EU referendum: little change in the polls
Friday 1 February 2013
Based on a recent private poll, he concludes that the speech "has cheered Conservative supporters, but done little to improve the party's chances of success at the next general election". It has not, he says, "unleashed a desire for an overall Conservative majority".
Thus, Labour is still in the lead, on 38 percent, the Tories get 33 percent, the Lib-Dems 11 percent, UKIP nine and "others" nine. A small increase in the Tory vote is attributed to an increase in those who voted Conservative in 2010, coming back to the fold. As regards "Europe", the noble Lord observes that the upsurge in debate about the EU in advance of the high-profile speech appears to have bolstered pro-European sentiments. That conclusion is based on a question about sentiment on the EU, with 22 percent feeling "positive" about EU membership, up four points from the Populus poll in December 2012. Those who feel negative about EU membership, but feel we should remain in account for 19 percent (down one), and those who feel we are better off out score 26 percent (down eight). Those with no strong views either way account for 33 percent of the poll.  There is no question on renegotiation, but if one assumes that the first two categories would go for that option, we are looking at 41 percent – against 26 percent wanting out. That is not an untypical result, very close to the 42-34 percent finding in the July 2012 YouGov survey. Why the speech should not have had more of an impact is perhaps explainable in terms of people simply not believing that the referendum promise is real, oir a feeling that it is completely undeliverable. We seem to have a perverse situation where, in order to enjoy a sustained surge in the polls, the Tories need already to be ahead, to give the promise credibility. On the other hand, now that we are seeing an upsurge in europhile propaganda, the likelihood is that sentiment will harden against the "EU-out" proposition. And give also that the europhile attack is focused on the referendum itself, we may even see the strength behind calls for a referendum diminish. Add to this the boundary vote, and the prospect of a Conservative win at the next election begins to look so unlikely that the referendum promise will have little immediate traction. However, there is a wildcard here. Consistently, Cameron is scoring much higher in polls than is Miliband. If we see a firming up of the presidential-style of campaigning, we could have voters choosing between a (relatively) popular leader of an unpopular party, and an unpopular leader of a (relatively) popular party. In such circumstances, the polls may find it hard to predict a winner. Nevertheless, if the Tories do drag themselves out of their mid-term rut and begin to show a lead, the referendum promise may start to have a real impact, reinforcing the lead. In those circumstances, Miliband may feel inclined to neutralise the effect, by also promising a referendum. While it is thus difficult at this stage to see Cameron's promise materialising, we might not get any serious indicators until after the euro-elections next year. Certainly, the game is not yet over – and nor will it go away. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 01/02/2013 |
Media: a perfect FUD
Friday 1 February 2013
 Classic of its genre, the hook on which Ambrose bases his scary movie is Athanasios Orphanides a former member of the European Central Bank's governing council.
Orphanides is a member of the euro-elite and just the sort of person one would go to for a dispassionate account of Britain's prospects outside the EU. This is the man who served as Governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus, the country with a banking sector equal to 835 percent of its GDP, so large it is threatening to destablise the euro.
Greek-Cypriot bankers with such impeccable backgrounds are just the people to tell us that membership of the EU single market, "is the UK's only legal defence against an onslaught of regulations aimed at forcing banks and fund managers to decamp to the eurozone". They are so well-equipped to tell us that, "It would be catastrophic and suicidal for Britain to leave. The UK would lose the protection it currently enjoys as the eurozone's major financial centre".
Yet this is a man who presided over a system of which it was said:
... it was clear there was a lack of substantial regulatory control on the banking system. Loans were often issued based on a network of personal relationships, starving those in the real economy – small and medium businesses and farmers – of access to finance. This is the evolution of a system that was functioning according to its connections with the political and the economic power, and in the end reached a point of even being above it.Nevertheless, he is Ambrose's main source for his scary movie. You can just imagine Ken Clarke salivating over that one and Mr Orphanides will be a welcome guest in the halls of British europhila, featuring prominently on the BBC to warn all the wuzzies not to let go of nurse, for fear of their bonuses. The gist of Orphanide's little gems is that the ECB, "is already clamping down on payments, clearing and settlement systems conducted in euros outside its jurisdiction, a move deemed necessary to head off future crises". Thus, he says, "The only thing stopping regulation that would shift all such activities from London to the eurozone is the legal protection the City enjoys in the EU". This, of course, is moonshine. So huge is the London market, as one of the hubs of the global banking system, that if the ECB tried on predatory policies, it would be buried. Already fragile, the euro would be shattered by the onslaught of hostile trading, and the euro-wuzzies would be cleaning toilets for a living the following day. Not least, we would see intervention by the Committee on the Global Financial System (CGFS), formerly known as the Euro-currency Standing Committee, currently headed by William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. An assault on London by the ECB would be seen for what it is, a move to destabilise the market – the financial equivalent of a suicide bomb, and it would soon be seen off by the global financial system. But then, the scary movie is only a figment of the imagination of the europhile FUD factory. While Britain is in a "very strong" position now as an EU member outside the eurozone, this would evaporate the moment the UK tears up its membership card, says Orphanide, unveilling his shiny new straw man. Needless to say, Britain would never "tear up its membership card". Only the lunatic eurosceptic fringe advocate that. No sane British government would ever countenance leaving other than through a carefully negotiated exit, with alternative treaty arrangements in place before the knot was finally cut. That is the essence of Article 50. But the Telegraph is not into sensible reporting. "Legal guerrilla warfare is already under way", writes Ambrose, then citing the paragons of impartial commentary, anonymous "EU officials". These anonymous officials obligingly tell Ambrose, "privately", of course – so that what they say can never be checked, or attributed to any one person - "that the struggle for control over the financial industry is reaching a critical point, with Britain rapidly key losing allies". Well, they would say that, wouldn't they. Needless to say, this assertion need a bit of bolstering, so off Ambrose trots to Rodney Leach's boy, Mats "renta-quote" Persson from Little Europe, to put more "F" into the FUD. "This is a very real threat", says Mattie, "what's the question?" Lining up the skittles, Ambrose then adds Dino Kos, a former head of markets at the New York Fed, to say "the City is more vulnerable to a regulatory squeeze than people realise". Then we get Graham Bishop, billed as "an expert on EU regulation". That is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Graham Bishop is a self-styled consultant who openly admits to tailoring his services "to highlight my personal commitment to a deepening of European financial and political integration". There's "expert" for you. But even this rabid europhile is not enough. To finish off this euro-wuzzie wet-dream, Ambrose recruits Giles Merritt, the head of Friends of Europe in Brussels, a temple of europhila if ever there was one. Predictably, he warns that EU leaders "could become vindictive if Britain's in/out referendum degenerates into a slanging match". "If British eurosceptics turn it into a sneering campaign against Europe, then the Europeans will play hardball", he says. Well, you don't say. EU leaders vindictive? And this is a reason for staying in the EU? COMMENT THREAD Richard North 01/02/2013 |
EU regulation: another single market success
Friday 1 February 2013
 This was in the wake of the PIP breast implant scandal, when we were shouting from the rooftops about the failures of the EU regulatory system. And now the Daily Telegraph has "revealed" that the health of British patients was being potentially put at risk by European regulators "who were prepared to license potentially dangerous medical implants for sale in this country". These are ASR hip joint replacements, produced by DePuy Orthopaedics, a subsidiary of the American firm Johnson & Johnson. They are metal-to-metal hip implants, launched in 2003, which have now been shown to be faulty. Problems were reported as early as 2006, the product type was withdrawn in 2009 from Australian and US markets, but was still on sale in Europe until 2010. Approximately 40,000 patients have received an ASR replacement in Europe, 380 of them in France, but more than 10,000 in Britain, before they were finally withdrawn in August 2010, All of these hip replacements were authorised in conformity with EU legislation under the aegis of the Single Market. Market surveillance and vigilance rules were also specified by the EU. One should note that the fabulous Single Market which has brought us these great successes is the very same that Mr Cameron so enthusiastically supports, and tells us is so necessary. The rules are now undergoing revision, and have been going through the process for four years, withfurther revisions also proposed. But, the relevant directives have already been amended many times. There is no guarantee this time that the EU will get them right this time. Even then there will be little comfort for the thousands of people left in agony, despite every single one of the hip replacements used being fully certified with the EU's CE mark, a mark of quality that is about as reliable as anything else the EU has on offer. One wonders therefore, what it is going to take before people finally realise that the EU is not only driving us to ruin though weight of regulation, but also that the quality of its legislation is so poor that it fails completely to achieve its stated aims.
And when that day comes, what will we do then?
Richard North 01/02/2013 |
EU regulations: our masters speak
Friday 1 February 2013
 In fact, though, what you were looking at was a representative of our masters handing down their judgement on what things are to be or, more accurately, how they would wish them to be. The proximate issue here is neonicotinoid insecticides and their effect on bees, about which we wrote in November last. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. What matters here is not so much what, but how – and whom. The thing here is that this group of insecticides may or may not harm bees – the jury is out on this, but it does mean that there are calls for the products to be banned. If we were an independent nation, the decision would be made by our own Secretary of State for agriculture (Defra). But it is a long time since we enjoyed that status. Clues to our second-class status abound, one in a sequence being the press release issued by the 3,216th meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Brussels on 28 January. And yes, dear readers, there have been 3,216 meetings. Assuming they take one day each (and some go much longer), that is nearly ten whole years, as close a description of purgatory as can be imagined – a ten-year council meeting. Anyhow, the press release tells us that, at the request of the Dutch delegation, the Commission reported to the Council on the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) about the risk assessment of neonicotinoid insecticides with regard to bees. This request came in on 24 January, with the Netherlands asking the European Commission to take action on a "community level". As it happened, EFSA had reported on 16 January that it had identified a number of risks posed to bees by three neonicotinoid insecticides. Crucially, though, it reported that there was "a high level of uncertainty in the latest evaluations", which meant that EFSA's scientists "were unable to finalise risk assessments for some of the uses authorised in the EU". With nothing specific to go on, at the Council meeting, "many" member states nevertheless supported a suggestion from the Netherlands to initiate an action at community level "where high risks have been identified or could not be excluded in relation to certain aspects of the risk assessment for honey bees". This latter phrasing shrieks of "precautionary principle" and it will come as no surprise that some member states – our own included - considered that further scientific advice should be sought before taking any action. Taking no action, though, is not something for which the Commission is famed. It blandly informed the Council that it would "shortly" present proposals to apply "both the precautionary and the proportionality principles" to the issue. Sure enough, on Wednesday, the Commission gave early warning that it would present a discussion paper to Member State experts at a meeting of the standing committee on pesticides, aiming "to exchange views on the range of policy options available".
Said Tonio Borg, Commissioner for Health and Consumers, "we now need to carefully assess all the policy options that are available to us before bringing forward any legislative and harmonised proposals".
And so it was yesterday that we had M. Frédéric Vincent telling us that the Commission proposed that the Member States suspend for two years the use of these pesticides in seeds, granulates and sprays for crops which attract bees; sunflower, rape, maize and cotton. Vincent acknowledged that the issue had been on the table of the Council on Monday and it was true that some delegations expressed the view that it was necessary to pursue further analyses. Some big countries, he also said, "didn't express their view" but there was to be a "discussion". Member States would react and if there was a regulation, it would be before March. This has now been processed into news by the assembled hacks, a typical result emerging in EU business, with the headline: "EU urges two-year ban on 'disturbing' bee insecticides". Interestingly, the copy tells us that, "the EU urged national governments on Thursday to ban pesticides deemed dangerous to bees by scientific experts in a bid to prevent a disastrous collapse in colony numbers for an insect considered vital to the integrity of the human food chain". We also learn that "major EU states Germany, Britain and Spain", amongst others, indicated serious reservations about the plans, but the decisive meeting is set for 25 February. The chemicals then to be discussed are clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, produced by pharmaceutical giants Bayer, Syngenta and Cruiser OSR. Cut to Bayer CropScience, which believes that "the Commission's overly conservative interpretation of the precautionary principle is a missed opportunity to achieve a fair and proportional solution". It wants the Commission to refer back to "solid science" before making any proposals. The Company was a little more robust to the House of Commons environmental audit committee recently, having its Dr Julian Little telling MPs that the EU was in danger of "enshrining some sort of museum agriculture". "I personally absolutely support very strict regulation, but not to the point where we believe you are taking out major advances in chemistry and major advances in agriculture with no discernible improvement in bee health", he said. Defra rejected a ban late last year saying the scientific evidence wasn't clear, and have commissioned new studies that will look at the impacts of neonicotinoids on bumble bees in field conditions. Unfortunately, the results of those studies are not yet available. But what Defra thinks doesn't really matter. We are one voice in 27. The "experts" of the standing committee will do the deed, using the comitology process. Rumour has it that there are only three people in the world who have understood the process – one is dead, the second is in a mental asylum and the third exiled himself to a desert island. But whatever the committee decides, we will comply. That is how our government works. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 01/02/2013 |
EU referendum: corporate FUD
Thursday 31 January 2013
 Mostly, they are not even attempting to arguing the case for remaining in the EU (mostly, one assumes, because the case is so poor). Rather, they are attacking the very idea of having a referendum. The corporates – in their own minds – are supreme, and the thought of us little plebs being allowed a vote fills them with terror. Thus we have the parasites PwC spreading their anti-democratic poison in the corporate ragMoneyMarketing. Parasite-in-chief, PwC hedge fund leader Rob Mellor, is allowed to bleat: "A UK asset management industry outside of Europe may face obstacles to the continued management of assets for EU-based investors. This is a fundamental risk to the growth of the industry". In any free and fair discussion, you would not give this sort of jobsworth bleating more than a short blast of contempt, so lame and dismal is the argument. But the corporate might of PwC gives it open access to the ranks of the brain-dead.  Similarly, we get the vipers' nest of europhila – the London School of Economic - stir up its zombies in the LSE "Growth Commission" to warn us of the terrors to come if we threaten their gravy train. And sure enough, Sky TV, where corporate shall speak unto corporate, gives the LSE open access, and has professor John Van Reenen (good English name that) telling us: The idea of leaving the EU would be very, very damaging for the UK, so I personally think the uncertainty around having the referendum is actually going to retard growth and retard investment, so I don't think there is a strong case for having that referendum.What we are not told, however, is that Van Reenen has been an Executive Committee Member of the Fabian Society since 2006. One has to note, though, the strap line which conveys the same anti-democratic sentiments held by PwC: "The Government just talking about an EU referendum is damaging investment and productivity, influential economists warn", it says. There, naked in tooth and claw, is the corporate mind exposed. We shall stay in "Europe" and you shall not even think about leaving it, much less be allowed to discuss it. Any idea of democracy and public consent does not even enter their foetid, closeted minds. We the plebs must not dare to question our masters, nor be allowed to debate their folly and their greed. What last vestiges of democracy we ever had are draining away into the sand. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 31/01/2013 |
UK politics: falling apart
Thursday 31 January 2013
 One such was Tuesday's vote on constituency boundaries, and the reduction of the number of MPs from 650 to 600. The combined effect of that – in throwing out the proposed measures – was to make the election of Labour that much more certain, giving Miliband a built-in cushion of 20 seats before the first leaflet has been dropped through letter boxes. No one will disagree on this that the electoral system has now been skewed. With the shenanigans over postal votes – in a system that is also crying out for reform – the British electoral system is acquiring more than a few of the characteristics of a banana republic, ensuring that the next election will be anything but fair and free. It is hardly remarkable, therefore, that one of our better parliamentary correspondents, Quentin Letts, was outraged. "Watching our MPs on Tuesday", he writes today in The Daily Mail: I felt no longer as though I was in noble Westminster, "mother" to so many other democratic assemblies. I am sorry to say it felt more like being at a third world parliament, the plaything of one of those former Soviet states run by thick-necked ex-Communist thugs.In Britain, he goes on, "we have long flattered ourselves that we play by the rules. In the Commons on Tuesday, the rules were blatantly broken. In the 23 years, on and off, I have been reporting Parliament, I have not felt so disgusted by our political class". Letts is quite clearly outraged: "The behaviour of Mr Miliband, Mr Clegg and their MPs is worse than cash-for-questions or the expenses scandal", he adds "Those were fuelled by small-minded greed. This is the naked abuse of parliamentary principle. This, I am afraid, is anti-democratic theft". Sadly we could say the same thing of the insistence of our political class over our membership of the European Union, and yesterday's debate on "Europe" was in its own way just as offensive as the to event to which Letts takes such exception. There, you had MPs indulging themselves in a fatuous, ill-informed debate, not in the least reflecting the concerns of the people who elected them, rehearsing the same tired-old mantras. The debate was an insult to the very concept of democratic principles, without passion or fire. Lazy, disinterested MPs going through a sham ritual of debate without the first attempt to engage in the issues and get themselves properly informed. What Letts reports of the Tuesday vote, however, is the lack of outrage inside and outside the House to what in fact is blatant cheating. Similarly, we see a lack of response to the lacklustre performance of our MPs yesterday. But what was there to react to? It was a debate hardly worth reporting (and many newspapers haven't bothered). Unfortunately, the two issues are conjoined. Kate Hoey in the debate yesterday felt certain that Miliband would soon fall into line and before the general election commit to an EU referendum. But, if the Labour leader feels he can win the election on the basis of rigged constituency boundaries, he will most certainly be less inclined to give us a vote on the EU. If he cheats us, though, the pressure will not go away, and nor will the contempt. The British population may be slow to anger, and very slow to realise what is going on, but it is getting so bad that even Iain Dale has noticed something amiss. When the chattering classes fall out of love with politics, one suspects that the centre cannot hold for that much longer. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 31/01/2013 |
EU referendum: more FUD
Thursday 31 January 2013
 For months, if not years, there has been a clamour from those opposed to Europe, that has always been shrill and often effective. We are told that Europe is bad for the British economy, that being part of Europe means abandoning our allies in the USA, that Europe is obstinately against reform, dedicated to bloated bureaucracy rather than the needs of European citizens, that being in Europe means losing our identity as the British nation, that as a consequence, Britain should rule out joining the euro and should prepare to leave Europe altogether.Then said Mr Blair, "It is time we took each of these arguments in turn and demolished them". Playing the economic card, Blair said 3.5m jobs depended on British membership of the EU and that last year alone 50,000 jobs had been created because of inward investment as a consequence of European membership. He said Britain was stronger because it was in the EU, although he accepted the need for reform of the Brussels bureaucracy. And sitting alongside the now former prime minister – nearly fourteen years ago - was Ken Clarke, the man who is now telling us that leaving the EU would be a "fatal mistake". Normally, people who are so consistently wrong become a laughing stock. But this does not apply to europhiles and the BBC. The FUD-factory is open house to predictions of doom. This, though, is the BBC report on the launch of British Influence yesterday. Of all the quotes they could have picked from Clarke's speech, this was the one. But then, they are nothing if not predictable, boringly so. After nearly fourteen years, Clarke still churns out the same old propaganda, the same mantras, the same tired old claims – and he is still talking about "reform". But the FUD makes the headline. Being the BBC, it seems, means never having to think up any new tactics. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 31/01/2013 |
EU politics: look elsewhere for the debate
Thursday 31 January 2013
 For that debate, you are going to have to go to the blogs that the MPs don't read, such as Boiling Frog who has put up Part I of a further exploration of Article 50, taking on board the two-year negotiating period, and the response of the "colleagues". By coincidence, we also see a piece from Helen Szamuely in International Business Times, also on Article 50, this one in relation to an exit strategy. There is more wisdom, information and knowledge in these two pieces – both of them worth studying and keeping - than you will find in the hours of speeches from the ranks of dismal MPs who spoke today. None of these have spent any time learning the history of the EU, nor the dynamics of the Community. The shallowness and the misinformation from people who would lecture us on what we should do is, frankly, offensive. Therein lies much of our problem, especially with the likes of John Denham and Paul Blomfield who are so free with the insult "europhobe", men who complain of resentment towards the European Union, while speaking glibly of peace in Europe through their insults. These MPs in particular are a disgrace, but there is not one I would give time to, from the pompous Ben Gummer to the well-meaning but naïve Andrea Leadsom and the insolent Emma Reynolds. None have taken the trouble to keep themselves properly informed. They have nothing to tell us. Bizarrely though, information in this country is not at a premium. The ignorance of the "ordinary man" – even those who claim to be educated – is largely self-inflicted. It matches that of the MPs who claim to represent us. The information is there to be had, not least through the modern miracle of the internet and search engines, but it doesn't get to them. In fact, it is through that miracle that we can watch our MPs in action live. With a slight tweak in technology, two screens can be fitted to one computer – as I have done, which allows me to watch the ghastly proceedings on one, while working on a document on the other. Unfortunately, the technology does not bring the quality automatically. That, one has to search out, and too few people are doing that – especially MPs and their assistants and advisors. They should not be surprised, therefore, if they are progressively left out of the real debate. Worthless prattlers, they really are a waste of space and time. COMMENT: "DEBATE" THREAD Richard North 31/01/2013 |
EU politics: a debate in the House
Wednesday 30 January 2013
 It is very difficult to take this debate seriously. We have Richard Ottaway, chairman of the foreign affairs committee, referring to "the Single Market … a British invention of Margaret Thatcher". Imbued with such formidable ignorance, people such as these disqualify themselves from the wider, grown-up debate.
Then you have Julie Elliott, Labour MP for Sunderland whinging about "uncertainty" and commercial interests - with not a hint of understanding the arguments about membership of the EEA. She is locked in a time warp.
Bill Cash leapt to his feet, commending Cameron rejecting the notion of "ever closer union", and calling for a referendum in this Parliament - before the next European elections. Everybody knows that there is a very serious requirement to have a decision earlier rather than later.
Cash is asked whether he would campaign to come out of the European Union. He answers that he believes that Cameron is right to have an in-out referendum, and if the democratic principle of whether or not people can govern itself, he will vote for "out". On the economic front, his "positive way forward" is effectively an "association of nation states".
There is indeed a time warp surrounding the House of Commons, keeping the real world and the 21st Century at bay. Some people believe these are our "leaders". They are followers in the debate, so far behind the curve they can't even see it, fortified only by their own ignorance.
Andrew Selous believes that people are "grown-up enough" to make a sensible decision in the national interest. How sweet. We (the Conservatives) have been consistent in wanting to allow the people to have a say in these issues (the EU) he says. And MPs wonder why they are treated with such contempt?
This is march of the clichés. It is the role of politicians to make informed judgements says Mark "it's about geography" Hendrick, Labour member for Preston. But there is no sign of that happening, or even any sign that it is possible.
So far, we have heard nothing that hasn't come out of the Janet John primer on "Europe". Thank goodness the back-benchers are only allowed to speak for seven minutes. Any longer would be a cruel and unusual punishment.
But any amount of time from the patronising Brian Binley qualifies in that respect. We need to play a proactive part in the global village, he says.
He is followed by Kate Hoey who thinks that Cameron is right to call for taking powers back from "Europe". This is the "eurorealistic case", she says - the Common Market which we all joined has changed so much. She has a nice go at the ex-thief Richard Branson and his support for the euro. He was wrong then and he is wrong now.
We then suffer Andrew Turner, another MP who thinks the Community started off as a Common Market and somehow lost its way. He wants it to change course, or the people should be allowed the choice of in or out. He hopes the prime minister can renegotiate, so that full sovereignty remains with the Commons. "The issue is sovereignty", he says. John Denham rises to tell us that anti-Europeanism is "driven by fear". The debate does not divide europhiles from europhobes, but pessimists from optimists - traditional pessimists like UKIP, those who wear flapping white coats. Carswell wants to know why only the political elites should be allowed to make the decisions, but he doesn't get an answer. Denham who makes being offensive an article of faith, is of course a member of the Executive Committee of the Fabian Society. No more need be said.
And so to David Ruffey who tells us that there is little more than 20 miles across the Channel, where there are calls for "deeper, thicker integration". The bottom line is are we better off in or out ... these are important questions that need to be addressed. He's been taking lessons from Peter Sellers.
But even he shines compared with Alison McGovern, educated at Brookhurst Primary School, and then Wirral Grammar School for Girls, where she was the Head Girl from 1998-1999. She then studied Philosophy at University College London. On graduation, she worked as a researcher at the House of Commons, before handling communications for development projects at Network Rail, becoming a councillor in the London Borough of Southwark and then MP for Wirral South. I've had enough. I can't take any more. I'll read the rest on Hansard, when it's up. COMMENT: "DEBATE" THREAD Richard North 30/01/2013 |
EU politics: "selfish Norway"
Wednesday 30 January 2013
So the spotlight on Norway continues, bringing to light this review of the functioning of the EEA. It was issued in Brussels on 7 December last year by the European Commission and, but for events, would have remained (for us) just another one of the thousands of documents pumped out by the EU each year, for which there simply isn't time to read.
This one, mercifully, is only seventeen pages, and even then we get a helpful summary in EurActiv, telling us that Norway is failing to live up to its obligations as a member of the European Economic Area (EEA), including imposing extra taxes on EU products and not implementing more than 400 directives. In the report, Norway is also being criticised for imposing tariffs on EU products from 2013 and resisting "EU efforts for ambitious liberalisation" of the EU's single market. Complains the Commission: "This situation might thus lead to competitive advantages for operators based in the EEA-EFTA countries, and more fundamentally risks undermining the legal certainty and homogeneity of the single market". Moreover, the EU also dislikes the fact that Norway has rejected several directives coming from Brussels. The Norwegian government has for example warned it won’t implement the EU's postal directive about competitiveness for letter mail weighting less than 50 grams. Danish MEP Bendt Bendtsen (European People's Party), who has been closely following the trade issues with Norway, says the problems started in 2012 when Norway raised the price of hydrangeas from the EU by 72 percent. Eventually, the extra taxes spread to EU food products such as cheese and meat. Bendtsen says Norway is acting "selfishly" and that the taxes were put on EU goods "deliberately" as the Norwegian Centre Party, which is part of the Norwegian government, has for a long time pushed for the extra taxes. "Norway only wants the cream on the cake," the MEP says. Brining it bang up-to-date is a report on Norway's TV2 News which headlines that Norway is "threatened with hefty fines" from the EU, while another report has Conservative Party leader Erna Solberg blaming the Socialist government for "poor co-operation" with the EU. All this paints a very different picture from the image of poor little Norway rolling over and implementing a new law every time the ancient fax machine stutters into life, presenting a much more dynamic and troubled relationship between Norway and the EU. It may suit the likes of David Cameron to paint a one-dimensional (and dishonest) picture of the relationship, but real life is very different. In fact, links between the EU and Norway are under constant review, and even the Schengen Agreement is being questioned, mainly in response to the Romanian and Bulgarian accession. I'm beginning to get a sense of the game the Norwegians are playing, which is subtle and clever. Presenting an image to the world as weak, powerless neighbour to the mighty EU, it is using this carefully cultivated image as cover for a ruthlessly aggressive foreign policy, while it exploits every gap and loophole in international agreements, itself acting the bully with its smaller neighbours, as we see with the mackerel dispute. The Norwegians are not quite the innocents that they would like to make out, and seem to be playing a very successful game of protecting their own national interests, without people realising what they are doing. It is no wonder that so many want the UK to stay in the EU. They don't want Britain to enjoy the same competitive advantages as Norway. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 30/01/2013 |
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