eurealist.co.uk

Der I missed this one, thanks to The Road to Euro Serfdom for the post.

The Road to Euro Serfdom: European Arrest Warrant:

“Do you remember the European Arrest Warrant, designed to protect us from cross border terrorists and sex slave smugglers. Well we have finally found out what it is for:”

Now we all have to be up to date with the laws in 25 different countries and abide by them.

French President Jacques Chirac condemned Britain’s EU budget rebate on Wednesday as “no longer justified,” we should perhaps ask him and the rest of those calling for Britain to give up its rebate, why Britain should pay 14 times the amount into the EU kitty as France?

Perhaps they could all explain why that would be justified, as it stands, even with the rebate the UK contributes 2½ times as much as France.

The Scotsman - Opinion - Weak state of EU economy is a threat to British prosperity

AS SHERLOCK Holmes often explained to Dr Watson, the most important clue is often the thing that did not happen. This week, the general election campaign covered everything from school meals to Tory spending plans, from abortion to Iraq. The one subject strangely absent was a certain European Union to which we belong, despite a major EU summit in Brussels.

“Fog in the Channel: Continent cut off” is an old joke about British myopia concerning our European neighbours. It seems this traditional British political amnesia has returned with a vengeance. For the week past saw a major political and economic crisis in the EU that, once upon a time, would have dominated the centre of ordinary debate, never mind during an election warm-up.

The EU summit decided two things of immense consequence for the future of Europe - and got them disastrously wrong. First, it agreed to tear up the so-called stability pact - the set of rules governing how members of the eurozone organise their borrowing and spending. Fines on member countries who break the rules - basically France and Germany - were scrapped, and overdraft rules rewritten to the point where a government can print as many euros as it wants. Governments will now find it easier to run up long-term debt rather than make their economies more efficient by cutting red tape and taxes. As Europe’s population ages, a combination of debt and slow growth will lead to political instability, crippling interest rates, and, eventually, to a flight from the euro.

The reason these shenanigans passed the United Kingdom by is that we are not inside the eurozone, although the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has promised us a referendum on entry whenever the turkeys can be persuaded into voting for Christmas. Britain’s decision to stay out of the euro has been vindicated on many occasions. It has allowed the Bank of England to set monetary policy strictly in line with the needs of the British economy, thereby ensuring stability, low inflation and a predictable climate for investment. The result is that current UK growth is around twice that of the eurozone, while unemployment is around half.

The second major error of the Brussels summit was to scrap a proposal from the European Commission to let service providers operate freely across the EU. Countries like Germany impose severe restrictions on who can operate a service business (eg be a hairdresser or run a shop) and did not want nimble, hard-working Poles undercutting them. So the French and Germans (with the support of Sweden) ganged up to strangle free trade. This was a snub to new EU members in eastern Europe, but it also dealt a blow to the Community’s so-called Lisbon Agenda. Drawn up five years ago, it set an ambitious target for the EU to become the world’s most competitive economy by 2010. Instead, the EU is being eclipsed not only by the United States, but by China.

These regressive developments did not intrude into the UK general election campaign because of the current strength of the economy. One major fear of the UK not joining the eurozone was that our financial services industry would be crippled as exchange and investment markets switched to places like Frankfurt and Paris. Far from that happening, the efficiency of UK financial markets has allowed the UK financial sector to grab the lion’s share of euro transactions. The City has 40 per cent of all EU funds under management - more than France and Germany combined. That can only increase the longer France and Germany cling to their protectionist ways.