Czech problems with the Fiscal Compact Treaty

Merkozy yesterday at their press conference were all gung-ho on getting the Fiscal Compact Treaty signed by the Spring. Reading the article linked here, it appears that were such to be the case it would not include the signature of the Czech Rebublic.

Other highlights of the survey of the Czech political scene are these:

Moreover it is widely believed that Václav Klaus is planning to form a new eurosceptic party once his term as president ends in early 2013 – this would most probably take the form of a Czech version of UKIP, possibly also including more extreme elements. If Klaus does form his new party he is likely to attract current members of ODS, increasing the vulnerability of the party which he himself founded.

...A further complicating factor will come early in 2012 when both chambers of parliament debate the Czech opt-out from the Lisbon Treaty's Charter of Fundamental Rights. The opt-out was demanded by Václav Klaus as a precondition for signing the treaty, the last step in the process of ratification. The Czech Republic was the last country to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, the delay being the result of cases brought in the Constitutional Court by Klaus supporters.....Ironically, it is now clear that the opt-out will not be ratified in the Czech Republic, where it needs to pass both chambers of parliament. Since elections last Autumn the opposition Social Democrats have had a majority in the upper house, the Senate, and are committed to voting down this opt-out, which they see as an attempt to curtail workers' rights. This will leave Klaus and his supporters incensed and in no mood to countenance further European treaties.

Hollande's spanner - Finland's doubts continue - Klaus questions IMF Funds

Doubts reflected in the ESM deal by Finland continue over the accord of last Friday, read the latest from Helsinki, linked here.

President Klaus of the Czech Republic is this morning reported to be questioning the extra IMF funding for the EU, as may be read from this link.

In France itself, poll front-runner and socialist candidate, François Hollande says he will not accept the deal as set out by Sarkozy and Merkel, which is a particularly nasty spoiler, as unlike earlier pre-convention treaty arrangements, the basics of this one were supposed to be already set in concrete! How else could Cameron have been forced to use his veto rather than just play along through the pre-Treaty Inter-Governmental Convention which is a requirement for all new EU Treaties!

Hence another reason why this is a Non-EU Treaty, AND why it is falling to pieces, even in France and Germany - its co-creators - so rapidly!

“Berlusconi may still be in office, but he has not been in power for some time,”

The above quote comes from a report by Bloomberg Businessweek, dated today and  in full was as follows:

“Berlusconi may still be in office, but he has not been in power for some time,” Nicholas Spiro, managing director at Spiro Sovereign Strategy in London, said in an e-mailed response to questions. “He no longer administers.”

That same situation is applicable at the head of every national government which is a part of the European Union, and has been so for some considerable time. It continues because Europeans have allowed it to become so, and as they have seen their democracies disappear they now seem willing to merely watch as their wealth and wellbeing go the same way.

Only the head of the Czheck Republic, President Vaclav Klaus, seems aware of all the very real dangers, read here.

Italian 10 year bond interest rates have just now hit 6.64%.

The pretence that the 27th October euro rescue package can work, or is even a comprehensive whole, must be abandoned!

(Later update at 0830 GMT  AE-P quote linked here: -
A report by Italian consultants REF Ricerche warns that Italy will remain trapped in recession through 2012 and 2013. The slump itself is causing fiscal slippage, not lack of budget rigour. “What is sapping the credibility of Italy’s public accounts over the medium term is lack of growth prospects,” it said.
Indeed, yet Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy continue to order Italy to undertake further fiscal belt-tightening into the accelerating downturn, even though it is one of the few countries in the OECD club with a primary budget surplus and even though its combined public and private debt is just 250pc of GDP – well below that of Holland, France, the UK, the US, or Japan. The EU policy dictates have become unhinged.)

The EU is heading towards the nightmare society envisioned by Ayn Rand in 'Atlas Shrugged'

Many thanks to Muffled Vociferations Blog for alerting me to Vaclav Klaus's recent speech in South America, linked here, from which comes this quote:

The second reason for the European economic problem is the quality, productiveness and efficiency of its economic and social system. A seemingly friendly and non-demanding, excessively paternalistic and, as a consequence, not sufficiently productive economic and social system, called “die soziale Markwirtschaft” (or social-democratism), dominates in Europe. This system with its generous social benefits weakened motivation, shortened working hours and life employment, prolonged years of studying, diminished the supply of labour (both at macrolevel and structurally), created bottlenecks and shortages.

Europeans prefer leisure to performance, security to risk-taking, paternalism to free markets, collectivism (group entitlements) to individualism. They have always been more risk-averse than Americans but the difference continues to grow. Also freedom seems to have a very low priority there. It seems that Europeans are not interested in capitalism and free markets and that they do not understand that their today’s behavior undermines the very institutions that made their past success possible. They are eager to very intensively defend their non-economic freedoms, or better to say the easiness, looseness, laxity and permissiveness of modern, or perhaps post-modern European society, but when it comes to their economic freedoms, they are quite indifferent.

The inefficiency and unsustainability of this system was later “reinforced” by the gradual acceptance of green ideology, of environmentalism. This process started in the 1970s, but reached its peak, and its economic devastating effects now, in the era of global warming (or climate change) alarmism.

Another good discussion of the problems in Portugal and Spain comes from Michael Jennings on Samizdata, linked here, with a very pertinent closing sentence. Or as Ayn Rand said in her book:

The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.

Irish stand fast on June deadline for Lisbon safeguards.

The report was in yesterday's Irish Times, linked here.

Interview with President Vaclav Klaus

The Sunday Times has a good interview with the Czech President currently holding the EU rotating Presidency, worth reading as this man presently appears to be the sole leader on the European Continent who has a care for the democratic and individual liberties of more than 500 million citizents presently threatened with the totalitarian authoritarianism of the Lisbon Treaty. Read it from this link.

President Klaus meets Independence/Democracy Group

The report of a significant meeting is linked here.

Censorship of EuroParl TV - A symptom of oppression

The report of the speech by Czech President Vaclav Klaus as being broadcast by the EuroParl TV propaganda chain has been heavily cut and censored (see here). While the full speech is not yet available on YouTube, sections, uncut by the EU corporatist totalitarians, are becoming available and one such is below: Contrary to statements from some supporting the anti-democratic EU that President Klaus's Prime Minister is opposed to the statements made in Parliament the report from EUBusiness linked here, proves that in fact he agrees with every sentence. Watch through to the end of the clip to see the President of this dreadful institution, Hans Gert-Poettering boast that they now control 75 per cent of legislation within the 27 member state EU. What a dreadful statement on the complacency of the EU electorate towards their own democratic rights! Worse he then spits out that with Lisbon this will increase to "nearly 100 per cent of cases" Now the truth is proclaimed!

Klaus at the EU Parliament

The EU version of his critical address to the plenary session of the assembled fat pigs is here. A US comment headlined EU Legitimacy Disintegrating is here.

Czech President of rotaing EU Presidency

The following is from an article by Vaclav Klaus in yesterday's Financial Times, linked here: The economic crisis should be regarded as an unavoidable consequence and hence a “just” price we have to pay for immodest and over-confident politicians playing with the market. Their attempts to blame the market, instead of blaming themselves, are unacceptable and should be resolutely rejected. The Czech government will – hopefully – not push the world and Europe into more regulation, nationalisation, de-liberalisation and protectionism. Our historical experience gives us a very strong warning in this respect. AND this plain common sense: The best thing to do now would be temporarily to weaken, if not repeal, various labour, environmental, social, health and other “standards”, because they block rational human activity more than anything else.

Two days to Klaus

Radio Free Europe has a good report on President Vaclav Klaus who will take over as EU President in just two days time. It describes how he has recently been at loggerheads with outgoing EU President Sarkozy of France: The sparring continued, with Klaus telling Czech Television on December 24 that Sarkozy and politicians like him were actually "anti-European" for not respecting the continent's diversity of views. Another unusual line of complaint about the EU has been the car license plates as reported here: Speaking to RFE/RL last year, Klaus illustrated his point by recalling two cars he'd seen at a traffic light. One had an old Czech license plate, with "CZ" in large letters; the other, an EU plate, where the "CZ" sign was much smaller: "The EU is trying to make the letters that symbolize our state as small as possible. You can't even tell from a distance if there's an NL for the Netherlands written on there, or an SK for Slovakia. You can't tell. You either need binoculars or you need to be driving right next to the car," Klaus said. "This is a textbook example of the attempt to suppress, to rub out the basic entity that has formed the European continent and has given this continent its characteristic features," he added. Elsewhere in this morning's press is a report that Lisbon Treaty opponents will present a report on the consequences of the Constitutional Treaty in the Czech Senate in January before February's parliamentary debate on ratification.

Vaclav Klaus silenced

Comment on the silencing of the last serious EU critic within the leadership of the EU nation states is linked here.