12 November 2009 9:48 AM
'Isolated?' Bring it on
The blessed thing about Norway is that it is the single best reply to those euro-quislings who insist that if Britain ever threatens to leave the EU and regain its sovereignty, it will be come 'isolated.'
As I've said before, it would be impossible to isolate Britain. Despite the damage of the Blair-Brown years, Britain remains one of the financial, industrial and military powers of the world. The other countries of the EU, whether Britain is in or out, will want and need to continue to trade with Britain.
But quite apart from the protection this international muscle gives to big Britain, look at how little Norway, a European country of just 4.6m people, lives in prosperity and independence outside the EU. The Norwegian people have been asked twice in referendums if they wanted to join the EU. Twice they have voted No.
Here is the result. Norway is an oil-rich country which has been left to direct its national riches entirely to its own benefit. Yesterday in a report in the Financial Times, the result of this independent use of national wealth was apparent (though of course the euro-fanatic FT did not mention the connection between independence and national benefit -- can anyone be surprised that now most of the FT's readers are outside of Britain? It has become a paper for European homogenisers, not for British businessmen.)
Norway's sovereign oil fund is now the biggest investor in European stock markets. The fund has just registered the best three-month performance in its 13-year history: a 13.5 percent return on investment. Almost none of the wealth is being spent by the government. About 95 percent of it is being invested for future generations, for the distant time when the oil runs out.
Some would say Norway has the freakish advantage of its oil wealth to protect its independence. They are wrong. Independence is only protected by the will of the nation. Britain once had (for example) fishing wealth, but gave that away. I suspect, rich or not, the Norwegians would not want to buckle to Brussels. More, Britain has the potential for similar riches: if not in oil (Britain blew its oil wealth years ago) then in its financial skills. The City could be a great, continuing wealth generator for Britain, once the financial vampire squids are prised out of the banks. So what is happening instead? The Brown Government is about to cripple Britain's own engine of prosperity by agreeing to EU French-style over-regulation. Wall Street, of course, will take the wealth instead.
One Norwegian banker I know here in Brussels is delighted that his country is independent, but yet is part of the no-passport EU Schengen Area. He notes he can fly from Oslo to Berlin or Paris and not have to show a passport: 'You can't do that from London.'
Norwegian businesses, industry and financial services can trade as freely across the EU as any businesses or industry in any EU member state. Norwegian citizens face no restrictions on living and working in the EU.
So what we have in Norway is a government which represents its people, and which negotiates with the EU on their behalf. Unlike half the Foreign Office, Norwegian diplomats do not arrive at Brussels negotiating tables with the intention of showing how their country must capitulate or risk 'isolation.'
Look around at life and prosperity in Norway. If this is 'isolation' from the EU, bring it on.
10 November 2009 1:42 PM
The EU accounts: donkeys, dope, and billions of your dosh wasted
Today the European Court of Auditors published their annual report on the EU's budget -- and in what is near becoming a European tradition, they have refused to sign off on the accounts. This makes 15 years in a row the EU's own accountants have reckoned there was too many holes in the books to allow them to sign and clear the the accounts.
How much dosh are we talking about? The EU's budget for 2007-2013 is worth £875 billion, and that is the pile of riches in which this vast pile of fraud and waste occurs year after year. I am reminded of Sophia Loren's reason for why she has never appeared nude in films: 'When Sophia Loren is naked, there is a lot of nakedness.' When a five year £875 billion budget goes bent, there is a lot of bent.
Open Europe has already had its researchers combing through the report. You can either get infuriated at the big picture -- how, according to the Treasury's projections, Britain's net contribution will go from £3 billion in 2009-10 (that is a gross contribution of £7.6 billion) to £6.4 billion in 2011-12 (gross contribution £12 billion), and yes, Britain is the EU country that receives the least back from the budget per head -- or you can get infuriated at the individual examples of theft, stupidity and fraud on which these British billions are wasted. Here are some of the absurd examples of EU spending the think tank has found in the auditors' report:
Wolfgang Porsche, supervisory board chairman of Porsche, received £2,250 in EU rural development funds for a small estate in Bavaria where he goes hunting in his free time.
£360,000 has been spent getting children to draw portraits of each other in the name of European citizenship -- 'to raise the awareness of all those living in the EU, in particular young people, of the importance of developing an active European citizenship.'
The Duke of Infantado, Inigo de Arteaga Y Martin, whose family owns a castle in Madrid, shows up in the list of beneficiaries of EU agricultural grants for the 2007-20013 period with a grant of £24,275. Other prominent Andalusian family members also received hundreds of thousands of euros in grants, as did the Catholic Church, which received just over £180,000.
A Swedish farmer received around £180 in subsidies from the EU for land on which he grew cannabis plants. This was all quite legal, as the farmer had filled in all the forms for the EU's Single Farm Payment scheme -- farmers receive subsidies from this scheme no matter what they grow on their land, and Sweden allows cannabis to be grown for 'industrial use.' But the farmer did not have to inform the authorities exactly what he intended to use the plants for.
As part of the EU's £6.3 million 'Year of Intercultural Dialogue,' the commission ran a project called 'Donkeypedia,' in which a donkey travelled through the Netherlands and children met the donkey. The idea, we are told, was 'creating a reflection of all European identities. What are the similarities, what are the differences? Donkeypedia will try to make this feeling tangible by interacting and in dialogue with its surroundings while walking a European route through several countries and collecting data to support this image.'
Seven Italians claimed over £3.6 million for producing orange juice, but it turned out that neither the juice, nor the oranges from which the juice was meant to be produced, existed at all. The seven fraudsters, who were finally caught, used personal data they had been given by unemployed people to falsify land certificates issued by the authorities, and with these certificates the fraudsters obtained millions in EU grants.
Here is a particular outrage: tens of millions in EU farm payments made to multinational banks. In 2007 alone, the EU paid out almost £88 million to various banks and financial institutions across Europe. As Open Europe notes: 'It is unclear why these subsidies were given to banks, and due to lack of transparency surrounding EU spending it is difficult to obtain more details. However, the likely explanation is that the criteria for receiving EU grants are no longer linked to farming. Since 2005, about half of all farm subsidies are handed out irrespective of whether farmers grow or produce anything on their land.' You will not be surprised to hear that it is French banks which have been sucking out most of this money -- Crédit Agricole alone sucked up £62,400,000.
Of course, we now know that David Cameron and his Tories have no more intention to pull British taxpayers out of this swamp of waste and fraud than do Gordon Brown and his Labour party. So, that's it until this time next year: when for the 16th year in a row, the Court of Auditors will no doubt again refuse to sign off on the accounts. And for the 16th year in a row, the British taxpayers will be the biggest mugs in the books -- and with the sanction of their own government, whoever leads it.
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