This is Evans-Pritchard throwing in the towel. He is of course a realist in doing so and as our government, which did not have to surrender as it has done, has nevertheless done so, means that he is right not to dwell in make-believe land. This result is not caused by the Lisbon Treaty it is Brown (who ratified this after Darling agreed in May) voluntarily and totally unnecessarily throwing away our sovereignty on this crucial issue.
Let us hope that our new overlord Barnier is as A.E-P suggestrs a decent bloke. The country is of course outraged by Sarkozy’s triumphalist gloating which has damaged relations with France immeasurably. Brown and he vare two very nasty men but unfortunately Sarkozy is much more cunning.
Christina
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TELEGRAPH 4.12.09
Why Frenchman Michel Barnier is the City of London's best hope
The City of London should thank its lucky stars that France's Michel Barnier will be in charge of Europe's drive for financial regulation over the next five years. His debut as the EU's single market commissioner is the one piece of good news in an otherwise dire situation.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The courteous Savoyard – not a Parisian – has proved before that he will not dance to French tunes once he has taken his oath of loyalty to Europe's cause in Brussels. He is by temperament deeply averse to trampling on British sensitivities.
"I am not an ideologue," he pleaded yesterday. "Everybody needs to calm down."
Quite so. Mr Barnier learned long ago that Europe's finely-balanced system works badly when Britain is out of joint. He laboured to soothe our irascible press during his stint as EU commissioner on the praesidium drafting Europe's constitution, the last time he was mauled by Fleet Street pitbulls (including me).
The civil service machinery under him will be run by Jonathan Faull, new director-general of the single market. The polyglot Mr Faull happens to be British, though his wife is French, but that is irrelevant. Career Eurocrats will not push the UK interest. Nor should he.
What does matter is that Mr Faull cut his teeth in the EU's competition police, the shock troops of free marketry in Europe. He belongs to the liberal wing of the European Project, those who believe the EU's central task is to break down barriers to trade and capital.
One shudders to think what might have happened if this job had gone to Pierre de Boissieu, the high priest of French ideology in Brussels. He will be secretary-general of the council, pulling the strings of EU president Herman van Rompuy.
Given the circumstances, the Barnier-Faull team is the best that Britain could hope for. Yet the real threat to the City does not come from the Commission. It comes from the three new agencies created to oversee banking (London), insurance and pensions (Frankfurt), and securities (Paris).
These bodies have the power to impose rules on Britain by majority vote. Each of the EU's 27 states has one vote: Malta counts as much as Britain in deciding the fate of the UK's biggest industry. We have no veto.
The UK can invoke a safeguard clause if measures infringe "fiscal sovereignty". Yet it takes a vote by EU finance ministers to trigger the procedure. The European Court imposes the final verdict. Short of invoking the nuclear option of the "Luxembourg Compromise", there is nothing London can do to block an assault on the City.
True, Labour itself is lashing out at bankers. But governments come and go. Policies can be changed. There is no mechanism by which any future UK government can alone reverse EU regulations.
The City's intelligence antennae failed badly this year. Few in London seemed alert to the danger when Alistair Darling agreed to endow the three agencies with "binding powers" in May, the key moment when Britain ceded its 300-year control over the City to foreign powers in perpetuity. By delayed reflex, they have erupted over Mr Barnier instead. [Well -er - I was writing on May 28 in “EU tightens noose on City - nobody cares” “If this goes through this will be the end of London as a great financial centre which is exactly what the EU wants. We are stuck with Gordon Brown to defend our position in June which gives little room for confidence. - - - etc” -cs]
President Nicolas Sarkozy had a point when he boasted that "the English are the big losers" from the Barnier drama. What he meant is that EU capitals share his view that the Great Recession was brought about by Anglo-Saxon excess, and that the choice of a French market commissioner ratifies the new orthodoxy.
No other coherent narrative of the crisis has been put forward. Economists at the European Central Bank and the Commission understand the deeper causes: that central banks kept real interest too low for years, or that $6.7 trillion of reserve accumulation by China, rising Asia, and commodity powers capped global bond yields – effects that played havoc with credit signals. But this is rare knowledge.
Most thinking is informed by street populism, and a desire to believe that the Rhenish model has been vindicated. That is the view that Britain will face in the voting chamber of les trois agences .
The City can only hope that Barnier will talk them out of folly. Better that a Frenchman should to it. There is little point relying on the British Government any longer. It is toothless.
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