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Eurealist :: Main Page: “More on the row over EU Commissioner Margot Wallstrom claims made by the Telegraph on the 9th May Vote for EU constitution or risk new Holocaust, says Brussels

She has now come under attack in the Swedish press for trying to cover up controversial comments linking criticism of the EU with the holocaust. Leading Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet today reports that the version of the speech published on the Commission website omits her controversial comment.

The published version deleted the line,

‘Yet there are those today who want to scrap the supranational idea. They want the European Union to go back to the old purely inter-governmental way of doing things. I say those people should come to Terezin and see where that road leads.’

Wallstrom has been attacked by the Jewish council of Sweden, who said,

‘It is completely unacceptable that the Holocaust is reduced to a weapon in the electoral debate on the EU Treaty.’

We can see the beginnings of yet another Euromyth, the official speech being doctored and posted on the Commission website becomes the official version of what was said. So that at some time in the future, someone working for the EU propaganda unit will point to this and claim that it is only the EUsceptics who misrepresenting the facts in order to stir up anti European feelings. So just to put a marker down, the EU Website is not a factually account of what Wallstrom said in her speech, At a memorial ceremony commemorating the liberation of the Jewish ghetto Terezin (Theresienstadt) in the Czech Republic.”

by Eurealist on May 12, 2005 09:58AM (BST)

Now that the EU Parliament has voted to remove the British opt out from the Working Times Directive against the will of the duly elected British Parliament, perhaps we should consider if the agreement reached at Maastricht should be repealed in the British parliament.

This might seem to be an over the top suggestion, after all Maastricht itself has been superseded by a further treaty and we are now in the process of ratifying yet another treaty/constitution. The problem is that if agreements can be overturned by an outside agency be it the EU Commission, the Parliament or European Court of Justice then what on earth is the point of making agreements in the first place.

It was quite clear during the negotiations at Maastricht that some member states wanted to advance their dreams of a social Europe, it was also clear that Britian was not prepared for these steps to be taken and did not agree to them at all. But in order not to stand in the way of those states that wanted this policy the British agreed an opt out, thus allowing the others to go ahead but at the same time ensuring that social legislation which the British government considered placed unnecessary burdens on businesses and damaged competitiveness could not be imposed on the United Kingdom.

It is not a flight of Eusceptic fancy to suggest that Maastricht would not have not been agreed if the opt out was not forthcoming, this was clearly stated in the now famous letter from John Major to the President of the EU Commission 12 November 1996

When Major wrote

My intention in agreeing to the Protocol on Social Policy at Maascricht was to ensure that social legislation which placed unnecessary burdens on businesses and damaged competitiveness could not be imposed on the United Kingdom. The other Heads of state and Government also agreed that arrangement, without which there would have been no agreement at all at Maastricht

However, in its judgment today, the European Court of Justice has ruled that the scope of Article I 18a is much broader than the United Kingdom envisaged when the article was originally agreed, as part of the Single European Act. This appears to mean that legislation which the United Kingdom had expected would be dealt with under the Protocol can in fact be adopted under Article 118a.

That is contrary to the clear and express wishes of the United Kingdom Government1 and goes directly counter to the spirit of what we agreed at Maastricht. It is unacceptable and must be remedied.

All arguments as to the desirability of the working times directive the need for a social Europe to the side, they are not important, we are told that we must abide by our treaty agreement otherwise we risk breaking international law, the same must be true of the other party`s to that agreement, which were the other member states, in fact there is no place in this agreement for a third party the EU parliament to impose will on the member states and itself breaking international treaties, as they have done so it cannot be impossible to take the line that the agreement reached at Maastricht has been annulled by the other party`s to that agreement.