In the jargon, that's 'how to give new momentum to the Union's external relations.' Of course, if all that these European empire-builders want to do is to get the world to pay attention to them, I've always said the easiest way would be for them to get Germany to build a whacking great army. Instead Van Rompuy and the rest imagine that the way for the EU to gain more global influence is to take 'full advantage of the opportunities provided by the Lisbon Treaty.' In other words, building up eurocratic wheezes such as Baroness Ashton's new EU diplomatic corps. So far, of the 28 heads of delegation named (in other words, 28 new EU ambassadors), a majority are officials of the EU institutions. Or did you imagine that members of the professional and experienced diplomatic corps of the member states were going to be allowed to dominate the service? Certainly not. First the idea is to have EU diplomats who have already been cleansed of their loyalty to their own countries, so taking them pre-bleached from Brussels is actually easier than having to re-programme career diplomats who are used to going around the world thinking of what's best for, say, Britain or Poland. Nope. Now the cry has to be, 'What's good for the EU is good for Britain!' Or Poland. Fill in the blank. Also, did you imagine the eurocrats were going to let this fabulous cream jug of embassies and expense accounts go to any more outsiders than was necessary? Not likely. Meanwhile, I can take some joy in this: despite all the multi-millions of euros in propaganda spent by the European Commission and the rest, a poll just out from the respected German Marshall Fund shows that there is little support for the euro in the countries that use the single currency. Here are some details: 'There was little support for Europe's common currency in the countries surveyed that use the euro. When asked whether using the euro has been a good or bad thing for their country's economy, almost all majorities in the eurozone sample responded negatively. The euro was not appealing from the outside either. Majorities of the British (83%) and Polish (53%) and a plurality of Bulgarians (42%) thought that using the euro would be a bad thing for their economies.' Yet the gilded caravan of ever-closer union carries on. The Chancellor came out beaming, claiming that in allowing new EU-level financial supervision, 'We have a deal which is good for Britain.' As Bugs Bunny once put it, 'What a maroon.' I won't invite you to follow me into the thicket of changes, but as Michel Barnier, the Frenchman who is the commissioner in charge of the internal market and services, said this morning, what they are doing here is building an entire financial services and regulation 'architecture' and now the EU institutions will fill it in 'brick by brick.' Otherwise known as power creep. What's made it somehow worse is that the meetings over these two days have been chaired, first, by Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian who is now the president of the European Council, and by Didier Reynders, the Finance Minister of Belgium, the country which holds the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. (Note the subtle difference in the names of the council. I blame Van Rompuy. Seems he's been bigging up his council into the 'real' European Council, while the other seems to have been demoted to being a kind of umbrella group for organising ministers' meetings. Not that it's got a smaller staff now. Certainly not. Staff numbers, like spending budgets, only ever go up in Brussels.) The point is that these two key chairmen come from Belgium, which is as near as you can get to being a non-country. So just who are they supposed to be representing? And why should we think that, having made a hash of their own country, they ought to be turned loose on the other 26 in the EU? How bad is it now in Belgium? The place had its general election in June and its politicians still haven't been able to put together a government. At the weekend, the French-speaking socialist, Elio Di Rupo, resigned from his role as head of negotiations. Now the king, who knows he will be minus one country and therefore out of a throne if Belgium breaks up, has called for a Dutch-speaking politician and another French-speaking politician to have a go at the talks. It is pretty unlikely they will have any success. The two halves of the country, the French-speaking Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Flemings, just don't have enough common ground for agreement. Many of the Flemings, who form a majority of the population of Belgium, want out. As the leader of the largest party in the country, Bart De Wever, a Flemish separatist put it earlier this year, he would like Belgium to 'evaporate.' Last Sunday the Fleming separatists engaged in an annual demonstration of riding bikes around the boundary of Brussels to remind the people of the city that they are surrounded by Flanders. Yet Brussels, thanks to generations of manipulation by those trying to wash away the Dutch culture of the city, is now a majority French-speaking city. Apparently during the negotiations the politicians asked if a corridor linking Brussels south to French speaking Wallonia could be established. Great. A sort of Berlin airlift corridor to Keep Brussels French. The kind of minds who think that's the way to run a country are now chairing committees with the power to decide the fate of Britain's financial services industry. And the Chancellor thinks this is a deal which is good for Britain.
16 September 2010 10:33 AM
It's official: nobody loves the euro except the eurocrats
07 September 2010 3:31 PM
Belgians help pedal rings around Osborne
Sunday, 19 September 2010
Today I'm back down in the press room at the European Council, while upstairs Herman Van Rompuy and the EU heads of state and government and their foreign ministers are trying to agree how to big-up the EU in foreign affairs.
It's bad enough being corralled here in the press room of the European Council without knowing that upstairs the Chancellor George Osborne has been handing over the keys to the City of London to a bunch of Continentals and eurocrats with not a financial services industry between them.
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