eurealist.co.uk

The most important post I have seen this week is Richard North`s deconstructing of the news that Clarke wants the EU to adopt the UK’s voluntary code for internet service providers most internet data to be held for six months and some phone data for 12 months. It is not the fact that our government are promoting this proposal but the way they are going about it. Time after time we are told that the EU is not antidemocratic because it is our own ministers who are agreeing to the new laws Dr North shows exactly how the process in his words grates a democracy bypass.

EUREFERENDUM
Officials are saying that Clarke wanted the EU to adopt the UK’s voluntary code for internet service providers requiring. Such records are seen as important intelligence and detection aids.

tomorrow’s meeting of EU justice and interior ministers is an “emergency session”, when Britain intends to bypass “the cumbersome proposals” put forward by the EU Commission “which will run into the obstructive meddling of the European Parliament.” Instead, it seems, the UK will secure a “quick intergovernmental agreement”.

This is exactly the mechanism that was used to introduce the European Defence Agency - originally intended as part of the EU constitution but implemented by way of a Council Decision within the framework of the Maastricht Treaty, as amended by Nice and Amsterdam.

By invoking this mechanism, Clarke can come back to the UK with his new “EU law” and ask for it to be ratified by Parliament on the basis of a single vote, with no scope for amendment, which he will get “on the nod” with the government’s in-built majority. He can then implement it at will in the UK.

By using the “intergovernmental procedure” within the framework of the EU treaties, therefore, Clarke not only bypasses the EU parliament, but our own legislative system, effectively bypassing our own parliament as well. And therein lies one of the greater problems with these treaties – they hand greater power to the executive and reduce the scope for accountability and scrutiny. They are, in effect, a democracy bypass.

Several sites have asked of the EU intergrationalist, the ones who were saying the French and Dutch referendums did not answer the question on the ballot paper but allowed other consideration to cloud their decision, if the latest vote in Luxemburg is a yes yes vote or perhaps it is a yes no vote. How can we be sure the Luxemburg yes voters were properly informed, or answering the right question.

Do these people not realise what how it sounds to the British people to hear them going on about how important the EU is to our safety.
Welcoming the result of the European constitution referendum in Luxembourg yesterday, European Parliament president Josep Borrell of Spain jumped onto the bandwagon by saying “the people of Luxembourg had realised the need for “more of Europe to better guarantee the safety of Europeans”.” And he hoped that the “”appalling” attacks in London would “have a positive political effect in making Europeans realise the importance of the European project to better guarantee their safety”.

How on earth can this person assume anything like this from yesterday’s results from the country that has over the past fifty years gained the most out of the European Project? Removing the borders from the member states is perhaps one of the biggest contributors to the lack of internal security. Anyone intent on causing an outrage need only arrive in any of the EU countries, and they can travel anywhere within the EU states without the knowledge of the authorities. We have retained for the present some semblance of border control in Britain but even that is very lax when it come to people arriving from other member states. Because they have removed the internal border control they now want to have the power at the EU level to control external borders this of course necessitate handing more power to the EU, so they can better guarantee our safety, what absolute rubbish.

BERLIN (Reuters) - The EU should be allowed to levy its own direct tax, for example on international financial transactions, to fund part of its budget, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel told a German newspaper.

Schuessel, who takes over the 25-nation bloc’s rotating presidency at the end of this year, said it could not continue to be the case that “every euro that we need for (the EU) is drawn from national budgets”, according to the interview in Sunday’s weekly Bild am Sonntag.

“We need a fundamental budget reform that provides the EU with its own source of cash,” Schuessel told the paper.

“I suggest there should be an automatic financing mechanism for part of the EU budget — for example through taxation of international financial transactions.”

About half the European Union’s budget, worth 106.3 billion euros in 2005, is paid for by contributions from member states based on their gross national product.

The rest comes mainly from levies on agricultural imports and customs duties and revenue from value-added tax.

EU leaders meeting in Brussels last month failed to agree on the bloc’s 2007-2013 funding and Schuessel said budget talks were becoming “ever more brutal”.

He warned that if the EU was not given its own source of cash, there would be an “unprecedented scrap over distribution”.

Schuessel’s proposal for a tax on international transactions, similar to one made by French President Jacques Chirac to help fight AIDS, would likely meet stiff opposition from financial markets as well as from the United States and other nations, such as Britain, where the financial services sector accounts for a large part of the economy.

No redress for EU whistle-blower
08.07.2005 - 17:30 CET | By Lisbeth Kirk

The European Court of First Instance has refused claims of redress from former EU accountant Dorte Schmidt-Brown, who helped uncover abuses in Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Commission.

The Court also ordered (5 July) Mrs Schmidt-Brown to pay her own legal costs for bringing her case forward.

Back in 2001, she complained that the company Eurogramme had won contracts under false pretences.

What the Dane spotted four years ago appeared to be just one small part of a large Eurostat scandal, which culminated in the 2003 removal of the heads of Eurostat.

The issue involved big sums of money channelled into unofficial bank accounts as well as contracts tendered in an opaque manner.

After being ignored and transferred to a department that had no dealings with the company, she wrote a series of letters to Neil Kinnock, the then commissioner in charge of administrative reform, saying she was being victimised at work for speaking out and that a “cover-up” was taking place.

In January 2002, Mrs Schmidt-Brown received a reply from Mr Kinnock saying her claims were “unfounded”.

Ms Schmidt-Brown was sacked from her job at Eurostat but later received an apology from Mr Kinnock.

No ID set to music

http://eclectech.co.uk/clarkeidcards.php

Nice dog piano player!

Checking my EU related news feeds I came accross this from
JUS a web site I know nothing about. I am not trying to make any point, but there does appear to be a movement toward a united Muslim peoples. An interesting thought provoking idea.

This snip is only the latter part of the post.

Today, Europeans are more worried about safeguarding their national identities than moving forward with a constitution that places greater emphasis on a European identity. Subsequently, the current problems faced by Europe, and the solutions advocated are no longer viewed from the perspective of a unified Europe, but through the prism of nationalism. The dispute over the budget is a classic example of European nationalism tearing apart the EU.

In contrast, nationalism which was exported to the Islamic world and used to ‘divide and conquer’ Muslims is in full retreat. Today the concept of Ummah has superseded nationalism and has become a unifying force for Muslims across the world. Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia are quickly discovering that they have more in common with the Islamic vision of brotherhood than their present identities defined by artificial borders. The plight of Muslims in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, Iraq and Afghanistan is no longer viewed as parochial problems, but as Islamic problems that must have an Islamic solution.

Political Unity Is A Dream For Europe But A Reality For Muslims

The EU experiment was a bold attempt by some European nations to put to rest centuries of division and warfare. This initiative was given further impetus, when the elites in France and Germany realized that American supremacy could not be challenged by them alone. Hence the concept of a European Super state was born. But after 40 years of trying to create a post modern state, the EU has disintegrated into a collection of pre-modern states (nation states), where powerful states like England, France and Germany are at loggerheads over Europe’s future.

This was a predictable outcome. The European continent has been plagued with cultural differences, religious schisms and intense rivalries between powerful states. European history clearly demonstrates that there is very little to unite Europeans except foreign threats.

In the 17th century the advance of the Ottoman army to the gates of Vienna briefly spurred European nations to put aside their differences-only to be resumed later. In the 20th century, the threats from the Soviet Union, and later from America’s global hegemony forced Europe to coalesce in the form of a union.

More often than not, the coming together of European nations is a temporary affair and is used by some to recuperate after experiencing the ravages of war. But as soon as the external threat weakens, in this case America’s position in the world, Europe defaults to a state of disunity.

However, the unification of Muslim world into a single entity is not a mere dream but a reality. For centuries, Muslims irrespective of differences in race, language, color and geography remained part of a single political entity known as the Caliphate.

The present day nation states in the Islamic world are alien to Muslims. They do not have any precedence in Islamic history nor are they a product of Islamic jurisprudence. The nation state was forced upon the Muslims by western powers to prevent the re-establishment of the Caliphate.

As such, the Muslim masses never really expressed their loyalty to these artificial states and had to be governed by tyranny. Now it’s just a matter of time before these regimes of terror are toppled and a global Caliphate is established on their ruins. The rulers of the Muslim world are not blind to these realities; rather they are opposed to them. These rulers continuously preach that Muslims can never be united and that the establishment of the Caliphate belongs to the realm of the past.

If by chance, they ever do suggest unity between Muslims then it is through western inspired institutions like the OIC, Arab League, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the like. Strangely enough, these institutions and the nation-states that were manufactured to delay the political unity of Muslims have become the vehicles of change. Their impotence has encouraged Muslims worldwide to discard Europe and America as model states, and to redouble their efforts to re-establish the Caliphate.

Abid Mustafa is a political analyst who specializes in Muslim affairs.

Margot Jumping on the bandwagon in order to promote the EU.

The latest post from the EU propaganda web site, otherwise known as the Margot Wallstrom web site, a web site that it is claimed is for her personal thoughts, to show us all that the EU is not filled with faceless Eurocrats but real people.

Real people, Margot do not say;
“Some of you have asked me what issues require cross-border and inter-institutional cooperation. Fighting terrorism is at least one. Next week the Commission will discuss concrete measures like trans-border police cooperation, improved rapid crisis reaction and also how to prevent recruitment of terrorists.

But this is not a day for politics. It is not about making points for or against the EU. We are all on the same side,”

I feel I have to explain if this is not a day for politics, then why did the good lady decide to make points for the EU. WE are not asking “what issues require cross-border and inter-institutional cooperation” we are asking what issues require an overarching unelected, accountable government in Brussels that has the effect of removing our ability to elect and dismiss our law makers. What issues cannot be solved by our respective governments that are accountable to their voters working together.
Margot says “The terrorists steal our thoughts – as well as taking lives” somebody said on TV this morning – and I find that very true. They try to dominate the news; they try to set the agenda”

Much of this can also be said of the EU, It try’s to dominate the news, it try’s to set the agenda. It of course does not use bombs, instead it uses money, our own money to achieve the same ends, to steal our thoughts.

Leader stakes job on vote to revive EU constitution
The Times By Anthony Browne, Europe Correspondent
IT IS either the most futile referendum in the history of the European Union or the most cynical.

France and the Netherlands have both rejected the European constitution, and countries from Britain to Poland have shelved theirs, but Luxembourg — with an electorate the size of Croydon — will go to the polls tomorrow to give its verdict.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the Grand Duchy’s chain-smoking Prime Minister, hopes that his 218,000 voters — just 0.05 per cent of the EU population — will demonstrate such overwhelming enthusiasm for the treaty that they can raise it from the dead.

But if Luxembourg says no, even M Juncker, Europe’s last arch-federalist, admits that the constitution will be dead and he has promised to resign.

Until recently, the idea that Luxembourg could reject an EU treaty was risible. This bastion of “Old Europe” has grown rich off the fat of the EU. It receives €1,700 per head per year from Brussels, five times more than any other member state. Its capital, Luxembourg City, is packed with EU institutions, from the European Court of Justice to the European Court of Auditors, and parts of the European Parliament and Council of Ministers.

It has made support for European integration a cornerstone of its national identity, and being a member of the EU means that its political class can take breaks from organising traffic schemes to hob-nob with President Bush and other world leaders. But the EU has plunged into such a deep crisis that even in Luxembourg support for the constitution is now likely to be tepid at best.

The “no” campaign has no figurehead and virtually no funds, but it is has doubled its support. The last opinion poll — they are banned during the month before the vote — showed that the “yes” camp’s lead had slipped to 8 per cent.

As in France, it is fear of “Anglo-Saxon economics” that seems to be fuelling opposition. Anne Marie Speltz, the “no” campaign co-ordinator, said: “We do not want a treaty that dictates its ultra-liberal orientation, with completely free markets.”

M Juncker, president of the EU until July, earned hoots of derision by standing up after each referendum defeat and insisting that in the Alice in Wonderland world of the EU, the overwhelming “no” votes really meant “yes”. As if determined to prove Eurosceptics right about the anti-democratic nature of the EU, the doyen of EU politics insisted that any country that voted “ no” would have to vote again until it gave the “right answer”.

Europe’s longest-serving prime minister will not treat his voters with the same contempt that he has shown towards those of France and the Netherlands. Although he has always insisted that the project is still alive, he said that if his own country rejected it, it would be dead.

M Juncker’s 11-year career as Prime Minister would also be dead, since he has promised to resign if he loses. He is an extremely popular leader, and putting his job on the line was aimed at boosting support, but it has also angered those who see it as a form of blackmail.

Lucien Kayser, one of Luxembourg’s most respected intellectuals, pleaded in an open letter to M Juncker: “Don’t take voters hostage; let them have a really free choice on what they are being asked.”

But if Luxembourg supports the constitution, M Juncker insists that the entire project would be brought back to life. “In the case that Luxembourg did say yes, this could be the signal that the process is still alive,” he said.

The idea of reviving the constitution may seem far-fetched but that is what some European capitals are plotting.

Karel de Gucht, the Belgian Foreign Minster, said that France and the Netherlands must be made to vote again. “We can create a climate in which the treaty could finally be adopted in France and the Netherlands. We have to proceed with a second vote.”

Telegraph-letters
Sir - Mr Blair was suggesting after the attacks that this terrorist outrage would not change our British way of life, and the values to which we hold dear (News, July 8).

Is this not the man who leads a Government that wishes to dispense with habeas corpus, trial by jury, celebrations of VE Day and Trafalgar, and has already dispensed with a national sport of foxhunting? Is it not Tony Blair that wants to remove the right of the British subject to go about his business and insists on ID cards?

Jon Browne, Copmanthorpe, York

Sir - I am angry because various religious leaders are calling for people from ethnic minorities to “lie low” for a while, as they fear that white people will victimise them (News, July 8). It is an insult to the British people, the majority of whom are fair-minded, tolerant and rational.

Those of us who have chosen this country as our home are an integral part of it. We are British, we vote to choose the Government, and we should be up front and united in fighting this evil.

Why should we segregate ourselves from the rest of the country? That is what the bombers want - to turn people against each other and change the face of our society.

Sabina Ahmed, Taunton, Somerset

Address removed

7.7.2005.

To Andrew Dismore

Dear Sir,

Re Your “Crown Employment (Nationality) Bill.” 27th June 2005.

I write this letter on a day when despicable atrocities have occurred in our Capitol City of London. What was to have been a great day is now a day that will forever live in our memory, for our thoughts are with the wounded and bereaved.

It is also a day I came across yet another attempt by you sir, backed by certain other like-minded people that would undermine and try to destroy our British Constitution. How could you even begin to believe that it is safe to appoint foreign nationals in “places of trust” in either ‘civil or military’? Mistakes can and have been made with not vetting adequately British nationals for places of security and trust. I pray that that is not so in this case?

The Act of Settlement holds as true today as it did all those long years ago, perhaps even more so with these very recent tragic events. This, so I am told, is a sovereign Country, it has a Constitution that holds certain requirements and one of those requirements is to only allow in places of trust, people we hope can be faithful and true British citizens, as written in the Act of Settlement. This is a document that has stood the test of time since 1700 until 1997, and after today’s atrocities it has been brought home to people that an attack on London is an attack on the whole of the United Kingdom. It makes us conscious of the fact that we must fight harder to preserve that which we have taken for granted, yet are in danger of losing. I ask you to think hard about what your true intention is in putting your Bill forward, and having done that, I ask you now to withdraw it and fight to keep our Constitution as many before you have so sworn to do.

People from other Countries do not swear an Oath of Allegiance to our Queen and Country, in fact, as we have seen today there are people that would kill innocent civilians going about their every day duties, they would disrupt the transport system and stock market through their despicable cowardly actions, to ‘further their own cause’, what ever that may be.

You certainly would not have been able to alter one dot or comma of the EU Constitution had the British people have voted to ratify it, so why on earth should you make an attempt to alter your own Constitution?

Yours faithfully,

Anne Palmer.

Copy to all those named on the Bill, and also to The Lord Chancellor, The Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords, The Prime Minister, and Leader of the Opposition. As this is about our Constitution, this is an open letter.

From Hero von Esens
The EU’s New Communications Approach: Tell the Same Old Story, But Better
Attached is a speech made by Danuta Hübner, EU Commissioner for Regional Policy, to the Committe of the Regions on behalf of ailing Communications Commissioner Margot Wallström.

It it is interesting not so much for its specific proposals, which are characteristically woolly, as for the way it reveals underlying strategies and assumptions within the EU’s apparat. One of these strategies is the “divide and rule” approach of setting regional representatives against national governments. The speech refers to “the blame game” - whereby national governments take the credit for successful EU policies, whilst blaming the EU for any failures. The Commissioner appeals to the regional representatives to resist their governments in this matter.

Aside from this, the speech implicitly assumes that the failure of the Dutch and French constutional votes was due to the failings not of the constitutional document itself, but to the way it was communicated to voters. A better, “more professional” communications platform, it is implied, will overcome citizens’ concerns (and, it is imlied, citizens’ annoying inability to understand such complex matters). That assumption is worrying for more than its casual arrogance alone. For it shows that the EU - for all the noises it’s making about “wanting to listen” - has no serious intention of doing so with a view to coming up with a different approach, but only with a view to selling the existing approach in a more effective way!

Commissioner Wallström’s much-trumpeted “Plan D” (for democracy and dialogue), in other words, will exclude the give and take of actual democracy and dialogue, then. That is a great pity, as Commissioner Wallstöm had a golden opportunity to transform not merely the communication of overall policy, but the formulation of a new policy truly responsive to voters’ manifest concerns.

The speech is in pdf format: Here

E-mail from Denis Cooper

There’s an important article on European Security and Defence Policy on:

http://www.eureferendum.blogspot.com/#109343712460179584

referring to the attached report, which was approved less than a month ago.

This really needs to be given the widest possible circulation.

Nobody should think that a couple of ‘no’ votes will stop the EU pushing ahead,
in this case by relying on (and stretching) provisions of the Maastricht Treaty.

Electoral Reform - have your say
From Europhobia

This is your final chance to submit your evidence to the POWER Inquiry

What is the POWER Inquiry?

The POWER Inquiry has been set up by the Joseph Rowntree Trusts to explore how political participation and involvement can be increased and deepened in Britain. It aims to understand why the decline in popular participation and involvement in formal politics has occurred and to provide concrete and innovative proposals to reverse the trend. For more information visit www.powerinquiry.org.

The POWER Inquiry - the independent inquiry into democracy and participation in Britain - is nearing the end of its evidence-gathering phase. A variety of groups and organisations have already presented their thoughts on increasing political participation in Britain, but we are still interested to hear evidence from new contributors. Do you support proportional representation like the Liberal Democrats? Would you like to see compulsory voting introduced, as Geoff Hoon has recently recommended? Or would you like to see more direct forms of democratic control? The deadline for the submission of evidence on all POWER’s key questions is Friday 15th July.

How do I submit evidence?
Complete the form online Alternatively you can submit evidence via email to or post to POWER, 2 Downstream, 1 London Bridge, London, SE1 9BG. If you wish to submit evidence via post or email, you can download a copy of the Inquiry’s key questions or a form to complete from the website, or reply to this email (info AT powerinquiry.org) and request these documents.

How does my evidence fit into the Inquiry?

All the evidence submitted will be available to the Inquiry Commission in its original form. The Inquiry research team will also identify key themes arising from all evidence and present these to the Commission. A draft version of the final report will be made available to everyone who takes part in the Inquiry will be able to make further comments for consideration by the Commission before final publication in February 2006.

A yes of course is what the Europhiles are hopping for, they can then claim that the treaty is still alive, the only problem is France and Holland have still to clarify what their intention is until they do everything else is just fluff.

Luxembourg yes could revive EU constitution

Luxembourg`s prime minister, Jean Claude Junker is hopeful that a yes vote in Luxembourg could revive the EU constitutional treaty.

“If this country will say no then according to my colleagues in the European Commission this would clearly mean the treaty would be dead. But if Luxembourg says yes then it could be the signal that the process is still alive”, said Juncker.

The referendum in Luxembourg will be the first since EU leaders announced a period of reflection for the future of EU direction after last month`s controversial summit.

Luxembourg decided to go ahead with a referendum despite the fact that EU member states earlier this month put ratification on hold in response to the French and Dutch rejections of the constitution.

Juncker has previously said he would resign if the document was rejected by his co-citizens. Luxembourg will hold its referendum next Sunday.
Opinion polls are still suggesting that a yes vote is still more popular.

From Tim Worstall: Glorious Europa!:

“So far, no Eurostat official has been punished for the diversion of £3m of taxpayer funds into illegal accounts over three years ago in a scam described as a ‘vast enterprise of looting’ by investigators.

All the accused - mostly French officials - are still working for the EU or have retired with full pensions.

But the EU accountant who helped uncover the Eurostat abuses, Dorte Schmidt-Brown, fled home to Denmark after being subjected to a campaign of threats and harassment.
…
Yesterday the European Court of First Instance refused her claim for redress and ordered her to pay her own costs.
…

Jens-Peter Bonde, a Danish MEP, said the only two people have ever been ‘punished’ for the affair: the whistleblower herself and the German journalist who broke the story, Hans-Martin Tillack, who was arrested by Belgian police on the basis of charges now proved to have been trumped up by the Commission itself.

The police seized Mr Tillack’s computers, telephones, address books and five years of investigative files, exposing his inside sources. In his recent case, the European Court also ruled in favour of Brussels, even though seizure of a reporter’s notes are a breach of European human rights law.”

Continues

This posted in the American Thinker By James Lewis June 2nd, 2005

For half a century the ruling class of Europe has owned the project of European unification. Nobody bothered to ask the voters. But now they have made a mistake. Purely as a gesture, France, Holland and Britain scheduled popular referenda on the EU Constitution. The entire political and media establishment explained how a new Holocaust would follow if the referendum didn’t pass. Jacques Chirac told the French that a “Yes” vote would be a punch in the nose for Uncle Sam, show up the Brits, and keep the wolf of capitalism from the door.

Surprise! A New Media has risen in Europe, and made the case against the grotesque EU Constitution. And the voters have said “No.”

There’s only one problem. For the EU, “No” really means “Yes,” or “Maybe,” or “We’ll Get Back To You Later.” Like the famous New York Post headline during the Ford Administration, the message from the elites is “EU to Voters: Drop Dead!”

Right after the French “No” vote, Jacques Chirac said that the EU project would keep moving along: the EU foreign service is forging ahead, EU military centralization will continue to undermine NATO, France and Germany will still want to raise taxes in Ireland and Poland to keep them from out-competing their bloated welfare economies, and the EU propaganda machine will keep whipping up feelings against the “Anglo-Saxon model” (also called free markets).

Just to make his position really clear, Chirac appointed Dominique de Villepin as his new Prime Minister. Monsieur de Villepin is a Napoleonic fantasy-monger who is dedicated to creating a French-controlled Europe, to bring down American power in the world. De Villepin enjoyed shafting Colin Powell at the UN before the Iraq invasion, by leaking forged documents suggesting that Niger had sold yellow cake uranium to Saddam. When Powell told the Security Council about the documents, the French immediately leaked news stories that “European intelligence agencies” doubted their authenticity. That’s because the French forged them all by themselves.

De Villepin is the most anti-American politician in France. He recently published a new book called “The Seagull and the Shark” — guess who is the seagull, and who is the shark? You’re right.

Europe’s ruling class cannot give up the EU superstate for one big reason:
hundreds of thousands of their careers are at stake. For thirty years Brussels has been a favorite employer for French enarques (graduates of the political training institutes of France). The Brussels bureaucracy has been stacked. As Daniel Hannan, a British Member of the (bogus) European Parliament has written, “The French governing class is the chief beneficiary of the European Union.”

That’s why France is the biggest cheerleader for European unification — not because the people wanted it, but because it promised fat salaries to tens of thousands of French bureaucrats and politicians. In fact, the EU is nothing but Super-France, the fantasy superstate the French elites have always lusted for.

What about the voters? The New Media are now spreading in Europe. The Netherlands, which just overwhelmingly rejected the EU Constitution, has some 500,000 blogs, which played a major role in the No vote. There are striking parallels to the US. In Europe the Left had a media monopoly just as it did in the United States — but even more so because of government-controlled media like the BBC. With blogs rising by the thousands, Europe may be seeing the first signs of a new class war, not between capitalists and workers, but between the people and the state. The vote against the statist Constitution may be a first sign. But just as the liberal elite in America will resist the New Media to the bitter end, socialists in Europe will fight for their entrenched power.

Europe’s ruling class has been amazingly irresponsible. They have been unwilling even to talk about regulating immigration from Islamic countries, even though the people have known for years that many Muslims will take generations to adopt Western culture. The elites have allowed France and Germany to wallow in a welfare culture, even though millions of hard-working Europeans live in poverty because of over-the-top taxation — some of the EU states consume up to 70 percent of GDP. Europe’s rulers have spread the fantasy that Europe can live in peace and freedom without ever having to pay the price of defending itself. Lying and misgovernment is endemic to the European ruling class.

Europe is what hard core American liberals would like to see everywhere, a completely bureaucratized state from the cradle to the grave. Because British Labour represents the social welfare elites, Tony Blair may now renege on his promised referendum for Britain. German and Belgian politicians never even bothered to ask their people. They just passed the EU Constitution by a party vote of professional politicians. The politicians simply voted to abolish their own countries witout asking the people.

Americans rarely see how stratified European society really is. Low income Americans can expect to rise steadily during their lives, changing jobs every three or five years as opportunities open up. By contrast, most Europeans are corralled early in life into classes defined by their school test scores, like the ancient Mandarin bureaucracy. In France, the ruling class consists of those who have graduated from the elite state universities for bureaucrats and politicians. The European Union is therefore simply the product of bureaucratic expansionism. Even the British Foreign Service is being undermined, by promising its mandarins new and better-paying jobs in the EU foreign service. The EU undermines every member country by bribery and threats.

A few decades ago every child in Europe was still forced to take the Baccalaureate exam at age eleven, to be corralled along a rigid career path for the rest of their lives. The highest scorers would go to an academic high school and college; the second group to a terminal high school; third and fourth went for low level and blue collar training. The test determined one’s whole life. It was hard to change one’s life after age eleven. While the system has now loosened up somewhat, the bureaucratic state still begins to exercise control early in life, and keeping control right to the end. When old people in the Netherlands are subtly encouraged to commit suicide using state-provided euthenasia, they are simply at the logical conclusion of a long bureaucratic walk through life.

As Ronald Reagan said, many governments have a people; what is different about the US is that the people have a government. In Europe the people do not have a government yet. The vote against the grotesque EU Constitution may be a first step to genuine people power. But this is only a very early step. If the European New Media can be kept free from political control, there is hope for the future. Europe’s bureaucracy is never shy about grabbing power, though, so we might well see efforts to regulate or stop the new voices from being heard on the other side of the Atlantic.

Posted by Raphaël Paour on The TransAtlantic Assembly

Not long ago, Lorenzo posted a link to an article in Le Monde describing the failure of the French social system. It was an interesting and very critical peace. The surprising thing however was the force of the criticism, usual for journalists who tend to adopt more neutral points of views. The failure of this systems remains a point a view, it is hardly a raw fact. However, even a quick overview of the main stream French media shows that this type of strong criticism is coherent with what seems to be a fairly well thought out plan of action of the media and some of the main political parties. They understand the results of the French referendum as coming from an unjustified faith of a large portion of the population in the French social system. If people falsely believe that this system should be preserved – even at the cost of European integration – then, in order to avoid this type of democratic accident in the future, the media and the politicians should start explaining right now that their beliefs are not grounded, that the system they want to keep is no longer virtuous.

I am sure that the media are partly right, and that this type of illusion fits into the complex set of reasons that explain the leftwing vote. What is worrying is that they should focus only on that explanation and won’t understand that if the Constitution was rejected by so many people in several countries it is also because it wasn’t a good enough text. They remind me of parents who can’t cook but complain that their child won’t eat the tasteless food they prepared.

As Lorenzo wrote, we should not dwell too much on the reasons of the various votes and think about the future. How can we go on with the European integration ? It was an argument of the leftwing No that after a final rejection we would be able to start again with a better, more ambitious project for a Constitution. However the failure of this project - which was a beautiful effort - is instructive. Why did it fail ? There are many different reasons, but in the end, if it was rejected in several countries, it is because this constitution was not sufficiently consensual. It was not able to obtain the consensus required by a constitution – because it gives legitimacy to the system as a whole – because it was, as the construction of the European Union itself, ideologically determined. In this sense it was more than a constitution. As Euan argued, to be consensual, the supreme norm of the legal system should not entrench politically controversial issues which should remain up for grabs and decided legislatively through majority decision. The next text for a constitution should give us the rules of the democratic game in a potent European State. According to leftwing opponents of the EU Constitution, the text was not good enough, not because it didn’t protect the French welfare State – as many people say – but because it made it impossible a priori for Europe to adopt a similar model. To content this part of the population the next text should instaure a democratic forum where their representatives could try to persuade others that the welfare State would benefit Europe. Rules of a democratic game are not enough as they only allow a State to formulate political preferences. A potent State is required for these preferences to be applied : one which can decide to raise taxes and decide how to spend them.

Two problems (and many others) remain: part II and part III of the Constitution. Fundemental rights should be entreched only if it is fairly easy for the democratic institutions to overturn a decision of the European Court of Justice interpretating them. How rights should be interpreted is a politically controversial issue which should also be up for grabs. Part III of the Constitution incorporated many rules set by previous treaties into this constitution. This didn’t change the place that these rules have in the hierarchy of norms. It was precisely the problem: the new text should lower the level of these rules and retrograte them to the legislative level so that they could be submitted to democratic discussions and decisions by the European legislative institutions.

It is not a paradoxe that a shorter text, containing less rules would be more ambitious than the one which was rejected. The ambition here is to find consensual rules which gives the basis for discussions and decisions on controversial issues, not rules to decide them a priori.

On Sunday 200,000 voters in Luxembourg, will give their answer to the EU Constitution. In Luxembourg voting is compulsory, and opinion polls are banned for the last month of campaigning so according to the Telegraph the results are impossible to predict they do however come down on the side of a yes vote “A No vote should be unthinkable - per head Luxembourg receives more EU money than any other country, most of it to fund a half-dozen major institutions housed there.” Telegraph reporter David Rennie in Schengen could only find “one lone no voter, a grape farmer trundling through Schengen in a toy-like vineyard tractor, who declined to give his name” obviously out of embarrassment at voting no.

Deutsche Welle on the other hand tends towards a no vote “At first glance, Luxembourg looks like it always does to any visitor: well-kept, European flags fluttering on numerous buildings, fresh geraniums planted in tidy flower beds. But below the veneer, trouble is brewing in Europe’s most pro-EU country.”

“Lately, the most ubiquitous presence in the country are the pamphlets and posters of the anti-EU camp. Ask the pedestrians and you will discover that Luxembourg is no longer as Europe-friendly as it has been in the past.”

The last survey in mid-June put opponents of the EU constitution at 45 percent, which is astounding considering that a few months ago more than 70 percent of voters in Luxembourg were going to vote “yes.”

“Luxembourgers, in increasing numbers, are echoing the same arguments used in France and the Netherlands to explain their opposition. André Kremer, from the Luxembourg Committee for a No-Vote, stated the reasons.”

“Our criticism is based on four points,” he said. “The first point is that the constitution was not conceived in a democratic way and is not democratic. Point two: it is not socially equitable. Thirdly, it is neoliberal and aims for totally open markets. And fourthly, it will militarize Europe.”

Guy Gibéryen from the populist Party for Democracy and Pension Equality “One would expect in a democratic country that the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ camps have the same resources,” he said. “But that is not the case in Luxembourg. The ‘no’ camp gets nothing, while the government uses taxpayer’s money for its massive ‘yes’ campaign. I’m convinced that this brainwashing will not work.”

Prime Minister Juncker has announced that he will step down if the electorate votes ‘no.’ For some that is the logical consequence of his support for the EU constitution, but for others, it smacks of blackmail, said a café owner in the capital.

“The prime minister says he will resign,” he said. “That’s crazy. That, in itself, is a reason to vote ‘no.’ It’s not about him. It’s about Europe. I am deeply disappointed.”

Which ever way Luxembourg votes on Sunday will not influence the problems facing the EU elites who still have to get 100% acceptance for the Constitution to become effective, it will just add to the clamour of the intergrationalist for a continuation of the process of ratification, but they should realise that at some point is this process does continue they are going to have to face the fact that at least three major players will have vetoed the project that is unless Blair continues to hold out against allowing the British the chance of voting.