By my reckoning, at this rate in 2020 there will be hardly 180 journalists left here in Brussels -- and every one of them sunk in what Cole Porter used to call 'the old ennui.' Certainly there was a different feel to the place in 2005. Then the Eastern European countries had just joined the EU. There was plenty of curiosity -- and apprehension by the French -- about how these new countries would change the power structure in the European institutions. (So how much did they change it? Not much. As de Gaulle said in the 1960s, 'Europe is France and Germany, everything else is just trimmings.') In 2005 I was living in an apartment next to the Ecole Militaire, so had to endure hours of the Belgian army band marching up and down practising Beethoven's Ode to Joy (the EU's fake anthem). The band wanted to be ready for the the big-wigs who were expected to pour into Brussels when the European Constitution was ratified. The French and Dutch voters put a stop to that. Or at least, a stop to that until the constitution was cross-dressed as a treaty. It was all very underhanded and dishonest around Brussels five years ago. But at least it was interesting, in an enraging sort of way. Now the EU, as far as financial issues goes, is just as ever France and German with the rest of the member states no more important than a parsley sprig on the side. Every other issue is only a slog of in-fighting over who gets what spoils under the new Lisbon Treaty arrangements. Well, that and the ever-encroaching details of an ever-closer-union, but the Press, and the people, are inured to that. Who really needs to pay to establish a correspondent in Brussels to cover any of it? Lorenzo Consoli, president of the International Press Association, has responded to the figures with a letter written to the European Voice weekly newspaper. He says his association 'considers this an indication of the diminishing importance of Brussels for European media.' One thing putting journalists off is that 'the European Commission, in particular, gives too little background information about decision-making, only details of the finely tuned results.' The Commission, as part of its gazillion-euro propaganda budget, pumps out plenty of 'information' of course, with live television transmissions, and broadcasts over the internet, travelling shows, the lot -- but it is all just propaganda. Genuine information is tough to get out of any of the European institutions. Any official who leaks the real deal of what's going on can face persecution, smears and finally dismissal from his job. So if the eurocrats want to know why we are finding them increasingly uninteresting, the answer is that they are becoming increasingly like the staff of the old Soviet Politburo. A one-party state never produces good news stories. Well, not 'til the shooting starts, anyway.... On Tuesday the European Commission proposed widening an existing 'European heritage' label, which they stick onto sites which the eurocrats decide are part of European 'common history.' The idea is to feed propaganda about how we all have a 'common yet diverse cultural heritage.' Problem is, when the scheme was set up four years ago, some eurocrat (clearly off-message) let Switzerland join the scheme. Three sites in blissfully-non-EU Switzerland are listed as part of European heritage. Now however the Swiss will be cut out from adding more to the list. Such a gesture is a disgrace. While on the one hand I welcome any distance Switzerland can put between itself and the undemocratic empire of Brussels, the idea of insulting the Swiss and their history in order to feed the lie that 'Europe is the EU and the EU is Europe' is shameful. So, I shall nominate a Swiss site which ought to be added to anyone's list of European history. It is the Lion of Lucerne, which commemorates the Swiss Guards who were slaughtered by French revolutionaries on August 10, 1792. The Swiss were posted at the Tuileries Palace. Their duty was to protect Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and their children from the revolutionary forces taking over the streets of Paris. Even as the cowardly royal family fled the palace, the Swiss stayed true their oaths as soldiers. They knew their duty. They fought to the end. And what an end it was, with more than 600 hundred Swiss dead on the day and hundreds more dead later of wounds or butchery in prison. Simon Schama describes it this way in his history of the revolution, 'Citizens.' The Swiss Guards 'were given neither shelter nor quarter. Hunted down, they were mercilessly butchered: stabbed, sabered, stoned and clubbed. Mutilators hacked off limbs and scissored out genitals and stuffed them in the gaping mouths or fed them to the dogs.' In reply to this barbarity, Robespierre called it 'the most beautiful revolution that has ever honoured humanity.' Which tells you almost all you need to know about the French. And in reply to this barbarity, the Swiss built a magnificent and heart-breaking monument, the Lion of Lucerne. Which tells you almost all you need to know about the Swiss. Here is how the American writer, Mark Twain, described it after a visit in 1880: 'The Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff -- for he is carved from the living rock of the cliff. His size is colossal, his attitude is noble. His head is bowed, the broken spear is sticking into his shoulder, his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France...' 'Around about are green trees and grass. The place is a sheltered, reposeful woodland nook, remote from noise and stir and confusion -- and all this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on granite pedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. The Lion of Lucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so impressive as where he is.' Above the lion is the Latin inscription: 'Helvetiorum Fidei ac Virtuti '-- The loyalty and bravery of the Swiss. The rest of Europe is unworthy of such a nation. Jonathan Faull, the top European Commission fonctionnaire I wrote about on February 23rd, has posted a reply to my story. Reminder: Faull is the director general at justice, and is about to make the jump to be director general to Michel Barnier, the Frenchman Nicolas Sarkozy put in as commissioner in charge of financial regulation. He is the top-ranking British eurocrat, though if you go back and read my post you will see 'British' is not a description he appears keen to use about himself. You would think all that would mean Faull has his hands full, what with interfering full time now in our civil liberties and getting ready to start interfering full time in what's left of our free market. However, it seems he -- or his highly-paid press officer who knows how to run a web search -- has been reading the Daily Mail Online to spot comments about himself in this blog. What Faull saw was my report on how dismissive he'd been of the concerns of Roger Helmer, a Tory MEP, over the dangers that British subjects face when they are extradited to face criminal trials in other EU states. Here is Faull's reply: 'Well, actually I said I knew that there were problems with different standards of criminal justice in EU countries. I pointed out that the Commission had proposed legislation to improve the rights of the accused and defendants in criminal cases. I hope you the the Daily Mail will support the Commission's efforts.' Indeed, after Faull assumed a rather weary manner over Helmer's question, he did indicate the Commission had plans to interfere in the justice systems of member states. It was a truly appalling comment, but it was no surprise. We know from the Lisbon Treaty that the EU institutions intend to create a euro-standard of what we are going to be forced to call 'justice.' We already know that Spain, which holds what is left of the European Council's rotating presidency, is planning to submit a plan next month to go ahead with the creation of a European Public Prosecutor, something allowed by the treaty. Could Britain opt out? Only technically, since the new euro-DPP could still go after any British subject in any EU member state that has signed up. If you think that would mean just those Britons who might live in France or Spain, remember this: the single biggest group of migrants to Ireland are those who hold British passports. And Ireland is a euro-spaniel that will sign up to almost anything Brussels puts in front of the Dublin government. Every Briton in Ireland -- and France, and Spain, and any of the other countries which signed up -- would be endangered by the euro-DPP and his European Arrest Warrants. Anyway, Britain will only stay free of this euro-DPP if whoever is in charge after the next election has the guts to get an opt-out. If Labour wins, euro-fanatic Mandelson will be in control of EU policy, if the Tories win, euro-wimp Cameron will be in control. So, things are not looking good. Of course, members of the euro-elite such as Faull want us all the believe that, once the EU is allowed to invade every member country's legal system -- or as Faull puts it, once the EU gets through 'legislation to improve the rights of the accused and defendants in criminal cases' -- we aren't supposed to worry about things such as what Bulgarian state prosecutors might do to our brothers or Portuguese jails might do to our sons. Or France and its criminal prosecution of writers might do to me. Faull can forget about me (and, I'd guess, the Daily Mail) supporting 'the Commission's efforts.' I may not like -- and indeed Faull may not like -- the system of criminal prosecution in some other country or other -- Romania, Spain, Italy, none offers the same protections guaranteed in English courts -- but no country or group of countries has the right to demand that Romania, or Spain, or Italy, or any other nation change its system of justice. The people of a nation form their laws and their courts from their own history, culture and traditions. They build it, so we must leave them to live with it. All any of us can do is protect our own citizens from being extradited to any country where the system falls short of our own standards. What Faull and the rest of the EU imperialists want to do is force sovereign states to homogenise their justice systems to some EU average. It is an appalling thought. So, here is my reply to Jonathan Faull: I will not accept your invitation to support you in your drive for EU power over the justice systems of member states. And the fact that you should even imagine that I might shows you haven't been reading this blog enough. Keep at it. It will do you nothing but good. I'm sure that's true. I would only like to add that, many years ago and in circumstances too complicated to explain here, I turned to Churchill for help against a very powerful bully. Churchill did not hesitate. He stood up for me. The bully backed down. Whatever failings the younger Winston may have had, he didn't fail me. I'd like that to be remembered.
Endangered species: or how the news pack are vanishing from Brussels
11 March 2010 9:22 AM
Now Brussels says the loyalty and the bravery of the Swiss isn't European
08 March 2010 10:16 AM
And now, a reply from A Frightfully Important Eurocrat
04 March 2010 9:16 AM
RIP, a decent man
Sunday, 14 March 2010
Italy's financial newspaper, Il Sole 24 Ore, reports today that the number of journalists accredited to the European Commission has dropped from 1,300 in 2005, to 1,100 in 2008, to 964 last year and now to just 752.
This drive by Brussels to foster a European nationalism has now moved on to airbrush independent Switzerland out of European history.
Good heavens. Look who's been reading this blog.
The death of the younger Winston Churchill has of course meant obituaries saying not much more than that he never was, nor ever could have been, a match for his grandfather.
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