Britannia Radio

08 January 2010 10:20 AM

The Spaniard with a plan, God help us all

Spain is the first country to hold the rotating presidency of the European Council since the Lisbon Treaty came into force on January 1st and downgraded the post. Now that the treaty has made the Belgian Herman Van Rompuy into a permanent president of the Council, the Spaniards and their prime minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero are trying to figure out how to big-up their six months playing second castanet to the Belgian.

So what we are stuck with from now until the end of June is a Spanish socialist politician with not enough work to do, trying to figure out how to look more important at meetings of the 27 member states. You might think that being the head of a government that has let near-20 percent of its national workforce become unemployed would keep Zapatero humble enough to stay away from 'big ideas' just now, but no chance.

However, his first 'big idea' is useful -- though only as an insight into the euro-mind and as a warning about yet more growth in EU power.

Here is what's up. Brussels now intends to launch a 10-year plan in March -- those of you over 45 will recognise this as being in the style of the old USSR five-year plans -- to improve the EU's competitiveness. Those of you who were around in Brussels in 2000 will realise the EU is already coming to the end of its first 10-year plan, something called the Lisbon Strategy, launched to make the EU 'the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world' by 2010.

The 'strategy' didn't work. Obviously.

So yesterday Zapatero said the EU should therefore apply 'corrective measures' against member states which fail to meet (what Brussels decides are) their obligations under this new 10-year plan. Under the Spaniard's plan, the 'corrective measures' will be enforced through new powers to be granted to the Commission.

The point being that it is only Day 8 of the new EU under the Lisbon Treaty -- the treaty that was supposed to set up a new framework for running the European institutions -- and calls are already being made that the Commission must be granted new powers, in addition to all the new powers the Lisbon Treaty already hands to the eurocrats.

This is yet another example of how the EU works by 'permanent revolution.' No agreement is ever final, nothing is ever settled -- no national power is ever safe. All that is ever final is the relentless push towards 'ever-closer union,' more precisely described as ever-more centralised European government.

In the case of these new euro-powers of 'corrective action,' what Zapatero is actually suggesting is that Commission officials would have the power to invade the budgets proposed by the governments and parliaments of member states and 'police' them if the budgets do not, in the opinion of the eurocrats, advance the EU's goals for greater competitiveness.

All of which makes David Cameron's posturing about taking back some of the increased powers that the Lisbon Treaty grants to Brussels more absurd. He has already surrendered any moral authority -- and political leverage -- that could get the United Kingdom out of the new constitutional treaty. Now Brussels is ready to mock his impotence by giving even more powers to the European institutions.

07 January 2010 1:15 PM

Barroso's new bonk-buster Commissioner

Next week the European Parliament holds public hearings on the new commissioners appointed by the member states.

I only hope one of the MEPs asks Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, the new Irish commissioner for research, innovation and science, the same question I asked the European Court of Auditors when Geoghegan-Quinn was appointed to the court in 2000: what are her qualifications for the post?

Almost all Geoghegan-Quinn had been doing up until 2000 was working as a career politician in the country and western wing of the Fianna Fail party. (Just to help you with Irish political history, Fianna Fail is the party which produced the infamous Charles Haughey, a prime minister who grew vastly rich on secret cash bungs from millionaires)

I wanted the Court of Auditors to tell me how a politician whose only academic qualifications were as a school teacher could be pitched into a job where she was supposed to be one of the numbers-crunchers keeping an eye on the multi-millions in the annual EU budget.

All the court would give me in reply to a request for her qualifications was one sheet of paper listing her school-teaching degree, her posts in the Irish parliament and her one publication: a book called 'The Green Diamond.' I gathered it was a novel, but it was already out of print, so it wasn't around to be read.

Recently, one of my Mail colleagues in Dublin managed to find a copy on Amazon.co.uk at the cost of a penny. The 'novel' was an attempt at Jackie Collins-does-1960s-Dublin. Here is some of what's in it. If this is what passes as a 'qualification' to be a European auditor, I fear what may pass as a qualification to be a European Commissioner:

'His hand went in one sweeping movement inside the neckline of her dress to her breasts, so warmly knowing in its caress it took her breath away and she sat, a great wave of sexuality taking the fight out of her. He dropped to one knee in front of her...and put his other hand under her skirt...'

Later, 'Maitland sighed deeply and both shoulder straps fell down. McDonagh realised he had never known before that truly magnificent breasts would prevent a nightgown falling off, and was sorry to learn this fact...'

Yes, well, fine. That's quite enough of that.

I notice that the present biography of Geoghegan-Quinn on the Court of Auditors' website omits mention of the new commissioner's only publication.

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06 January 2010 3:49 PM

Sovereign? It's later than you think. We're shackled.

This blog may be in danger of sounding like the Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, but so be it. You may remember Waugh's line in the novel: 'There was a phrase in the '30s, "It's later than you think," which was designed to cause uneasiness. It was never later than Mr Pinfold thought.'

I have been going over some recent paperwork from the European Central Bank on the question of whether or not any member state actually has the right to stay out of the euro and, more, to withdraw from the EU.

Conclusion: it's later than the Cameron Tories will admit. But it is just as late as I have feared for years.

What I've been reading is the ECB's latest 'legal working paper.' It was written by Phoebus Athanassiou, legal counsel for the bank. After 50 pages of legal argument and footnotes on legal precedents, what he reckons is this: that any insistence by any member state that it has the right to withdraw from the EU could be, ahem, 'problematic, mainly from a legal perspective.'

Apparently, although the British imagine they have the right to withdraw from the ever-closer union imposed by the Lisbon Treaty and that the only question is whether they may decide to withdraw or not, Athanassiou has other ideas. He writes: 'Whatever limited rights of unilateral withdrawal States may enjoy under public international law and the Vienna Convention, these rights are not immediately relevant in an EU context, where a right of unilateral withdrawal would be at odds with some of the basic assumptions underlying the Community legal order and the idea of a lasting union among the peoples of Europe...'

The 'basic assumptions' being that the EU is a union forever, irrevocably.

The extent to which unilateral withdrawal is legally possible must ultimately depend on whether 'secession would be compatible with the scheme of the treaties.' And who would decide if Britain's secession were 'compatible?' The European institutions, not the British parliament.

None of the earlier treaties had any clause guaranteeing the right of withdrawal. The Lisbon Treaty appears to have one. But the clause says that the member state which wants to withdraw must inform the European Council of its intention. Then the Council will produce guidelines on the basis of which a withdrawal agreement is to be negotiated with that member state.

Britain, if it wanted to withdraw, would have no veto over what economic and other penalties the Council might demand. Britain would also have to gain the permission of the European Parliament in order to withdraw. (I can think of nothing so humiliating for an ancient nation such as the British than to be forced to go to that pack of pigs at the Strasbourg swill-trough to plead, 'Please, sirs, can we have our sovereignty back?')

And so on, and reading none of Athanassiou's paper makes one feel free.

Then there is the question of Britain staying out of the single currency. One of the few things that has helped Britain in this economic disaster engineered by Gordon Brown is the fact that sterling has been able to move against other currencies. Had Britain been in the euro, it would be have been stuck at a high exchange rate throughout this recession, keeping the thumbscrews on Britain's exporting industries.

But as Athanassiou points out, the EU's recognition of the existence of a member state with a derogation from membership in the euro is 'inconclusive, since EMU participation is, in the long run, obligatory for all member states except for those that have negotiated opt outs.' Here's the sting. He writes in a footnote about '...the obligation of non-participating Member States to maintain momentum towards the abrogation of their derogations and transition to the single currency.'

In other words, Britain has already legally committed itself to joining the permanent economic and monetary union of the euro -- Britain has already surrendered its right to hang on to sterling. The ECB says there is no question that sterling must be abandoned; the only question, as far as the sovereign EU law is concerned, is when Britain will be forced to dump it.

It's far, far later than you think.

Note: Since I first posted this piece, a lawyer with great knowledge of the ins and outs of the EU has been in touch with some interesting comments on Britain's position with regard to membership of the single currency. I won't give his name, because he was in touch with me privately, rather than through this blog.

He reckons I should take more note of the difference there is meant to be between derogation and opt-out. Britain of course technically has an 'opt-out' on the euro, rather than a 'derogation.'

And if at this point you are feeling yourself about to get lost in the brambles of EU linguistic undergrowth, I will let the experts at the 'E! Sharp Jargon Alert' explain the difference, because the difference -- or lack of difference -- matters:

Derogation: 'In theory, all EU laws should be binding on all member states. But countries can sometimes negotiate to opt-out of a particular piece of legislation. When this happens the member state concerned is granted a "derogation" from the law. These usually only last for a limited period...'

Opt-out: 'This phrase first came to the fore in the early 1990s during the Maastrcht Treaty negotiations. As the name suggests, it describes the process of allowing EU governments to opt-out of Union initiatives they do not agree with. The UK was granted two opt-outs from the Maastricht Treaty: it was not obliged to sign up to the EU's single currency even if it qualified for membership and it was exempted from the "social chapter," which set out new rules for drafting EU-wide labour laws...'

Yes, well, we all know how long Britain's 'opt-out- from the social chapter lasted: not long. Britain is in it now.

While some lawyers might argue that since an 'opt-out' has no time limit, it can therefore be forever, I have to point out that the EU lust for total integration is working on a tighter time-frame than infinity.

However, my lawyer-correspondent is right, there is a technical difference. But there is no political difference.

For example, the Irish had the technical right under EU law to bring to a complete halt the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Were they allowed to hold onto that right? Yes, for exactly 16 months, the time between their first and second referendums on the treaty. EU rules stated quite clearly that for Lisbon to come into EU law, it had to be ratified by all 27 member states. If one state refused to ratify it, the rules said it must fail

Except the rules don't really matter to the Brussels juggernaut.

Eventually, if there is still a British government wrapping itself in its 'opt-out' and insisting 'we know it looks like a derogation, but really it's an opt-out' -- and I doubt, given the way both the Tory and the Labour parties now stand, that any remaining resistance to the euro within the British political establishment will continue for many years more -- if such a British government exists at the time the EU decides it has had quite enough of Britain staying out of euro, the rights of the United Kingdom will be shown no more respect than were the rights of Ireland. The EU will always be driven by what the ECB paper describes with delicacy as, 'the long-term integrative nature of the EU.'

When the time comes, and Germany, France and the heavies in Brussels decide they have had enough of Britain staying outside the single currency -- and remember, it is a fundamental article of faith to the Germans, the French, and the Eurocrats that One Union Means One Currency -- Britain will first be pressured, then be threatened, if it does not agree to drop its opt-out.

Those within Britain who demand that the opt-out be kept will be smeared by both the billion-euro propaganda budget of the Commission, and by the quislings within Britain, as 'europhobes' and even 'xenophobes,' as Labour troglodytes or Tory backwoodsmen. A similar technique worked in Ireland. It will work in Britain, too, once the people are scared enough and the leading opponents to monetary union are silenced by defamation.

The independence of sterling is no more protected by EU jargon than France was protected by the Maginot Line. One good flanking attack by the Germans and sterling will fall.