know it's April Fools Day but what are we supposed to make of these
gems today? [The BBC says clearly that their's are NOT spoofs]
1. EU Observer - Russia does not rule out future NATO membership
- Russia does not rule out NATO membership at some point in the
future, but for the moment it prefers to keep co-operation on a
practical, limited level, Moscow's envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin told
EUobserver
2. BBC - A man has won £400,000 in compensation after cutting his
finger. Police mechanic Alexander Darg was checking an air bag fault
in a police car when he accidentally slid his hand across a knife
that had been left behind. He told the court he had been terrified of
contracting the HIV virus.
3. BBC - Miss Universe says Guantanamo Bay is a "relaxing place, so
calm and beautiful", after a five-day trip there. Dayana Mendoza, a
model from Venezuela, visited the US base in Cuba as a morale-booster
for troops and blogged about the experience.
4. BBC - A "magic torch" detects drug use. The torch, costing only
£40, works when it is shined in the face of night clubbers. It uses
UV light to detect the tiniest traces of cocaine or amphetamine on
nasal hair and police in Blackburn are using it to stop drug users
from entering clubs
5. EU Observer - EU pushes male all-body shaving as response to crisis
- The European Commission will on Wednesday (1 April) propose to
spend ?80 million to encourage European men to purchase all-body
electric shavers.
The funds form a fresh stimulus move to encourage development of what
the commission is calling an "innovative and green new product
market. --etc
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AND then there's this one which I take seriously since mad things
from Brussels are not confined to one morning in the year
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EUREFERENDUM Blog 1.4.09
Turn your back for one moment .
. and they'll come out with another "daft" idea, this one suggesting
that British naval bases should be handed over to Brussels.
The story comes from Justin Stares via Lloyds List, a usually
reliable source, also copied out in The Daily Mail, which runs the
item big.
The idea is that British (and other member states) naval bases around
the world should be at the service of the European Union to protect
shipping lanes. For Britain, that would include our bases in
Gibraltar, Cyprus and the Falkland Islands, set up as part of an EU
"forward presence" for securing vital trade routes.
Actually, this is something and nothing. It is in a report
commissioned by the EU parliament's subcommittee on security and
defence, written by two UK-based academics, James Rogers and Luis
Simon. It suggests that these installations would provide a
formidable asset for the geographical and functional expansion of "EU
Grand Strategy".
Trade lanes can be secured only if the far-flung bases belonging to
the two main European naval powers are put to common use, the report
argues: "As the world moves towards a dynamic multipolar system and
US relative maritime power declines as powers like China and India
rise, there is a growing and compelling need for Europeans to take
responsibility for the Sea Lines of Communication that link them to
the farthest corners of the world, particularly those most vital to
European trade and security."
Geoffrey Van Orden is on the case, dismissing the report as "among
the most hubristic proposals the EU has yet produced in support of
its defence policies." He says he has criticised the EU's military
operations as mere exercises in sticking an EU badge on our soldiers'
arms. Now they want to run up the EU flag on our ships and even our
overseas territories."
And there the matter will rest - for the moment. It has no
legislative status and is not even a formal EU proposal. But, in the
history of the institution, the EU parliament is often used as a
sounding board, testing the water, so to speak, to see whether an
idea will fly.
It also points to the direction of travel, confirming the long-range
intention to integrate the whole of the member states' defence
capabilities, no matter how long it takes.
With the focus on G20 and the economic crisis, the idea will quickly
disappear from public view, but it will not go away, any more than
the idea floated by the commission that in future the EU should
represent member states on institutions such as the IMF. This, Bruno
Waterfield tells us, is the EU's price for an agreement at the G20
summit.
Nor will the idea, now well advanced, that there should be a stronger
EU level telecommunications regulator. This has now been agreed by
the EU parliament and member states, bringing into action in 2010 a
new agency which will have the power to reverse decisions made by
national telecommunications regulators in the EU - particularly on
network access and pricing.
The Naval Base idea gets the attention because it is novel and
outrageous. But it will be a long time in the future before it comes
to pass. The IMF idea and the telecoms super-regulator are equally
outrageous, but so technical and boring are they that they will be
given little attention - even of they are also just as dangerous.
Thus, while we each focus on our own pre-occupations, the EU marches
on unabated, watched by the likes of the invaluable Open Europe which
each day brings us a fraction of the torrent.
It is difficult enough keeping track of what our puppet government is
doing. With a supreme government over in Brussels, dipping its oar
into virtually every aspect of our lives, it is impossible to pick up
everything.
And that is another reason why we have to get out of the EU. The
sheer scale of the operation and its interests defy any effective
monitoring. Every time you turn your back, it comes out with another
"daft" idea... and most of them get implemented.
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Posted by Richard North
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
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