For the benefit of Scotland

The Scottish fishermen are concerned about a proposal from the European Commission. That would allow the Commission to give any unused fishing quota from one country to another.
It is felt that the industry which has already suffered a reduction of more than 50% of its capacity because of the Common Fisheries Policy would be further [...]

EU news Links

“It’s too early to tell because the data is incomplete, but it looks like there’s been maybe a 1% rise in emissions in 2007 compared to 2006,”
Oh well what do you expect!
European Commission authorises Polish State Aid for coal industry
Perhasps given the last item?
Belgium issues early veto against Blair bid [...]

Spraying Graffiti

This Directive could well mark the beginning of the end of the NHS.

Labour backbenchers attack Health Directive:
“This Directive could well mark the beginning of the end of the NHS.”
Thirty two Labour backbenchers have today [...]

Good for the BCC

This from Euobserver
Radio ads run by the European Commission in Ireland have been ruled in breach of Irish media law as they were "directed towards a political end," according to Dublin’s independent body dealing with complaints on broadcasting content.
 Parts of the ads, paid for by the European Commission’s representation in Ireland, were strictly awareness-building [...]

Abolishing the Regions

John Redwood has replied to some comments about abolishing the regions;

I want to see all unelected regional government abolished.
The Conservatives will not be abolishing the three elected regional governments in the UK that have been endorsed by referendum, nor the elected tier in Northern Ireland if that is in operation.
The fact that Brussels likes regional [...]

Conservatives Plans at odds with EU ideals

John Redwood has a post ridiculing a glossy brochure sent to him and doubtless many others, by Margaret Hodge, entitled “Creating prosperity in every region: England’s Regional development” Agencies”.

“She tells us the RDAs help to bring prosperity to all parts of England. Nowhere does she point out that the reigonal disparities have grown substantially during [...]

My 50 Reasons to loathe the EU

On this day when the Euro enthusiast are gathering to celebrate the 50th birthday of the European Project by patting themselves on the back for a job well done, whilst in the real world the real people of the European nation states have indicated in recent polls that they are not as enthused with the [...]

In the Region of Propaganda

Doing a bit of Surfing based on my own draft folder in which I put links that to posts and article and sites which grab my interest, I came across this letter on the Labour Movement for Europe Site
Written by an Administrator and subsequently locked to prevent any chance that someone might [...]

New Police Power Undermines Human Rights

Well it’s taken a couple of years but finally the British government have had to cave into the EU Commissions demand that the British people must be subjected to Random Breath Tests.
Even though giving our police this power undermines one of our basic rights; that strange concept of the Presumption of innocence.

Back in 2004 [...]

Discuss Charlie Bolton’s attitude

A new teaching pack on the EU has been introduced for use in Key Stage 3 and 4 “citizenship” classes that claims to offer a balanced view of the organisation and its role. Officials responsible for the pack say “The resources have been designed to offer a balanced introduction to the European Union and the [...]

We Should Not Fool Ourselves

In an interview with Bild am Sonntag newspaper Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European commission, has said. the EU constitution in its current form will not come into effect. “We should not fool ourselves. It’s important now to maintain its values, its principles and its substance. Above all, we have to improve the decision-making [...]

What did the EU do for me in 2006?

IP/06/1835
Brussels, 19 December 2006
What did the EU do for me in 2006?
The European Commission is launching a new multimedia product, the European Union Yearbook, which sets out 10 major policy actions undertaken by the European Union this year and is available in 22 languages. “Europe and you – a snapshot of EU [...]

The Taxing EU

Direct Taxation: The European Commission proposes an EU co-ordinated approach of national direct tax systems
(see MEMO/06/499)
The European Commission has adopted a Communication announcing a series of initiatives to promote better co-ordination of national direct tax systems in the EU. The aim is to ensure that national tax systems comply with Community law and interact [...]

So now we know who runs Britian

I had only read the headlines of this case and thinking it was a possibly an EU myth gave it no further thought, but what Booker has disclosed in his column this week is a travesty of justice. The EU Commision has against all the evidence connived to force the British Food Standards agency to [...]

The Gangplank

EUOBSERVER reports 

EU parliament MEPs have reacted furiously to a UK parliament report which questions the right of the European Parliament to make laws on criminal and police matters due to the fact that most of its members are non-British.

Which is not quite the point made by the report but this slight myth is [...]

Good News Bad News

 
“The constitutional treaty is no more – it is a diseased dead parrot,”

UK home secretary John Reid said
http://euobserver.com/9/23024

Finland ratified the EU constitution on Tuesday adding one more country to the list of member states having given the nod of approval to a document whose fate is still undetermined.

European Commission president Jose [...]

Furthering the EU Ambitions

Daniel Hannan in the Telegraph tells us that The European Union is a solution in search of a problem. Whatever the question, the answer is invariably “more Europe“. War in Lebanon? We need to be able to deploy an EU army. A breakdown in the World Trade Organisation talks? Let’s have a more integrated European [...]

The Federal Governments plan to fingerprint all children

British children, possibly as young as six, will be subjected to compulsory fingerprinting under European Union rules being drawn up in secret. The prints will be stored on a database which could be shared with countries around the world.
The prospect has alarmed civil liberties groups who fear it represents a ’sea change’ in the state’s [...]

Hurd welcomes new realism on EU from Cameron

In a letter to the FT Douglas Hurd argues that “David Cameron, with his colleagues, certainly understands that the tide of opinion in the European Union, including part of the European Commission, has swung in favour of liberal reform. (This has been clear to some of us for 15 years.) Like all compromises, his decision [...]

Power Struggle in the EU

Some time ago Eureferendum pointed out that there is a power battle going on at the heart of the EU between the Commision and the heads of states in the Council and that it would be a mistake to belive that the unelected Commision was the real power in the Union. (I paraphrase)

 Perhaps this [...]

Shocking ban on New Zealand butter

Sir – It is shocking that the European Commission has been able to impose a ban on New Zealand’s exports of butter to the European Union.
In view of our close historical ties with our cousins across the world, this has big historical resonance. So important is butter to the New Zealand economy that, when [...]

Vision for the Oceans and Seas

A European Vision for the Oceans and Seas: A ‘Roadmap’ for the Motorway in the Sea. Anne Palmer 16.6.2006.

I have always hoped that the people we elect into ‘power’ in this seafaring nation of ours, and yes, pay their wages, would take on the mantle of responsibility in looking after our own [...]

A Bold Initiative

After its period of deep reflection, the European Commission has come up with a “Citizen’s Agenda”:
Basically it seems to be more of the same, but with improved PR.

However there’s one strikingly bold initiative: “It will explore the possibility of developing an “entitlement” card which would enable every European citizen to be [...]

MEP`s fight for more power

Members of the European Parliament have stepped up pressure on the European Commission and the Council of Ministers to give them more say in rewriting implementing legislation.
The Parliament is withholding funding from the so-called comitology committees – the groups of national experts who are brought to Brussels to draft implementing rules, which are often [...]

Death of the British Driving Licence

Member states to approve EU driving licence

EU ministers are set to hammer out a plan to replace the 110 existing types of driving licence with a single document recognised across the bloc, at a meeting on 27 March.
The move comes after member states’ officials agreed a compromise text following months of wrangling over details [...]

Eurocrats’ Contempt for the Voters

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan writing in the Telegraph 
Two years from now, the European constitution will be in force. The Eurocrats have worked out a deft way of getting around them. Around 85 per cent of the text can, with some creative interpretation, be implemented this way.
True, there are one or two clauses that will [...]

A Traitor`s Bill

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
This from Anne Palmer 11.3.2006.

A Traitor’s Bill. Known also as the Abolition of Parliament Bill. Officially called The Legislative Regulatory Reform Bill.
 
I would like to draw attention to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill presently going through Parliament one way or another. This has been known by the title, “The Abolition of Parliament [...]

EU energy policy:

From Open Europe
EU energy policy: Commission bids for new powers over regulation, environment and member states’ relations with the outside world

The European Commission will today unveil its green paper on energy, which has been widely leaked. The paper proposes that the EU would gain power to set member states reserve requirements, and the FT reports [...]

Labour Movement for Europe

Last week I put a link on my blog that cunningly tells readers of other web documents referring to the blog. I was intrigued to see one such web site called the Labour Movement for Europe.
Not being a member of the Labour Party, this pro-Euro organisation working within the Labour Party has passed me by.
LME [...]

Independence in Higher Education and Research

 Quite often we are offered academic reports and studies from diverse academic organisations, which carry with them the assurance that these are nothing more than impartial academic discourse.
This must be the case because they were prepared and presented by independent academics, whos only thoughts are to report honestly and fairly on their particular subject. Of [...]

ID Cards

From the letters page in the Times some voices of concern.
This ID card infringes fundamental freedoms
Sir, Most unusually, you have allowed yourself to be misled by the Government’s spin and misrepresentations concerning the ID Card Bill — principally by swallowing its contention that the privacy concerns of many people in the UK are “in [...]

Blair selling UK down the river

By : Fraser Nelson – Political Notebook December 04, 2005
SAY what you like about Jacques Chirac, but he knows how to handle the European Union (EU). The President of France has a strict negotiation strategy: if it doesn’t benefit my country, forget it. I won’t sign.
If the EU tells him it’s illegal to [...]

Immunity From What?

Immunity From What?
I read a News Release on 23rd September, “Government to end Crown Immunity from Planning Controls”. The list was quite long so I will mention only that “the Crown” includes Government Departments, Her Majesty’s private estates, the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall and also part of the Palace of Westminster is [...]

The Two Courts

The Two Courts
The European Court of Human Rights ECHR
The European Court of Justice ECJ
Confusingly we have two European courts witch our governments have allowed to hold sway over our domestic national laws. As a point of fact no government should allow any other court to make any laws which our courts must obey, we are [...]

Two More EU Professors

They used to say you could always tell you were in a tough area if you saw two policemen walking the beat together; one was there to back up the other. Well it would appear the EU professors are now writing in tandem, as if by jointly writing an article would in some way shield [...]

The EU Thinks Talking Equates to Accountability

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Wednesday as he reaffirmed that improving regulation is a core policy. “Regulating for the pleasure of regulating does not make sense,”
No it does not make sense, but that is not what is happening, what the EU regulation are about is moving power from the member state to [...]

Barroso attacks lack of EU debate

EUPolitix
Member states are running scared from discussions on the future of Europe, European Commission chief José Manuel Barroso said on Wednesday.
Speaking ahead of an informal summit on the EU’s future, Barroso attacked national governments for failing to spark frank debate after rejection of the constitutional treaty.
“The EU council called for a period of reflection. [...]

EU judges implement the rejected EU Constitution

From Anne Palmer
EU judges implement the rejected EU Constitution
The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has implemented a very important part of the draft and rejected EU Constitution by allowing the European Commission to decide on penal code questions.
Until now the questions of the Court case penal code could only be regulated by intergovernmental cooperation [...]

Some negotiation some myth

Governments have been flooded by legal actions from large corporations claiming, often successfully, that differing tax regimes in the EU are unfair. The UK is fighting big claims from Marks & Spencer and Cadbury Schweppes, among others. These claims could cost the British taxpayer billions if the ECJ finds aginst the governments and it looks [...]

Is EU law superior to state law

So much for the claims that the Primacy of European Law is a central principal of the EU.
The FCO Tackling myths about the European Constitutional Treaty
Primacy of European Lawis not new. It was already well established as a central principle of the single market well before the UK joined the EEC in 1973 and has [...]

No redress for EU whistle-blower

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 [...]

So they put ratification on hold?

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 [...]

New EU Embassy to open

Baku, June 27, AssA-Irada
The European Commission (EC) will open its embassy in Azerbaijan in 2007. The EC has forwarded a relevant official letter to the Azerbaijani side, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has said.
The Commission representatives have explained the fact that the embassy will open in 2007 instead of 2006, as previously planned, with financial constraints, [...]

Overheard in Brussels

From Denis Cooper
“Presidencies may come and go but the European Commission is eternal” – President Barroso to Tony Blair,
after Blair’s speech to the parliament, 23 June 2005.
“National sovereignty is a luxury of the past” – Graham Watson MEP, leader of the liberal group in the
European parliament, speaking after Tony Blair’s speech, 23 June 2005.

Muddy Waters

In the Times LibDem MP Nicholas Clegg and MEP Christopher Davies try to muddy the waters by claiming incorrectly that because “The constitution includes provisions that not even the most hardened Eurosceptic could disagree with, that elements of the proposals can be introduced without a full referendum” (is there such a thing as a [...]

A way Forward for Democracy or a Red Herring

A way Forward for Democracy or a Red Herring
The Telegraph today has several articles based on the dissatisfaction of the voters with politicians, in order to promote its three day, serialisation of a new book by a group of Tory “brightest young minds” who are advancing an answer to the way forward by the party [...]

The EU a secular religion

Dr Richard North reminds us that the EU is not a political construct. It is closer to, if not in fact, a secular religion, the only thing separating it from one of the more established, fundamental religions is that God does not lie at the core of its belief system.
Instead, the core of this religion [...]

Ignoring the voters is what the EU does best

I tend to agree with the argument that the ratification exercise should continue, in the event that they decide to shelve the document, there should be an immediate halt to the anticipatory introduction of the proposals in the Constitution. It would seem to be totally undemocratic to proceed with these proposals if the treaty [...]

Europe`s politicians won`t take no for an answer

A comment in by Alan Ruddock: in the Times
If Ahern and Jacques Chirac, the French president, or Gerhard Schroder, the German chancellor, or Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission, are genuinely serious about bringing the people of Europe closer to the EU, then they have to start to take notice of what [...]

Citizens feel short-changed by democracy deficit

From Denis Cooper
A good letter until the end, when he fails to grasp that some French and German citizens “of the left” may long for a “social France”, and a “social Germany”, respectively, rather than a “social Europe”, and they may even long for the European Parliament, European Commission, etc etc to simply vanish.
Citizens feel [...]

So why bother to hold the Referendum

Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg and holder of the rotating EU presidency, told Le Soir newspaper in Belgium that he would act swiftly on Sunday night if France voted No.
He would appear with the head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, and demand that all 25 EU nations complete the process of [...]

England Expects: Here is the Conflict of interest

England Expects: Here is the Conflict of interest: “Here is the Conflict of interest
European Commission President Barroso stated today that ‘No institution of the European Union can criticise another institution’.
Unbelievable. Henceforward there is no separation of powers in the EU.
Not only that but he also made it clear that no MEP can ask questions about [...]

The Sally B

Ian Barber, Acting Head of the European Commission in the UK writes in the Telegraph about the grounding of Sally B. He says it is important to understand that the rules were introduced. After September 11, many airline companies found their cover to be inadequate and in several countries the state was obliged to [...]

Dutch No campaign takes government to court over funding

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he is “extremely concerned” about the latest polls both in the Netherlands and France, where 52 percent of voters are set to vote against the constitution on 29 May.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said “The government is very motivated, we are in the final phase and we [...]

EU is jumping on Eurovision bandwagon

Scoop Independent News says the EU is jumping on the Eurovision bandwagon
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION’S DELEGATION TO AUSTRALIA is offering party packs so that Aussie fans of Europes kitsch night of nights cracking out the champers (French of course) and crowding around the TV come this Sunday night, the European Union’s representation to Australia is [...]

One Stop Propaganda Shops

Eurealist :: Main Page: “One Stop Propaganda Shops
by Eurealist on May 5, 2005 11:24AM (BST)
From the Times today we learn that;
“THE Government has “forced” the European Commission to abandon plans to open European information centres across Britain because it believes that they could be construed as propaganda in the run-up to the referendum on the [...]

The Truth will out

Eurealist :: Main Page: “The Truth will out
by Eurealist on May 2, 2005 11:29AM (BST)
Sunday (1 May) marked one year of belonging to the European Union; for ten member states
European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said the anniversary ‘is a happy event for all Europeans’ and called it a reunification of not only nations and [...]

Anything to declare, Mr Barroso?

Eurealist :: Anything to declare, Mr Barroso?: “Anything to declare, Mr Barroso?
by Eurealist at 07:40AM (BST) on April 24, 2005 | Permanent Link | Cosmos
Telegraph | News | Christopher Booker’s notebook When it emerged last week that two EU commissioners, Peter Mandelson and José Manuel Barroso, the Commission’s Portuguese president, hadn’t [...]

Germany not to raise contribution to EU budget

Eurealist :: Main Page: “Germany not to raise contribution to EU budget
by Eurealist on April 15, 2005 04:25PM (BST)
Xinhua – English BERLIN, April 14 (Xinhuanet) — German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said here on Thursday his country will not raise its contribution to the European Union’s budget. Speaking to reporters after meeting European Commission President Jose [...]

Blair stays on as EU hostage

A good article in the Times by Michael Portillo
Comment: Michael Portillo: The escape door’s open, but Blair stays on as EU hostage – Sunday Times – Times Online
The integrationists want a constitution, president and foreign minister because those are the attributes of a nation state. The treaty does not bring about a United States of [...]

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