The Observer newspaper, from Britain, presents itsef as a serious journal, enter Portugal in the search box facility of its headline page this morning and you get this, one joint letter signed by a Professor from the University of Porto!

The Sunday Telegraph does little better with one short item under 'Gilts' and another similar under 'Economics', both posted early on yesterday. None care what the Sunday Times reports, cowering as it is behind the Murdoch pay wall, the political influence of which man (in our now fully corrupted democracy) is the subject of the Observer's main story, linked here.

Britain, it appears has ceased to be interested in democracy.

We must therefore rely on other news sources to discern the detail of the disaster for pan-European democracy that is rapidly gathering momentum across the EU. RTT News, linked here reports as follows:

 EU ministers agreed to prepare the financial assistance package to Portugal immediately and to reach an agreement by mid-May.

The package will be provided on the basis of a policy programme which will be supported by strict conditionality and negotiated with the Portuguese authorities, duly involving the main political parties, according to a statement released after the European Union finance ministers meeting on Friday.

In considering the full nonsense contained in this statement, the following facts are crucial:

1. There are no Portuguese authorities with any constitutional legitimacy with whom to negotiate until after the General Election in June.

2. The Portuguese political parties who might be coerced into negotiations, as a result of such negotiations will be unlikely to be elected in the General Election, given the collapse of the previous government following its failure to push a similar austerity package through Parliament.

The General Election to be held in Finland on 17th April, will be the first hurdle in the evolving situation. Jyrki Katainen, the Finnish Finance Minister, who leads the party presently leading the polls,  is walking a tightrope as can be seen from this video:



Click here, to see the details of the nine parties in contention in the Finnish elections to guage the impossibility of predicting whether, following the results, there will be a necessary majority in the Finnish Parliament to approve the Portugal package, let alone the earlier reforms to the EFSF and EFSM already supposedly agreed, read here.

Should Finland prove a stumbling block, following their election, then their parliament will likely prove the next victim of the bullying, anti-democratic actions of Ecofin. Portugal will then most likely gain a reprieve and temporary support pending a new Government taking power, which must surely have been all nation's expectation when signing up to the common currency?

As it is a Sunday morning, I cannot leave my weekend readers on such a gloomy note, so here is the new anthem I propose for the poor Finn (but like all EU Commissioners, thoroughly greedy and therefore fully deserving of his fate) in the middle, Olli Rehn, and the pathetic bunch of Finance Ministers from across the EU, who form the horror that is Ecofin:

EU Commissioner Rehn interferes in Finland's General Election

Godollo, Hungary should perhaps be renamed Ohmygodolli as the EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, Olli Rehn (along the lines of another Laurel and Hardy catchphrase - another fine mess you got us into) speaking from that location of the Ecofin meeting, effectively warned his fellow countrymen and women against exercising their own judgements in the coming poll, according to Reuters, linked here. 

Note this particularly from the linked report:


Finland has the right to put requests to use the European Financial Stability Fund to a majority parliamentary vote.

Schauble seeks to justify Ecofin Oppression ahead of Budapest demonstrations!

Reuters reports the German Finance Minister's scathing and insensitive remarks ahead of demonstrations in Budapest, as linked from here, of which these quotes seem most apt:

"The rules are very clear. Whoever needs assistance by other European member states and member states of the euro zone, he has to deliver sustainable measures for reducing the deficits because the deficits are the reason why they need help," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told reporters.....

Schaeuble said the protests were wrong and that austerity was needed to ensure sustainable economic growth.
"I can understand, but I think it's wrong because what we are doing is to work for a sustainable framework for growth and for sustainable growth a stable currency is a pre-condition, and stable budgets are a pre-condition -- if we run too high deficits (we are not upholding) our responsibility to future generations," he said.

In fact what is taking place is the deliberate destruction of the last traces of democracy within the EU, merely to protect the financial positions of the badly investing banks of the major member states. In the process, by Quantatitive Easing in the UK and irresponsible andsecretive ECB financing of already bankrupt states, elsewhere, the futures of coming generations of EU citizens have been thrown to the wolves to ensure they never breathe the air of democratic freedom for which their forefathers fought down the centuries.

Had Europe wished to be governed by Germany, surely our forebears would have long ago surrendered and accepted that fate, if not earlier, then certainly in the twentieth century, thus avoiding two horrendous worldwide conflicts.

Establishment Lying over the EU Bail Out Fund.

Bruno Waterfield in the Daily Telegraph this morning has charge and countercharge over who knew what and who did nothing to avoid Britain having to stump up, what is now known to be, billions and billions of pounds for the EFSF.

Happily, as is nowadays so often the case, unlike all the mainstream media, this blog was alert to the dangers and carried details of all the developments as they unfolded, while the rest of the nation followed the sycophantic garbage that was the media reporting on the formation of the coalition government.

Below I will supply links to my own reporting, during the actual events as brought out in Mr Waterfield's column today. The following passage contains the crux of the dispute:

Mr Cameron attacked Mr Darling for taking the wrong decision during an emergency meeting in Brussels on May 9 and suggested he ignored advice given to him by Mr Osborne. But Mr Darling said: "What we discussed was not voting against but abstention, recognising that Britain could have been outvoted."

Mr Cameron replied: "I have had a full discussion with the Chancellor about this issue and he was absolutely clear it was not something Britain should agree to."

A government document, signed by Justine Greening, a Treasury minister and seen by The Daily Telegraph has suggested that the Prime Minister's account is wrong. "It should be noted that while agreement on behalf of the UK was given by the administration, cross–party consensus has been given," said the briefing note, dated last July. 

 I summarised the entire disaster looking back to early May, on 21st December last year, and concluded that charges of negligence would eventually need to be brought against all those involved: I quote a small part of that posting, which is worth reading in full, together with its several links, for a full understanding of the depth of the lies now being told:

The use of Article 122 was widely known to have been an illegal ruse at the time. The incoming administration led by Cameron, Clegg and Osborne could have refuted Darling's concurrence to such illegality and instituted proceedings to exempt the UK from the disastrous financial consequences.

Can any now doubt that it was a complete dereliction of duty NOT so to do? Indeed can any voter not now perceive that all three main political parties in the UK are complicit in the illegal squandering of the nation's wealth at the behest of the Euro Group member states of the EU of which  assemblage Britain is not even a part?

It was absolutely clear that Darling should never have been allowed to attend the 9th May meeting, as I blogged on that very day, the country was without a government AND not part of the Euro Group which was the only portion of the EU then in crisis. That posting concluded as follows:

Alistair Darling belongs to a defeated party and should have no authority to attend an ECOFIN meeting charged with reaching a pan-EU agreement as commanded by members of the euro currency group.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg should clarify Darling's status immediately and if possible prevent his departure from the country!

Matters did not rest there however, for the Coalition had ample opportunity to clarify the situation when the new Chancellor attended his first ECOFIN meeting as I set out in my posting of 17th May, linked here.
Instead of so-doing he involved himself in the known illegality at a cost to the country which it remains impossible yet to calculate.

To conclude, let me highlight again in red, as I did last December, the main point at issue first posted on 9th May 2010, as is now confirmed by the Treasury Official Justine Green as revealed by Bruno Waterfield in today's Telegraph:

Alistair Darling belongs to a defeated party and should have no authority to attend an ECOFIN meeting charged with reaching a pan-EU agreement as commanded by members of the euro currency group.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg should clarify Darling's status immediately and if possible prevent his departure from the country!  

70 years since the Blitz began, Osborne prepares to surrender to Germany!

The Blitz was the sustained bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941,^[1] during the Second World War. The Blitz hit many towns and cities across the country, but it began with the bombing of London for 76 consecutive nights.^[5] By the end of May 1941, over 43,000 civilians, half of them in London, had been killed by bombing and more than a million houses destroyed or damaged in London alone.^[6][7]. Click here to link to the entire Wikipedia article.

Read The Guardian on today's anniversary from here.

Fast forward seventy years and mainland Europe is once again controlled from Germany. Now, however, Britain's leaders also appear under German control, for George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will follow his Prime Ministrer's lead set on 17th June of this year by concurring in discussions on the precedures which will appoint three foreign bodies to regulate our financial institutions and further proceed to discuss how taxes and levies will be utilised to destroy Britain's world leading role in the financial services industry. In a paper titled "German Economy has overcome the crisis" linked here in pdf format, the benefits to Germany of the death throes of the other nation states of Europe are celebrated. Belgium, the first state actually to already be seen to be falling apart, not surprisingly perhaps as it is the main seat of the EU, read one report here. The economic turmoil of Greece needs no further illustration, the growing crisis in Ireland, Portugal and Spain will soon reach the headlines once again. A General Strike in France today is forecast to virtually bring the entire nation to a halt , read a local report from here. So why do our leaders rob us of our Sovereignty, National Independence and Democracy......??? "He who pays the piper picks the tune, do they not?" Who paid Edward Heath, I wonder? From whence will come the rewards in the future united EU? Cameron, Clegg and Osborne 'following the shameful example set by the leading players of New Labour) have clearly decided they know the answer to that latter question, methinks!

Open Europe Briefing on tomorrow's ECOFIN

As this blog has been arguing for some time danger lies ahead tomorrow. An Open Europe briefing is linked here. I quote: "Crucially, the voting structure within the supervisors is heavily biased against the UK. Most decisions will be taken by simple majority, meaning that the UK would have the exact same voting strength as all other member states despite being home to the bulk of the EU’s financial services industry."

Open Europe's Director Mats Persson is quoted in the Telegraph arguing: "The proposals clearly represent a shift in powers from the UK to the EU level, and go beyond what was originally envisioned and the UK had pushed for. The EU supervisors will be given the mandate to interpret, apply and even enforce EU laws at the expense of national regulators in several key areas".

Essentially a huge and new loss of Sovereignty Cameron promised would not occur while he was Prime Minister. First he betrayed us on a Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and now this.

When will Conservative Backbenchers call a halt to these foul deceptions?

Cameron's 17th June treachery gets ever clearer

"At its meeting on 17 June, the European Council agreed that the member states should introduce systems of levies and taxes on financial institutions in order to ensure fair burden-sharing and to set incentives to contain systemic risk. It asked the Council and the Commission to take work forward and to report back in October....." "In June, the European Council agreed that the member states should introduce systems of levies and taxes on financial institutions; it asked the Council and the Commission to take work forward and to report back in October." Both quotes are from next Tuesday's Ecofin agenda which has yet to include the setting up of EU financial regulation as agreed yesterday by George Osborne's representatives (more detail here)and discussed in our post below. The document from the EU with these quotes is linked here in pdf format.

George Osborne at ECOFIN tomorrow

As the Euro plunges this morning on Far East markets, read here, Britain's new Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, is scheduled to attend his first ECOFIN meeting, (background notes here) which is likely to be critical for the economic future of the UK. I suggest the following three crucial stances must be adopted if the country is not to be sucked further down towards economic disaster. Firstly on the One Trillion US Dollar euro currency rescue package supposedly agreed on 9th May: Bruno Waterfield and Open Europe have effectively argued that use of Article 122 as legal justification is an outrage. Britain's refusal to join the EU over many years will provide ample proof in the minutes of past ECOFIN meetings to back-up the assertion that the reason for such abstention from the euro was the certainty of the currency's collapse in the absence of concurrent fiscal and monetary union. History proves no currency union can last without economic union, that raison d'être was the driving force behind the euro project, the federalists disingenuousness in arguing it as a circumstance outside their control is bare-faced cheek! This crisis was foreseeable, always predicted by this blogger and successive UK Governments and therefore quite clearly totally within the control of all involved. Article 122 may well apply to the economic consequences of the Icelandic volcano but little else in today's circumstances. Secondly on the task force on enhanced economic policy coordination in the euro area Given the need for a new IGC next month and the likely requirement for re-ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by the 27 national parliaments, not just the European Parliament would appear to be illegally constituted but all Lisbon mechanisms similarly so. Can it therefore be legally correct or indeed even proper for the EU Council President Van Rompuy to lead this task force from 21st May? Even were Lisbon properly in force should the EU Council President be involved in a project involving a mere 16 of the EU membership? As his appointment and that of Baroness Ashton depend upon a Treaty now requiring re-legalisation, they should both perhaps be sent home, without pay, while matters are resolved.... are there none in the EU able to see this should be a wonderful opportunity to scrap the Lisbon Treaty once and for all? Can any detect any benefits the Treaty has brought? Thirdly speaking as a member of the IMF: Britain should make clear to its EU colleagues that the new Government considers that its IMF membership legally requires it to approve and contribute to loans to countries in economic difficulties in accordance with the founding principles. The EU and its Common Currency is not a country and therefore does not qualify for such loans or assistance. In the event a country such as Greece reverted to its national currency, the drachma, then such loans would become available presumably following an IMF advised devaluation. George Osborne can today and tomorrow, most help the EU countries by extracting his colleague's heads from the sands and opening their eyes to the real world, which still exists and may soon thrive beyond the EU bubble! He should set the tone ahead of Cameron's first Council Meeting by voting on every topic with one sole guiding principle - the best interests of Britain. Given the direction of the EU, this will in most instances require voting NO to almost everything that is now being envisaged! What a change from their predecessors stance, ever since the time of Margaret Thatcher's Government, that would make. What benefits to the whole European Continent that would also eventually bring!

ECOFIN 18th May - a follow-up farce

No doubt the 27 EU members will announce a trillion euro rescue package next Tuesday, backed by borrowing from Ireland and Greece!! A background paper is available from the EU Commission, linked here, from which comes the following extract for bemused EU taxpayers: Follow-up to the extraordinary Council meeting on 9 May The Council will hold an exchange of views on the follow-up to be given to its extraordinary meeting on 9 May. In accordance with the conclusions of that meeting, the Spanish and Portuguese delegations will present additional budgetary consolidation measures for 2010 and 2011. At the 9 May meeting, the Council and the member states decided on a comprehensive package of measures to preserve financial stability in Europe, including a European financial stabilisation mechanism, with a total volume of up to EUR 500 billion. In this context, the Council expressed a strong commitment to ensuring fiscal sustainability and enhanced economic growth in all member states, and agreed that plans for fiscal consolidation andstructural reforms would be accelerated, where warranted. Enhanced economic policy coordination Commissioner Olli Rehn will present a communication from the Commission on initiatives to be taken, under article 136 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, on enhanced economic policy coordination in the euro area. The Council may hold a brief exchange of views. The communication will be discussed by a task force established at the request of the European Council (25-26 March), whose first meeting is scheduled for 21 May. Composed of representatives of the member states, the Council presidency and the European Central Bank and chaired by the President of the European Council, the task force is due to report before the end of the year on the measures needed for an improved crisis resolution framework and better budgetary discipline in the EU.