The first shows a determination to shut out most British MEPs from any positions of influence anywhere4 in the parlikament. They are scared by the dominance in the British delegations of euroscepticism which they want to strangle.
Therefore the Socialists and Christian Democrats have made a faustian pact, despite being sworn enemies, to divide up al the spoils of the parliamernt to achieve that end. (It doesn’t seem to have occurred to them that that might increase the euroscepticism to breaking point! )
The second is typical of the EU where operatives use the EU’s funds as milch-cows to line their own pc kets. Perhaps as subject wort Marta Andreasen to investigate.
Christina
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PRIVATE EYE 1242 7-20.8.09
Brussels Sprouts
Alarmed that new MEP, Marta Andreasen, former European Commission chief accountant and whistleblower, might bring too much scrutiny to bear if she were elected vice-chairman of the parliament’s budget control committee MEPs devised a cunning plan: change the voting rules.
Instead of a normal show of hands the MEPs opted for a secret ballot at which leading Socialists and members of the centre-right European People’s Party ganged up [They are supposed to be bitter political opponents but they’ve divided the parliament between them -cs] to outvote the elevation of Andreasen, newly elected UKIP MEP for south east England and the party’s treasurer. This prompted LibDem MEP Chris Davies to comment later that “parliament had shot itself in the foot”.
Andreasen is used to infantile tactics being used against her. Neil Kinnock, when he was Commission vice-president in charge of reform (Ha, ha) had her sacked for exposing the Commission’s pisspoor accountancy and for refusing to ‘sign-off’ the Commission’s 2001 accounts. He even tried to stop her appearing before the parliament’s budget committee - the same one on which she might have been so effective as vice-chairman.
While parliamentary leaders Martin Schultz, Joseph Daul and their cronies went off to celebrate their shoddy victory with champagne (at taxpayers’ expense) Andreasen vowed to remain a thorn in the budget control committee’s side as the sole British MEP sitting on it.
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While the European Commission and big member states like France and Germany plan to crack down on tax havens (while Britain pretends to) the EU’s house bank, the European Investment Bank (EIB), is busily lending to companies established in . . . tax havens.
In some cases senior EIB officials sit on the boards of those self-same tax-haven registered companies.
Particularly notable is EIB lending for supposed development projects in poor companies. In reality this “development assistance” is a scam under which low-cost public capital is channelled to private equity firms that look for projects with juicy returns of 20 percent or more , before remitting the proceeds to low or no-tax and minimum transparent jurisdictions such as Mauritius.
This will come as no surprise to Eye readers who have followed the CDC/Actis scandal. Indeed, Britain’s CDC Group, formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation, is both a beneficiary of the EIB’s largesse and a lender to many of those same tax dodgers.
For example in June the EIB agreed a $15m loan to Shorecap International Limited, a private equity specialising in microfinance in which CDC also invests. Cyrille Arnould, the EIB’s head of microfinance is one of Shorecap’s directors. The firm, which boasted in its 2007 report of an average 23 pc rate of return, is incorporated in the Cayman Islands.
Arnould is also on the board of Africap, a Mauritius based investment company, which received €5m from the EIB in 2007. Mauritius, a tiny Indian Ocean island with 1.3m people is a favourite haunt of so-called development funds, including Adlevo Capital, Africinvest Limited, Grofin and Leapfrog Investments. These firms alone have shared €65m of EIB money in the last 12 months. Mauritius is the source of an extraordinary 44% of foreign investment in India - underlining the extent to which development assistance has in fact become a tax avoidance scam.
During 2008 the EIB also agreed loans totalling €53m for funds run by Aureos Capital Limited, also Mauritius-registered. Until it was sold to its managers at a knock-down price Aureos was a joint venture between CDC and Norway’s development fund, Norfund, which has imitated CDC’s tax haven strategy. The difference between CDC and Norfund is that the Norwegian government has now told Norfund to stop investing in tax havens. Counter Balance, a campaign group that has analysed EIB lending to tax dodgers, noted that Norway finally came round to following “the logic that development funds should not support tax evasion” . When will Britain and the EIB do the same?
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EU-phemisms
“Iceland will be an exemplary EU member”
translates as - - -
“Desperate politicians, dismal economy, grasping agriculture, fishing rights you can screw us over”
Postscript from Open Europe
“New poll shows a majority in Iceland against joining EU
A new Capacent Gallup poll published in the Icelandic daily Morgunbladid has found that, in a poll of 1,273 people, a majority of 48.5 percent is now opposed to entering the EU, 34.7 percent of people are in favour and 16.9 percent are undecided. In May, 38.6 percent was opposed to EU membership, 39 percent of people were in favour and 22.4 percent were undecided.
[That will wipe the smug grins off their faces in Brussels. Irish please note! -cs]
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