How do they do it?

Oh good, I thought. An article in the Daily Telegraph about the UN and the ridiculousness of its pretensions to being the world’s saviour. The UN must sort itself out before it can take on the world by Anton La Guardia, a seasoned journalist foreign and war correspondent, will be, I assumed, of some interest.

How easy it is to overestimate the British media. Mr La Guardia talks of the new report by the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change about the problems with the UN, American dissatisfaction with it and various half-hearted suggestions for reform.

He comes to the entirely predictable conclusion that despite all the difficulties and inadequacies, the UN is something we all need and the United States more than anyone. Without coming up with any specific proposals he seems hopeful about useful reforms.

Well, well. A whole article about the UN and its problems without a single mention of the oil-for-food scandal, the way it reveals the corruption at the very heart of that organization and the way it is engulfing the Annan family. How do they do it?

Yet again one thinks of that wonderful little verse of Humbert Wolfe’s:

You cannot hope to bribe or twist,
Thank God, the British journalist.
But seeing what the man unbribed will do
You have no occasion to.

How true, how very true.

Part of the problem…

If there is a phrase that is in danger of becoming over-used on this Blog, it is "elephant in the room", which we tend to use to describe the phenomenon whereby diverse commentators try to diagnose the ailments of society without recognising – or even noticing – that huge, brooding presence, the European Union

However, today in The Times, our growing frustration with the inability of apparently intelligent people (and I do say "apparently") to recognise the "elephant" is further intensified by someone who really should know better – political columnist Anthony Howard, so much so that again we are driven to use the phrase.

Howard writes a comment piece headed: "The real culprit behind the death of Parliamentary drama", in which he discussed why the standing of Parliament (the UK institution) has suffered a decline and, in particular, why there has been an erosion of the position the House of Commons, which once occupied the focal point of the nation.

For his diagnosis, though, the great political sage offers, amongst other things as the cause of the ailment, the introduction by the "modernisers" of "family hours". The House nowadays sits after 8pm only one night a week and, as a result, all the drama has gone out of the sittings.

To an extent, he is partially right, but only partially so. For what is entirely, completely and utterly missing is any mention of the "elephant". Yet, we now have a situation where, variously some 70 percent or our laws are promulgated by the EU.

They cannot be influenced by Parliament and many are implemented by way of Statutory Instruments on negative assent, where not even a perfunctory debate is required and where there is no chance of MPs setting them aside.

A graphic example of this is to come on Thursday, when there will be the annual fishing debate in the House. Traditionally, it has always been held in December, over a full day, a means by which MPs could give the fisheries minister a negotiating mandate for the December fisheries council, when the annual allocations of national fish quotas were decided, from which a raft of regulations would then be drawn up.

In days gone past, especially during the last Conservative administration (remember that?), these used to be highly charged affairs, and heavily reported by the media, with well attended, angry sessions running late into the night.

But, progressively, MPs – and the media – have learned that the debates are a waste of time. The House cannot bind the minister, and whatever the minister tells the House he will do can be overturned in Brussels, presaging a humiliating retreat. All too often this results in the minister returning home claiming a "victory" for British fishermen, hoping that no one will notice how much he has given away - yet again.

So, when it comes to Thursday, the debate has been scaled back to three hours. It is to be an adjournment debate, so there will not even be a vote. And this year, the fisheries council is unusually late – on 21-22 December – so the commission proposals are not even ready this week. MPs will be debating blind, with no knowledge of what the minister – Ben "Rear Admiral" Bradshaw – will be proposing.

In substance, therefore, the debate will be empty – a vapid, fruitless waste of time. It will achieve nothing, and can achieve nothing. As a result, it will be poorly attended, uncovered by the media and generally ignored all but by a few trade papers like Fishing News.

That is the effect of the "elephant in the room" and Mr Howard should have recognised it. He of all people should recognise that many of the traditional functions of the UK parliament are redundant. That is why so much of the drama has gone out of the Parliament, and if Howard cannot see it, he should be sacked.

As it stands,though, this rather pompous, patronising, complacent little man is part of the problem.

The true cost of the European Union

According to the recently published 354-page annual report on Competitiveness, produced by the EU commission and available on the Europa website, "suffocating red tape" is blamed for much of Europe's sluggish performance.

The commission also states that the EU could raise overall GDP by 12 percent through adopting an American-style "regulatory burden".

This startling finding is buried an article published in today's Daily Telegraph, written by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, which focuses mainly on "China's lightning advance into the production of cars, computers and high-tech industry" which is posing "a serious threat to Europe's economic base".

So swiftly do you pass by the 12 percent figure that it barely registers. You have to do a double-take before the enormity of the sum hits home. In round figures, the GDP of the EU member states is £5 trillion. That is another of those enormous figures that is difficult to comprehend. With all the noughts, it comes to £5,000,000,000,000.

Now, 12 percent of £5 trillion is £600 billion – more than half the UK GDP which stands at around £1000 billion – or one trillion if you prefer. By that reckoning, "red tape" in the EU is costing us all £600,000,000,000 a year.

Hey! £600,000,000,000. And that's by the EU commission's own estimation. Bugger the €100 billion budget - £600 billion in real money. The true cost of the EU, and its 101,811-plus regulations, is ten times that, according to the body that runs it.

Sheepishly, the commission goes on, in an attempt to justify its imposts, stating:

regulations exist in order to correct distortions, guarantee the basic economic rights and to promote objectives such as consumer protection or the quality of environment. At the same time though, it concedes, regulations limit the choices which individuals and enterprises can make, and compliance with regulations usually involves costs.

It then cites an academic study that finds that "entry regulation may be acceptable if it leads to higher consumer welfare in terms of factors such as product quality, water pollution, death from accidental poisoning or the size of the unofficial economy."

However, the study concludes that the opposite seems to hold: the empirical results, it says, "are broadly consistent with the public choice theory that sees regulation as a mechanism to create rents for politicians and the firms they support."

That is what we get for our £600,000,000,000: "rents for the politicians and the firms they support".

And guess what? The story was buried in the Business section, and you have to work out the cost, in figures for yourself. Why wasn't £600,000,000,000 spread across the front page? Silly me… Mr Blunkett and his "paternity battle". The political soap opera is so much more important, don't you think?

More money going to Sudan with little result

The European Commission has announced that it will be handing over another 51 million euros (£36 million) to aid the victims of violence in Sudan. About 31 million euros (£22 million) will be going to Darfur, where it has been announced that aid agencies and workers are returning to the fray.

So far this year the Commission has donated 248 million euros (£174 million) in aid to Sudan, of which 215 million euros (£151 million) went to Darfur. The situation either in the country as a whole or in Darfur particularly does not seem to have improved.

We ask again (and probably again and again): what has the money gone on? Does anybody know? Can we at least find out whether it has not gone into the pockets of political leaders and their thugs?

Back to the oil-for-food scandal

Not that it has ever gone away. In fact, unnoticed by the British media and stolidly ignored by most of the European one, the scandal rumbles on and on, threatening to engulf the whole of the UN.

After the various complaints that the UN has been obstructing the several committees of enquiry set up by Congress, comes the news that Kojo Annan (son of Kofi) was paid by the Swiss-based firm Cotecna Inspection Services SA for several years longer than it had been admitted before.

Cotecna had been given the contract to monitor the oil-for-food programme in 1998 and finally stepped down in 2003 when the UN handed the programme over to the Coalition Provisuional Authority. By a strange coincidence Kojo Annan was employed or, rather, paid by the company for the same period of time.

In fact, the latest information is that he last received money as recently as February 2004, again by coincidence the month when the first articles about the way the programme had been subverted and used as a colossal fraud appeared in the Baghdad newspapers.

Neither Mr Annan Jnr nor Cotecna deny the story. Mr Annan’s spokesman insists that the information had been given to Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, who now chairs the inexplicably quiet UN enquiry into the whole mess. Cotecna, on the other hand, insists that Mr Annan was employed on West African projects and the dates of his employment are purely coincidental. There were no clashes of interest, they say, rather disingenuously.

Cotecna has been refusing to answer journalists’ questions, having received a gagging order from the UN Secretariat. So there seems to be no explanation why the normal non-competition post-employment payment to Mr Annan went on for five years instead of the usual one or why it stopped abruptly when those stories started filtering through.

As Claudia Rossett, who has been writing up the story as it has unfolded, shows in a recent article in the New York Sun, Kofi Annan’s role throughout the saga was to deny all knowledge of everything, particularly his son’s or the younger man’s employer’s involvement.

“At every turn, the saga of the secretary-general's family ties to Cotecna raises questions about Kofi Annan's handling of potential conflicts of interest. Even if Mr. Annan cannot be held responsible for the decisions of his son, his job does entail responsibility for the actions of the U.N. Secretariat. As the oil-for-food scandal has unfolded, it has become clear that U.N. secrecy and lack of accountability evolved, in effect, into complicity with Saddam's scams and influence-buying. By now, between congressional and other investigations, there are allegations that Saddam, on Mr. Annan's watch, under U.N. sanctions and oil-for-food supervision, scammed and smuggled some $17.3 billion in oil money meant for relief, using some of that money to fund terrorism, import weapons, and buy influence with Security Council members France, Russia, and China.”

It is time, most people think, for the UN to start cleaning up its house, in the first place by lifting the gagging order on the various employees and contractors to do with the oil-for-food fraud. If it does not do so, it may find that outside forces will do the cleaning up a good deal more radically than that self-important organization would like it.

The EU’s hidden subsidy

Up for the first time on the EU commission’s website last night is a "clarion call for the public to help compose themes for future EU research".

This is the launch of a public consultation "to allow the various stakeholders to shape the forthcoming Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), by suggesting thematic domains for future research."

It is also the start of a mad dash by academia for a pile of gold, as they rush to frame outline proposals that will eventually fill its coffers with euros from a research fund that will be pump-primed by the commission to the tune of €35 billion of taxpayers’ money over the five years starting in 2007.

However, while the rush for Euro-gold gathers place, few people even begin to realise that this programme (with double the FP6’s €17.5 billion budget) represents a massive hidden subsidy for the European Union, adding substantially to its declared official income.

Some clue of this can be gleaned from the stated requirements for the research programme, given by the commission. In order of priority, projects must as contribute to EU policy objectives; foster the European research potential; and generate "European added value".

The first of the requirements actually gives the game away, in that the primary purpose of the programme is developing or supporting EU policies. And it is in this area that academia provides enormous support to the commission, carrying our research programmes which support the need for legislation, developing detailed models for its legislation and, sometimes, even preparing draft legislative proposals for it.

It is this which party explains how the commission manages to run such an enormous legislative programme, and produce such a huge volume of technical reports to back it up.

Despite constant claims by the likes of Richard Corbett MEP, who even in his latest arguments for the constitution, makes the claim that the EU cannot be a "superstate" because the Commission has fewer employees than Leeds City Council (which we addressed in one of our "myths") , if you really think about it, an organisation that size could not actually deliver the amount of paperwork it does.

And, of course, it does not. It out-sources the work, and has thousands of willing academics ready and waiting to take the EU’s euros, in return for producing its new laws.

But the really interesting bit is in the third requirement, the need for projects to generate "European added value". The commission website elaborates on this, stating that there must be "a strong need for additional public funding and for such intervention to be at a European level."

The programme, in any event, is what is known as "co-funded" which means that the commission generally pays only a proportion of the costs of each project – typically 50 percent, which means the rest must be found by the applicant. If an academic institution applies, this is very often taxpayers money from the member states. But what the commission is also saying is that the more "co-funding" a project attracts, the more likely it is to get EU money.

On that basis, at the very least, by putting in €35 billion of our money into the pot, the commission stands to gain at the very least a similar amount directly from member state taxpayers, without it being declared in the EU budget – and it gets a great deal of (to it) useful work into the bargain.

This is one of the many ways by which the EU manages to extend its own disposable income, so that the real expenditure under the control of the commission is vastly greater than the €100 billion or so that appears on the bottom line of the publicly declared budget – all of which means that, in addition to our annual "contributions", we are paying a massive hidden subsidy to the EU.

A lovers’ tiff?

Shurely shum mishtake…

The Financial Times is telling us that Denis MacShame, our very own minister for Europe, is accusing the European Union of trying to "punish" us for having a flexible and successful labour market.

Yet it does seem to be true. The egregious MacShame is having what looks perilously close to a lovers’ tiff with the object of his dreams, complaining to EU ambassadors that there was a determined effort to contain Britain in a "made-in-Brussels straitjacket".

FT reporters much have been choking on their Perrier water as they wrote of "strident comments" emanating from a minister who often criticises colleagues for "bashing Brussels". But now we see the passion ebbing away from the love affair and the FT tells us this throbbing swain is now frustrated by a love who is so critical of the British labour market.

The wounded MacShame, no doubt with tears flooding from his eyes, pleaded with the ambassadors to stop punishing him, hinting at the darker sadistic tendencies of his love, when he spoke of his surprise at "the desire of so many in Brussels to punish Britain."

All they were after was "rigid labour markets", he wept, and some even wanted "straitjackets", thus painting a pictures of torrid love and strange bedroom practices, the like of which we could scarcely imagine.

And even that was not all. His lover was imposing "bureaucratic inflexibility" and preventing workers to shaping their working hours that suit individual needs of employees. Mercifully we were spared the handcuffs and whips.

All MacShame wanted, he told the ambassadors between sobs, was for them to tell their governments of the need to "say goodbye". What, a parting of ways, do we hear? A final divorce? Sadly, no. He wants them to bid adieu to "out-of-date thinking", so he can ride off into the sunset with his lover and seek "a flexible route into the workplace."

Whatever that is, it sounds painful. But, if it keeps him happy…

The Greeks are in trouble again

This Wednesday the EU Commission will begin former infringement proceedings against the Greek government. Well, to be quite precise, it will send a formal letter (delivered by the god Hermes, perchance?) to the Greek government, castigating it for presenting incorrect statistics in several annual budgets.

The Greek government will then have two months to reply but one can guess that part of the response will be: wasn’t us, guv, it was the other lot, the nasty socialist one. Which, of course, it was.

The previous Greek government, as we have mentioned before, had a curious way with the budget, forgetting to add certain items such as defence procurement. And, of course, there was that rather large item, the Olympic Games, that have now been billed as the most expensive ever. Not very helpful when you are told that you must keep within the designated deficit rule, 3 per cent of GDP.

At the moment the Greek government is promising to scrape back the deficit from the present 5.3 per cent to 2.8 per cent in the next year without, one assumes, any more EU hand-outs in the shape of various structural funds. And the porcine air force will take to the skies.

However, it does not matter what happens. Nobody has ever ended up in court because of breaking through the permitted deficit barrier or for lying about statistics in order to end up in the euro. As long as France and Germany roam free with ever higher deficits, it is unlikely that little Greece will be punished. Of course, we could give them the Olympic Games for ever and ever. That’ll learn ‘em.

This posting appeared first on the UKIP London Assembly blog.

It’s how you tell ’em (2)

Following the extraordinarily loaded piece in the Independent yesterday about the EU's REACH directive the same newspaper is at it again today, with an article headed "Will French Socialists kill EU reform?"

This is a long piece about the forthcoming internal referendum in the French Socialist party to decide whether to support or oppose the EU constitution in the national referendum, due next year. (We have covered this extensively in the Blog, not least from Independent copy.)

But what particularly grates is the "spin" attached to the story, where the newspaper positions the EU constitution as "reform" and takes it from there. Once again, EU activities are cast in glowing, positive terms and the opposition is given a negative dimension.

This subtle – or not so subtle - propaganda pervades the whole piece, with the strap line announcing that the Socialists "could skewer the reforms Tony Blair has backed". By this means, it sets a highly pejorative framework for what is a factual account of how, as The Independent puts it, "the Socialists will decide the future of their own party and, quite possibly, the European Union."

For its factual content, the story is worth reading (link above) but once again the treatment illustrates how any specific issue can take on a wholly different resonance, depending on how it is presented.

To complete the circle, this Blog’s own "take" on the situation – i.e., our "spin" – is that the Frogs have got it hopelessly wrong in that they are fighting the constitution because it is too "liberal", whereas we oppose it (correctly) because it is dirigiste.

To be fair though – and why not, just occasionally? – the Independent is only conveying what the Socialists think, which in itself, I suppose, is a contradiction in terms. After all, if they could think, they would not be socialists.

Sarkozy gets the UMP ... and loses finance

Nicolas Sarkozy, the man generally admitted to be President Chirac’s biggest rival, has been elected as Chairman of the ruling Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP). Wary of his rival’s rise, Chirac has insisted that, unprecedentedly, Sarkozy would have to resign as member of the cabinet. Clearly, Sarkozy has decided that becoming leader of the party was “worth a mass”, that is his high profile as Finance Minister.

Chirac has immediately appointed a close ally, the former Agriculture Minister, Hervé Gaymard, who, as news agencies have pointed out, is part of the political establishment to a far greater extent than Sarkozy ever was.

Gaymard is an Enarque, that is a graduate of the high-powered, highly selective and (eat your heart out Charles Clarke) elitist to the nth degree, Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA). Sarkozy had always presented himself as a self-made lawyer, who had as little time for the establishment as they for him. One must also add that Sarkozy is unusual in that so far there seem to be no whispers of nefarious dealings of any kind. Perhaps, as a man of Hungarian origin, he just hides them better. Or perhaps, he really does have clean hands.

Sarkozy had come to his office eight months ago with a reputation of being something of a free-marketeer – at least among the wishfully inclined Anglo-Saxon media. In fact, he proved himself every bit as interventionist and protectionist as all his predecessors.

His latest budget proposal is a tough one, slashing public spending to reduce France’s deficit to within the supposedly permitted 3 per cent of GDP. However, President Chirac promised some tax cuts in his last election campaign. It will be interesting to see how M Gaymard will square the circle (or not).

In the meantime, M Chirac might like to look at other countries’ modern history (though as a true son of France he probably does not like doing too much of that). It is not always the high profile ministers who win political battles. All too often victory goes to the man who is in charge of the party and, consequently, the cadres.

Defence co-operation – French style

Hailed as the supreme example of European co-operation, the troubled Eurofighter project now seems to be revealing crack in the façade of European solidarity which bodes ill for future projects, to say nothing of EU commission ambitions for closer defence integration.

At the heart of this rift – as ever – are the illustrious French, who have been banned from taking part in export sales promotions for this aircraft. The reason, to put it bluntly, is that no one on the Eurofighter sales team trusts them not to use the information gained in sales negotiations to push their own rival, the Rafale fighter.

That is the situation revealed by The Business, yesterday, which reports that the procurement ministers of the Eurofighter partner countries – UK, Spain, German and Italy – have put the block on the French because they believe they are undermining Eurofighter’s export potential by putting their national interests - and products - first.

Although France is not a partner in the Eurofighter project, the situation arises because it is involved in the programme through EADS, one of the industry partners making the aircraft, as well the Rafale. The ban means that only German and British nationals associated with Franco-German EADS, Berlin's partner, can work on export sales.

Rumours in the industry of French perfidy have, in fact, been circulating for some time and this is by no means the first instance of this type of behaviour. An aircraft engineer working on the Anglo-French Concorde project once told us bitterly how French engineers had used the opportunity of this co-operative venture to copy advanced British technology and apply it to their own products in order to compete with British equipment.

The current unpleasantness has exacerbated tensions between the UK and France, the latter having been pushing a merger between EADS and the defence contractor Thales, which is a major contractor for a number of UK defence contracts, not least the Royal Navy’s two aircraft carriers. The British government believes Paris is trying to engineer French dominance of the European defence industry, something London fiercely opposes.

All of this is an inauspicious start to the EU’s grand project of getting a European Defence Procurement Agency under way, with the ambition of creating a Europe-wide defence complex to rival the power of the US defence giants. The fly in the ointment, it seems is that, in the eyes of Paris – as always – “European” means French.

Forty per cent Mr Brown?

Gordon Brown has been giving his own version of what he thinks Britain should be like, to Newsweek. This is generally seen as another attempt on the Chancellor’s part to bid for the Labour Party’s leadership and, as it seems at the moment, the premiership. Why he should choose to do so in an American weekly, is a mystery. Perhaps, he did not think anyone will publish him here.

Well, it is a little difficult to take his comments seriously:

"It is by rediscovering our intrinsic strengths - our British values that include our belief in liberty, enterprise and civic duty," Brown said.

"And by celebrating them and by making investment in skills, science and enterprise our priority that the coming decade can be Britain's decade - making Britain one of the new global economy's greatest success stories."

This from a Chancellor, who is universally acknowledged as the man who has piled more taxes on British business than any other in recent history, makes rather queasy reading.

It gets worse:

"The long-term choice we must make is to learn from America, rigorously introduce the right incentives and rewards for risk, and make the changes in the school curriculum and in our colleges and universities necessary to create a revolution in attitudes toward enterprise and wealth creation," he added.

True enough but are we going to get to the interesting fact that most of the legislation that holds back British business is merely implemented by the British parliament, by the civil service and by those wretched agencies?

Ah yes, here it comes:

"And with 40 percent of new regulation coming from Europe, we will continue to resist inflexible barriers to job creation from whatever source they arise," Brown said.

Forty per cent Mr Brown? FORTY PER CENT? We always knew your maths was shaky but this is ridiculous. It is now acknowledged by all (except maybe governmental websites) that something like 70 to 80 per cent of all legislation and regulation comes from the EU and none of it can be rejected by any branch of the British government. One wonders why Mr Brown is so anxious to become Prime Minister.

Western Europe and terrorism

Two interesting articles in last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal Europe (yes, indeed, it was Thanksgiving Day) addressed this subject and came to a very sad conclusion. The main problem, as most of us have realized, is a lack of will to fight the scourge. Worse, there has been a tendency among the leaders of west European countries to appease terrorists, terror masters and, while we are on the subject, dictators.

It is crucial that we examine this issue. We are told endlessly that the problem in Europe is lack of co-ordination between the various countries and poor exchange of information between the national police organizations. This alleged weakness has been the excuse for ever tighter and more oppressive legislation (those of our readers who have not done so, might like to read the Queen’s Speech and ponder over the raft of dictatorial legislation it outlines) and, of course, more and more integration in matters of security as seen in the Hague Programme, otherwise known as Tampere II.

Yet, what use are all those internal passports (a.k.a. ID cards), that centralized EU police force, all those many harmonized regulations administered from Brussels or the Hague, if our leaders openly hand over money and shake the hands of terrorists and dictators? What happened to the EU’s supposedly moral attitude and desire to spread democracy, freedom and human rights all over the world? Whom will those rapid deployment groups go in to support in the various countries unfortunate enough to excite Mr Solana’s attention?

First, let us look at the editorial: The Accidental Prime Minister. It seems that Spain’s Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero told Time Magazine in September that he did not want to be a great leader. Well, he has certainly been successful so far.

His panicky withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq looked like a desperate appeasement of terrorists rather than a principled stand. And all for what? It is quite clear that the Al-Quaeda cells have been operating in Spain since before 9/11 and the Madrid explosions had little to do with Iraq. Furthermore, he has not bought the country peace: there have been attempted and thwarted attacks since then. The fact that the Spanish police force has managed to prevent further outrages says much about their ability and little enough about Zapatero’s.

Zapatero’s anti-Americanism, anti-westernism are driven by old-fashioned ideology, which impels him to demand that the EU’s sanctions against Cuba be lifted and links with the Venzuelan thug Chavez be strengthened. He is, indeed, a man of modern western Europe.

As the WSJE puts it:

“Mr Zapatero is entitled to his views. But the Spanish people would be justified in asking just what do they get out of their leader appeasing terrorists,coddling up to dictators and whittling away Spain’s global standing?”

The problem is that we could say that about most west European leaders in general. There is no question, for instance, but that the EU’s principled though belated stand on Ukraine came as a result of the unequivocal American attitude and pressure from the new member states of Eastern Europe and the Baltics. Long before Donald Rumsfeld made his famous comment about new and old Europe, it was obvious to those of us who have looked at the subject that, while the structure and the economic order will not change with EU enlargement, the so-called common foreign and security policy will. Or, at the very least, it will experience quite serious strains and stresses.

The other article in the WSJE is by Ewa Björling, a conservative member of the Swedish parliament’s standing committee on foreign affairs. It is entitled Aiding the Palestinians and deals with the disgraceful way in which the Swedish government (just like the EU and the various member states) continued to supply the Palestinian Authority with money, though it became increasingly more obvious that the money was diverted from its true purpose, that is help for the Palestinian people, into private accounts and aid for terrorists.

Among other things she tells the story of Professor Sune Persson’s report:

“In 1997, the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (Sida)commissioned Sune Persson of Göteborg University, an internationally known expert on Middle Eastern affairs, to provide a status report on the Palestinian Authority and its relationship with the citizens under its jurisdiction. His conclusions were unequivocal: ‘To continue to support Arafat and his corrupt regime is indefensible. As regards support for the peace process in the Middle East, Arafat’s dictatorial one-man show is becoming an embarrassment.’

Prof. Persson’s closing recommendations were that ‘Swedish aid to the West Bank and Gaza should be cut back. Aid to the Palestinian civil society should continue. No Swedish development funding whatsoever should be given directly to the corrupt Palestinian Authority.’

A few days before this report was to be presented, it was classified as secret. It has long been unclear who ordered this step or why. The present minister for development co-operation insists that it sas Sida’s decision. Other sources claim the foreign ministry was responsible. Due to this uncertainty, a colleague in parliament and I took the matter to the Swedish parliament’s committee on the constitution for scrutiny. What we have long suspected, however, has now been confirmed by the author of the report: that the decision was taken by ‘someone’ in authority at the foreign affairs ministry.

The decision is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that shortly afterwards, despite the conclusions of the Persson report, Pierre Schori visited Arafat in Ramallah, promised a further 158 million crowns (€17.6 million, £million) in aid to the Palestinian Authority, and invited him to visit Stockholm. Until recently, Mr Schori was Sweden’s ambassador to the UN; at the time, he was the minister responsible for development co-operation.”

Dr Björling struggles in vain, trying to understand what motivated her government to suppress a reliable and authoritative report and to continue to pour money into the coffers of a corrupt and oppressive organization, led by its corrupt and oppressive Chairman, who channelled much of the money to terrorists and used some of the rest to buy support in the world. (Sounds familiar, by any chance? What about the oil-for-food scandal?)

Arafat’s death, according to Dr Björling, and, indeed, according to many commentators, should be a new beginning. If the European governments do want to play a significant and positive role in the Middle East, they should look carefully at what has been done so far by them – a destruction of any possibility of peace, support for tyranny and terrorism, much of it in order to oppose, as usual the United States – and think through their future policy.

As Dr Björling concludes:

“The donor countries must as a matter of urgency refocus their aid. Other channels must be created, and the aid must be conditional upon promised reforms being implemented. Further resources should be withheld until this condition has been met. A new approach to Palestinian aid on the part of the donors is one of the most important instruments we have for helping to resolve the conflict in a constructive manner.”

And, of course, for weakening terrorist organization. The trouble is that, without knowing what Sweden will do, we have already seen the EU’s attitude. Far from looking at its past record, it has been congratulating itself on finally managing to play a real role in world affairs, citing, for reasons known to Solana and his journalistic henchmen alone, the Middle East as an example. Self-criticism and analysis do not exist in these people’s vocabulary.

The start of the battle

The Business today, has an entertaining romp on the general subject of regulation, written by John Blundell, director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs – Maggie Thatcher’s favourite think-tank.

His thesis is: "the more laws change, the less they achieve", from which starting point he tells us that he is still working on the formal enunciation of "Blundell's Law". It may one day be more precisely expressed as an equation perhaps, he writes, but today it simply states: "All new laws and regulations create the opposite of what was intended."

The immediate "hook" for his piece is the Queen's Speech, and the raft of new proposal introduced by this Labour government. It represents, according to Blundell, "a fairly sinister body of proposals that are designed to enhance the powers of the state and its budget."

This gives him the opportunity to tilt at EU Bill which, in Blundellesque terms, "gives formal consent to a huge raft of regulations from the commission in Brussels." This is not exactly how I would describe a Bill putting into effect the EU constitutional treaty but never mind. The next few points are sound enough, and need shouting from the roof-tops. Writes Blundell:

This is still referred to as a liberalising process yet the EU is now no longer a common market but rather in reality a common bureaucracy. It will authorise a referendum for us all to agree to the creation of a federal Europe. The extraordinary growth of euro regulations is deemed to strengthen Europe. Does it? My appreciation is that most people are either utterly bamboozled or repelled by the thick undergrowth of euro rules. Powers to boost Europe may well be the very poisoning that will ruin it.

He then makes the point that neither people nor businesses are static. They all respond to new rules or taxes. Rarely do firms comply meekly. They simply adjust their behaviour. Just as we all know we have tax avoidance and evasion, so we have regulatory avoidance and evasion.

The Blundell antidote also has some merit. "Benevolent intentions are not good enough," he writes:

The theme common to the Queen's Speech is a belief that benign purposes emerge on to the statute book as nourishing virtuous or obedient behaviour. We British are more cussed than they think. As businesses and individuals, we adapt to respond to new impositions… What we need, as ever, is a less omnipresent state, forever asking us to prove who we are and pay taxes at every move.

If he is right, and I believe he is – although you would never get that impression if you listened to the BBC, or read either the Independent or the Guardian – then the anti EU case makes itself. The Union is all about the omnipresent state, one which believes being “in your face” is good for you.

Mind you, even when we have defeated that monster, the list of new laws which the government proposes reminds us that there is another monster waiting for us at home. It is a daunting thought that, for those who see as an objective, leaving the EU, success will only be the start of the battle, not the end.

It's how you tell 'em

The same issue, viewed from opposite sides of the great divide, today provides a graphic insight into the way any issue can take on a completely different perspective, depending on who reports it, and how.

The issue is the EU's proposed "Reach" directive (the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals) and it is covered today in the Independent and in Christopher Booker's column in The Sunday Telegraph.

The Independent report is priceless, managing to combine the story with anti-American propagandising and an attack on "big business", all the time projecting subtle pro-EU propaganda, projecting the Union as this loving caring organisation that is trying to save the world from evil capitalists who are trying to poison us.

That much, with some skill, comes over even in the headline which, to say the very least, is loaded. "Powell in chemical reaction as US resists EU pollution drive", proclaims the newspaper and already the stage is set.

Note here, the description of what is generally agreed as a cumbersome directive, so laden with bureaucracy that it verges on insanity. The Independent labels it as an "EU pollution drive", claiming the moral high ground – who could possibly be against "pollution" – and then painting the US as the baddies, by the artful use of the word "resists".

Past the headline, the text really lays it on. "Colin Powell, the outgoing US Secretary of State," it declares, "is leading determined lobbying against the European Union's plans to control potential chemical threats to human health and the environment."

Once again, the language is poisonous. The phrase "determined lobbying" invites dark images of the practitioners of the dark arts exercising their malign influence on Mr Powell. And we know it is dark and satanic because the Independent tells it is up against the saintly EU which is planning to control "potential threats to human health and the environment". Poor Mr Powell doesn’t stand a chance, and this is only first paragraph of the story.

What Powell is worried about, of course, it that the directive will require the cumbersome and expensive registration of some 30,000 chemical preparations, affecting virtually all American exports to the EU, worth more than $150bn (£79bn) in 2003. Too damn right he is lobbying. He would not be doing his job if he wasn't.

But just in case you might begin to have some sneaking sympathy for the US, as the Independent reveals the extent of US worries, up it comes, citing its favourite bunny huggers, Greenpeace, who invoke the greatest Satan of them all, "the Bush administration". It is attacking Reach "vehemently, in one of the most aggressive foreign lobby efforts ever to influence a proposed piece of EU legislation."

Game set and match to the Independent or, more like, a heavily biased readership that has now had its prejudices well and truly confirmed. Informed as well, you ask? Forget it.

Now to the opposite end of the spectrum with Booker's piece, entitled "EU diktat on chemicals will give tanners a drubbing".

Booker starts off describing how, last week, EU trade ministers and European commissioners gathered in Brussels for a two-day "Competitiveness Council".

Their theme was one of the EU's longer-running farces, known as the "Lisbon agenda": a solemn pledge by EU governments in 2000 that by 2010 the EU would be transformed into "the most competitive, dynamic and knowledge-based economy in the world". Since then the EU, already the most uncompetitive economic bloc in the developed world, has slid even further down the league table.

So far, a mixture of fact and opinion – strong on fact and the opinion well-founded. Few would disagree that the Lisbon process is a farce.

Then we have more fact: "The chief reason for this, it is generally agreed," Booker writes, "is the ever-growing mountain of regulations, the one area in which EU productivity is second to none." With light irony he then notes the "measure of the determination brought to bear on this problem", with the EU's laughable attempt at "deregulation", by contemplating amending a mere 15 of the 101,811 directives and regulations issued by Brussels between 1973 and 2002.

And now to the meat. With a mere 15 for the chop, the EU continues to churn out new directives and regulations at a rate of 3,500 a year - one of which, also on last week's agenda, is the Reach directive. Even the EU commission has accepted that its initial cost to the EU economy would be £22 billion and one of the sectors that is particularly affected, because chemicals account for a sixth of its costs, is the European leather industry.

In the EU, this uses about 6,000 chemical substances to process, soften and colour the 400,000 tonnes of leather a year that go into furniture, footwear, clothing and fashion accessories.

Booker then recounts how industry representatives at a conference heard that, on small volume production, the costs of registration could add 200 per cent to chemical production costs. For Europe's 2,800 tanneries, Reach could add up to 6 per cent to the price of finished leather, which for many, in a tight market, is more than their existing profit margin.

The most devastating effect would be on Europe's smaller leather producers and manufacturers using leather dependent on subtle combinations of chemicals. Even if a substance is in common use, it would still have to be tested and authorised again each time it is used in a new combination, making most of them wholly uneconomical.

The consequences would be a drastic reduction in choice and a significant proportion of Europe's leather production, along with many thousands of jobs, exported outside the EU, not least to China, which is already the world's largest leather exporter. This, Booker concludes, this time invoking a wicked irony, is a "most valuable contribution to that dream of making the EU, within six years, "the most competitive, dynamic, knowledge-based economy in the world".

You could scarcely credit that Booker was writing about the same Reach directive that so exercised the Independent. How could they be so different? I suppose it's how you tell 'em.

More than half a lifetime…

Large numbers hold a particular fascination to some people but, I suspect, for the majority of us, they are meaningless. A hundred pounds in your pocket is a measurable sum. Buying a car for £10,000 has some meaning. Valuing a house at £300,000 also has meaning. It is a sum our brains can cope with.

But how do you visualise £1.5 billion? That, in stark terms, is £1,500,000,000. The mind refuses to comprehend the sum.

Take a million pound coins though. If you set yourself to count them, at an average rate of one per second, foregoing eating, sleeping and all other essential activities, it would take you just over eleven days to count them. Now stack up £1.5 billions-worth. My calculator tells me it would take 47 years – yes, 47 years, dear reader – to count them. More than half a lifetime just to count the things.

So why this fascination with £1.5 billion?

Well, that is the sum, according to today’s Sunday Telegraph, that Mr Gordon Brown, possibly the worst chancellor we have ever head, squandered between 1999 and 2001, by selling 395 ton of the nation’s gold, at the rock-bottom discount price of $275 an ounce, in order to buy up euros.

At the time, gold was at a 20-year market low. It has now risen to more than $450 an ounce. Had he waited, he would have raised a little over £3.77 billion, a difference of more than £1.47 billion.

In more prosaic terms, that equates to £58.41 for each household in Britain. Currently £1.47 billion would fund 50,840 new policemen, 58,480 new teachers or 57,640 new soldiers – although why one would want to spend the money on more policemen, heaven knows; the ones we have are neither use nor ornament.

And, as was widely canvassed at the time the sales took place, the chancellor's decision to part with what amounted to half of Britain's gold reserves was entirely motivated by political rather than economic factors – a preparatory step towards joining the single currency.

Strictly speaking, this cannot be laid at the door of the EU, as it is a measure of the ineptness of our chancellor, but it is another facet of the baleful effect the "project" has had on our body politic. I suppose it is a small amount compared to what we have to pay just to belong to this accursed construct but, when the reckoning comes, this adds more than half a lifetime needed to count the cost.

Would Wellington have called this a strategy?

Last week Eurofacts published an article by the chief executive of the self-appointed Vote-No campaign. At the time my colleague analyzed it while I wrote a response for the magazine.

Unfortunately, "lack of space" has prevented the editor from publishing it. So, not wishing to waste a perfectly sound article (even though I say so myself) and at the risk of boring our readers I reproduce it here. It may start a healthy debate.

Let me get this straight.

The strategy of the self-appointed Vote-No campaign is to think of a divisive slogan and demand that everyone line up behind them; assume that the government will not win a referendum because it has lost the support of middle England because of Iraq (only people who spend their days and nights in political organizations can think Iraq is more important than taxation, education, law and order, you name it); ignore the core supporters in favour of the waverers whom they will entice with the confused message of vote no in order to stay in the EU and reform it; win the referendum; get Blair to resign and assume that whoever takes over will march in there and negotiate reforms to make "Europe" (I assume they mean the EU) more democratic.

I don't exactly know what Wellington or Monty would have said but I assume they may have noted that this “strategy” underestimates the enemy, alienates soldiers and supporters and is rather confused in its aims. At least, there is no proposal to invade Russia.

At the moment the "yes" camapaign is in disarray. That need not last. The Vote-No campaign assumes that they won over the euro and, therefore, need not bother with new ideas for this battle. Over the euro, the important thing was not to have a referendum and the man who won that was Gordon Brown. That was a cold war, this will be a hot one. Gordy will not be on our side.

Then the slogan: no to the constitution, yes to Europe. It is dishonest as they are really saying yes to the EU. How are they going to explain to those wavering voters who, presumably, are not well informed of the nuances of EU governance, that voting ‘no’ in order to stay in the EU and reform it, is, somehow different from voting ‘yes’ in order to stay in the EU and reform it?

It is a divisive slogan. Most eurosceptics will refuse to work for an organization who says that. We shall, of course, vote no in the actual referendum but few of us will go out to campaign, to speak, to persuade voters that discarding the constitution will mean a new hopeful departure for the EU.

Nor is the electorate in tune with that message. Mr Hickman mentions the North-East referendum, implying that it was a similar message that brought out the votes. Alas, it was Neil Herron and his determined, anti-EU volunteers who won that battle. Come to think of it, why does Mr Hickman not mention another phenomenon: the haemorrhaging of votes to UKIP? No matter what happens inside that rather difficult party, people are flocking to vote for it? Why? Well, Mr Hickman, they send a simple and effective message to a disenchanted electorate. The Vote-No campaign squirms and wriggles like the Conservative Party.

The aims are confused. EU reform? What's that? When Mr Hickman says he and his colleagues want a more democratic EU, what does he mean? Union-wide parties? Directly elected Commission? Less money to the regions?

How are those negotiations going to be conducted? Which of the many EU institutions will be instrumental in bringing about the reform? The European Council, another IGC, the Council of Ministers, the Commission, the European Parliament, the ECJ? Does Mr Hickman know about these institutions and the difference in them? Does he know that they are all committed to further integration and all attempts at even the slightest reform have failed because there is no way to democracy in an inherently undemocratic, unaccountable organization, as it was always intended to be?

We must, of course, win this referendum. But it will be merely one battle in a long war. The war's aim is an independent and newly democratized United Kingdom and, if possible, a newly refashioned European structure of free, democratic states, living and working together. We must not be afraid of saying this.

Unless, by the time of the referendum, we have managed to convince a large proportion of this country’s population that being outside and even without the EU is not a frightening prospect, we shall have failed, even if the vote is no. The European oligarchy will go away and return with a changed constitution or another treaty that will have tinkered at the edges. What will the self-appointed Vote-No campaign say then?

What are MEPs good for?

In the Sunday Telegraph today, Daniel Hannan, Conservative MEP for the South East Region, asks: "What are we MEPs good for?"

Darling of the Eurosceptics, he might well ask, and he does so in the context of the Barrot affair, giving a first-hand witness account of the response to Farage’s revelations in the EU parliamentary chamber.

He is honest enough to admit that he holds no brief for the Faragistas. "They are doing Blair's work for him," he writes, "by dividing the Euro-sceptic vote." "But," he adds, "the way MEPs reacted to Farage's revelation was horrible."

One by one they rose to threaten him with legal action. The Liberal leader, Graham Watson, likened him to the football hooligans who had disgraced Britain in Europe. A fomer colleague of Barrot's, Jacques Toubon, rushed up and down the aisle, apparently looking for someone to punch (Robert Kilroy-Silk, recognising him as the minister who had tried to ban the English language from French airwaves, told him mischievously that no one would understand him unless he spoke English, which sent him into a choking fit). All this because Farage was doing the job that the rest of us ought to have done.

Hannan then invites us to consider the Commission's other personnel change - one that has been largely overlooked as a result of the Buttiglione and Barrot affairs. The Latvian candidate, Ingrida Udre, he says was withdrawn as a candidate because she told MEPs that she favoured tax competition. Her inquisitors were scandalised, and Mrs Udre was duly replaced by a Hungarian apparatchik.

"There you have it", writes Hannan. "As far as MEPs are concerned, it is all right to have supported a totalitarian regime, to have been convicted in a corruption case or, indeed, to be an evident dullard with no knowledge of your portfolio. What is not all right is to support the supremacy of national parliaments. Dolts, shysters, reds and retreads are welcome. But someone who believes that nations should set their own taxes? That would be going too far."

So, Mr Hannan does not think MEPs are up to much. And he is right. But, just to inject a sour little note, Mr Hannan has a poor attendance record in the EU parliament. He rarely speaks in debates, or in committees, but manages to find time for two day jobs, one as leader writer for The Daily Telegraph and another writing the column in which he has slammed MEPs.

Clearly, these jobs, on top of his full-time salary as an MEP, are well-paid enough to allow Mr Hannan, on the rare occasions that he visits Brussels, to stay in one of the most expensive hotels in town. And this is the MEP who twice has raised principled objections to joining the federalist EPP in the parliament, only twice to swallow his principles and sneak into the group when the chips were down.

So, if Hannan asks "what are we MEPs good for", including himself in the question, perhaps he won't mind too much if we ask what specifically is Mr Hannan good for?

It’s the arms sales… stupid

On the back of the transport select committee report on the EU’s Galileo satellite navigation system, which we reported in this Blog, today The Daily Telegraph has belatedly covered this issue, albeit in the business section - proving once again that this is the only grown-up section in the newspaper.

Headed, "MPs attack deficiencies in Galileo", Edmund Conway writes that "Europe's planned €3.5 billion satellite project is likely to cost taxpayers far more than expected, and could end up as an 'orbiting Railtrack', according to a parliamentary committee report." The "orbiting Railtrack" is a nice phrase, and one I missed in my original review of the report. Worth remembering, I think.

Anyhow, Conway also tells us that the transport select committee has said it is not yet clear how the Galileo project will benefit European states or the companies using it. It questioned EU assumptions that the project would be more than half-financed by the private sector, and warned that the public-private partnership (PPP) which will build and maintain the satellite may have to be unduly supported by the state.

Elsewhere in the business section is a long feature on Galileo, also by Edmund Conway, which does not seem to be posted on the online Telegraph.

At last the issue is being covered but, unfortunately, the piece is incoherent and unfocused, not least because, like Dunwoody’s select committee, it does not really take on board the military applications of the system. Like Dunwoody, Conway does not see the economic justification for Galileo, and thus suggests that when Alistair Darling goes to the EU’s transport council next month, "he should take one small step for Europe, and quietly let Galileo go."

That is not to say that Conway ignores the military applications. He notes that the EU, failing to attract enough finance from its own resources has sought "other members outside Europe", including China, India, Russia and Ukraine. This, he writes, has brought a response from the US, which has produced "a device which allows to jam the Galileo signal in times of military crisis".

But he does not properly explain why the US should want to do this. He fails to tell us that France, in particular, and Germany are agitating for the EU to lift its arms embargo on China, so that their manufacturers can sell vast quantities of expensive, high tech kit to the PLA, using GPS technology. It is those arms sales that make Galileo an economic proposition, to France and Germany at least, as long as we also help finance the system without demanding a payback, and it is that which is evoking the response from the US.

Furthermore, Conway does not explain that such kit would be useless if it relied on the free-to-users Navstar because the Americans would be able to shut it off if there was a risk that an enemy might use it against them. Thus, while the prospect of billions of euros-worth of arms sales have the "colleagues" slavering in anticipation, Conway fails to tells us that this prospect can only become a reality if the EU can provide a system independent of the US.

Thus, in the first instance, Dunwoody’s committee, in ignoring military applications and their economic potential, has been hoist with its own petard, in failing to see the economic justification of the system. Conway now trails in its wake, half understanding but failing to explain fully what is going on.

Next month, when Darling does go to Brussels, he will meet with formidable pressure to approve the scheme, with any reluctance on his part being cast as another example of Britain being awkward. And there will be no mention of military application. In fact, the denials will continue.

A better piece by the Telegraph would have picked all this up and Conway would be shouting from the rooftops, "It's the arms sales… stupid".

Give them a stick…

Give the BBC a stick, and it will grab it wholeheartedly from the wrong end, with the lack of professionalism and impartiality for which it is fast becoming a by-word.

This is amply illustrated by its reporting on latest developments in the ongoing saga about the multi-national fusion research project, known as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).

When we started covering the story on this Blog , the project, described as the largest global research and development collaboration ever undertaken, had first been pencilled in to go to Japan. Then the EU had put its foot down, demanding that France should be the beneficiary, pledging to finance 40 percent of the €10 billion budget.

Understandably, the Japanese – with US support – demurred and, as the story developed, the EU – in a remarkable display of petulance – threatened to pull out of the project all together, and develop its own, independent project at the French site, while – amazingly - still expecting Japan to contribute to its costs.

Now, with the issue still unresolved, the EU has upped the ante. Still demanding that the project be established in France, it has told its potential partners that it wants "a political agreement before the end of the year,"

French research minister, Francois D'Aubert, then has the nerve to say: "This is not an ultimatum…" adding, "If the negotiations do not come to a rapid conclusion, the commission has the possibility to choose a different path."

Tellingly, the EU is making no public claims about the superiority of the French site, whereas the Japanese are adamant that theirs is the best candidate, and are upset by EU's bullying tactics, accusing it of being "high-handed". "It is extremely regrettable," says Takahiro Hayashi, deputy director of the Office of Fusion Energy at Japan's energy ministry. "We hope that the EU will handle this matter appropriately and honestly."

The office's director, Satoru Ohtake, was slightly less diplomatic. "The two sides have different ideas, and therefore we should take time to have good discussions," he said, adding: "The fact that they are setting a deadline for their rival to make a concession is something like a declaration of war."

All this, however, the BBC news website covers, but gives the story the heading, "EU gets tough on fusion reactor". At least the Guardian was more honest, proclaiming in its version of the story, "EU 'declaration of war' over fusion", more than Channel 4 News could manage. Alluding to US support for Japan, it described the story in terms of the plucky EU battling against the prejudice of the Bush presidency.

As we said, give them a stick…

The EU reaches for the stars

In a small way – but with potentially huge consequences – a piece of history was made yesterday, when the EU held its first "Space Council" in Brussels - ignored, as always by the mainstream media.

Reported on the European Space Agency website, it dealt with an issue rehearsed many times on this Blog. (See, for instance: here, here, here and here), this first Council was lauded by the ESA as "a major political milestone for Europe in Space".

It purpose was to offer ministers representing the 27 European Union (EU) and/or European Space Agency (ESA) Member States "the first opportunity to jointly discuss the development of a coherent overall European space programme."

But the most sinister aspect is that it pre-empts the EU Constitution, which defined for the first time "space" as a shared competence of the Union, with the Space Council acknowledging "the importance of space activities for a wide range of European policies."

In yesterday’s meeting, according to the ESA release, ministers also recognised

...that it is essential to utilise the available resources in an efficient and effective way so that the supply of space-based services and infrastructures can meet the demand from users, such as the European Union's policies, Member States' policies and for the benefit of all European citizens.

Adding fuel to the fire, the German minister for education and research, Edelgard Bulmahn, current chair of the ESA council at ministerial level, said:

This meeting was a great step forward for Europe's ambitions in space. Europe must federate its space efforts in order to better exploit the potential of space technologies for the well-being of its citizens. The European Space Programme will significantly strengthen Europe's role in this area of great economic and political importance.

Europe "must federate its space efforts…." Well, well, well. And that, of course, includes the militarisation of space in support of the EU Common Security and Defence Policy, not least through the EU's Galileo satellite navigation system.

In that light, the comments of the Dutch Minister for economic affairs Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst, current chair of the EU Competitiveness Council, are more than interesting. "Today”, he said,

...was a memorable day for European cooperation in Space. With the first EU-ESA Space Council Europe made a major step in the direction of a strong and coherent European Space Programme. Space technologies and applications will help Europe to reach its common goals in the field of i.e. competitiveness, environment and security. I am confident that our joint efforts will contribute to a strong and independent position for Europe in the global arena.

Added the commissioner for enterprise and industry, Günter Verheugen:

Today's first Space Council may not yet be a giant step for mankind. But the fact that we are drawing up a joint European Space Policy is a huge leap forward. Space is an area where the added value of a joint and coherent policy on the European level is very clear. The industrial dimension of space is key to increasing the competitiveness of European industry.

And still more from ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain:

The European Space Agency has long-standing experience of providing Europe's citizens with space-based solutions meeting their requirements. We are prepared to take up the new challenges that the future European space programme will ask us to accomplish.

A second "Space Council" meeting is planned for Spring 2005 "to define general governance principles, identify priorities as well as the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders and establish industrial policy principles."

And you can bet the EU military planning cell will be taking a very keen interest in the proceedings.

L’affaire Barrot – fini?

At least we got something right. As flagged up in our previous posting, it now looks as if the wheel is not going to fall off the Barrot. The transport commissioner is going to keep his job.

After the Socialists in the EU parliament kicked the issue into the long grass, referring it to the parliamentary lawyers, it was almost certain that l'affaire was going nowhere, and so it has come to pass.

Now the parliament's legal service has stated that Barrot "cannot be blamed of any misconduct for not having disclosed a conviction", on the basis that he had been given an amnesty by the French authorities. This left EU parliament president Josep Borrell, with obvious relief, to announce that: "This opinion confirms that legally nothing can be held against Mr Barrot".

Informed opinion in the parliament suggest that the key lay in the French socialists (as we surmised) and it appears they did not have the stomach for a fight – not least because they have too many skeletons in their own cupboards.

That has not stopped UKIP's Nigel Farage from trying to get the matter raised formally in the EU parliament but, as the party's site attests, he has got absolutely nowhere, leading to accusations of a "stitch-up".

The only option Farage had was to get the Conference of Presidents of the parliament to agree to set aside time for a debate. This body, made up of the heads of the political groups, decides the agendas, and – led by an undefeatable axis of the socialists and the EPP - has blocked his request.

(Oddly enough, Farage refers to the "Council of Presidents" and you would think, after all his many years in the parliament, he would by now know the name of its ruling body.)

Anyhow, unless Farage can drag up some more dirt on the commissioner, that seems to be the end of the matter – for the time being – although we can rest in the comfort that the EP is quite happy with one of the EU commissioners being a convicted fraudster. This will come back to haunt them.

All these phobias

As the Ukrainian crisis unfolds and as the West (or some of it, anyway) sensibly declares that it supports the pro-Western parties and politicians, other voices are beginning to be heard.

One of the first of the mark is the Serb nationalist Srdja Trifkovic, writing in Chronicles. According to him this is all the fault of the ultra-nationalist Viktor Yushschenko, the western government and agencies who are intent on building a new world order (shum mishtake shurely – either it is the nationalists or the new world order builders who are the problem) and the George Soros sponsored NGOs.

As it happens, I have already heard comments of that kind expressed to me privately, some by people who have just come back from Ukraine. According to some of them, only the Soros-sponsored oppositionists carried out electoral fraud. To which one might say: what’s the matter with Kuchma? Lost his touch?

Let us set aside the whole problem of George Soros, who excites passions but who is not quite as powerful as either he or his friends (if he has any) or his enemies think. Witness the fact that he managed to lose many millions trying to unseat President Bush and succeeded merely in proving that you cannot buy democracy.

Let us also accept that what is happening in Ukraine is a largely internal battle for the direction in which that country might go in the future rather than a simple fight of democracy against authoritarianism.

What interested me in Mr Trifkovic’s article is the following comment:

“The myth is virulently Russophobic. It implicitly recognizes the reality of Ukraine's divisions but asserts that those Ukrainians who want to maintain strong links with Russia are either stupid or manipulated. This view has nothing to do with the well-being or democratic will of 50 million Ukrainians. It is strictly geopolitical, in that it sees Moscow as a foe and its enemies (Chechen Jihadists included) as friends.”

A fairly simplistic view of the world from a man who pretends to be more sophisticated than the commentators of the American Enterprise Institute (not that their analysis was particularly useful). The Chechens are not all Jihadists and Russia has been singularly unhelpful in the West’s own fight against terrorists, demanding that her behaviour in Chechnya be accepted with equanimity and even praise while refusing even to stop the sale of arms to difficult states.

Mr Trifkovic has written equally “sophisticated” articles about events in the Balkans according to which the wicked West supported all the evil opponents of Serbia. He did not mention that the people of Serbia did not exactly benefit from Milosevic's rule or his foreign adventures.

What interested me particularly was the word Russophobic. In fact, it is President Putin and his rather large ambitions that are viewed with some suspicion in the West (though not, I may add, by the EU, which is still anxious to be very nice to him). It is also President Putin’s henchmen, the siloviki, former and present members of the security forces who are gradually taking over political and economic life in Russia, that are regarded in an unfriendly way. The people of Russia do not come into it. Indeed, the people of Russia are losing the freedom they acquired when the Soviet Union collapsed. Surely, true Russophobia is supporting Putin and his policies.

So why Russophobia? We shall hear more of it as our euromasters manoeuvre for position, worrying about outcome in Ukraine and reluctant to seem to be too tough with the ever more dictatorial Putin.

This is a deliberate confusion between the politics and the people. Have we not heard it before in other circumstances? What is a person who does not like the EU and its politics? Why, a europhobe, of course. Somebody who hates Europe rather than just a slyly imposed and generally unsatisfactory political structure.

What is a person who does not like certain politicians who are trying to overcome the liberal democracy of Europe’s nation states? Silly. A xenophobe, of course. None of us are allowed genuine political arguments. We are merely full of phobias.

Losing the plot

Today, The Daily Telegraph runs its YouGov monthly poll. It reports that, three years after the Conservatives had suffered one of their worst-ever election defeats, winning only 33 percent of the popular vote, they are no better off than they were then. In fact, according to the poll, their support has actually fallen slightly to 32 per cent.

Anthony King, writing the commentary, observes:

Conservatives these days must envy Sisyphus. That poor fellow was doomed to spend all eternity rolling an enormous boulder up a hill only to see it roll back down again as soon as it approached the summit. Today's Tories are even worse off. They seem unable to push their boulder within sight of the summit.

He then goes on to remark that the Queen’s speech and the Conservatives' ferocious parliamentary attack on it have evidently made little difference. Labour's lead over the Tories has narrowed from four points last month to three points now.

As a result, the beneficiaries of the Blair Government's unpopularity combined with the Conservatives' inability to take advantage of it are the Liberal Democrats, currently on 23 percent, and a variety of minor parties led by the UK Independence Party, now on five per cent.

The comment about the Queen’s speech is interesting because, despite favourable comment at the time in the Telegraph, eye witnesses in the Chamber were cringing with embarrassment at Howard’s performance. "He lost the House", one told me, the ultimate indictment of a parliamentary leader.

By all accounts, Blair, despite his reputed distaste of standing at the dispatch box, was on top form, launching into a familiar attack on the Conservative Party, as recorded by Hansard:

We start with fantasy tax cuts; we then have fantasy spending; we then have fantasy savings and now we have a fantasy country. Then, of course, we have the Tory policy on Europe. We remember the words about leading from the centre; back comes the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) into the shadow Cabinet. The Tories have now ditched 30 years of policy on engagement with Europe in favour of renegotiation, a policy that even Margaret Thatcher would not entertain. We know that the right hon. Gentleman has boasted that the unilateral renegotiation of our membership of the European Union is "easy".

Howard then intervened with a question that had some of his backbenchers cringing: "Can the Prime Minister explain how Margaret Thatcher got the rebate without renegotiation?" Talk about walking into an elephant trap of your own making, Blair was ready for him, and swatted him down with consummate ease:

She did not get it through renegotiation. [Interruption.] Of course she did not. The financing terms of the EU had to be agreed, and she agreed the rebate as part of that. Indeed, the very reason we were able to get the rebate is that the EU had not agreed its financing terms.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman has to explain how he will renegotiate things that the Government have already entered into. That is the difference. In order to renegotiate terms that the Government have already committed themselves to—on fisheries, on social policy, on the social chapter, on the common agricultural policy—and which other countries have already agreed, the right hon. and learned Gentleman would have to get the agreement of every one of the other 24 countries. Where are the other countries that are going to agree? They do not exist, so now we even have a fantasy European Union to go alongside the fantasy country.

Fantasy policies are amusing for a fantasy Government, but supposing that Government became a reality, then the fantasy becomes a fraud on the British people and is no longer amusing but dangerous.

Howard has already said, on fishing, that if the "colleagues" did not agree to repatriation, then he would act unilaterally though an Act of Parliament so, to bring up the issue, in this context, was an "own goal", allowing Blair to make a cheap jibe which Howard could not adequately counter.

Effectively, this all builds on the broader picture, where the general consensus is that the Tories have "lost the plot", a view shared by Mary Ann Seighart in The Times today, where she remarks on the Tory ambivalence on the ID card.

It is no wonder that UKIP is building up to a five percent support, and while the Tories take comfort on the current disarray in that party – which is far too tedious to report here – on this too the Tories have lost the plot.

People, even if they do know anything about the turmoil in UKIP, are not in the least concerned. They are not voting for UKIP, but against the Tories, and their inability to capture the high ground on the European Union. Thus, even if EU issues are not always centre-stage, the baleful influence of "Europe" continues to cast its shadow over the Conservative Party.

Not even the wildest optimist now can see any prospect of it regaining power at the general election.

They’re getting worried

According to the Financial Times, former finance minister, Dominique Strauss-Kahn - leading Europhile and one of the French Socialist Party's most senior figures - is warning of the possible "breakdown of Europe" if his party's members reject the EU constitution in an internal vote next week.

This follows hot on the heels of the l’escroc Chirac’s warning last week that the Socialists were on the brink of voting "no", putting the whole project at risk.

Now Strauss-Kahn is taking up the baton, saying: "I believe there would be unspeakable consequences: a break with the history of the Socialist Party; a split from other European socialist parties; and then, above all, a breakdown of Europe."

Revealing what is clearly worrying the Euro-élites, he adds, "We should then have to wait a very long time before arriving at a new consensus allowing us to end up with a new treaty. We would fall very much behind, just at the moment when the voice of Europe should be asserting itself on the international stage."

Readers will recall that the "no" campaign in the Socialist Party is being spearheaded by Laurent Fabius, the former prime minister, who has argued that Europe is becoming too economically liberal.

Strauss-Kahn, predictably, rejects this argument, saying the constitution also sets objectives for full employment, anti-discrimination, and social welfare. But then, so did the Lisbon agenda, and that really made all the difference, didn't it?

It’s not cricket

It was fascinating to hear Commons leader (and former Europe minister) Peter Hain condemn Mugabe’s "murderous rule" today, and his frank admission that he did not believe the England cricket team should be visiting Zimbabwe.

And, for such a senior member of the government, he was remarkably outspoken, describing the situation in Zimbabwe as "outrageous", saying President Mugabe’s power was "tyrannical". But he then continued: "We are opposed to this tour, we wish it hadn’t happened but the England Cricket Board is not a department of the government and it’s free to make its own decisions."

However, as always, Hain is being a more than a little disingenuous. The problem for the ECB is that is it contractually bound to fulfil its international fixtures, on pain of a substantial penalty - unless prevented from doing so by force majeur. But that force could include a government ban on nationals travelling to Zimbabwe, in which case the ECB could have called off the matches without penalty.

So, if Hain is so convinced that the tour should not go ahead, and he is clearly an influential member of the government, why did he not press for such a simple and attractive solution? After all, it was the sports ban on South Africa which is widely credited with breaking the grip of apartheid in South Africa.

The answer, is seems, is also remarkably simple. The UK no longer has the power to dictate its own foreign policy over Zimbabwe. Under the terms of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the UK government has agreed to a "common position" on Zimbabwe which, once agreed, prevents any member state from taking unilateral action.

The only the way that the UK could now take any action to prevent our cricketers being used by Mugabe as a "political tool" is with the permission of the EU – which has not been asked for, probably on the basis that it would not be given. Thus, poor little Hain, despite his enthusiasm for "Europe", is left squawking impotently on the sidelines.

Had we still the freedom to act independently, perhaps a better option might be to send in a battalion of paras – Mugabe’s regime is so rotten that it would probably collapse at the first sight of a red beret.

But we can’t afford this, I hear you all cry! Well, an infantry battalion costs something like £10 million a year. We have 78 MEPs which cost us £1.2 million a year each – just over £90 million, or nine infantry battalions. Simple really – we ditch the MEPs. And which would bring us more influence on the international stage: 78 MEPs or nine infantry battalions? Another no-brainer.

Unfair, cries the Chairman of the Electoral Commission

Sam Younger, Chairman of the Electoral Commission, who, let’s face it, made some very strange decisions during the campaign in the North-East, has come out and said it: the spending rules are unfair.

Speaking to an academic seminar yesterday, he gave his opinion that ministers should be banned from promoting the EU Constitution for at least 10 weeks before the actual vote, bearing in mind that they do so, using taxpayers’ money. Well, of course, everything ministers do uses taxpayers’ money, so, perhaps they ought to call an occasional 10 week moratorium on all their activity? Just joking.

The rules on spending in the last 10 weeks, as stated in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, are reasonably straightforward:

The main group (decided according to rules devised by the Electoral Commission and incomprehensible to everyone else, though that is not how the Act puts it) can spend up to a total of £5 million.

Other organizations that are registered as “permitted participants” can spend up to £500,000 each. Whether the European Commission comes under this or some other, unspecified, category is not clear.

However, the Government can spend an unlimited amount of the above mentioned taxpayers’ money on pro-constitution leaflets and advertising until the last 28 days of the campaign.

Mr Younger said that his Commission has already complained about this anomaly but nothing has been done so far.

A Bill to pave the way to a referendum on the EU Constitution is expected to be published in the next few weeks, though the referendum is likely to be next spring. The government’s timing is constrained by the fact that from July 1 to December 31 2005 the UK will have the rotating EU presidency. Therefore, those six months are out as far as the General Election or the Constitutional referendum are concerned. They have to come either side of what is likely to be a fraught presidency in any case.

Mr Blair has until June 2006 to call and election and until end of that year to call the referendum. If, as expected he will go to the country this spring, incidentally incinerating most of the proposed legislation, March 2006, ten weeks or so after the expiry of the presidency, is more or less the earliest time he can have the referendum

This posting appeared first on the UKIP London Assembly blog.

"What's done is done and cannot be undone"

So said Lady Macbeth to her husband as he intimated that he was beginning to feel certain twinges of conscience after murdering King Duncan. On the whole, Lady M is not the most admirable of role models and, if memory serves me right, ends up walking in her sleep, perpetually washing her hands and, finally, committing suicide.

Yet she does seem to be the presiding genius for EU officials, who feel that there can be no going back, unravelling, changing or altering on anything that has been decided in however unsatisfactory a fashion. In particular what cannot be changed, altered or unravelled is the draft Constitution.

All this came up because of the ongoing rumble of complaints about the absence of Christianity from that document. What with that and the saga of former Commissioner-designate Rocco Buttiglione, there is a feeling of beleaguerement among the very many believing Christians of Europe.

A Christian coalition has collected 1,149,000 signatures across Europe for a petition that is being delivered to all the EU leaders, asking that the Constitution be published with a different preamble by each country with God mentioned in it if desired. They claim that all references to Christian values were blocked by France, which may be true as the battle between church and state in that country has been long and bloody and is not yet over.

The current version of the preamble talks in a vague and woolly fashion of “the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe”. The reason this meaningless form of words was decided on is because it has become remarkably clear that there is no all-embracing European culture or European outlook on the world. (More of this in another posting.)

However, the one thing all European and probably other officials have in common is a fear of having to admit that they were wrong and of reviewing what had been done. As one EU official muttered:

“These Christians could at least have the good grace to accept that they lost the argument.”

Might not the Emperor Nero have used those very words?

Galileo: Select Committee report

The House of Commons Transport Committee has now produced a report on Galileo, the EU’s proposed satellite navigation system. And interesting reading it makes – available on the Parliamentary website here.

The executive summary notes that the project "has the scope to provide real improvements in the world’s satellite navigation systems" "and the UK’s strengths in satellite technology… mean that we are very well placed to participate in this exciting venture."

"However," it continues, "we believe that Parliament and the public are not sufficiently aware of Galileo’s costs and benefits, which in some cases appear to have been poorly articulated, and insufficiently assessed."

That is something of an understatement, as the coverage in the media has been abysmal, to the extent that the bulk of the population – and even otherwise well-informed people – are scarcely aware of the existence of one of the EU’s most expensive and ambitious projects.

Inevitably, therefore, the Committee concludes:

Important questions need to be addressed before the European Union Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council makes final decisions on the programme. They involve the value for money of the project, the date when it is realistic to expect the Galileo system to be operational, the commitment to the Public-Private Partnership proposed for the deployment and operational phases of the programme, and the mechanisms by which the civilian status of the Galileo project is to be secured.

The United Kingdom Government also needs to assess far more clearly what use it will make of Galileo, and which services it will require.

Gwynneth Dunwoody, chairwoman of the committee, added, "Signing up to the next stages require a huge leap of faith," but she need not have bothered. The only media report I have seen so far is on the Bloomberg press agency. As they have done so many times before, the mainstream media have ignored the issue.

Nevertheless, Dunwoody pursues her point, saying that the EU has not yet proved the need for the programme, while her committee says that it doubts the reliability of the programme's estimated costs as well as the size of the market the Galileo would tap. Dunwoody concludes, "We don't think the government should let itself be bullied into jumping."

The issue will be considered by the EU's transport council in December and, despite our transport committee's reservations, it is likely to go ahead. And the reason why it will do so is because of the vital role of Galileo in underpinning the EU’s security and defence policy as, whatever the EU commission might say publicly, the system has important military applications.

The problem with Dunwoody and her committee, in questioning the financial viability of the project, is that they have virtually ignored the military applications. The have fallen for the commission and government "spin" that it is intended to be a civilian project, even though they received no assurances that it would not be used for military purposes. Yet, it is the defence market - and particularly in selling hi-tech weapond and systems to China, which need an independent GPS system - where the money is really to be made.

Neither has the committee established that there are proper control mechanisms in place to prevent the system being used for military purposes, leaving the whole military issue unsatisfacorily resolved.

In our view, this is one of the most important issues of our time, primarily because of those undisclosed military applications and the sale of the system to China, which almost certainly intends to use it for military purposes. That we are involved in the project means this will have – and is already having – a serious impact on our special relationship with the US.

Much to our surprise, we find we have published no less then 25 postings on this subject. For those of our readers who are new to the Blog, if you wish to follow the whole sorry saga through from the point when we took it up, we have provided the links below, in chronological order. Happy reading.

Posts: 01; 02; 03; 04; 05; 06; 07; 08; 09; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25.

There is a third way

One wonders why a supposedly Eurosceptic newspaper like the Daily Telegraph should give pride of place to the egregious Denis MacShame, allowing his to peddle his myths in today’s op-ed, but there you go.

Under the heading, "Britain can't pick and choose which bits of law it will obey", MacShame is allowed to expound a thesis of equivalence. He compares Britain’s signing of a vast number of bilateral treaties – all of which, he asserts, limit our sovereignty – with our membership of the European Union.

Adding the NATO treaty to his list, he then particularly identifies that World Trade Organisation, "which can impose trade rules on the national policy of its member states". This, he asserts, represents "a major surrender of unilateral national rights in favour of a supranational rule-making and adjudicating body".

We obey the WTO says MacShame, invoking the Latin, "Pacta sunt servanda – treaties are honoured and obeyed", and then applies the same dictum to the treaties of the European Union, arguing that we cannot be selective. The same principle must apply to them all.

At this point, MacShame rushes on, breathlessly to pour scorn at the Conservative idea of selectively repatriating some of the EU policies, such as fishing, which would put Britain in breach of its legal obligations. "British citizens cannot pick and choose which bits of law they will obey", he asserts. "Similarly, Britain cannot pass legislation that conflicts with international treaties, such as the EU treaties, without being in breach of its solemn treaty obligations".

Therein lies the rub. If you allow MacShame to rush you into this breathless elision, then you are halfway with him. But if you stop at the point where he suggests equivalence, his construct begins to fall apart.

It would be tiresome to rehearse all the difference between NATO and the EU, but the essential point is that NATO cannot compel any nation state to undertake any action – particularly military action – to which it does not agree. As for the WTO, yes there are supranational elements, but the treaties is confined to international trade, and there is no mechanism for directly imposing laws dictating the conduct of individuals within the territories of signatory states.

In other words, there is no equivalence. In its nature, scale and reach, the EU treaties are unique. Only they, and they alone, set up such a comprehensive array of institutions which, collectively, can devise, impose and enforce laws on the individual citizens of the member states, completely by-passing the elected parliaments and, therefore, the will of the people.

Thus, when MacShame rushes on to tell us that "British citizens cannot pick and choose which bits of law they will obey", what he avoids saying is that if "British citizens" do not like particular bits of (national) law, they have the means to change them, not least though the mechanism of a general election, and not forgetting that civil disobedience is a time-honoured, and honourable, tradition.

But, within the construct of the European Union, the British citizen has – individually or collectively – no means of changing the law. The construct is deliberately "democracy proof" and therefore confounds the very system to which we subscribe. On that basis, we have a conflict between the "people", who are not bound by the treaties, and the governments, which are.

It is that conflict that the Conservatives are, albeit reluctantly, being forced to confront and, in an attempt to resolve it, they are proposing the somewhat half-hearted remedy of repealing some of the worst policies of the EU. Effectively, they are trying to ease the shoe, where it pinches most.

That, claims MacShame, cannot be done. You have to accept everything that the EU throws at us, or nothing. It is simply a question of all of nothing. "There is no third way", we concludes.

Would that this were true, and I suspect that, if the "in-out" choice were properly put to the British people, on the back of some honest political leadership, the answer would be unequivocally "out". But, if there is a third way, it lies not in the realms of the legalistic terms of the treaties, but in the politics. As de Gaulle once said, "treaties are like roses and maidens, they all have their day".

The technocrats and the "transies" of this world would have to believe that the world is bound by a new, higher order of international law, which transcends the nations state, and to which formerly sovereign nation states were bound, in the same way that citizrens are bound by their national laws. That is not the case.

Although dressed up in legal terms, treaties are political constructs. They are made by politicians, and they can be broken by politicians, in whole or part. The question then, is what are the consequences of so doing? Properly managed, they could be benign, to the advantage not only of the British people but the peoples of all the member states of the European Union.

That is probably what the likes of MacShame fear most. Once the construct starts unravelling, there is nothing to stop the rest of it falling apart. Thus, MacShame is trying to hold the line. This is a frightened man who, like his comrades, is terrified that any breach in the holy doctrine of the European Union will lead to its eventual downfall.

Tough, Mr MacShame. Like it or not, there is a third way.

What is the point of proscribing organizations?

Hamas, one of the deadliest of the terrorist organizations, whose avowed aim is the destruction of the state of Israel is on all the interantional proscribed lists. It is, furthermore, one of the organizations that has been terrorizing the Palestinian population under Yasser Arafat and has not exactly gone away there.

So, the West should do its best to bring an end to this group and should not negotiate with it. Right? Wrong. Or so EU foreign affairs supremo, Foreign Minister to be if the Constitution is implemented (and, probably, even if it is not) Javier Solana thinks.

According to a report by Reuter’s he has met Hamas and had various discussions with them, though he was a little vague as to when and where (understandably) but also how often and why.

"I have had direct contact with Hamas but not in the last few days. Those meetings were not long. They were just to pass a clear message of where the international community was."

So, where is the international community? Surely, that is quite easy to lay down without having to discuss world events or, possibly, the weather with terrorists? Or were the meetings set up to clarify Solana’s own opinions?

Jack Straw remains adamant: Britain and the British government does not negotiate with terrorists (except the home-grown variety, of course). Israel considers Hamas to be part of the problem, not part of the solution. One wonders what they think of Solana and the EU in general. Diplomatically, they said nothing on the subject

Taking the p***!

"A bonfire of the diktats splutters into life as Brussels lights the first match" writes Anthony Browne, Brussels correspondent of The Times.

"Today, in an attempt to staunch the tide of red tape, Patricia Hewitt, secretary of state for trade and industry, and her EU counterparts will agree to simplify and abolish items of legislation, rather than multiplying and complicating them," he informs us.

Sounds good? Read on.

The EU, according to The Times has produced 101,811 regulations since Britain joined in 1973. And guess how many regulations they are putting in this "bonfire"? Perhaps a thousand; two thousand, maybe. Possibly even three of four thousand? Er… no exactly. P. Hewitt and her pals are have picked a mere 15 directives for the treatment - from an original list of 300.

And are these going to be abolished? Er… no, not exactly. Five directives relating to medical devices will be consolidated into two. The contents won’t be reduced, mind you, but they will be printed in three less directives. That’s progress for you.

Then, we are told, smaller companies will be exempted from certain accounting rules – rules most of them ignored anyway. And, for the next trick: "overlapping regulations for disposing of waste oils will be scrapped."

Never mind, at least rules that EU officials admit "serve no obvious purpose" on hazardous waste will be abolished. Whoopeee!!! They’re going to get rid of the "fridge mountain" directive!!!

Silly billy! Rules for transporting empty adhesive containers will be simplified because the EU has realised that they are not as dangerous as full containers. And that’s it. That's it?

OK. So the fridges stay. As a consolation prize, reporting requirements on the health and safety of workers will be reduced from annual to every six years; companies will no longer be required to report the goods in which they trade in weight and volume - just one measurement will do; and directives applying to food and drink labelling will be "streamlined" - not abolished, mind you, just "streamlined".

They really, really do have to be taking the p***!

Well done the Daily Mail

My attack on The Telegraph and the Independent this morning, for their failure to attribute our growing fridge mountains to EU policy, emphatically does not apply to the Daily Mail.

In that paper today is a two-page spread (pgs 12-13) headed "The chilling fields", with the strap line: "120,000 fridges rotting in a field and polluting the atmosphere – all thanks to the EU’s ‘green’ madness". And journalist Paul Harris writes that the mountains are "a testament to a fiasco estimated to have cost the British taxpayer more than £300 million".

Gentle readers, that is £300,000,000 – more than I would earn if I lived for 10,000 years – money totally and utterly wasted. And that is not counting the loss of income now that we can no longer refurbishing fridges and export them.

Furthermore, writes Harris, firefighters have had to deal with six major blazes in fridge storage yards in the Manchester area alone. "The clouds of black smoke from the these blazes contain the same cancer-causing dioxins and ozone destroying gasses that the EU legislation is trying to curb", he adds. What on earth are we doing putting up with this lunacy?

And well done the Daily Mail for pointing it out.

Just a thought

With the crowds in Kiev's Independence Square increasing by the hour, and Colin Powell declaring, on behalf of the US, that he does not accept the outcome of the Ukrainian election, the country's electoral commission has declared that the result is valid and should stand.

One wonders if its personnel have been trained by the British Electoral Commission.

Belgian government supports peace and freedom (not!)

The Belgian government has made all sorts of noises in the past about its adherence to the ideas of peace and freedom. There were suggestions of putting Ariel Sharon (though not Yasser Arafat), as well as Secretary of State Colin Powell, President Bush, Prime Minister Blair (though not Saddam Hussein) on trial for war crimes.

Earlier this week they could have done something a little more concrete for the cause. There was a suggestion that Akhmad Zakayev, the European representative of Aslan Maskhadov, the last elected President of Chechnya, who now lives in Britain where he had been granted asylum, meet the Russian Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers. This was not an official beginning of peace negotiations but, nevertheless, a tentative step in the right direction.

Unfortunately, President Putin in his ever tougher mood is not happy about independent organizations that are critical of his policy meeting anybody, let alone men he, on little evidence, has described as terrorists. So the Belgian government, in its freedom-loving fashion, has obliged. First, they refused to let Zakayev in, though he had travelled to Brussels before in order to participate in a Chechnyan conference. But, most effectively, they refused to issue visas to members of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers.

Several things developed in Russia after the horrific events of Beslan. Some seemed quite positive such as President Putin’s announcement, presumably under a great deal of pressure internally and externally, that there will be an investigation into the siege and its bloody conclusion. Then, as the pressure immediately died off, he announced further that the investigation would be conducted by a committee of the Upper House of the Duma or, in other words, politicians completely loyal to him.

President Putin’s next great announcement was that having tried fighting terrorism by more traditional methods and failing to achieve anything, he was going to try something completely new: abolition of elections. How turning regional governors into appointees of the central government instead of elected representatives would help to fight terrorism was not clear, but Putin’s proposed law was passed by the Duma and seemed to be supported by the majority of Russia’s population.

However, not all in the garden is lovely for President Putin and his henchmen in the Duma and the government. The quagmire that is Chechnya (and in this case, the description is accurate), the fact that the war is going nowhere, that the Russian army seems to be fighting almost exclusively the civilian population, while the boyeviki, the fighters, pick the soldiers off at will; the widening rather than lessening terrorism problem; all these have contributed to a growing conviction that some form of negotiation must be attempted.

Putin and his ministers have insisted that there can be no negotiation with anyone who has any claim to represent the Chechnyans, as they are all, a priori, terrorists. Thus Aslan Maskhadov, the last elected president of Chechnya, who has consistently opposed attacks on civilians, hostage taking and kidnappings, is not to be distinguished in the eyes of the Russian authorities from Shalam Basayev, a terrorist, terror master and mass murderer. (Interestingly, despite the high price the government has put on both their heads there has, apparently, not been a single squeak about their whereabouts.)

Right, now, where does the Belgian government come into it all? One of the organizations that had been active in revealing the truth about the first Chechnyan war was the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers. When Putin sent the troops in again in 1999, he made quite certain of not repeating President Yeltsin’s mistakes. He banned the media from the ever larger “fighting” area and he sidelined the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers. They lost their office and were denied access to the media, now largely under the government’s control.

Some journalists managed to get through and found themselves treated rather roughly by the authorities for their pains. Most recently, Anna Politkovskaya, who had written about the war and about Putin’s Russia, was poisoned on her way to Beslan during the siege. The doctors barely managed to save her but she never got to Beslan. Arkady Babitsky of Radio Free Europe who had already been kidnapped and released in mysterious circumstances, was arrested on ridiculous “hooliganism” charges.

One of the clearest signs that attitudes are changing is the re-emergence of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers. They have made several statements, indicating that once again, their casualty figures are consistently higher then the official ones. They have also been calling for peace negotiations. Please note that they have not prejudged those negotiations or called for any results, merely pointed out that the war is going nowhere, casualties are mounting and negotiations would be a good idea.

It was to this end that they wanted to meet and have exploratory talks with Zakayev. Alas, that is not to be. The Belgian government has spoken. As between peace and freedom and a frightened kow-tow to a leader who is a burgeoning dictator, the decision was predictable.

Local colour

As a regular visitor to the BBC studios in Leeds, more often at a drop of a hat, to contribute no more than a few minutes to some news programme or other, I have to record a small piece of local history.

The studio complex which for more years than I can remember, has occupied a site opposite Leeds University, has now closed and the operation has been moved to a new site in St Peters' Square. What particularly excited my attention what that this new site is rather conveniently close to another street in Leeds, bearing the name Brussels St: a coincidence, of course, but how appropriate. Needless to say, the location map handed out to help visitors find the new studios has the distances marked in metres.

The old studio has a particular place in my own personal history as it was there, in March 1977, that I made my personal television debut, lifting the lid on the scandal of NHS hospital kitchen hygiene standards – an episode that eventually cost me my job as a local authority environmental health officer.

As one of the original whistle-blowers, I can now reveal that, when I presented myself to the studio that March for what was a rather long sequence of interviews, I was offered the usual cup of BBC coffee. But my host rather regretfully informed me that they could not give me any food, as the canteen was closed.

Of this, I was well aware. I had been in the previous week and threatened prosecution, because of the appalling hygiene standards. As a result, the management had decided to close the canteen "for refurbishment". So, with their own operation closed down for poor hygiene standards, the BBC then ran a major feature on poor hospital kitchen hygiene. I think I was the only one, at the time, to enjoy the irony.

More hidden Europe

It seems a bit odd to be writing about fridges, with the tumultuous events in Ukraine, which seem poised to precipitate that uneasy corner of the globe into a bloody civil war – or not – but my colleague will be addressing that issue later in the day, day job permitting.

So to fridges, with a startling photograph in the print edition of The Daily Telegraph today, showing a "mountain of unwanted fridges with nowhere to go".

The picture illustrates 44,000 discarded fridges and freezers, in one of four dumps in the Manchester area: there is another one of 36,000 unwanted units at a site nearby, both near the Manchester Ship Canal, with two more mountains, at nearby Chadderton and Failsworth, making an estimated 120,000 fridges awaiting disposal in the area.

But no prizes for journalist David Sapsted, who begins his piece (only in the print edition) with the words "this shocking monument to the waste of the consumerist age contains more than 44,000 fridges".

I think the technical word for this, as a piece of journalism, is "crap", although I am sure readers might have their own favourite expression for it. Fridges are bought, they are used, and they wear out. If it is a monument to anything, these fridge mountains testify to the utter fatuity of EU Regulation 2037/2000, which came into force on 1 January 2002, ostensibly to prevent the escape of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases.

It was this EU law that turned a successful and effective fridge collection and disposal sytem, with a high level of recycling, into the shambles it has become today, not least because with this law it became a criminal offence to recycle fridges and freezers.

This was actually pointed out by Christopher Booker in his column of 7 October 2001, when he pointed out that, each year three million fridges and freezers become surplus to requirements in Britain alone each year. But, at that time, 99 percent, taken in part-exchange, were turned into scrap or reconditioned by specialist firms to meet a huge export demand from Africa and eastern Europe.

Booker featured a firm called Border Refrigeration, near Abergavenny in south Wales, owned by Fred Probert, which collected fridges and freezers taken in part-exchange by major retail outlets. Most were refurbished and shipped out in containers to west and east Africa and Romania, where they were highly prized. He described how, at a port near Lagos, Mr Probert had seen his machines being carried on the heads of teenage boys to be loaded on to battered Volkswagen pick-up trucks and transported all over Nigeria.

With import duties and low wages making the cost of new machines prohibitive, refurbished freezers were snapped up not only by domestic users and ice-sellers but by doctors 600 miles out in the bush, for whom they were a lifeline to store drugs and medicines. Because Nigeria shares Britain's 240-volt system, they could not be imported from elsewhere.

Booker returned to this issue in his column of 14 October 2001, when he warned that, once discarded fridges and freezers were declared "hazardous waste" under the EU regulation, there would be "absolutely no legal way to dispose of them".

Charles Clover then picked up the story, in The Telegraph on 22 November 2001, reporting that what had made the problem particularly acute was a ruling by EU lawyers that the regulation applied not only to the CFCs used as coolant - which were being collected already - but also to bubbles of CFC in the insulation, for which there were currently no disposal facilities in Britain.

There was, therefore, plenty of evidence that this was and is yet another of these EU-made disasters, yet today's Telegraph tells us this is a "monument to the waste of the consumerist age". As I said: "crap".

Not to be outdone in the league of fatuous reporting, however, The Independent also covers the story, under the heading "Waste Britain", giving journalist Charles Arthur an opportunity to survey "the state of the nation's rubbish".

Arthur would have it that this is all to do with Britain’s failure to respond to basically benign EU laws, without realising – or informing the readers - that, until the EU interfered, these problems were being dealt with, and that they have become significantly worse since the EU interfered. This has been pointed out in previous postings on this Blog.

It really is a strange phenomenon of our time that journalists literally cannot see the wood for the trees, and fail to make connections that are obvious to those who have taken the trouble to find out.

No wonder EU gets such an easy ride when it makes its outrageous claims about protecting the environment. When journalists fail to lay the blame for the disasters that arise at the feet of those who caused them, we have another case of "hidden Europe", and the EU gets away with it once again.

Defence carnage – the EU dimension

In The Times this morning, details are given of the carnage to which our historic English regiments are to be subject, with several regiments earmarked for merger or disbandment.

For instance, the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment, which dates back to 1685, and The Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment (RGBW), formed ten years ago but whose origins go back more than 300 years, look set to be amalgamated, although one option remains to disband the RGBW altogether. The King's Own Royal Border Regiment, dating back to 1680, is also looking vulnerable to amalgamation or disbandment.

According to The Times, these "radical options" for the English regiments have been forced on army planners because of the announcement in the Defence White Paper in July that four battalions of infantry had to be axed, with a shake-up of the whole infantry structure, to create larger regimental formations. This makes it inevitable that the smallest regiments would be combined into “large regional military families”.

But what The Times – and to date no other newspaper – has done is highlight or even identify the EU dimension in all this, even though – as we saw – as recently as Monday, we were told of plans to create EU "battle groups", with the UK providing troops for two of them.

The connection, of course, is that these "battle groups" are eventually to form part of the much larger EU rapid reaction force, perhaps numbering 60,000 troops, which are to be geared to what has become known as “expeditionary warfare”. And it is here, that the FRES concept comes in, with integrated, armoured forces, using "network enabled", wheeled armoured vehicles, all of which will be air-portable.

The core of these new formations will be the infantry, but our traditional regiments do not fit the new structures needed to man them. Therefore, the whole of the infantry must be restructured, to provide units capable of working with the FRES equipment, in order that Tony Blair can fulfil his personal commitment to that crook Chirac, and provide the resources for the EU Rapid Reaction Force.

Some military commentators may argue that these changes would have been needed anyway, but this is not necessarily the case – and would only be the case if we wanted to mount the types of operation envisaged by the EU – independently of the US.

As it stands, the traditional British regimental structure is ideally suited to performing the low-level policing and counter-insurgency role, alongside the better-equipped US forces, as in Iraq, or in support of long-term peacekeeping commitments.

However, as always, nothing of this will be aired in the mainstream media, and once more, the damage caused by the rush towards EU defence integration will pass unremarked.

Are we really that stupid?

As part of its continuing "charm offensive" to get the EU arms embargo lifted, China is now promising that weapons exports would not increase if was lifted.

Urging the resumption of arms sales "as soon as possible," the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, Zhang Qiyue, states: "The lifting of the embargo will not lead to the problem of China importing more weapons," adding, "We hope the EU will make a right decision as soon as possible."

Er… if the lifting of the embargo will not lead to an increase, why do they want it lifted?

Take your pick

From the International Herald Tribune, today:

José Manuel Barroso is coming out fighting as president of the European Commission, saying the uncertainty surrounding the incoming commission had not dented the European Union's credibility but was a sign of a growing political maturity.

Interesting effect this man has: I did not know whether to laugh, cry… or vomit.

Another lurch towards defence integration

While the formation of EU "battle groups" has rightly caught the headlines, indicating quite how far down the line defence integration is proceeding, behind the headlines, the developments are equally sinister.

At the same 22 November council that agreed to the "battle groups", defence ministers also agreed to further expansion of the European Defence Agency, which is the motor behind the scenes which is driving defence integration.

The EDA's first annual budget has been agreed at €20 million, allow it to expand its staff to an expected 77 personnel, and the ministers have also agreed the EDA work programme. This will cover the EU commission's initiatives on defence procurement, space policy and security research.

In its first year, the EDA intends to work on strengthening command, control and communications interoperability (between the forces of EU member states), and it wants to enhance research and technology efforts on so-called "unmanned aerial vehicles". Crucially, it has also set itself the target of further exploring ideas on defence procurement presented in the commission's green paper.

It is especially in the latter area where, as we warned in a previous Blog, that the damage is really being done and, perversely, where there is the least media and political attention.

However, the plans to develop "interoperability" at an EU level are also worrying, as the right forum for this kind of work is NATO, to ensure harmonisation with US systems and equipment.

Worst of all, though, is that our own government is willingly contributing funds to an Agency which will, in time, bring about the complete loss of independence of our own armed forces, without so much as a word being said in the mainstream media.

Soft on corruption, soft on the causes of corruption...

At least the Financial Times is still on the case, opining that José "stand-by-your-man" Barroso has crowned his first day in office by making a big mistake.

This latter-day Tammy Wynette has tempted fate when he allowed his spokeswoman to describe the previously undisclosed and amnestied conviction of Barrot for party funding offences as a "minor case". For her to add "Mr Barroso feels that under these conditions Mr Barrot will be an excellent commissioner" has created a hostage to fortune. The FT's conclusion is that Barrot must go.

To sugar the pill: the FT adds:

To many this will appear disproportionate and even unfair. By all accounts, Mr Barrot is a hard working commissioner. His performance at his hearing before the European parliament last month was better than many.

But he has been in an increasingly untenable position since Thursday, when Nigel Farage, one of the UK Independence party members of the European parliament, disclosed to an astonished assembly that Mr Barrot was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence in 2000 for his role in a party funding scandal.

The details of the Barrot affair appear minor against the long and sorry history of party funding offences in many continental countries. France had no campaign financing law before 1991 and Mr Barrot was one of many politicians to land in trouble. He was convicted in his role as a leader of the CDS, the French Social Democratic Centre. The sentence did not bar him from public office and, because it was erased under a 1995 amnesty, has not created a criminal record. There have been European commissioners with blacker records than his.

But Mr Barrot's failure to mention the episode either to Mr Barroso or to the European parliament has shown an inability to appreciate the need for commissioners to be totally candid if they are to earn the trust of an increasingly sceptical European public.

The Commission itself has yet to recover from the mass resignation of a previous Commission in 1999 amid allegations of mismanagement, nepotism and fraud. Moreover, as Graham Watson, leader of the European parliament's liberals pointed out, the conduct of which Mr Barrot was found guilty is illegal in many member states.

Yesterday, Mr Barroso let it be known that he would have preferred to have been informed by Mr Barrot about his past before finding out amid the uproar of last Thursday's session of parliament.

But it seems to have occurred to no-one in the Commission or parliament to have asked Mr Barrot about any previous offences. Applicants for a visa to enter the US are always asked: "Have you ever been arrested or convicted for any offence or crime, even though subject to a pardon, amnesty or other similar legal action?" These words should be added to the questionnaires that all future commissioners and high EU officials must answer.

In the meantime, it looks like only Watson’s Liberals are nailing their colours to the mast, over and above the Farage faction – there’s unlikely allies for you.

What will be interesting in the weeks to come is where the British Conservatives stand. Once again they may have cause to rue their membership of the EPP which, under the tutelage of Jacques "Chopper" Toubon, will be vehemently opposed to any motion of no confidence in "Wheel" Barrot.

With the Buttiglione saga behind them, the commission is crowing about the new commission being a testament to the "democratic" credentials of the EU, but if the "colleagues" in the EU parliament sit on their hands, and do nothing about Barrot, it will in fact confirm what we have held all along, that the EU is soft on corruption and soft on the causes of corruption.

So where to now?

The announcement in the Queen’s speech that the government will make the Bill to give effect to the EU constitution subject to a referendum rather dispels rumours (or fears) that the government will not actually hold a referendum. As it stands, the government will not be able to ratify the constitution unless and until it has held a referendum.

The fact the a referendum is now a reality will inevitably lead to earnest discussions as to how to handle the "no" campaign, although there is not much evidence of any such from the self-appointed "Vote No" campaign.

The central question, however, will be how to prevent the "yes" campaign from turning the referendum into an "in-out" issue, perpetuating the "scare" that a "no" vote will lead inevitably to Britain leaving the EU.

Actually, this is not as much of a problem as is made out. The response to the question: "will a 'no' vote force us to leave the EU", is the disarmingly simple counter: "unfortunately not".

There are three likely outcomes to a "no" vote: another Intergovernmental Conference, which produces a new, revised constitutional treaty; the status quo, where the "colleagues" decide to stick with the existing treaties; or a fundamental renegotiation of the existing treaties, which would also require an IGC.

There is, also, the other option that some of the member states would go ahead with further integration, using the "enhanced co-operation" provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty, as modified by Nice.

As to the actual outcome, none of us is in a position say with any certainty what will happen. The best one can say is that, if the British public do vote "no" to the constitution, the game is wide open. A "no" result would not be the end, but the beginning of a process where the real debate on our relationship with Europe can really start.

A "yes" vote, on the other hand, would close down the debate and saddle us with a construct that perpetuates the tired, corrupt model of the existing EU. It means a vote of confidence for the EU as it stands, warts and all.

On the other hand, a "no" vote does not necessarily mean a rejection of European union - still less a rejection of "Europe". It means we reject the attempts by the European political élites to impose their "vision" of what our relationship with other European countries should be.

We can say, with confidence, therefore, that the "democratic" option is to vote "no", even if you are actually in favour of some form of European union. Then the real debate can start.

They’re off…

Well, sort of. The EU constitution referendum has got the green light, with the inclusion in the Queen’s speech of the government’s intention to place a Bill before the House incorporating the constitutional treaty into British law, subject to a referendum.

No date has been set aside by the referendum but, as consistently predicted by this Blog, the vote is not expected until 2006, after the next general election.

A government spokesman said the bill paving the way for a referendum is "central to the government's belief that the UK should remain a strong and influential power in a peaceful, effective and flexible Europe". The Foreign Office added: "Once Parliament has debated the major issues and after an extensive public debate, the British people would have their say on the Treaty in a referendum."

In its view, "The referendum would allow for the issues to be fully debated by the public, and would provide an opportunity for the government to put across its case and dispel the myths surrounding the EU Commission."

As before – with the NE referendum - the lame-brained Electoral Commission will rule on the "intelligibility of the referendum question" and "ensure rules on campaign funding are adhered to". By past experience, this mean it will pick on the minor players and ignore any transgressions by the government.

Meanwhile, The Sun is claiming that Blair intends to allow all EU citizens resident in Britain to vote in the referendum, despite the draft Bill published in December 2003 explicitly ruling out this option.

Je ne regrette rien

So says Jose Manuel Barroso, recorded for prosperity in The Independent today.

Actually, that was what he meant, but his actual phrasing was a lot more pedestrian: I made the right choices for European Commission, was what he did say, adding, that he had no regrets over his handling of a dramatic showdown with MEPs last month. And, after a robust defence of Jacques "Wheel" Barrot, Barroso claimed he had made "absolutely the right choices at all moments" over Italy's Rocco Buttiglione.

No doubt the new icon for the EU is to become Tammy Wynette, as Mr Barroso went on to say: "I support 100 per cent all my commissioners." One can almost hear the strains of "Stand by your man", now clearly up for adoption as the EU anthem.

Obviously, Mr Barroso has many faults, but being wrong is not one of them, as he then affirmed by rejected the notion that the Buttiglione saga illustrated an autocratic style of leadership.

"I am not the best person to judge," he said, "but you are going to discover that I am not at all that kind of person. I listen a lot. I am not at all an autocratic person."

Says The Independent, many MEPs believe the Commission president should have acted more quickly to defuse the gathering crisis but Mr Barroso insisted that axing or reshuffling Mr Buttiglione earlier would have infuriated centre-right MEPs, creating a separate problem.

Of course, upsetting MEPs is never a good idea… they might turn round and do, er.. absolutely nothing – if you are a French transport commissioner, this is.

Not that this troubles Barroso. He is far too busy proving he is never wrong: "I would have no problem at all saying ‘no it was a mistake. I don't know the parliament well, I know much better my [national] parliament’. I would have no problem admitting it. But the fact was that was that, from the very beginning, I could see what had happened, I was considering the possibility of a no vote from the very beginning."

You see… he is never wrong. We are going to have some fun with this one.

It's the politics, stupid

Yesterday’s International Herald Tribune carried an article by Nils Petter Gleditsch and Henrik Urdal, both of whom are political scientists with the Centre for the Study of Civil War at the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, than which few organizations could sound more politically correct.

There seems to be a problem with Scandinavian academics. They do not live up to the image that we conjure up of them. First, Björn Lomborg sets the entire climate change establishment by the ears, proving that Kyoto is a waste of money, concentrating on global warming is a waste of resources and not paying attention to other problems is a waste of time.

Now we get Messrs Gleditsch and Urdal arguing that it is not environmental problems that cause wars. Resource scarcity may create low-level conflicts (a.k.a. a bit of a fight) but no major ones. This flies in the face of received wisdom. In the year when the Nobel Peace Prize went to an environmental activist, it takes some intellectual courage to say:

“In fact, speculation about ‘water wars’ and other apocalypic scenarios lacks solid foundation. Some studies find a relationship between low-level conflict and scarcity of resources like arable land, forests and fresh water, but others do not. In any case, this link is trumped by poverty, political instability and a region’s history of conflict.”

The three cardinal evils are interconnected, as we know with the first largely caused by the second and third.

They destroy the myth of water wars and the need for supranational control comprehensively:

“Scarcity of fresh water is one of the world’s major health problems and constrains economic development in many parts of the world. But that is not a ‘water war’ unless we radically redefine our concepts of war and peace. Countries that share a river appear to have a slightly higher probability of low-level conflict over and beyond the simple fact of being neighbours. Such countries also seem to cooperate more. There are hundreds of international agreements regulating the use of shared water resources, but one is hard put to name a single case where a conflict over water led to large-scale violence.”

This will not stop numerous NGOs with highly paid staff continuing to produce apocalyptic scenarios and demanding action by the UN and its various organizations that bring further corruption to already unstable areas.

Nor is it right to blame the abundance of natural resources for constant wars. (Indeed not. After all, Canada and the USA do not keep fighting.) In Sierra Leone and Angola “blood diamonds” have played a part but in Botswana the diamonds “have created the economic basis for the closest thing we find in sub-Saharan Africa to a democratic welfare state”.

Not scarcity, not over-abundance, not even, as they do not say, since it is not part of their remit, nationalism as African states are not nation states in the usual sense of the word.

So what is it? Well, lack of proper political accountability, power-mad politicians who destabilize the area, and the long-term effect of their policy. But there is something else. Wars need money and not all these countries are rich. Where does the money come from? Could it be our old friend international foreign aid?

Is it not time to pumping money into countries where the people never see a penny of it, where it is stolen for private use or to buy arms? And is it not time to stop faffing around with the wretched Kyoto Protocol that will do nothing to help the Third World countries and will simply slow down economic growth in western Europe? How about a real economic partnership? Oh sorry, that would mean upsetting the basic economic structures and ideological assumptions of the European Union. Can’t have that.

Does he know what he is talking about?

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity runs one of the most interesting blogs: The Market Center Blog. It rounds up news from all over the world about taxation and protectionism, showing without a single exception how harmful these are for the economy. As their name makes it clear, they are devoted to the cause of free-market economy and free trade.

Naturally enough, their reportage of the EU is rarely positive, though they sometimes applaud individual proposals. However, they have been finding it difficult to work out what the incoming Commission will be like. Working on the assumption that the East Europeans will bring in new ideas because of their experience of introducing free-market economic measures and their insistence on keeping a low level of corporate tax, they have found the various shenanigans rather bemusing.

Their report on the incoming Tax Commissioner László Kovács (formerly the incoming Energy Commissioner and some years before that a Communist apparatchik) is instructive. It seems that the new Commissioner said the right thing and the wrong thing at the same time. Quoting Tax-News from Brussels, the blog summarizes:

“The European Union's Tax Commissioner-in-waiting, Laszlo Kovacs, revealed yesterday that he is in favour of harmonising the corporate tax base across the union, although rejecting a proposal supported by the French and Germans for more centralised setting of tax rates. ...the former Hungarian foreign minister stopped short of advocating the placing of more control over tax rates in the hands of the Commission, arguing that "fiscal competition is not damaging as such. I support a degree of tax competition between member states. I do not see a need for community action on corporate tax rates," he commented, referring to complaints from France and Germany that large corporate tax cuts in the new member states of Eastern Europe amounts to unfair tax competition.”

So is he in favour of harmonizing or is he not? Could it be that he, as he apparently admitted to MEPs in private conversation, simply does not know what he is talking about?

Barrot: stitch-up in the making?

Confounding my analysis on the Blog earlier today, The Financial Times is suggesting that Jacques "Wheel" Barrot may keep his job after all - after a surprise rescue by the Socialists in the EU parliament.

His unlikely saviour comes in the form of Martin Schulz, the German leader of the 200-strong Socialist group, and nemesis of Rocco Buttiglione, the deposed Italian wannabe commissioner.

Schulz, it appears, is ignoring the political question of Mr Barrot's failure to tell MEPs about his conviction, having announced that the affair was primarily a legal issue. He has asked the EU parliament's lawyers to examine a letter of legal explanation from Mr Barrot about the case - a process that could take days or even weeks.

"If the legal service considers that the explanations given in Mr Barrot's letter are satisfactory, then as far as the Socialist group is concerned, the affair is over," he said, adding: "Mr Barrot has expressed to me his regret that he did not bring up this issue earlier."

Behind the scenes, it seems that French socialists within the EU parliamentary group have been exerting strong pressure on Schulz. Some are arguing that Barrot had done nothing wrong in not disclosing the conviction – unsurprising in view of how many socialist politicians have also been caught with their fingers in the till.

Another Socialist insider added: "There wasn't much appetite for another big row with Barroso on his first day in office. We think it's time to get on with business."

There speaks the authentic voice of the political élites of Europe, summed up by Mark Starr of Leigh Sinton, Worcestershire, who this morning had a letter published in The Independent, criticising the newspaper for its stance on the issue. He wrote:

You were happy to see a committed Christian refused a post on the EU Commission; why not the same steely resolution to have Jacques Barrot, a convicted embezzler sacked?

Why indeed, we all ask. Back to UKIP it seems, to see whether they can stoke up the temperature again.

Gone native

Peter Mandelson certainly knows how to suck up to his new masters. In an interview today to Le Monde, to mark his first day as an EU commissioner, has insisted that the government declare a date by when the UK must join the euro.

He told the newspaper that he hoped the UK would seize the chance to join the euro as soon as conditions were right. "There is no prospect in the short term, but I hope the British government can set a target date for entry and that we can head into the euro with the agreement of the British people in a referendum."

Ten out of ten for little Mandy, and a gold star in his exercise book from Mr Barroso. And guess who has no chance of getting a Christmas card from Gordon?

Softening us up

Less than a week ago, on this Blog, we reported that the EU was working on tightening up its voluntary code of practice on arms exports, the text of which would be presented to the European Council on 17 December.

Today, courtesy of AFP, we hear that the EU is ready to give China a "positive signal" about lifting a 15-year-old arms embargo, when delegates meet at a bilateral summit next month. Dutch foreign minister Bernard Bot, speaking for the EU presidency, said "Europe's" message to Beijing at a December 8 China-EU summit will be upbeat.

Is this a coincidence? Is it heck – the earlier announcement was just part of the process of softening us up so that, when the new code of practice is announced, there will not be too many protests at lifting the arms ban on China.

Then, as we have so often warned, France and Germany will be rushing to sell the Chinese PLA all the high-tech arms it wants… for a price. And, since the code of practice will be voluntary, there will be nothing to stop them.

Commission tries damage limitation

Once again from a Reuters news report, we have an update on l’affair Barrot. The new commission, we are told, has spent its first day in office trying to quell a storm over M. "wheel" Barrot’s previously undisclosed, pardoned conviction.

Barrot has written to the president of the EU parliament acknowledging that he had been "the object of a judicial procedure opened in 1995 and closed on February 23, 2000 concerning all leaders of the Centre of Social Democrats (CDS)".

In the letter, made public by the commission, Barrot claims he has never been barred from holding public office. But he did not say on what charges he had been found guilty nor what sentence he received, arguing that since the conviction was subject to a 1995 pardon, it ceased to exist under French law and he had not felt a duty to make it known.

A commission spokeswoman said that commission president Barroso would rather have been informed about the matter from the outset and not learned about it only last Thursday. But she said he believed Barrot had now explained the case satisfactorily and should be allowed to get down to his job as transport commissioner.

"Mr Barroso feels that under these conditions Mr Barrot will be an excellent commissioner," the spokeswoman said, describing the offences involved as "minor and amnestied". She declined to say whether Barroso would make Barrot resign if a majority in the EU parliament believed he should go, saying it was a hypothetical question.

Interestingly, if the commission decribes presiding over a £2.5 million illegal party funding scam a "minor" offence, one really does have to wonder what you would have to do for it to be considered "major". But there again, commission standards, this probably is a minor offence.

A soft, flaccid campaign

We are glad to see that we are not the only Blog on the street which has reservations about the direction being taken by the self-appointed "Vote No" campaign. See here.

The site picks up on the report in The Business yesterday, detailing a poll on the EU constitution conducted on 17 to 18 November by ICM. It finds a record 69 percent against signing up, with 24 percent in favour, with 7 percent saying they were undecided.

The Sun gives the details today, as well, noting that the poll showed undecided voters are becoming more opposed to giving Brussels sweeping powers.

One question, now, is whether the "Vote No" campaign can confuse the issue sufficiently to drive public opinion towards favouring the constitution. A poster of Graham Copp should do the trick.

By the way, Helen has also posted her comments about the "Vote No" campaign, on the UKIP London Assembly site.

New Commissioner for External Affairs speaks

In case you were wondering, the new Commissioner for External Affairs is Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the former Austrian Foreign Minister. It was a stroke of genius of some kind to give the job to somebody who represents one of the small member states and a “neutral” one at that. What exactly can Frau Ferrero-Waldner do?

Well, she can make statements and, fortunately, Rachel Sylvester of the Daily Telegraph is on hand to pass these on to the populace. Frau Ferrero-Waldner thinks that the EU should have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, an idea we have already referred to in the past.

The EU, she thinks, should take a more “communal approach to international bodies like the UN”. Indeed, as we have pointed out on numerous occasions there is a close ideological connection between the two bodies, both being part of the attempt to create transnational, “post-democratic” governance by self-appointed hierarchies.

"The more we speak with one voice, the better for us and the better for Europe.We are not important if we don't speak with one voice."

It is not clear from that statement who “we” are and who “Europe” is and why should anything be better for any of them. However, she touches obliquely on the underlying problem when she explains that the argument over the war in Iraq is “regrettable”. Not so much regrettable, surely, as inevitable. How can “Europe” speak with one voice if it does not have one opinion to express? Whose voice is going to control the other tongues, in Frau Ferrero-Waldner’s view?

In the new Commissioner’s opinion an EU seat will not mean that France and Britain will have to give up their permanent seats. That could result in interesting results with the three voting in three separate ways or it could emulate the Soviet precedent in the UN General Assembly, when the USSR had in effect three seats, two of the republics having seats of their own.

There is another aspect to this whole problem. As we have written before, Germany is canvassing round the world for support for a permanent seat of her own. Joschka Fischer is ignoring all calls for European solidarity. Italy is watching developments with interest and so are Brazil and India. If Germany achieves her aim, the others will follow.

Once countries acquire permanent seats on the UN Security Council they will not want to give these up. With so many of them, plus the rotating members, each with a veto, the chances of another resolution are about nil, which is all to the good. The argument for regional seats will then become more convoluted and less popular with the big beasts of each region.

That will leave the European Union, which is trying to be a region and a state at the same time. If France, Britain, Germany, Italy and the EU have permanent seats, there will be a huge outcry about the body being unfairly weighed in Europe’s favour. Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner may well regret her comments.

Sacrificed on the altar of Blair’s Euro-ambitions

The coverage started last week with a report in the Wall Street Journal, reported in this Blog and other newspapers; it was picked up yesterday by The Sunday Times and, today, it gets coverage in The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and The Independent.

Perhaps the most disingenuous headline comes from The Guardian, which proclaims: "EU peace forces ready in new year", as if it was somehow all right to have an EU Army as long as it has the label "peace" attached to it.

Compare and contrast with the earlier report from the WSJ, cited in the Blog which had French defence minister Michele Alliot-Marie claiming that the EU has ambitions to extend its military forces "so as to be capable of sending a large combat force comprising tens of thousands of troops to fight their way into hostile territory."

Whatever The Guardian might imply, therefore, there can be no doubt now that the underlying motivation of the EU – driven primarily by that bunch of crooks that call themselves the French government – is to form its own, conventional army under an EU flag.

And what is an army for? The primary purpose is the defence of national territory, but the EU does not have any territory as such – which leaves the secondary, albeit vital purpose of protecting national interests abroad, a projection of the national foreign policy. And, if it is an EU Army, which "national interests" will it protect, one might ask. The answer is, of course, the EU's "national" interests (as largely dictated by that bunch of crooks that call themselves the French government).

By any measure, therefore, an EU Army is another step towards creating a "European identity", a common "European interest" and another building block in the creation of a European state.

We are thus entirely at one with the Telegraph leader entitled "Save us from an EU Army". "What else has to happen to convince our politicians that an EU army is not a threat but a reality?" the Telegraph asks. So powerful is the leader that we have reproduced chunks of it here:

It was five years ago that Romano Prodi told a newspaper (The Independent): "If you don't want to call it a European army, fine. You can call it Margaret, you can call it Mary-Ann." Yet we are still in denial. The Tory defence spokesman, Nicholas Soames, speaks rather touchingly of the need for "any EU defence contribution" to be "under the Nato umbrella".

Tony Blair, in the run-up to the signing of the EU constitution, declared that autonomy in the field of defence was one of Britain's "red lines". Already, though, forces with EU cap-badges are patrolling Macedonia and the Congo. In 10 days' time, the EU will deploy 7,000 soldiers in Bosnia. These troops are answerable, not to Nato, nor to any national capital, but to the EU's
politico-military structures.

Lest any doubt remain, Article 15 of the proposed European Constitution reads, "The Common Foreign and Security Policy shall cover all aspects of foreign policy and all questions relating to Europe's security" (our italics). As we report today, Britain will join a new 3,000-strong EU Elite Strike Force (each of these three words flirting with the Trades Descriptions Act).

Do not make the mistake of thinking that the CFSP affects only such troops as are explicitly seconded to EU command. On the contrary, European law dictates whom the MoD may hire: yesterday's news dwelt on the ruling that 8,000 Commonwealth Servicemen would be obliged to take British nationality without mentioning the reason - that European law forbids us to discriminate in favour of "third country nationals".

It lays down our disciplinary procedures, forcing us to use civil law rather than courts martial. It tells us whom we may fire: a judgment five years ago held that women who left the Services as a result of becoming pregnant must be compensated in defiance of the terms of their contracts. And, worst of all, it distorts our defence procurement, emphasising pan-European defence schemes, such as the ludicrous Eurofighter, over more cost-effective projects.

There are good reasons why we should co-operate with our European allies on defence matters. We are already doing so: British troops are currently active in, among other things, an Anglo-French air corps, an Anglo-Italian rapid reaction force and an Anglo-Dutch amphibious unit. None of these required EU intervention: all were agreed bilaterally. What is unfolding is qualitatively different from such collaboration.

Thus, concludes the Telegraph, "We are in the process of creating an autonomous EU military capacity separate from Nato and above any single nation-state."

The leader-writer is absolutely right. As Booker and I observed in our own book, The Great Deception, for Tony Blair this is a handy way to demonstrate his European credentials while remaining outside the single currency, a process started with the summit between Blair and l’escroc Chirac at St Malo in 1998.

"But," says the Telegraph, "for the rest of us, it means that our true strategic interests - and, in particular, our alliances with other free, English-speaking nations - are being tossed aside for the sake of Euro-dogma." Not precisely that, we would aver. Sacrificed on the altar of Blair's Euro-ambitions, we would say.

Piggy in the middle

A report from Reuters indicates that poor little Jose Manuel Barroso is sailing – if such a neutral word can be appropriate – into stormy waters. Perhaps "hurtling" would be a better one.

Amongst those who have now got over their initial indignation at Farage pointing out that the emperor has no clothes is MEP Graham Watson, leader of the 87-member strong Liberal group in the EU parliament. Even he is now saying that Jacques "wheel" Barrot should quit or be suspended until questions over his conviction have been resolved.

"To avoid serious damage to the standing of the new Commission," he says in a statement, "I call on Mr Barrot to resign, or at the very least to ask to be relieved of his duties until this matter can be discussed and resolved between the Parliament, the Commission and the Council (of ministers)".

Remarks Reuters, this dashes any hope of a political honeymoon for Barroso's 25-member commission. Actually, it is much more serious than that. With Jacques Toubon, a UMP member, pitching in to defend Barrot, he has broken the unofficial truce between French politicians that exists in the EU parliament – whereby there is an unwritten agreement not to wash dirty linen in public.

The French socialists will now scent blood and their influence will be enough to turn the whole of the 200-member PSE, the EU parliament’s socialist group, against Barrot.

The other groups, which comprise the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, and the Confederal Group of the European United Left, with 42 and 41 members, respectively, plus of course the Independence/Democracy Group (of which Farage is co-president), weighing in at 36, and finally the Union for Europe of the Nations Group with 27, put the anti-Barrot faction at 433 votes, giving it a clear majority in the 731-member parliament, discounting the independents, who number 30 – some of whom will be anti-Barrot.

Even if the 268-member EPP could hold the line in its own ranks, therefore (and that is unlikely, since the British membership, including the Conservatives – with 28 members – must surely break away) that means there are more than enough "antis" to force a vote of confidence and demand that Barroso sack Barrot.

But, as my colleague pointed out in her earlier posting, Barroso cannot actually fire a single (or any) commissioner. Each are appointed by their respective member states, and can only be withdrawn by them. That leaves the "nuclear option" of the EU parliament firing the whole commission, which would cause an unprecedented crisis, greater in proportion than the 1999 Santer crisis.

On the other hand, there is Chirac who, at this stage of the game, cannot afford to give the socialists a victory. If past experience is any guide, he will go into a huff and refuse to budge. That leaves Barroso as "piggy in the middle" unable to go anywhere, also precipitating a major crisis in the EU, with a fatally wounded commission.

So saying, the "colleagues" have a habit of drawing back from the abyss at the last moment, so the thing could all fizzle out, albeit after a few spectacular fireworks. But Chirac is already heavily wounded at home and it would be unlike the socialists to pass up an opportunity to wound him still further. Domestic politics, therefore, may dictate the game, irrespective of the damage caused to the EU.

In fact, the EU is already damaged by l’affair Barrot, so it is just a question of how much more will be caused. And that leaves Farage, who started it all. I do hope his life insurance premiums are fully paid up.

Curioser and curioser

The Ministry of Defence gets more and more outrageous. Having shown itself to be completely unable to provide British troops with necessary clothing and equipment, it is now demanding that all those Commonwealth servicemen and women who have served loyally and valiantly in the British forces, take British citizenship as a test of their loyalty.

Completely mad. In the first place, if they really are Al-Quaeda “sleepers”, will they be any less so with a British passport? In the second place, I have no doubt that many of the young men who went off and joined Al-Quaeda or the Taliban or the neo-Ba’athists are British citizens and got through many borders with their British passports.

Still, it is all rather puzzling. As I understand it, we are all now EU citizens, whether we like it or not. Certainly, the Maastricht Treaty said so and that was not changed either in Amsterdam or Nice. The new Constitution reaffirms it. Does this mean that all those valiant Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, South Africans and others, will have to become part of the European project? Has the MoD told them this glad news?

So now we know ... as if we didn't before

Today’s Sunday Telegraph carries an article by Peter Bradley, MP for The Wrekin and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Alun Michael the egregious and pusillanimous rural affairs minister. Knowing as one does (at a distance) MPs, particularly of the Labour variety, it strikes one as inherently improbable that the man actually penned anything himself. But the thoughts or, rather, the venom and undisguised triumphalism must be his.

It seems that the people who said that the war on hunting was a latter day class war were right. The Labour MPs still perceive the hunting community as a bunch of toffs who need to be brought to heel. They seem not to have noticed that the vast majority or people who hunt, follow hunts, work for and with hunts or benefit from their presence and activity are not toffs.

Mr Bradley’s admission goes a little further than he may have intended. After all, even if he believes that only toffs hunt he must have realized that their power is strictly limited, as compared with his own (though not when the Party Whip comes to call). Nor is it a question of riches. As we know from recent revelations, MPs are not precisely on the poverty line. In fact, they live rather well, indeed, all at our expense.

No, the problems is that:

“Labour governments have come and gone and left little impression on the gentry.But a ban on hunting touches them. It threatnes their inalieanable right to do what they please on their own land. For the first time, a decision of a Parliament they don’t control has breached the lodge gates. The old families have come to realise that though they may still own the country, they are not controlling it.”

Setting aside that idiotic comment about the great families owning the country (how many houses with a good deal of land attached to them do Labour MPs own, one wonders) this is a chilling comment on modern political mores. I am not of the landed gentry and there are no lodge gates outside my very ordinary house. But I do believe that, short of the obviously criminal, I should have the inalienable right to do what I please on my own land with no Labour MP or government interfering.

The hunt ban is not about class war any more than it is about the welfare of animals or wild life management. The Countryside Alliance, the hunting fraternity and their supporters thought for a long time that they could persuade their opponents by reasonable arguments and peaceful demonstrations.

According to Mr Bradley, when the Countryside Alliance said “Listen to us”, they really meant “Do what we say”. As the Alliance did not tell anyone to hunt or to do anything but leave people alone to get on with their lives and to understand what might be a different but interesting and fulfilling way of life, one must assume that Mr Bradley and his colleagues are bothered by those concepts. How dare these people say they just want to get on with their lives? How dare they be indifferent to Labour governments and Labour politicians? How dare they insist that the communities that have grown up organically over centuries are more important than those artificially created by the government and its servants?

It is all a question of power, adds Mr Bradley, a question of who governs the country, deliberately invoking Ted Heath’s fatuous election slogan of 1974. So now we know. Power in our supposedly democratic country (please, don’t snigger) is about Labour MPs having the complete, unfettered right to decide how people lead their lives, what they are allowed to do and how they are allowed to behave on their own land and in their own communities. Anyone who opposes that, “declares war on the government” and on Labour MPs, whose right to govern was infringed on by people who opposed the ban on hunting.

Uneasily, one has to ask oneself what else Mr Bradley may decide infringes on his ability to govern and his right ot power. Will he and his colleagues announce that people who are campaigning for a no vote in the EU Constitution referendum have declared war on the government by opposing its instructions? Sounds far-fetched but then many of Mr Bradley’s comments are far-fetched.

While on the Continent they do not understand the fuss about hunting and see the all-embracing row as a sign of British eccentricity, the motivation of the Labour MPs is entirely comprehensible to all who are trying to build the “European dream”. Whether they pretend that it is for our own good or for animal welfare or mangement of wildlife or to prevent ecological disaster, the underlying imperative is the same: it is about power, about who governs, about who calls the shots. And if you do not like it, if you oppose us, we shall crush you.

Or we shall try. For, in the end, they will not triumph unless they are prepared to use a great deal of force and build prisons to rival Stalin’s gulag.

Meanwhile I fear for Mr Bradley’s sanity. He will find, like the Bolsheviks of old, that removing or oppressing the ruling class will not suffice. Ever new members of the enemy class will spring up and he and his colleagues will have to deal with them all. And then more will appear. And more. And still they will go on defying his right to govern and to rule people’s lives and to assert their inalienable right to do as they please on their own land. Worse than that, most of them will own themselves to be entirely ignorant of Peter Bradley’s existence. Oh the infamy of it all.

Barrot – a French perspective

A report in the French newspaper Liberation on l’affair Barrot gives some insight into why Hans-Gert Pöttering, president of the conservative EPP group, leapt so quickly to the defence of the embattled transport commissioner when he came under attack from Nigel Farage.

In the piece, headed "Toubon to the rescue of the commissioner attacked by an MEP", it appears that MEP Jacques Toubon, on hearing the attack, went into a red mist of rage (actually: "un zébulon rogue de rage", a "zébulon" being a cartoon character with a spring in place of his legs), leapt out of his seat and turned on Pöttering, gesturing so violently that some thought he might hit him.

And who is this Jacques Toubon? Well, apart from being a member of the UMP – Chirac’s party – he was in the minister of justice in the 1995 Juppé government which piloted through the terms of Chirac’s general pardon for politicians who had broken the election rules. And it was, according to the Liberation report, as a result of a briefing by Toubon that Pöttering claimed that, "Never, at any time, did Jacques Barrot commit an offence."

On the European Parliamentary Labour web site, there is much crowing that, in response to the attack, "the mutual applause, back slapping and agreement on policy between the French Fascist party of Jean Marie Le Pen and UKIP became all to clear." Le Pen, the site continues, "could hardly contain his enthusiasm for Mr Farage's vicious personal attacks on individual Commissioners and his undiluted xenophobic attitudes to the EU."

However, from the Liberation report, we read that, while there was "outcry on the right", the main reaction came with "gibes on the left" where MEPs, to the discomfort of Toubon, imitated the noise of a helicopter.

This is a reference to Toubon’s action in 1996, while still justice minister, of hiring a helicopter in the Himalayas to search for the public prosecutor of the Départements Essonne in southern Paris, who was on holiday there. Toubon was desperate to ask the prosecutor to instruct his own deputy to stop releasing incriminating documents about Xavière Tibéri, wife of the then mayor of Paris - and a pal of Chirac - in an ongoing investigation on vote-rigging and corruption. (See: here and here).

Clearly, there is much bad blood between the socialists and the right-wing UMP on this. But where this leaves us is hard to predict, although there is a possibility now that l'affair Barrot will be subsumed in the vicious in-fighting between French political factions, and become a cause celèbre.

Farage may have lit the touch paper, but this may turn out to be a bomb rather than a firecracker. On the other hand, he may have poked a stick into a hornets' nest.

For more about these frightful Frogs, read the posting on Jonathan Lockhart's Blog.

Some free advice

Just how damaging the Kyoto agreement might be to the economies of EU member states has been brought home by a recent study carried out for the pan-European industry group, UNICE.

No doubt for an exhorbitant fee, the study was carried out by the COWI consultancy group, using its GTAP-ECAT model (Global Trade Analysis Project - European Carbon Allowance Trading), with which it has calculated the economic effects in 2010 of EU climate-change-linked policies under various sets of assumptions. The full report is available on the UNICE site.

COWI finds that implementing the Kyoto protocol might hit the economies of the member states five times as hard as predicted by the EU commission, shaving 0.48 percent from their combined GDPs by 2010 - two years into the protocol's 2008-12 compliance window. The EU commission had forecast a drop in GDP of only 0.1 percent, though its study used a very different economic model.

The models also predict a drop in exports of around 0.5 percent, rising to as much as 5.1 percent for "energy-intensive" exports. Emissions outside the EU would rise by as much as a fifth as economic activity moves away from EU member states, thus eroding the benefits of lower emissions at home.

Predictably, therefore, UNICE calls for a radical change in the EU's climate change policy, with Nick Campbell, head of UNICE’s climate working group arguing that, "The study shows that if we keep pushing forward these policies, there could be a problem".

Unfortunately, UNICE then retreats into jargon, calling for the EU to build a "truly international climate regime, perhaps blending absolute emission caps with target-free strategies to reduce energy intensity and disseminate cleaner technologies." From where do they drag up this impenetrable garbage?

In the same vein, Campbell argues that: "EU leadership means getting [countries] round a table and seeing how to curb global emissions in such a way that doesn't harm competitiveness."

Herein lies the problem with this group. Tied in so close to the "monster" it simply cannot see the wood for the trees. Any which way you stack it, Kyoto is seriously bad news and will harm competitiveness, no matter how it is implemented.

The only answer - if you agree that "global warming" is the problem the statists and eco-freaks make out - is to junk Kyoto, build nuclear and ditch all the rest of the crap. And I would have told them that for nothing - in fact, I just did.

An old-fashioned textbook - and none the worse for it

All of us who have had to speak, give interviews, take part in media discussions on the EU know how little is known or understood about the project outside the small circle of political nerds. (Yes, indeed, as I have said before, I, too am one of them, knowing, as I do, the difference between the European Council and the Council of Ministers, not to mention where the IGC fits into the scheme.)

Each and every time we seem to have to go back to basics and one wonders what happens to people’s memories between various large events, such as a new treaty or a constitution. It is reassuring to find that each time there are more people around who remember and understand but … well, mostly, back to basics it is.

Fortunately, there are papers and pamphlets around that deal with the basics and can be used or quoted. The recently published Britain and the European Project by Christopher Hoskin is one such. This is a June Press publication and can be ordered from them at a specially reduced price of £3.00.

Mr Hoskin, who tells us that he has a degree in philosophy from Cambridge “and has closely followed the European debate for many years”, writes in a breezy and chatty style. For my taste, there are far too many sentences starting with the word “now” used as an interjection but other readers might approve.

I would also query some of his arguments. He seems to be a historian of the super-whig school, who sees only the good things in British history (Toleration Act but no Test Acts, respect for rights and property but not how late the Married Woman’s Property Act was passed etc). I have no real problem with it except that when the same method is applied to the twentieth century and the constitutional set-up, it becomes difficult to understand how we ended up in the mess we are in.

If I may also be slightly picky, it is time to abandon the line about the huge success with which Britain disembarrassed herself of her empire. As one thinks of the massacres on the Indian sub-continent and surveys the disastrous post-colonial history of Africa, one needs to query some of the assumptions about decolonization and the events that followed it. On the other hand, there were no catastrophic colonial wars like the ones France had in Vietnam and Algeria. This, too, must be noted.

With all those cavils, this is a remarkably useful paper because it does precisely what we need to do: it goes back to basics and spells them out in a way that everyone, even school children can understand. Though, I suspect, arguments made to politicians will have to be made even simpler. Perhaps Mr Hoskin can be persuaded to produce a Janet and John version for MPs and MEPs.

Extruded verbal material

Whatever is happening in the mainstream, there are always "noises off", and part of this Blog’s function is to listen to them and report.

One of those "noises" this weekend is Jack McConnell, Scotland’s "first minister", addressing the European Movement's Scottish conference in Perth on Saturday. Before doing, the ever-willing BBC gave him the opportunity to expound his views on the forthcoming EU referendum.

Lo and behold, Jack McConnell gave his backing to the "yes" vote, proclaiming that it would be in the best interests of Scotland and the UK. Our Jack agrees "with the idea of and the reality of the new European Union Constitution which will open up the European Union to more transparency and will improve the position of Scotland within the United Kingdom within the European Union."

However, what continues to fascinate is what few arguments these lame Europhile have to back up their enthusiasm. Says our Jack, "There are massive advantages for Scotland in our membership of the EU, well over 250,000 Scottish jobs rely on exports to the European Union into the single market. That single market will be increasingly important as financial services and other areas open up to more liberalisation."

Yea, right, as they say. The EU will stop buying Scotch whisky and Edinburgh lawyers and bankers – to say nothing of the drug dealers - will stop buying Mercedes cars if we don’t sign up to the constitution? How about a little walk up the hill with Jill, Jack? It might help clear what passes for a brain.

Booker

While the shenanigans in Brussels continue to entertain us, Christopher Booker is his column today chooses for his lead "The battle of Hastings", thus reminding us of why this dire construct which calls itself the European Union is so loathed.

The story, then, of this new "battle" centres around the strange case of Paul Joy, the leader of the fishermen in Hastings, Sussex, and, as Booker observes, it "strikingly llustrates the gulf between our fishermen and the ministers and officials of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who rule their lives on behalf of Brussels."

Therein lies the crunch. While the politicians in Brussels and Strasbourg prance and posture, and the crooks gather up their salaries and state pensions, real people with real lives are being totally screwed up by a system which does nothing other than interfere with their lives and turn them into criminals.

At the sharp edge are Mr Joy and his colleague Graeme Bosom, who face criminal prosecution and possible fines of £50,000 for breaking fishing quota rules - even though Defra admits that there are no quota rules for them to break.

He and Mr Bosom operate small fishing boats which are daily hauled down the Hastings shingle, part of the largest such beach-based fleet in Europe. They have been fishing like this in Hastings since the Middle Ages, and in 1588, for their services in repelling the Spanish Armada, the local fishermen were granted the right to fish the neighbouring grounds in perpetuity.

The Hastings boats are small, less than 10 metres long, so they are not subject to many of the rules of the Common Fisheries Policy that apply to larger boats. As Franz Fischler, the EU's former fisheries commissioner, has confirmed, they do not have to keep logbooks or have special permits. Nor do they require individual quotas to fish, though their catches must remain within an annual limit allocated by Defra from the total cod-catch permitted by Brussels in the Channel (of which French fishermen receive 18,000 tonnes and English fishermen 1,750 tonnes).

In September 2003, cod were so abundant in the waters off Hastings that whenever Mr Joy was out fishing for plaice he could not avoid pulling in a "by-catch" of mature cod. He was not troubled by this, since Hastings was still way below its yearly allocation, and each catch was registered by a Defra inspector.

It was not until the following month that Mr Joy was told he faced criminal charges for breaching his licensing conditions by landing too many cod. Defra, it appears, had decided that the annual cod allowance for the Hastings fishermen should be divided into 12 equal portions, each to be regarded as a "monthly allocation".

Both Mr Joy and Mr Bosom, similarly charged, are on legal aid. The mystery to be unravelled by their lawyers, who include experts in both European and criminal law, is how they can be charged for exceeding a notional "monthly allocation" when, at the time of their alleged offence, three-quarters of the way through the year, only 53 per cent of their annual allocation had been caught.

The case is so puzzling that Mr Joy and his colleague have won cross-party support, from both their Labour MP, Michael Foster, and the local prospective Tory candidate, Mark Coote, who has also now been backed by the Tories' front-bench fisheries spokesman, Owen Paterson MP. Mr Foster, himself a lawyer, has written to the fisheries minister, Ben Bradshaw, asking why, across the EU, it appears to be only in Britain that small inshore fishermen are penalised in this way.

Mr Paterson, who recently visited Hastings as part of a nation-wide tour of fishing communities, says: "At every port I visit, from Shetland to Newlyn, from Fleetwood to Whitby, I find similar anomalies, as evidence of a ministry which seems to have declared war on our fishermen."

Meanwhile the fate of Mr Joy and Mr Bosom will be decided in Lewes Crown Court in January.
How strange it is that the criminals are in charge in Brussels while honest men have to fight for their livelihoods in the criminal courts of Britain.

For his second story, Booker brings to the fore the situation observed in the Blog where the BBC "You and Yours" programme had covered the chaos that will be unleashed on January 1 when John Prescott's new Part P regulations come into force, applying to all domestic electrical work – yet had completely ignored the EU dimension.

Interestingly, as I write this piece, the BBC Radio 4 one o’clock news programme has just run an interview with EU information commissioner Margot Wallström in a piece without an obvious "news hook". As such, it can only qualify as gratuitous propaganda, part of the low-grade barrage of pro-EU material that the BBC continually trots out, while avoiding any news on the malign effects of the construct it so loves.

Back to Booker, his third piece picks on the Treasury report by Alan Wood, billed as being a great attack by Gordon Brown on the failings of the EU's "procurement rules". This we have also covered in the Blog.

That leave Booker to conclude with an update on the "coup" pulled off by Nigel Farage last Thursday in Strasbourg. "Even before starting work," writes Booker, "it seems Mr Barroso's team could be facing embarrassments as great as those which led to the resignation of the entire Commission in 1999. How apt, it may be thought, that this was set in train by a party which wishes to see Britain out of the EU altogether.

Funnily enough, Margot Wallström didn’t mention this in her piece for the BBC today. I wonder why not.

Poor old Barroso

If ever there was a man who could mutter with feeling Henry IV’s comments about the head that wears the crown lying uneasy, it is commission president Barroso. Not even a crown but the fake presidency of a fake republic. Why, he must be wondering, did he ever agree to this supposed elevation? He must have been much happier fighting the Portuguese trade unions.

His first commission had to be withdrawn with two commissioners replaced. Now his brand new (well, practically) commission is under fire again for no good reason. After all what’s a fraud conviction (complete with presidential pardon) between friends?

The worst of it is that he is not precisely in charge of the whole shebang. It is all very well for the egregious Lib-Dim Lord Watson to proclaim pompously that a man like Jacques "wheel" Barrot must not be allowed to hold the post of transport commissioner but what is Barroso to do?

Moving him to another post will not solve the problem. He cannot replace him. Only president Chirac can do that and he is not, to quote another Shakespeare play, "in a giving mood". Actually, unlike Richard III, Chirac is never in a giving mood, unless it is a question of presidential pardons to political cronies.

That is how the system works and the MEPs had better get used to it. The individual countries nominate their commissioners. The President allots them jobs. The European Parliament votes the whole lot in or out. The process has now been completed. We shall see whether anyone will have enough courage to open it up again.

President Barroso must be wondering very uneasily what other scandal might emerge about his precious commissioners.

Switzerland and the EU

Under the title Helvetian Swan Song? Dr Marian L. Tupy, Assistant Director of the Project on Global Economic Liberty at the Cato Institute, examines the implications of the Switzerland’s recent accession to the Schengen Treaty.

Tupy points out that the passport-free movement across the EU, which the Swiss should have had without any difficulty, was granted in return for the Swiss surrendering their cherished banking independence. No, this had nothing to do with money laundering or even those elusive Nazi accounts. Quite simply, Germany was desperate to prevent haemorrhage of money out of its own high-tax economy. So, pressure was put on the Swiss and, in order to be able to travel round the continent, they had to comply.

Swiss banks will be required to inform on the account of money the EU citizens hold in Swiss bank acoounts, or else will have to assess a 35 per cent tax on the EU citizens’ savings, 75 per cent of which will be repatriated to the appropriate EU governments. In exchange, German police will no longer harass Swiss traders and travellers – at least for now.

Dr Tupy, who, in the past, has displayed inexplicable optimism about the EU's capacity to reform, is now deeeply pessimistic. He foresees and end to Switzerland’s independence and an ever-extending and ever-tightening grip by the EU.

The likelihood is that the money will, in the first place, go somewhere else where the German government and the EU can have no power. Secondarily, one suspects that the Swiss will think of a way of circumventing an agreement that so seriously undermines their economy. And Germany and the others will go on haemorrhaging money. The only answer is to reform its tax system but that seems beyond most continental governments (or the British one, for that matter).

French constitution vote on the brink

Sleuths in the Independent today have picked up an inside story from last week’s meeting between Blair and Chirac, reporting that Chirac has warned that French Socialists could destroy the EU constitution.

Chirac believes there is there is now a strong possibility that France will reject the constitution when it votes in a referendum next year. "If the vote was held today, we would lose it," Mr Chirac has also been saying this to anxious visitors and telephone callers from other European capitals.

The President's pessimism is based on assessments by the French security services, and by Mr Chirac's own sensitive political antennae, of the likely outcome of a ballot of members of the 120,000 members of the Parti Socialiste on 1 December.

France's main opposition party - created by the passionately pro-European François Mitterrand - is split down the middle with the party's first secretary, François Hollande, campaigning for a "yes" vote while his number two, former prime minister and finance minister Laurent Fabius, has been pleading for a "no".

If the party's 120,000 "militants", or card-carrying members, vote on 1 December to commit the Socialist Party to campaign for a "non", it is difficult to see how Chirac could win the nationwide referendum, expected in the second half of next year.

If France does vote "non", the treaty, says the Independent, would be a dead letter. It is inconceivable that other EU countries could implement the new arrangements, excluding or marginalising a country like France, which is politically, economically and historically part of Europe's "core".

EU's renewed aid brings immediate trouble to Togo

(Warning: This is a UKIP and Nigel Farage-free posting.)

Togo’s President Gnassigbe Eyadema took power 37 years ago in a coup and is now Africa’s longest “serving” dictator. Despite his rather unsavoury reputation the EU continued to provide him with aid until 1993 when hundreds of people were killed in what is bizarrely described by Voice of America as “election violence”.

At that point the EU broke off diplomatic relations and suspended aid, vowing not to renew either until free and fair elections are held in the country. They have not been held. But, as the BBC World Service describes in its own inimitable way:

“Last Monday, EU officials said they had noted initial moves toward democratic and human rights reforms and would support humanitarian and human rights projects.”

No doubt President Eyadema was feeling some shortage in his own exchequer.

Yesterday was the happy day on which diplomatic relations were to be renewed and aid resumed. In celebration thousands marched through in a good-humoured way, we are told, through the capital, Lome. When they reached the presidential palace they all tried to push in with the inevitable result. Thirteen people have been declared killed and about fifty injured but it is unlikely that the toll will not rise.

The question does arise why these people were marching joyfully and why did they try to push in to the palace yard. According to the BBC again:

Government spokesman Pitang Tchalla said organisers of the celebration "underestimated the enthusiasm of participants who turned out in unexpected large numbers for today's event, meant to express thanks to the European Union and support for President Eyadema."

This seems completely bizarre. One can only suppose that there had been some promise of food for the marchers, as it is unlikely that the average citizen of Togo, ruled by President Eyadema, gets such an enormous amount of it. One can further suppose that there was an assumption that the aid will appear immediately in the palace yard and be distributed. Did the EU officials bother to find out what sort of arrangements had been made?

The sewers of Brussels

No, not a story about the Urban Waste Water Directive, and the spelling is wrong – for "sewers" read "suers", of the legal type.

Some EU previous commissioners, particularly from the bit of the country that that was left off an EU brochure recently, acquired a ferocious reputation for resorting to high-paid libel lawyers. Many ended up tens of thousands of pounds richer, creamed out of the coffers of unwilling newspapers, when their journalists were less than precise in their stories.

To judge from the coverage in the Daily Mail of the Barrot story, it seems too that M. Barrot may shortly be very much wealthier. Its headline blares out an accusation that cannot be repeated here, otherwise this Blog may be joining the ranks of those who will shortly be receiving an expensive solicitor’s letters.

Suffice to say that M. Barrot was most definitely not convicted of anything that could be interpreted as self-enrichment. The crime for which he was found guilty, as set out in our previous post (see link above) related to the "laundering" of illegal donations for use in the presidential election campaign of 1995.

Mr Farage, in the Mail piece, has also made some unfortunate comments – which were not aired on the floor of the EU parliament, and could not, therefore, be covered under the heading of factual reporting. He may find that he has cost the Mail a substantial amount of money.

Those readers who are tempted to refer publicly to this matter, therefore, are enjoined to read very carefully the previous posting, and confine themselves to the facts, as they are known, and not the somewhat misjudged accusations of an MEP who has clearly been poorly briefed.

Otherwise, they may become rather too familiar with the wrong sort of sewer.

Was Barrot barred?

In response to the revelation by Nigel Farage about the nefarious past of M. "wheel" Barrot, the commissioner’s lawyers have issued a statement, retailed by AFP, declaring that: "Mr Barrot has never been found unfit for public office (and) has never been barred from public office."

In The Telegraph today this is elaborated, with M. Barrot accusing Farage of "defamation". "While admitting the central allegation," writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, "he denied Mr Farage's claim that he had also been subjected to a two-year ban on public office." "He must withdraw his comments. Legal avenues are always open," Barrot is cited as saying.

Getting to the facts of this case are, in fact, extraordinarily difficult, undoubtedly because of the "gagging order" imposed on it. But, as far as we can ascertain, the egregious M. Barrot, then former social affairs and minister for labour, was arraigned on 6 December 1999 at the tribunal correctionnel de Paris.

He stood alongside two other former ministers on charges of "breach of trust" and attempts to conceal beach of trust in relation to illegal financing of the CDS. These related to concealment of donations of nearly 25 million francs, from companies and private individuals, laundered though a Swiss Bank, used illegally to finance election campaigns.

The other two in the dock were Pierre Méhaignerie, former minister for Justice and Bernard Bosson, former minister for equipment and transport. At the same session, M. François Froment-Meurice, a political adviser, was also arraigned on similar charges, plus forgery. The prosecutor did not ask for a penalty.

All four were convicted on 23 February 2000. Méhaignerie, Barrot and Froment-Meurice were each handed down eight-month suspended prison sentences. Bosson got four months.
The sentence did not include a provision for disbarring any of the convicts from holding office, but Barrot is nevertheless being disingenuous in claiming that he was not barred.

It appears that, under French electoral law, this happens automatically. Being found guilty of an offence that carried a prison sentence automatically disqualified those convicted from voting for five years and holding public office for ten.

In this case, the sentences were immediately quashed under a general pardon issued by president Chirac on 3 August 1995, after his election in the May, so Barrot is not actually disbarred from holding office. Technically, though, he was barred for ten years. However, in one of his several inaccuracies, Farage claimed "two years". In the strict words of that part of his denial, Barrot may therefore be right.

Clearly, this one is going to run and run.

Farage gets it wrong

Based on a UKIP press release and comments made by Nigel Farage in the EU parliament last Thursday, our previous posting on the EU commission’s growing embarrassment at the criminal tendencies of its new members alleged that the Estonian anti-fraud commissioner, Siim Kallas – like the French commissioner Jacques "wheel" Barrot – also had a criminal record.

This, according to our UKIP source, related to a financial scandal in 1993 when, while Kallas was at its head, the Bank of Estonia secretly transferred US $10million to a Swiss account as part of a dubious contract in which the Bank was supposed to receive highly improbable dividends from the oil trade.

As the beneficiaries of the $10 million did not bear any liabilities, Estonia lost all the money. Details of this scandal only seeped out three years later, and it took a further four years to put Mr Kallas in the dock, by which time he had long since left the Bank to found his own political party and had now become Minister of Finance.

According to UKIP, he was acquitted of abuse and fraud, thanks in no small part to the fact that his lawyer was a partner in the law firm of the then Justice Minister, who was a member of the party which Kallas had founded. However, we are told, "even this couldn't prevent Kallas from being found guilty of providing false information during the trials."

Actually, that is not quite what happened. According to the Central European Review, Kallas was convicted of the charges, but these were overturned on appeal, all bar one charge of providing false information, which was referred back to the lower courts.

Then, according to the same source, reporting on 30 October 2000, the four-year criminal case against Kallas finally came to a close when the lower court acquitted him of the charge.

Interestingly, the prosecutor in the case had decided to appeal, but Estonia's chief prosecutor, Raivo Sepp, overruled his deputy, took over the case and decided to end the appellate process. Sepp said he trusted the judicial system for making its judgements in this long-running case.

In the case, Kallas was represented by high-profile lawyer Indrek Teder, who happened to be the law partner of Justice Minister Märt Rask. All of them are members of the Reform Party, of which Kallas was the leader, from which readers are free to draw their own conclusions. As it stands, though, Kallas has not been convicted of any crime and thus does not have a criminal record.

It is understood that UKIP’s Nigel Farage, having made his initial accusation in the EU parliament was scheduled to strengthen his "revelations" on Kallas’s record this coming Monday. However, we note also that when he was challenged on the veracity of his accusations about M. Barrot, Farage claimed that he had made the comments, "having researched the case very carefully."

He went on to say: "I will make it perfectly clear: if it is proved that what I have said is wrong, if it is proved that my research is flawed, then of course, in those circumstances, I would withdraw the remarks and apologise wholeheartedly."

Clearly, his "research" on Kallas has not been conducted with the same degree of care. We now trust that he will take a second look at his "research" and concentrate instead on his more accurate accusations about Barrot. In his own interest, he may also wish to consider whether he should withdraw his remarks about Kallas and "apologise wholeheartedly".

The non-aggressive, nuanced military force

Who was quoted in one of yesterday’s newspapers in the following words:

“There are people on both sides of the conflict there interested only in warring with each other again. We have to prevent them. If they understand only the language of force, then perhaps force will be useful.”

President Bush, that incredibly uncouth warmonger? Donald Rumsfeld, that incredibly clever warmonger? Nope. Tony Blair, the undecided warmonger? Uh-uh. Any other leader of the 30 odd forces that are in Afghanistan and Iraq? Wrong again.

It was Michele Alliot-Marie, Defence Minister of that famously scrupulous, diplomatic and peace-loving country, France, in a conversation with the Wall Street Journal Europe. The people whose heads she was intending to knock together were the Ivorians.

As our readers will recall, France intervened in the Ivory Coast, intending to bring the government and the northern Muslim rebels together and sort the whole mess out. The mess remains resolutely unsorted, the violence has become worse, the government has accused the French of siding with the rebels, some French soldiers have been killed, the Ivorian air force destroyed and there are anti-French and generally anti-European riots in the capital and in Abidjan. A huge success, in other words.

Ms Alliot-Marie was talking about the immediate (well, almost immediate) appearance of a sizeable EU armed force, that will take its place beside that of the United States as an equal and will … well, what? Apparently it will rush around the world and sort problems out. Really? Have we not always been told that “Europeans” did not believe in using force and did not see matters in black and white or right and wrong, unlike the crude Americans (and their allies, let us not forget) but in shades of grey and sophisticated nuances?

Clearly, this is going to be a non-aggressive, nuanced kind of military force, except when it needs to sort out problems, when it will impose peaceful solutions by using NATO weapons, which just happen to be largely American.

Actually Mme MAM (as she is known in France) seems to have thought of that and she seems to have realized that the European force has been something of a joke on the international scene. Apparently, Donald Rumsfeld, has been sceptical. According to Mme MAM:

“This is what I’ve had a bit of difficulty getting Donald Rumsfeld to understand when I talked to him. For him, because we’ve been talking about European defence for 10 years, he says for 10 years it has been incapable of existing. And I say no, it’s now that it’s beginning to exist.”

Well, on paper, anyway. There are many plans for creating a European force and there are many structures in place to ensure that NATO ceases to function. But, to be fair to Mr Rumsfeld, he may have thought of the fiasco of the continuing war in Yugoslavia that was eventually brought to some sort of a conclusion by the Americans with British and some European help.

He may have recalled the 300 Eurocorps troops that went to Afghanistan and pleaded with the Canadians to stay on, as they could not cope. He may have heard something of the difficulties the NATO Secretary-General had when he tried to get the other members to contribute to the security of the Afghani elections, which had been described as top priority.

He may know how much money Europeans spend on defence and the way the British are intending to cut back on their forces in order to contribute to completely unnecessary and second-rate European electronic toys. And he may realize that, although, France is increasing its defence spending (not by much) its aim is to further its own plans, some of which verge on the neo-imperialist.

So far, the European force has had a small peacekeeping mission in Macedonia and a three-month mission in DR Congo, where most of the peacekeeping troops were French and where they spent their whole time holed up in the heavily guarded barracks, because it was too dangerous outside. What the purpose of the mission was, nobody could quite understand, but it was a famous mission.

Next month the EU is scheduled to take over peacekeeping duties in Bosnia and Herzegovina and problems have already surfaced. In the first place, it is not clear that there will be 7,900 troops to send in. In the second place, the Bosnians remember the EU’s role in their fight for independence – firmly on the side of Milosevic’s Serbia.

According to Mme MAM, taking over in Kosovo is, at the moment, too ambitious, as “the situation is too volatile and the potential for violence too great”. Surely the French army could use the experience it has gained recently in Africa.

But things are improving, according to Ms Alliot-Marie. Next year there will be a 1,500 troop unit of rapid reaction force. Other sources say that Defence Ministers who will meet on Monday will commit 165,000 troops for a series of battle groups to be deployed within 10 days for a period of up to four months.

According to these sources, the groups will be operational by 2007, so there seems to be some disagreement on the subject, which may cause Mr Rumsfeld to display one of his famous Cheshire cat grins. Or he may be too bored with the whole subject, having the reform of the American military on his mind.

Each group will have a lead country in command and they will work under a UN mandate – something Mme MAM did not emphasise in her interview. Sent to hotspots like DR Congo (see above) they will, presumably, become the world’s police force in a somewhat inadequate manner.

The other aspect of it all that pleases the French Defence Minister is the number of joint projects. She does not mention that France has pulled out of several of them and is working on her own version of both the Eurofighter and the FRES programme. The two she does refer to are the production of Airbus A4000M troop transporters and our old favourite the Galileo satellite communication system.

I wonder if President Chirac had time between his nasty and pompous statements to tell Prime Minister Blair that as far as the French are concerned, Galileo is a military system.

Scary times on Iran

The Iranian situation is beginning to get seriously scary, with some commentators suggesting that it is only a matter of time – unless the situation can be resolved – before there is another war, precipitated by a US invasion.

The immediate causus belli remains Iran’s nuclear ambitions, on top of Tehran's support of violence in Israel and insurgents in Iraq. And, in what some think is an eerie repetition of the prelude to the Iraq war, hawks in the administration and Congress are trumpeting ominous disclosures about Iran's nuclear capacities to make the case that Iran is a threat that must be confronted, either by economic sanctions, military action, or "regime change."

However, intelligence reports, highlighted in our previous posting on this subject, now seem to be firming up, with the Washington Post reporting that the intelligence on Iranian bomb-making capabilities was provided by a "walk-in" source in the form of 1,000 pages of apparent Iranian drawings and technical documents including a nuclear warhead design and modifications to enable Iranian ballistic missiles to deliver an atomic strike.

It seems that the warhead design is based on implosion and adjusted for outfitting on existing Iranian missiles. If confirmed, this would mean Iran’s nuclear-cum-missile programs more advanced than previously known.

Despite this, the EU-orientated team of Britain, France and Germany are still urging diplomacy, placing their hopes in a deal they brokered last week in which Iran agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment program in return for discussions about future economic benefits.

US administration officials less than impressed, saying that there was "a steady tightening of outlook between hawks and doves" that Iran would use the negotiations as a pretext to continue its nuclear programme in secret.

Nevertheless, those same officials say that a military option like the one employed by Israel in 1981 against Iraq, when it bombed a reactor near Baghdad, is unrealistic because the Iranians have buried their most important nuclear facilities and can rebuild anything that is destroyed.

But one said that a military strike or sabotage was not out of the question - "you never take the military option off the table," he said - and that in any case it was "money in the bank" for Iran to be concerned about such an option, because it might be goaded into a more conciliatory approach to the United States.

Perversely, the US position, up to press, had not been to threaten war but to force the issue to the UN Security Council, where sanctions - including a ban on oil imports and technology transfers - could be considered. But the European initiative has brought such talk to a halt.

Now, the thinking is that, if the European deal falls apart – which is believed likely - administration hawks will surely enlist others in a campaign to confront Iran with threats.

Interestingly, that decision will be made by Mr. Bush with his new secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. She is said to be willing to try diplomacy but is not sure that it will work and is ready to look at other possibilities if it does not.

A crook's paradise

There was something bizarre about Chirac the crook's call for "a new world order", yesterday during his visit to England.

He wants this to be based on "multilateralism" – meaning of course, not "unilateralism", as practised by the US because all the nations will do is sit on their hands. But then everything said by l’escroc, it seems, is coded, so when he warns that a world ruled by "the logic of power" is certain to be unstable and headed for conflict, he means a world ruled (in his terms) by the United States.

But his recipe for success is a world community working together to revive multilateralism, "a multilateralism based on a reformed and strengthened United Nations," currently led by secretary general Kofi Annan.

Annan, whose first name in Ghanaian means "Friday", has so far done very well out of the UN. Born in a country with an annual gross domestic product per capita of approximately $2,200, he had nevertheless benefited from a world-class educational background after attending college in Minnesota, graduate school in Geneva, and a Masters program at MIT, all of which has brought him to his current post where he makes $227,253 per annum.

For his money, Annan has presided over a United Nations which, amongst other things, has been widely criticised for failing to stop the Rwanda genocide that left 800,000 people dead, even though UN peacekeepers were on the ground - a catastrophe for which Annan has publicly apologised.

He has since been in the line of fire over a series of scandals including controversy about a UN aid program that investigators say allowed deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to embezzle billions of dollars and, with that still hanging over him, he has trouble closer at home. His staff at the United Nations are so sick of their secretary general that they are preparing to take an unprecedented vote of no confidence in him.

The trigger was an announcement this week that he had pardoned the UN's top oversight official, who was facing allegations of favouritism and sexual harassment after the union had requested a formal probe into the official, Dileep Nair, when employees accused him of harassing staff and violating UN rules on the hiring and promotion of workers.

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard announced on Tuesday that Nair had been exonerated by Annan "after a thorough review" by the UN's senior official in charge of management, Catherine Bertini, and Annan underlined that he "had every confidence" in Nair.

Veteran UN staff said this was the first time that employees had risen up to make a vote of no confidence in a sitting secretary general. "Kofi Annan is surrounded by corruption, a gang of criminals responsible for some of the worst things that happened to mankind in the 20th century," said one angry staffer, referring to the Rwanda massacres.

"It's possible that he doesn't know directly what has gone on," said the employee, who has worked for the United Nations for two decades. "But that's no excuse."

Yet Man Friday has so far survived every crisis and he may do this one, but it again reinforces the impression that the UN is an irredeemably corrupt organisation. No wonder l’escroc is so much in favour of it.

Commission embarrassment grows

To add to the growing embarrassment of Barroso, UKIP have now revealed that the anti-fraud commissioner also has a criminal record.

Vice-President of the EU commission, Siim Kallas, the Estonian commissioner (flagged up in one of our earlier postings), was convicted in 2001 of providing false information during his trial for the theft of $10m from the Central Bank of Estonia in a oil-trading scam in 1993. He was acquitted of charges of abuse and fraud in relation to the oil deal.

Furthermore, Kallas had also appeared in court just five years earlier when he appeared as a witness following the disappearance of Russian Roubles from the Estonian Central Bank, of which he was then the president.

Unbelievably, notes UKIP, Kallas has been appointed a Vice-President of the EU Commission, and has been given the anti-fraud portfolio. Says Nigel Farage, in a refrain that is not uncommon on this Blog, "You simply could not make it up."

Quite how Kallas will react is not yet clear, but already Barrot is reacting with the arrogance typical of the European elites, issuing a statement though his lawyers, warning that any reference to a legal decision subject of amnesty, was liable to legal action under the French penal code.

But it has also emerged that Barrot had failed to tell his new boss, Barroso, about his conviction for embezzlement. Yet, even now, a commission spokesman is insisting that Barrot has a "clean record" – even if it was only because of an amnesty granted by Chirac – and that Barroso has full confidence in Barrot.

However, an anonymous EU official clearly had not been briefed on the "line to take". Commenting on the new developments, he observed that, while Italian Rocco Buttiglione was forced to stand down only weeks because of his personal views on the role of women and his description of homosexuality as "sin", Barrot is allow to remain.

"If the Italian had to go," asked the official, "why is Mr Barrot allowed to stay when he has a criminal conviction – even if it has been officially wiped from the collective French memory?"

The real enemy?

According to the Wall Street Journal today, French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie has claimed that the EU has ambitions to extend its military forces so as to be capable of sending a large combat force comprising tens of thousands of troops to fight their way into hostile territory.

This, remarks WSJ, is a more ambitious goal than usually cited for the EU’s nascent military arm.

One wonders what the French perception of "hostile territory" really is, but there is no doubt as to what Americans think. According to a survey cited in World Net Daily, one third of Americans think France is a military enemy.

The poll, undertaken by Rasmussen Reports, reveals that most Americans do not hold the nation of France in high regard, with almost a third believing the European country is an enemy of the US in the war on terror.

According to the survey, 57 percent of American voters have an unfavourable view of France, with 31 percent calling Jacques Chirac's country an enemy. A plurality – 43 percent – believe France's role is somewhere in between ally and enemy.

When presidential politics were taken into account, the poll shows by a 77-to-11 percent margin, those who voted for President Bush have an unfavourable opinion of France. Kerry voters are more evenly divided – 42 percent of Kerry voters have a favourable opinion of that nation, 35 percent unfavourable. In addition, 43 percent of Bush voters called France the enemy, while only 17 percent of Kerry supporters shared that view.

Interestingly, the numbers stand in stark contrast to feelings about Great Britain. Seventy-eight percent of Americans have a favourable opinion of the UK while only nine percent hold an unfavourable view. More than four out of five Americans – 83 percent – view the UK as an ally in the war on terror.

In these circumstances, given that no nation has ever lost out by being defeated by the US, perhaps the best thing France could do – not least to solve its budget deficit problem – is declare war on the US immediately. It should not take more than 48 hours then to arrange an honourable surrender, following which the French could sit back and watch the dollars roll in.

A think-free zone

In this week’s edition of Eurofacts, Alex Hickman, the self-styled Lord High Chief Executive (there’s glory for you) of the self-appointed "Vote No" campaign, gives us the benefit of what he laughingly calls the "strategic thinking" behind the (if you please) No campaign.

Fresh from his slap-up meal with his leftie chums, not least Graham Copp who, when he is not wining and dining at the Savoy, seems to enjoy dressing up as his role model, Fidel Castro, Hickman, has the nerve to tell us that, for now, "we must focus on the task at hand, building a nation-wide, cross-party coalition that is able to turn out the largest possible No vote".

This is from the man who clearly believes that the way to form a coalition is to mount the highly divisive "Yes to Europe – No to the Constitution" slogan, which really demonstrates how vacuous is what passes for "thinking" amongst the claque of grey men (and their teenage scribblers) who presume to be the brains behind the anti-constitution movement.

The central theme of these geniuses, it seems, is that we must capture the "middle ground", that is the middle ground between "yes" and "no", which must be why they have come up with the stunningly original concept of voting "yes-no". Not for them is the simple thought that, between "yes" and "no", there is actually no middle ground. You are either in favour of the constitution, or you are not.

Neither does it appear to have dawned on them, during their breaks from lunches with their ad agencies, that public opinion is much firmer than they would give credit for, and anti-EU sentiment is now the predominant ethos throughout the UK. Only the chattering classes and the Islington set even begin to believe that there is any merit in that tired old remnant from history that is the European Union.

But where our mindless "yes-nos" really fall apart is in Hickman’s pedestrian if accurate analysis of the forces ranged against the "no" campaign. The government, he writes, will have "substantial advantages", not least its ability to spend taxpayers’ money and use the full machinery of government.

If he had stopped to think for one second as he wrote his analysis, however, Hickman might have realised that, to counter these "substantial advantages", we need a well-founded grass-roots campaign.

We need thousands of foot-soldiers, the "unsung heroes", who go out in all weathers delivering leaflets, who write letters to local newspapers, attend and address meetings in draughty village halls – and the occasional pub. We need people to stuff envelopes, make phone calls, to put up posters, to put stickers in their cars and in the windows of their homes, to demonstrate, remonstrate, to collect money and to make a noise about the most important issue on the political agenda.

And it is precisely those people, the people who are committed, principled activists, who will take one look at "Vote No" and its dissembling "Yes to Europe" mantra, and walk the other way. If he had thought about it, Hickman would have seen this but, as he so ably demonstrates in his Eurofacts piece, thinking is not his strong suit.

Why we need UKIP

So, it appears, Jacques Barrot, the French commissioner, is a convicted criminal, back in politics only through the generosity of his political boss. Chirac has given him a complete pardon, so comprehensive that it becomes a criminal offence even to mention that the man is a criminal.

I suppose that is only right and proper coming from a president who, but for his own immunity stemming from his office, would be in jail himself, having robbed and pillaged the state coffers for as long as he has been a politician.

As for Barrot, this is a man who takes on responsibility for a multi-billion budget in the transport directorate, a portfolio which, in terms of its freedom to make discretionary payments, is one of the most powerful in Brussels. So awards of billions rest on the say-so of a French crook, appointed by another French crook.

And would we have known anything of this but for the intervention of one MEP, Nigel Farage, of the much-derided (not least by myself) UK Independence Party? Loathe the man as I do, at least, amongst the self-serving claque in that ghastly pretend-parliament in Strasbourg, he had the balls to stand up and say what had to be said.

And where were the Conservatives – who also pledge to root out corruption? Where, might I ask were the Lib-Dims, to say nothing of the egregious Christopher Huhne, who was so voluble on Tuesday about the merits of the EU. And where were all the Labour MEPs, so full of righteousness about so many issues, but suddenly so silent?

Labour, itself, was far from silent. Denis MacShame, as you would expect, welcomed the European Parliament's support for the new EU Commission on 18 November, commenting:

I welcome the European Parliament's strong vote for the new Commission today. And I wish to pass on my congratulations to Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso who has built an effective and modern looking team drawing on the experience and enthusiasm from all 25 countries. It comes at an exciting time for a new look Europe that now needs to press ahead to take forward a dynamic and exciting agenda and tackle the challenges that we all face.

Yea, right.

And where was the media? Did we hear anything of this on the BBC? Did we heck. Last night on BBC Radio 4’s "World tonight", we had a long spiel about Anglo-French relations, guided by that Euro-savant, Sir Stephen Wall, who ended up telling us how important it was that we worked with France within the context of the European Union. Pity no one thought it necessary to mention that Wall is a board member of Britain in Europe.

Some newspapers this morning do mention Barrot, most notably The Daily Telegraph with the indefatigable Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reporting that Farage had "caused uproar", adding that he had "stunned the chamber by calling the new team a claque of crooks, liars, Communist lackeys and 'political failures'."

The Financial Times also covered the story, referring to Barrot’s "suspended prison sentence" which had followed a funding scandal involving his political party, and The Guardian made a passing reference to it.

However, not one single paper mentioned just how much money was involved in this "funding scandal". Farage did - FFR 25m (US$ 3.8m), a £2.5 million rip-off from the French taxpayer. What’s wrong with our media? Are they "frit" – do they believe that the writ of French law runs here, and that the editors might be raided at the crack of dawn and carted off under an EU arrest warrant, to languish in a French nick?

That apart, but for Farage, and UKIP, we would not have known that the French commissioner – now part of our government – is a convicted crook, a big-time crook. Everyone else looked the other way. UKIP did not. Love it or hate it, therefore, as long as the rest of our politicians are gutless wimps, incompetents, or worse, we need UKIP.

At the (part time) heart of Europe

According to The Times this morning, British cabinet ministers are part timers in the councils of the European Union, clocking up the worst attendance records of the biggest member states.

Despite Blair’s pledge to put Britain "at the heart of Europe", Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, Blunkett and Margaret Beckett have all attended fewer EU council meetings than their French and German counterparts over the past three years.

Brown’s attendance at the finance council has been declining steadily since 2002 despite the regular lectures he delivers to Brussels on how to improve the EU’s economic performance. He has attended only 19 of the 29 finance ministers’ meetings since 2002. Often he sends a junior minister.

The Times cites an EU official saying, "Brown doesn’t really get on with any of the other ministers, and often doesn’t bother showing up. We’ve always no idea whether he is coming."

And it turns out that when Brown, last Monday, announced that he was going to a finance ministers’ meeting in Brussels to demand that British businesses get a fair share of the European government contract market, the issue was not on the agenda, and Mr Brown did not give a copy of his report to either the Commission or any other EU country.

As is so often the case, it seems that our own ministers regard council meetings more as an opportunity for grandstanding on a domestic stage, rather than a forum for doing business, but Blunkett, it seems, does even care about that. His is the worst attendance record, he having turned up to only four of 19 formal interior ministers’ meetings since 2002. He has attended none last year.

His French counterpart has attended twice as often, while Otto Schily, the German Interior Minister, attended all 19 meetings. The Home Office is normally represented in Europe by the junior minister Caroline Flint. "Blunkett just doesn’t do Europe," one EU official said. Straw is better, but not much, having attended only 33 of the last 50 foreign ministers’ meetings, compared with 39 for France and 35 for Germany.

Predictably, a government spokesman defended the ministers’ records, saying: "We attend every EU meeting at the appropriate level depending on the issues under discussion and whether decisions need to be taken. We have a strong voice in Europe."

I guess you need one if you are the wrong side of the Channel

Rattling skeletons

Well, they have finally done it. 66 per cent of MEPs have approved Barroso’s somewhat renewed Commission during the plenary session in Strasbourg. Please pay attention as this will be the last time the European Parliament members will actually have the slightest idea of what they are voting about. Future votes will consist of hands raised (or occasionally buttons pressed for the roll-call vote) under instruction from group leaders on several hundred amendments in the space of an hour or so, several days after what passes for a debate in that institution.

President Barroso, who is clearly as good at meaningless statements as his predecessor Prodi (we shall have to wait to see whether he will also lose his temper from time to time) made a somewhat fatuous statement:

"We are able to say to the people of Europe that we have come out of this experience with strengthened institutions, in a better position to meet their expectations."

What very odd ideas he has of what the people of Europe expect or even care about. Does he really think anybody apart from political nerds, among whom I fear I have to number myself, paid any attention to the tortuous negotiations on which particular failed politician or wannabe international personality should mouth the writings of which part of the bureaucracy? After all, as we have described on numerous occasions, the legislation of the European Union consists of unrolling multiannual programmes. Who the particular Commissioner is at any specific moment is of little relevance.

That said, it has to be admitted that there are some skeletons waiting to tumble out of cupboards. We have not heard the end of the story of Neelie the Board Lady, the supposed opponent of over-regulation, whose great achievements all seem to involve seats on numerous boards. She has been accused of lying to the Parliamentary committee and the accuser, Paul van Buitenen, whisltel blower turned MEP, is known for his persistence.

László Kovács, the Hungarian ex-communist apparatchik seems to have managed to mug up enough on the subject of taxes to pass his interrogation, but his known ignorance of the subject is bound to come out sooner rather than later. Incidentally, what of those whoops of joy at the thought of some East European taking on the tax portfolio? They have been muted somewhat.

The new Italian Commissioner has done well (he is going to be replaced by the flamboyant right wing Gianfranco Fini as Foreign Minister in Italy) but we seem to have a problem with the French member of the team.

There was an interesting kerfuffle during the so-called debate yesterday in Strasbourg. Nigel Farage UKIP MEP demanded to know whether his colleagues would buy a second-hand car from Jacques Barrot. Apparently he was not referring to his appearance but the fact that

“M. Barrot had been sentenced to an 8 month suspended sentence and was barred from elected office in France for 2 years, after being convicted in 2000 of embezzling FFR 25m (US$ 3.8m) from French government funds by diverting it into the coffers of his party.”

President Chirac had granted Barrot a presidential pardon, which made it illegal even to mention the conviction, so the French media obliged. Many of the French MEPs were unaware of the story.

Mr Farage was threatened with legal action by the European Parliament President, Josep Borrell, there by grace of a backroom agreement between the two main groups, and censured by other MEPs. It is not done to reveal past secrets about present Commissioners.

So, it is business as normal in the European Union. And just in case anyone is interested, here are the relevant salaries though not the expenses, which probably effectively double incomes:

Normal Commissioner: 217,280 euros (£152, 661 / $283,374)
Vice-President: 241,422 euros (£169,622 / $314,859)
President: 266,530 euros (£187,246 / $347,592).

Nice work if you can get it, and then there's the pension to follow.

Strange bedfellows

Amongst the wealthy diners at Tuesday’s "Vote No" bash at the Savoy Hotel, sharing a table with Neil O’Brien, the campaign director, was the unlikely figure of Graham Copp – a man of extreme socialist views. He is a Labour activist, anti-war campaigner, opponent of free-trade, supporter of George Galloway and enthusiastic Europhile.

Why such a person should be rubbing shoulders with the Eurosceptic glitterati and such right-wing figures as Ruth Lea, CPS director, to say nothing of Tory MP Bernard Jenkin, is something a mystery until one realises that the said Copp is is Head of Research at the Centre for a Social Europe, "a new left-of-centre think tank which promotes alternatives for the left on European politics."

Highlighted in one of our previous postings, the Centre for a Social Europe is a front organisation, financed by the backers of the "Vote No" campaign, aimed at influencing left-wingers and converting them to anti-EU constitution cause.

Copp was used as a parliamentary co-ordinator for the Vote 2004 campaign and his great utility in the current campaign, it seems, is his unbounded enthusiasm for the European project, expressed volubly at every opportunity, recently extolling its virtues to the far-left Chartists.

His opposition to the constitution is based on his perception that "the agenda is driven by European institutions which panders to the right rather than securing the social democratic advances that the British left would like to see", whence he informs us that "as pro-Europeans of the left, we should ask ourselves whether it is really in our interest to support everything that is agreed by our governments in Brussels, or whether we should apply the same political criteria to European politics that we apply to our domestic politics."

Cue the "European Constitution", whence Copp likens it to "a list of missed opportunities to do what the EU already does better."

"Where are the measures that reform the Common Agricultural Policy that rewards agribusiness for over production while small farmers go out of business every day?", he asks. "Where is the policy that conserves our precious depleted fish stocks while protecting hard-pressed costal (sic) communities?

"If we are really committed to the European Union," he writes, "then it is our duty to point out where new policies are taking the EU in the wrong direction. In the case of the Constitution, with an agenda of increasing militarisation and defence spending, of privatisation and even of undermining the parliamentary process, we should go beyond the pathetic "yes to Europe" versus "no to Europe" sloganeering that often passes for debate on the left. That means saying that the left can support a constitution that lays out the EU’s political system in an understandable way but accepting that constitution isn’t acceptable."

In another paper, for the Activists Network, a site with anarchist links, Copp supports the inclusion of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which forms part of the Constitution, which, if fully implemented, be believes "could be a boost to workers’ rights." His objection, merely, is that "it creates no new rights under national law, so as not to upset the balance of Britain's industrial relations policy."

Yet Copp, it seems, it the secret weapon of the grey, faceless men who are funding the "Vote No" campaign, hence his presence as an honoured guest at the Savoy Hotel. Whether his loyalty has been bought by the inclusion of the "yes to Europe" mantra in the campaign remains to be seen. But, undoubtedly, it is an addition of which he would heartily approve.

Either way, he is indeed a strange bedfellow.

Raising the bridge?

Gerard Baker, US correspondent for the Financial Times, writes a guest column for The Times today, under the heading "The day of reckoning has arrived for the Bush-hating foreign policy elite".

Of special interest to this Blog are his comments on the "new unity of purpose in Washington", which Baker writes, "will be especially welcome with regard to the European Union".

For the past four years, according to Baker, "America has been steadily abandoning the Cold War foreign policy consensus between Republicans and Democrats that supported ever-closer European union." He continues:

It once made sense for America to encourage Europeans to downplay national differences in the face of the overwhelming Soviet threat. Every significant step towards the single European superstate under construction was enthusiastically welcomed. But Mr Bush and his Vice-President, Dick Cheney, saw that kneejerk support for every move that increased the power of Brussels, especially when it was at the behest of a truculent France and a complaisant Germany, was not necessarily in US interests.

Part of the problem in weaning the US away from its pro-EU policy has been a deep cultural enthusiasm for Europe, notably at the State Department. The Anglo-Saxon foreign ministries are especially prone to what economists call "adverse selection". Those who are drawn to a diplomatic career are probably the last people you want defending your interests in the world. They generally prefer foreign cultures, and look with undisguised contempt on hicks in their own country.

The State Department, like the Foreign Office, is chock-full of people who believe, deep down, that Europe is a more cultured and civilised place than the Anglo-Saxon
world that they are occasionally forced to inhabit. They feel more at home in the salons of Brussels and Paris than they would ever do at a hoedown in Oklahoma. Their influence, already on the wane, will plummet now.

The second Bush term, despite the problems in Iraq and its desire to get European nations to play a bigger role in the War on Terror, will take a decidedly sceptical view of a united Europe. At State, the likely promotion of John Bolton, a long-term critic of European union, will be an important signal of change.

There will be no active policy to discourage European integration. US officials understand well enough that, given the level of anti-American sentiment in Europe, that would be a sure way to hasten it. But there will be more attempts to
differentiate between what Donald Rumsfeld called "old" and "new" Europe. That will mean rewarding and encouraging those countries whose foreign policy is still essentially Atlanticist, and which do not regard the US as bent on a course of evil.

This will sharpen the challenge for those who insist that the idea of a choice between Europe and America is a false one. That optimistic assessment will be seriously tested in the next four years.

This is an interesting perspective, and one which has the mark of authenticity. I doubt whether the French really understand what they are doing, tweaking the tail of America, but they are about to find out, I suspect.

It will also test Blair to the extreme as he is forced into the realisation that his "bridge" between the US and Europe has suddenly taken on the characteristics of Tower Bridge, with the raising machinery running at full pelt. Standing on the crack between the two halves of the bridge could prove an extremely uncomfortable experience.

European weakness on Iran

Having listened to Christopher Huhne yesterday pontificating about how much more influential the UK was when it cast its lot in with the EU, it is singularly ironic that the Telegraph today should run a leader on the Iran situation with these opening words:

There has always been something suspect about European mediation over Iran's nuclear programme. This is not to deny that the EU trio (Britain, France and Germany) is sincere in wishing to prevent Teheran from acquiring nuclear arms. It lies, rather, in its ineffectiveness.

What we have here is another episode in the US "hawk" versus the European "dove" saga, with the UK this time pulled in to bat with the "Europeans", pushing for the soft, negotiated solution as against the more robust line of the Bush administration which wanted to report Iran to the UN, preparatory to seeking sanctions against this country unless it abandoned its attempts to produce nuclear weapons.

It seems that the net effect of the European stance has been to dilute the impact of Western pressure, demonstrating not strength but weakness – a fatal lack of resolve which the Iranian government has been adept at exploiting. On the face of it, though, Teheran has accepted a temporary suspension of uranium enrichment in return for a series of economic incentives offered by the EU, but even this deal could well come unstuck over differing interpretations of what it entails.

While the Europeans faff around, however, the Washington Post and other sources report that US has intelligence that Iran is working to adapt missiles to deliver a nuclear weapon, further evidence that the Islamic republic is determined to acquire a nuclear bomb. This comes from secretary of state Colin Powell and, separately, an Iranian opposition exile group in Paris that is claiming that Iran is enriching uranium at a secret military facility unknown to UN weapons inspectors.

According to this exile group, the secret facility is located in Nour in the Lavizan district of northwest Tehran, disguised as an affluent villa suburb covered in groves and gardens under which the underground site is active. So much for the "softly-softly" European approach.

Powell is in no doubt about eventual Iranian intentions, stating that they are working towards ballistic missile delivery of their own nuclear bomb which, if true, is something that neither the US nor Israel would be prepared to tolerate.

As observed in our recent posting on this, all the Europeans might have achieved is to set up Israel to repeat its tactics against Iraq's French-built Osirak reactor in 1981, when an air strike took out the facility before it became operational.

The middle way

Peter Riddell has opined in the Times that Michael Howard and the Tories should not emulate the examples of John Howard or George W. Bush and their parties. Well, there is no great danger of that, if recent polls are anything to go by. What unites Bush and t’other Howard? Yes, that’s right. They are winners. Can one say the same about the present day Conservative Party? Only by stretching the word winners to include … ahem … losers.

Mr Riddell’s main argument is that the various conservative movements are very different (duh!) and, therefore, whatever one may think about imitating methods, the same message does not work. Actually, he concentrates on the American message, possibly because the Australian one is different again.

Citing the newly published excellent The Right Nation by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, Mr Riddell (who, as my colleague has observed, gives a new meaning to the words care in the community) shows that Americans are inherently different from the British, they are more likely to be right of centre and their right wing politics is well organized both at the grass-roots and the intellectual level.

“The more the authors describe the pillars of American conservatism — the myriad Washington think-tanks and foundations, the single-issue groups, the politically active churches and right-wing talk radio — the less relevant it seems for the British Tories. Even to talk of a “movement” sounds wrong here.”

Possibly that is true. But whose fault is that? Why do the Conservatives not organize themselves? The notion that somehow the population of this country is naturally left-wing is nonsensical. People’s main desires are not that different from the ones in the United States. What is different is the assumption, bred by years of the inefficient, failing, but ubiquitous welfare state, that somehow people cannot be asked to act for themselves. Often, when this idea is shaken off, the people who try to act and sort matters out, find that some government regulation (and yes, all too often it is our real government in Brussels) prevents them from doing so. Why precisely cannot the Conservatives look at this problem in all seriousness? I’ll tell you why. Because it takes us back to the dreaded “e” word.

Think-tanks? Foundations? They were started in Britain with the internationally renowned Institute of Economic Affairs. Who prevents further funding and organizing? My colleague and I are both veterans of many battles fought for a properly funded, properly organized eurosceptic think-tank. So far we have failed because of the pusillanimous and short-sighted reluctance of people to put up the money for anything more than an immediate and very narrow campaign.

What of the churches and other institutions? Maybe, the former are not as powerful or popular as they used to be. But who says that middle England (and Wales and Scotland) cannot organize itself the way middle America can? What do these people think has been the strength of the Countryside Alliance that has put together a powerful, countrywide movement, put huge demonstrations on the street, and turned a supposedly done and dusted political issue that affects directly very few people, into the most ferocious, strongly fought debate for years?

Ah, but everyone knew what the Countryside Alliance was saying. And that makes a great deal of difference. People and organizations flock to you if they know what you stand for. (And, obviously, agree with you or can be brought to that point.)

What does the Conservative Party stand for? Mr Riddell approves of Oliver Letwin’s reluctance to go down the Bushite tax cutting route. Must have a balanced budget, you know. Well, possibly, though all those terrible things that were going to happen in the United States any minute now because of its deficit, are still in the future. But Mr Letwin and Mr Howard can, presumably, come up with serious policies that will involve tax cuts and rearrangement of the welfare system. Why have they not done so?

They did come up with the James Report that produced all sorts of random ideas for saving money in the quangos and agencies. The trouble is that the James Report did not look at what those agencies really do. And why not? I’ll tell you why not. Because that would take us back to the dreaded “e” word. What most of those agencies (Food Standards, Environment, various others) do is to negotiate and then implement EU legislation. Until the issue of how legislation in this country really works is addressed, none of the suggestions of cost cutting, red tape shredding, regulation zapping will be worth the many hundreds of pages of paper they are written on.

So we come back to the same problem: the dreaded “e” word. The Conservatives will not touch it because they are, as their last great leader, Margaret Thatcher said, “frit”. There is good evidence that the population of this country is moving fast towards a complete withdrawalist standpoint, but the Tories, instead of leading, are following timorously a long way behind.

This ability to be afraid of one’s own shadow seems to have extended to the Vote – No campaign. My colleague has written about the promise he had had of the campaign not using the rather silly slogan of “No to the Constitution – Yes to Europe”. It seems, that at the last minute that organization, too, became “frit”. Of what, precisely? Of the big bad wolf of “extremism”. Must stick to the middle ground; mustn’t frighten the horses (who don’t vote, anyway); mustn’t seem to be extremist. How extremist is it to say that a country should legislate for itself in a comprehensible, accountable manner?

To have a middle ground, one must have two extremes. Are we to take from the Conservatives and the Vote – No campaign that the two extremes are total integration and political independence? Can there be such a thing as being a little bit independent like a little bit pregnant?

Surely, the one thing the American and Australian elections have shown us that speaking one’s mind and being certain of one’s views are not handicaps in the political field. To listen to the British and much of the mainstream American media as well as the international great and the good, George W. Bush is the most hated man in the world. He won a stupendous victory.
To listen to the same people, John Howard’s foreign policy was deeply hated in Australia. He, too, won a great victory.

Margaret Thatcher, too, appeared to be the most hated person in the country if one listened to the BBC and the other great and the good, as did Ronald Reagan. Reagan won two elections, the second one far more comfortably than the first. Thatcher won three elections and bequeathed the fourth victory to John Major. But, let’s face it, Michael Howard is not going to learn from all these people. He will stick to the middle way. And he will be mown down by the traffic going in both directions.

Of lions and donkeys

In a fascinating ICM poll published by the Guardian today, no less than 49 percent of Conservative Party members are now in favour of Britain pulling out of the European Union. An unsurprising 87 would vote against joining the euro.

This certainly accords with my own personal impressions of the state of the Party, where the constituency members are often far more Eurosceptic than their MPs.

Mr Howard, therefore, is rather on the spot. He is ruling over a badly divided party, where his MPs generally remain supportive of membership of the EU, with the grass roots increasingly opposed to it.

All of this is against the background of the Conservatives continuing to lose ground in the polls, with regular monthly Guardian/ICM poll of the wider electorate showing Labour on 38 percent, eight points ahead of the Conservatives, the biggest gap on the Guardian/ICM series since May 2003. This would to see Blair returned with a Commons majority of more than 120.

Possibly, with three party politics becoming the norm, and interference from UKIP – if it can ever get its act together – we could also see net gains for the Lib-Dims, as they hoover up the "wimp" anti-war vote, leaving the Tories with an overall loss.

Certainly, Howard is not proving to be an electoral asset, with his popularity continuing to slide. Only 33 percent of the country think he is doing a good job compared with 41 percent who rate Blair's performance as satisfactory. Even among his own supporters his ratings are not as good as the prime minister's, with 30 percent of Tory voters dissatisfied with the job he is doing, compared with 17 percent of Labour voters.

Soundings from the "grass roots" suggest that "Europe" is the root cause of dissatisfaction amongst Conservative party activists and this issue has contributed to the inertia in the wider party.

Policy wonks are all too aware that many the issue on which the party must make a stand are so constrained by the EU that there is no scope for carving a distinctive niche. More and more, they are constrained to a limited number of "safe" issues, where EU involvement is minimal, which makes it impossible to open up "clear blue water" between Labour and the Lib-Dims.

Before it can even begin to come to terms with the nation as a whole, therefore, the party is going to have to come to terms with its own members, and recognise that the only real "blue water" that exists in the political spectrum is in fact "Europe".

What also must be remembered is that the hard-line Euroscepticism in the party comes from the grass roots, without any political leadership from the top. Howard, therefore, is misjudging the mood and his lukewarm, grudging moves to accommodate his own activists is surely reflected in his lack of popularity.

Also, it must be said, the "Vote No" campaign, with its very close links to the leadership of the Tory party has also misjudged the mood, with its vacuous "Yes to Europe" stance. Conventional wisdom might caution against too hard a stance against the EU but the impression is that "Vote No", like the Tory grandees, are out of touch with a hardening public sentiment.

In a different context, we seem to be repeating history, with ordinary people having more fortitude than their leaders – do we see again lions being lead by donkeys?

Trouble’t Mill

Actually, trouble at Britain in Europe, proving that it is not only the "no" campaign that is having its problems.

According to The Guardian, Gordon Brown has had an attack of the "formers", the former European commissioner Lord Brittan, and the former chancellor Lord "dead sheep" Howe, who have rounded on him during a private board meeting of BIE, accusing him of being nasty to the EU.

His sin, apparently, is talking up the British economy and contrasting it with the lack-lustre performance of the EU, behaviour the Brittan-Howe axis believe could cost the government victory in the referendum on the European constitution.

One board member said: "There was a fundamental tactical dispute between those who argue it is better to say a lot has been achieved and it is getting better in Europe, and those like Mr Brown who say Britain is superior and Europe has got to change a lot more."

The strongest and lengthiest attack apparently came from Lord Brittan. A Labour source claimed the leaking of the meeting was divisive, saying: "What actually happened is that Leon Brittan and Geoffrey Howe attacked the chancellor."

However, the criticism has not been accepted in the spirit of European solidarity, with Brown’s aides declaring, "The idea that Gordon Brown is going to be lectured by a group of former Tories about whether he should stand up for the British national interest shows how out of touch they are".

Malcolm Bruce, the Lib-Dim MP, who was also present at the meeting, gave the Guardian a slightly different account. He says the criticism was widespread."We told him [Brown] that by accentuating the difference and British superiority, the message he gives to the British people is that we are thoroughly engaged, and we are being stuffed, and we ought not to be there. By all means identify the areas where reform is needed, but also identify some allies and positives."

But the most interesting comment seems to have come from Sir Stephen Wall, the prime minister's former EU ambassador, who said the referendum on devolution in the north-east had been lost long ago, and the same could apply to the European constitution referendum, because the "no" campaign had the field to itself. He said the government was not countering their criticisms, but inadvertently giving them credibility.

Lord Haskins, the Labour peer, also warned all the political running was being made by the opponents of Europe. He said yesterday: "We all know Europe has got to change, but if we say we will only join in, so long as it is going to be better than it is at the present time, then that is not a tremendous message".

Nick Clegg, a Lib-Dim board member, said: "I don't think anyone on Britain in Europe thinks we should deny the faults of the EU - that would be daft - but we do think, either through accident or design, the Treasury does not appear to set out in a rounded way what is happening in the EU."

Not a happy bunch of bunnies it seems, but then, if you were having to argue the case of "Europe", would you be?

The Russians are angry

President Putin may have signed the Kyoto Protocol, it may have passed both Houses of the Duma and all the ministers have agreed to develop ways of working within it, though the gritting of teeth was audible.

The EU is rejoicing mightily (well, those of them who know no Russian history are) and some environmental activists have been staging all sorts of events demanding that the USA follow suit. Unfortunately for the activists the EU, who, in its guise as the political representative of the transnational bureaucracy, has assumed Kyoto as its own special mission, has no power to compel the United States, or China, or numerous other countries. The only one it had any power over, was Russia, because of its intense longing to be part of the WTO.

The Russians have not taken kindly to being blackmailed, as we have pointed out before. It is quite extraordinary that the “Europeans” who are always accusing the Americans (and by extension the British and anyone else who supports the United States) of being unsophisticated and crude in their dealings with everyone but, particularly, Russia. The Russians’ feelings are perpetually being upset. But not, it seems, when they are subjected to very crude blackmail by the sophisticated and non-aggressive Europeans.

As it was to be expected it was Andrei Illarionov, President Putin’s adviser, a very clever economist and vehement opponent of Kyoto who refused even to grit his teeth. In a recent article in the Financial Times he explained why he thought that the Kyoto Protocol was

“… destructive for science and the environment, health and safety, for economic growth and for the international fight against hunger and poverty”.

Covers it all, I’d say.

Mr Illarionov goes through all the arguments that show the lack of scientific base for the Protocol: the fact that climate change is “an ialienable feature of Earth”; the fact that in the past, long before large amounts of fossil fuel were burned, the climate was warmer and the temperature extremes greater.

Then he lists all the things that are wrong with the Kyoto Protocol itself. It tackles none of the real air pollutants; it relies on unreliable arguments; it is devastating to economic growth (a serious problem in Russia). The Kyoto countries have shown slower economic growth than the non-Kyoto ones (and that is despite the fact that none of the signatories have come anywhere near cutting their emissions to the required extent).

He finishes the article, that is written in his personal capacity, but is unlikely to have been sent to the Financial Times without general approval by his boss, President Putin:

“The Kyoto protocol requires a supranational bureaucratic monster in charge
of rationing emissions and, therefore, economic activities. The Kyotoist system of quota allocation, mandatory restrictions and harsh penalties will be a sort of international Gosplan, to rival the former Soviet Union's economic planning committee.

The majority of humankind does not accept this system, despite claims of worldwide support. Even with Russia's ratification, 75 per cent of the world's CO is emitted by, 68 per cent of the world's GDP is produced in, and 89 per cent of the world's population live in countries that are not handcuffed by Kyoto's restrictions. Like fascism and communism, Kyotoism is an attack on basic human freedoms behind a smokescreen of propaganda. Like those ideologies of human hatred, it will be exposed and defeated.”

Russia’s record on fulfilling international obligations is generally patchy, to put it mildly. It is unlikely to be improved over Kyoto, whose dangers and shortcomings they perceive clearly and whose straitjacket has been forced on them by the European Union.

In the money

Despite strong economic growth, and a standard of living that many in Eastern Europe would die for, Ireland continues to receive more than twice as much cash from Brussels as it contributes to the EU.

Figures for last year, just released, show that Ireland received €2.65bn while contributing just €1.13bn to EU central coffers last year. This means that Ireland gets back around €2.38 for every euro Irish taxpayers contributed to the EU.

Bonking for Europe

A new writer, Hector Boffey, has joined the Social Affairs Unit Blog. Not his real name, of course, Boffey starts off his new career with an imaginary commentary between two Eurocrats, Gerhart and Maurice, over the relative merits of asking David Beckham to help lead the "yes" campaign for the EU Constitution.

Gerhard, it seems has reservations about using Beckham. In one of the exchanges, he reveals to Maurice that "there have been a number of extramarital trysts since he moved to Spain."

No problem, says Maurice. It is taken for granted that a rich, good-looking young man will find local distractions if his wife is absent. It may not play well in Hartlepool, Gerhard but I assure you it will not harm his image in Paris, Milan or Athens. After all such alliances can be depicted as a symbol of political unity – European union in action! Beckham bonks for Europe! I can see the headlines, Gerhard.

Says Gerhard: Unfortunately, Maurice I am not sure he has been bonking the right girls. One was a member of his English PR staff, another was his wife's beautician, also English, and another was an Australian lap dancer. The boy may be virile but I don't believe that his sex life can be presented as symbol of European integration. If anything, he seems to be making the case for Imperial Preference.

To read more, go to this link.

Deficits

Germany is not doing very well. Again. The “Five Wise Men” a.k.a. the government’s independent economic advisers have come up with a gloomy prediction. GDP growth is now expected to be 1.4 per cent as opposed to the previously predicted 1.8 per cent and the deficit in 2005 will, once again, be higher than the required 3 per cent.

The problems cited are the strong euro (already mentioned in our blog) and low domestic consumption, in itself a sign of economic malaise. This means that the little growth there is has to be fuelled by exports, made more difficult by the relatively strong euro.

The worrying economic situation and the rising problems with public finance make it extremely unlikely that Germany will agree to any increase in the members’ contribution to the EU budget, already asked by the incoming Commission, under its supposedly free-marketeer President.

And speaking of deficits and countries that would like to be in receipt of those higher contributions, Greece has now officially admitted that, to quote its Finance Minister, Giorgios Alogoskoufis,

“It was proven that for no year, from 1999 on, and afterwards, the deficit had fallen below three percent [of gross domestic product].”

Commission officials do not think that this consistent inaccuracy has put Greece’s membership of the euro in doubt. Well, why should it? After all, there were a few problems with some of the other countries that were keen to join.

In the meantime, Greece has promised to halve its deficit next year (had they not promised that before?) and a spokesman for Economics and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia has confirmed that they would be recommending that the Barroso Commission start infringement proceedings as soon as possible.

Plus ça change, plus ça reste la même.

Chinese news agency gets in on Olympic row

The Chinese news agency, Xinhuanet, decided that there was something to report from Athens: the fact that the 2004 Olympic Games were the most expensive in history.

The cost so far is said to be €9 billion ($11.6 billion, £6.31 billion) but, as Finance Minister Giorgos Alogoskoufis, this incredible sum does not include expenditure on infrastructure. Readers will, undoubtedly, recall that it is precisely the infrastructure that is supposed to be the reason for holding the Olympics in London in 2012 at an undoubtedly even higher cost.

Among the infrastructure are a new tram line, suburban rail network and the extension of the Athens metro system to the airport. The tram alone is supposed to have cost at least €267 million ($344 million, £187 million).

All previous estimates were considerably short of the figures so far and they are set to grow. The Finance Minister is insisting that the Games will not “place a serious burden” on the budget but the Greece’s deficit, which is supposed to stay at 3 per cent at GDP is likely to be double of that next year.

This post appeared first on a completely new blog: UKIP London Assembly.

The Jeremy Vine Show

The Wednesday Debate today was on the question of whether we should move closer to America or Europe. Yours truly versus Christopher Huhne MEP.

You can listen to it on the Radio 2 web site. Track forwards, one hour 5 minutes. The result, incidentally, was 60-40 FOR closer ties with America.

No prizes for diplomacy

After his puerile outburst yesterday, to which my colleague drew attention, he is at it again to day, guaranteeing that, whatever other awards he might get, little Jacky Chirac will never be at risk of getting one for diplomacy. On the eve of his state visit to Britain, he has opened his mouth again, only to plant two size twelves in them, stating that the US-led war in Iraq has made the world a more dangerous place.

"To a certain extent, Saddam Hussein's departure was a positive thing”, he says – but only to a "certain extent". Avoiding any detail on the reasons why his departure was not "positive" - like Saddam was no longer in any position to buy French arms, in defiance of the boycott, or that the slush fund financed from the oil for food scam had sunnedly dried up – our Jacky noted that "it also provoked reaction such as the mobilisation in a number of countries of men and women of Islam, which has made the world more dangerous."

Of course, if the Western world had shown a united front on this, and had not had the French and others heckling behind the scene, and perhaps if Whacky Jacky had sent some troops into Iraq instead of sitting on the sidelines jeering, the world might be a slightly safer place, but then that would have deprived our noble French leader his place in history as the leader who said no to America.

Via The Guardian, however, we also hear that Colonel Tim Collins - whose call to his troops on the eve of the war to "liberate, not to conquer" were pinned to a White House wall – has warned there was now a danger that Iraq could slide into civil war. He is right, of course, but that was always a danger.

Neverthless, what he and many people do not seem to have taken on board is that, without even intervention, Saddam's regime would have come to an end. In the style of Lebanon, or the former Yugoslavia after the death of Tito, civil war would then not have been so much a danger as a racing certainty. At least now, with the US-led coalition in place, there are forces available to contain to violence and impose some kind of order.

On that basis, it is all very well for Mr Chirac to complain about the world being a more dangerous place, but what precisely is he doing to make it safer?

Europe doesn’t do democracy

Not quite the title of Janet Daley’s superb piece in the Telegraph today, but close enough.

This is an absolutely stunning response to Blair’s speech (reported on this Blog yesterday) and is an absolute "must read".

For those rather dismal commentators who, in the context of Iraq, claim that you cannot impose democracy at the point of a gun, they should read this and also recall that is precisely what the Allies did to Germany and Japan in 1945. The only pity is that, while they were about it, the Allies didn't also do the same to France.

Told you so…

Writes Professor Iain Begg in The Times this morning, "You draw attention in no uncertain terms to the findings of the study commissioned by the Treasury that UK companies are being denied access to public contracts in other EU member states."

"The problem", Begg avers, "is not a lack of clear and sensible laws, but the fact that member states routinely flout them. The obvious remedy is for more effective powers of enforcement to be granted to the European Commission. More Brussels, anyone?"

Now flash back to our posting yesterday when we argued that the report plays into the hands of the integrationists who would like nothing better than to see the commission given more power to interfere in the affairs of member states.

Herein lies the crux of a problem, we wrote. Like Blair, we cannot have it both ways. Either we allow member states to make their own decisions, and use public money to purchase from whom they think fit, or we subscribe to a supranational authority which has the powers to over-ride national preference and direct governments as to what they can and cannot do.

As long as companies see any merit in an EU solution, they are buying in to political integration.

Told you so!

The Bloody British Question

In Thatcher's day, the EU budgetary issue revolved around her quest for a rebate to such an extent that it was known in Brussels circles as the British Budgetary Question, which quickly became abbreviated to BBQ and then reinterpreted as the "Bloody British Question".

And here we have the BBQ again, it all its glory, which is going to run and run. This time though it is Gordon Brown is in the frame, with him having to face off calls from both Germany and the Netherlands trim the amount refunded from the British levy.

He is going through the ritual denunciations, saying that "current proposals are premature and the rebate remains fully justified" and will no doubt keep saying precisely that, right up to the day he caves in and allows the rebate to be cut.

On the table at the moment, is a commission proposal to cut Britain's rebate and redistribute the proceeds to the other net paymasters, on top of an increase in the EU's budget by 35 percent between 2007 and 2013. Brown calls that "unrealistic and implausible," something on which he and German finance minister, Hans Eichel, agree.

Holding the uneasy balance on the rebate is the Dutch presidency, which puts it in an awkward position as a potential beneficiary of any new regime, with Dutch finance minister Gerrit Zalm stating that there were "quite some difference of opinions in the room." This English habit of understatement seems to be catching.

Germany, which contributed 7.7 billion euros to the budget in 2003, is the biggest contributor to the EU's 100 billion euro annual budget, and is nevertheless adamant that there must be a "correction mechanism". Eichel has reiterated that "the limits of what Germany can bear have been reached," and is not prepared to back down.

All this makes for an interesting situation as the fight may come to a head just about the time Britain is poised to vote in the referendum for the constitution. If there is going to be a fudge, EU finance ministers will have to stretch their creative powers to the limit if Brown is to get it past an increasingly suspicious and hostile British public. On the other hand, we do still have the veto…

A hotch-potch of ignorance and wistfulness

Mr Jeremy Rifkin, the American author, whose rather peculiar views on the European Union have been analyzed on this blog before, has been writing for the Guardian about the growth of global consciousness. Well, perhaps not its growth but the beginnings of such a concept, rooted in the many hundreds pages long, detailed and over-regulatory EU Constitution.

Mr Rifkin, as our readers will recall, thinks that American power is on the wane and the EU’s is on the rise in that the latter exercises influence in a completely new, multilateral, non-violent and understanding fashion. Getting away from some of the touchy-feelie aspect of it all, what Mr Rifkin seems to admire is the EU’s propensity for being run by the educated and civilized elite or, to be quite precise, its lack of democratic accountability as a young Czech politician pointed out to him in September.

Actually, to be fair to Mr Rifkin, he does think that

“Global consciousness is compelling but, I admit, seems somewhat utopian and out of reach. It's hard to imagine hundreds of millions of people coalescing around such a grand vision.”

Especially, as the grand vision seems a little blurry in the outline, just like that famous European dream that he is so fond of. Curiously, he also adds:

“But, then, the idea that people might come together around democratic values and nation-state ideology would probably have seemed equally fanciful and far-fetched in the late medieval era.”

A lot of things seem fanciful until they happen and, even, sometimes after that. It does not mean that everything fanciful will necessarily happen. Whatever Mr Rifkin may have studied in his many quiet hours, logic was clearly not it.

As it happens, neither was the history and structure of the European Union. Consider some of his comments about the “European dream”:

“Just two weeks ago, the heads of state and foreign ministers of the 25 nations of the European Union formally signed a constitution to bind all of Europe together in a single governing body, signalling a momentous event in European and world history. The constitution is now being sent to the member states for review and ratification.”

Well, no. There will be no review. The Constitution has to be ratified as it was agreed in a series of meetings behind closed doors by politicians who were not actually empowered to agree to anything by their electorates.

“If we Americans thought that the recent presidential contest was contentious, consider the passions that are likely to be unleashed as 455 million Europeans debate whether to commit themselves to a constitution that binds them together, for the first time, as a European people.”

Wrong again, Mr Rifkin. The American people elected their President and elections are frequently contentious. Nothing wrong with that. But there will be no debate unleashed for the 455 million Europeans. Many countries will ratify this extraordinarily important document by a nod through their parliament, as the Lithuania has done already. Others will have a somewhat misleading referendum campaign run with as little information as possible.

He then talks a great deal of rather woolly and outdated nonsense about how different the EU is from anything else ever created in history (except maybe the Holy Roman Empire) but, at least, for the first time in the columns of the Guardian he enumerates all the many aspects and powers of a state the EU possesses already. Some of his readers might be rather shocked, though not as shocked as I was when I saw that this self-appointed expert on the EU thinks that the European Parliament is the legislative body of that organization.

There is a great deal of nonsense about the challenges of globalization that cannot be met by individual states (except Norway, Switzerland, South Korea, Thailand and many others), the need for peace after two devastating wars and, even, (oh dear!) another misleading reference to Winston Churchill’s dream for Europe.

For an American he seems to have a weird idea what a constitution is for. How else can one interpret his admiring tone:

“If I were to sum up the gist of the new European constitution, it would be a commitment to respect human diversity, promote inclusivity, foster quality of life, pursue sustainable development, and build a perpetual peace. Together, these values and goals, embedded in the EU constitution's charter of fundamental rights, represent the woof and warp of a fledgling European Dream and the beginnings of a global consciousness.”

Is a constitution really there to provide dreams for those aware of global consciousness? For many Europeans, the Dream defined by that constricting constitutions is fast turning into a nightmare.

Children in a playground

Little Jacky Chirac has been teasing little Tony Blair (but they made up afterwards, or so little Jacky said). He went: ne-ne-ne-ne-ne, your big friend Georgie doesn’t really like you at all.

How else can we interpret Chirac’s pre-visit statements to the Times and the Guardian, in which he said that Blair got nothing from Bush in return for his support in Iraq. What exactly was he supposed to get? What did he want? As we have already pointed out, Blair’s “shopping list” when he went to Washington was not very long and completely unimaginative. The truth is Mr Blair does not precisely know what he wants from his friendship with President Bush.

Is it so unreasonable to think that Prime Minister Blair might have supported President Bush over the war against terrorism because it is in both countries’ interest to fight that war?

President Chirac has sorrowfully announced that Saddam Hussein’s great victory was that he managed to drive a wedge between the various European countries. An interesting way of interpreting irreconcilable differences in outlook and an odd way of referring to Saddam’s preferred method of ensuring support for his regime through the food-for-oil funds. (Or, perhaps, that was not quite what President Chirac meant.)

Once again we heard the call for a “multipolar world”, whatever that may mean, where Europe is as strong as America. Two questions: what is that strong Europe intending to achieve and how is it going to be as strong as America without either spending money on its armed forces or ensuring that its economy functions reasonably well? To these, no doubt, President Chirac would answer that we need to build up the structures of a strong state, even if we do not have the reality and agree on a “European”, that is, French foreign policy.

There is something seriously wrong with the way both Blair and Chirac think about foreign policy. As far as anyone can tell, Blair has no real idea of what he wants to achieve or what Britain’s national interests are beyond being some kind of a bridge between America and Europe. As my colleague has pointed out, the chasm may well be unbridgeable as far as some of the European countries are concerned and as for the others, the bridge is unnecessary. Even Joschka Fischer may decide that he will be nice to President Bush in order to get his support for that elusive permanent German seat on the UN Security Council.

Chirac, on the other hand, sees the world entirely divided into those who are pro-American and those who are anti with anyone who is anti being a friend of his, of France and, by extension, of the EU. He clearly has no thought or care for western liberal ideas or the western alliance; he has no particular principles and thinks no-one else should have either; but he is not necessarily concerned with France’s national interests either, beyond the very short-term aim of scoring a point or two off the Americans.

Little Europe strikes again

In this Blog last Thursday we reported on a spat between Japan and France over the siting of the proposed International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, a multinational experiment aimed at developing nuclear fusion for electricity production.

This is a truly international project, with global implications, and at the time of writing the EU was weighing in with heavy financial support behind the French aspiration to host the €10 billion project in Cadarache in southern France, rather than in Rokkasho-Mura, in north eastern Japan.

However, according to Japan Today, despite the fact that Japan, the United States, Russia, China and South Korea, as well as the European Union are putting money into the project, the EU commission is not prepared to go with the will of the majority as to the location. It has told the EU parliament in Strasbourg that, if its partners do not agree to place it in France, the EU will go ahead with its own separate project.

This more or less typifies the attitude of the EU towards international co-operation – what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine, a classic "little Europe" response. Should the EU decide to go it alone, the UK will, no doubt, be expected to help pay the bills.

And this, we are told – just in case you had forgotten – is what the "Vote No" campaign is in favour of.

Not in my name

Even as this post was being written, 400 people, mainly men and including 25 of the richest 200 in Britain, were sitting down to a slap-up dinner at the Savoy Hotel, making decisions which could shape the future of the United Kingdom as an independent country.

No, this was not another meeting of the Bildergers, or the Trilaterals, or some other shady group, although in essence there can be little to chose between them. These are people who are setting out to make decisions for all of us.

As it happens, this group was meeting to launch the "Vote No" campaign against the proposed EU constitution and the dinner was so oversubscribed with those 400 guests – if The Times report is to be relied upon – that it had to be switched from the Barbican to the Savoy hotel. Key to it all though, it fund-raising and the guest list is so blue chip that there is hope that the funds raised could reach £1 million.

The prospect of a well-funded "no" group, readers might think, should fill this Blog with unalloyed joy but, as regular readers will be aware, the enthusiasm has been somewhat muted in the past and sentiment is not about to change.

In essence, the objection to this group is exactly the same that we express about the EU and any other group that purports to make decisions in our name.

Rich and powerful men (and women for that matter) are perfectly entitled to do what they wish with their money, within the law, but in a free society (or what is left of it) us lesser mortals are entitled to comment on their actions, adversely if we so wish.

And what attracts the opprobrium is that these people (or, at least the organisers) have taken it upon themselves to mount a campaign against the constitution – a commendable enough activity – but have then presumed to call it the campaign, presenting it as such to the media.

Furthermore, without any significant consultation, they have chosen to adopt for their campaign the slogan: "Europe yes, constitution no", a slogan which is highly contentious and can do nothing other than divide the Eurosceptic ranks, many of whom could not possibly campaign alongside an organisation promoting this view.

What is doubly offensive about this is that the suggestion that this might be the campaign slogan was aired in The Sunday Times on 16 May of this year, whence I wrote to one of the leading organisers and backers of the group in the following terms:

While the sentiment may have been good enough for the euro campaign, in the constitution referendum, it seems to me we need an inclusive campaign that allows as many people as possible to participate.

My fear is that many people – even those who would not go as far as UKIP in calling for immediate withdrawal, will be deterred from participating in the campaign by such a slogan. Other might be deterred from voting as they might have difficulty in understanding the difference between "Europe" and the "constitution" (many people actually think the constitution will take us into "Europe").

Furthermore, it also seems to me that if your organisation does insist on this slogan, it will spur other groups and organisations to set up their own campaigns, with the risk the effort is diminished – and even that the various groups start fighting each other instead of the common enemy.

I have to say personally, that while I no longer support the UKIP stance of immediate withdrawal, I would find it difficult to campaign alongside any organisation which used the slogan that the Sunday Times article highlighted, and would feel impelled to cast my lot in with alternative groups.

In return, I got a personal assurance from this man that there was no intention of using this slogan and that the campaign would seek to be inclusive. In the event, either the writer had less influence than he led us to believe, or he is a man without honour.

Reneging on such a promise far transcends personal issues for the slogan is precisely what I claim it to be – divisive. It was also unnecessary. The campaign could have easily set out its stall, stating that it was a coalition of people with a wide range of views who had one important thing in common – their opposition to the proposed EU constitution.

In fact, there is room for three broad viewpoints. Firstly, there are those who oppose the constitution because they are utterly opposed to the EU and see this as the first step towards withdrawal. Secondly, there are those who are dissatisfied with the EU but do not want to withdraw from it, and see in rejecting the constitution the opportunity of forcing a reform agenda on the member states. Thirdly, there are those who are broadly satisfied with the EU as it stands, but regard the constitution as a step too far.

A skilled and more sensible – to say nothing of more honourable – group could have accommodated all these viewpoints and stitched together a powerful and united coalition. If they were not so arrogant and self-centred, they still could do so, but show no inclination whatsoever to make the necessary moves. Instead, the message coming down from on high is that we, the dissenters, should swallow our pride and our principles, in order to present a united front and to avoid damaging the campaign.

But actually no - it is you who are doing the damage. And, speaking personally, I do not take orders. I do not wish to fall into line behind a campaign that so far has shown itself intellectually incoherent, divisive and insensitive to the point of being tactically maladroit.

Clearly, I cannot speak for others, so all I can say is that you may campaign if you like, to your own agenda, but it is not in my name.

To whom it may concern

In anticipation of new government regulations - which just happen to fit rather neatly with EU public health policy - we hereby declare that this is a smoking Blog.

We will, of course, no longer be serving food.

Into the arms of the tiger

As expected, the EU is planning to strengthen its arms export guidelines when its six-year-old voluntary code of conduct receives its annual review in December.

Official sources, cited by DefenseNews, suggest that changes proposed include clearer rules on arms brokering and notification of weapon trans-shipments, as well as new guidelines for assessing the political and economic impact of arms exports to developing countries.

This, however, is not as benign as it sounds, especially as the intention is that it should remain a voluntary code will not become a legally binding document in the foreseeable future. The hidden agenda is that the stronger language in the code should pave the way for the lifting on the arms boycott on China, permitting EU member states to sell advanced weapons to the PLA.

There also seems to be another agenda at play as well, as code of conduct's prospective strengthening coincides with the EU initiative to strip away national obstacles to cross-border defence procurement.

This links back to the commission Green Paper on defence procurement which defines a course of action expected to lead to unprecedented tendering rules in the latter half of 2005 tailored specifically to Europe’s defence sector.

Gert Kampman, a Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, speaking for the EU presidency, drew a future connection between the two developments: strengthening the code and creating new procurement rules.

"The EU's arms export code is not being strengthened directly in parallel with the green paper’s future defence-market rules - that’s going too far as an assumption," Kampman said. "But there is certainly an awareness within the council and national governments that an internal defence market will need a uniform arms export policy. Eventually, it will all need to come together."

Whether it does or not, the new code could be dangerous, leading us straight into the arms of the tiger.

For those who are interested…

The full report on EU procurement, headlined in The Times yesterday is on the web.

Entitled the "Wood Review - Investigating UK business experiences of competing for public contracts in other EU countries", it comes out at 125 pages (.pdf) and makes for a pretty hefty read. It is, nevertheless, a reasonably comprehensive indictment of the Single Market.

Interestingly, though, the author, Alan Wood, does not lay all the woes of British industry at the door of the procurement directives. He says:

Even where they do apply, EU public procurement rules are only a small part of the overall regulatory environment which affects the free movement of goods and services across the EU and which involves issues such as differing administrative rules, technical standards, rights of establishment, red tape, legal systems, contract law and employment regulations. There is still some way to go to achieve a genuinely open EU Single Market.

Not least of the concerns is where there has been a more rapid pace of market liberalisation in the UK in comparison to many other EU countries, particularly in the public transport and energy sectors. According to Wood, this has resulted in foreign competition in the UK home market, but fewer corresponding opportunities for UK firms in other Member States, so long as their markets remain wholly or partially closed to competition. This is seen as particularly unfair when foreign firms competing in the UK are also state-owned or state-subsidised.

But, before anyone thinks that this is a Eurosceptic tract, read on. Says Wood: .

The European Commission should be more pro-active, not only in monitoring compliance with EU procurement law, but also in promoting the benefits of effective competition and encouraging the adoption of best practice. The Commission should work with Member States to identify, evaluate and benchmark the structures, tools and techniques which contribute most effectively to these goals; and should use a scorecard approach, where appropriate, to raise Member States’ performance.

As indicated in one of our earlier postings, this plays into the hands of the integrationists who would like nothing better than to see the commission given more power to interfere in the affairs of member states.

Herein lies the crux of a problem. Like Blair, we cannot have it both ways. Either we allow member states to make their own decisions, and use public money to purchase from whom they think fit, or we subscribe to a supranational authority which has the powers to over-ride national preference and direct governments as to what they can and cannot do.

There is, of course, the alternative of the WTO procedure, but as long as companies see any merit in an EU solution, they are buying in to political integration.

The British national interest

There is something rather inconsistent about a certain strain of Eurosceptic sentiment which, on the one hand abjures the Iraqi war as "illegal" and on the other hand rejects the European Union for its claimed dominance over the nation state.

If, as in the mantra of that strain of Euroscepticism, the nation state is supreme, by what measure is the war illegal? By what right, for instance, does the United Nations or any other supranational body declare it so, and by what legal authority?

Such thoughts are brought to the fore when one reads Blair’s Mansion House speech on foreign policy, which he delivered last night and, whatever else one might think of the man, in his opening sentences, his sentiments were broadly sound.

Remembrance Sunday was made particularly poignant this year by the presence and sacrifice of British troops in Iraq. We can be very proud of their heroism and courage. The harsh reality is that having been liberated from Saddam, Iraq now has to be freed from terrorism.

Let me repeat that the insurgents and terrorists have been offered an amnesty if they will lay down their weapons; and agree that elections not terror should decide the future of Iraq. No-one has wanted the events of the past 10 days in Falluja. But when negotiations were refused the Iraqi government had no option but to insist that the town could not continue to be run by such people.

There will be, quite properly, talk of civilian casualties in the course of the operation by the MNF and Iraqi army. I hope there is some account taken also of the emerging story - as in Najaf and Samarra - of the actions of the insurgents: people tortured and executed, a town held to ransom, hostages taken and killed. As elsewhere, when order is taken back, there is money and help ready to give the ordinary people there a better life.

To my mind, not only is the war morally right, but – as Blair then pointed up – "[it] has dramatically surfaced differences between Europe and America and Britain's role in both alliances. The relationship is under question as never before. So now is the time to defend it.

From there, however, it is all downhill. The war, in many ways sorted the sheep from the goats, the men from the boys – or whatever analogy you care to chose. But it has also pointed up the irreconcilable differences between Rumsfeld's "old Europe" and the US – the differences between the corrupt, vitiated ancién regime and the vibrant new world which believes in democracy and is prepared to put its money where its mouth is.

Blair's problem is that he believes the gulf is bridgeable, and he thinks that the UK can continue to perform its traditional role of providing that bridge. "We have a unique role to play," he says at the conclusion to his speech.

Call it a bridge, a two lane motorway, a pivot or call it a damn high wire, which is how it often feels; our job is to keep our sights firmly on both sides of the Atlantic, use the good old British characteristics of common sense and make the argument. In doing so, we are not subverting our country either into an American poodle or a European municipality, we are advancing the British national interest in a changed world in the early 21st century. And yes, we should be optimistic and confident of an ability to do it.

Blair, on the one hand notes that there is "only one superpower in the world today" and he wants to be "its strong ally". He also notes that "the most powerful political grouping that has created the largest economic market in the world is the European Union - and we are a leading member." "It's a great position," he says. "We should celebrate it."

Nice sentiments, but impossible in practice. As we have rehearsed so many times in this Blog, the world has changed. It has moved on. The "Europe" of old is polarising. It is looking to alliances with Russia, with China, with any passing dictator, any country other than the US. Its anti-Americanism, always in the background, its emerging to become the dominant force behind European politics, to the extent that EU member states are quite willing, openly to give succour and sustenance to the enemies of the United States.

His dream, therefore, of continuing to form a bridge is an illusion. He can align himself with the US or with the EU. He can no longer do both. The tragedy is that he does not recognise this and he loses himself in wishful thinking that is neither sensible nor coherent. He calls for a greater role of leadership for the UN, heedless of the fact that this is a morally bankrupt and corrupt organisation that has long since been part of the solution, and become part of the problem. He speaks against unilateralism, but without it nothing would get done. We would still be framing our nth resolution against Saddam and he would still be in his palaces, bribing the UN Security Council to keep him in place.

In other words, it is too late to sit on the fence. Blair cannot have it both ways. It is time to decide - EU or US. And where does the British national interest lie? That really is a no-brainer.

A tad flawed

The European Court of Auditors has, for the tenth year running, refused to sign off the EU's accounts, citing concerns about the accuracy of the records.

"Once again the Court has no reasonable assurance that the supervisory systems and controls of significant areas of the budget are effectively implemented so as to manage the risks concerning the legality and regularity of the underlying operations," its report says.

"The Court's audit work has repeatedly shown that many irregularities occur in such expenditure… In the absence of effective internal control procedures ... the Court cannot be certain that the transactions ... have been correctly and completely recorded."

However, Chris Davies, leader of the British Liberal Democrat MEPs, pointed out that the financial irregularities related to spending by member states.

"For the first time the Court of Auditors has spelt out that the main problem of Europe's 'missing millions' lies not in Brussels but in the national capitals," he says. "Treasuries across Europe are responsible for 80 percent of funding in areas where they share administration with the EU."

"Taxpayers have a right to know that their money is being spent properly, but with accounting improvements in hand it’s time that the European Commission stopped allowing itself to be treated as a punchbag for eurosceptics and hit back."

It's always nice to see a Lib-Dim missing the point. The commission may be in the clear but the system it administers is not. Any system which is so constructed that its auditors routinely cannot certify the accounts has to be a tad flawed.

And this, we are told – just in case you had forgotten – is what the "Vote No" campaign is in favour of.

Double take...

[It] is "for the bored rigid, the confused, the frightened, the ignored, the sceptical, the freaked out and the fed up".

I thought for a moment we had been given a plug in the business section of The Daily Telegraph. But it was only Neil Collins writing about Abbey National.

Nevertheless, sounds about right. Welcome to EU Referendum.

"This is like an onion ..."

Senator Norm Coleman. (R-Minn) of the Senate Committee on Government Affairs used that expression to describe the whole convoluted food-for-oil scandal that the committee has been investigating. More and more layers are being uncovered to explain how Saddam used the programme to finance his power and bribe people of influence around the world.

The latest estimate of Saddam Hussein’s illegal revenue is $21.3 billion, more than twice the previous one. These figures are based on papers that have become available to the Committee, some from the French bank BNP Paribas, heavily involved in all the dealings.

The one organization that has not been particularly co-operative is the UN. The excuse for not providing the information or access to potential witnesses is that the UN is conducting its own investigation under former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. The trouble with that investigation is that it has no power to subpoaena anybody or to punish anybody for malfeasance. So far, none of the results of the UN investigation have been made public. That’s transparency for you.

The whole complicated edifice involved Saddam and his friends and family as well as the government, various foreign individuals and organizations who were given vouchers for allocations of oil, which they then sold to proper oil companies with a sizeable chunk of the money remaining in their, improper, hands.

There is also the question of sub-standard food imported into Iraq under the scheme. As Associated Press puts it:

“According to the documents, the Iraqi government signed deals to import rotting food and other damaged goods with the full understanding of the exporting companies, who accepted payments for top quality products while kicking back much of the price difference to the Iraqi regime.”

This massive fraud, perpetrated largely on the people of Iraq, went on for years under the supervision of that estimable body, the United Nations and its equally estimable Secretary General, Kofi Annan, whose son, Kojo, is also involved in some of the shenanigans.

Has anybody heard a single squeal from all those vociferous individuals and organizations who, some paid, some unpaid, told us endlessly that Iraqi children were starving because of the UN sanctions? Well, I haven’t. It may have been drowned out by the continuing praise heaped on the head of Kofi Annan (father of Kojo) and the venal and incompetent UN, pre-eminent of the transnational organizations whose self-appointed brahmins want to rule us all.

You really, really could not make it up

Just as Gordon Brown has woken up to the fact that the Single Market is rigged, and the EU procurement rules are widely ignored by our EU "partners", the EU commission has announced that it is conducting an inquiry into the application of the procurement rules - over the award of the design contract for the controversial new Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh.

According to The Scotsman, the commission has also announced that the commission had launched the first stages of infringement proceedings in a separate dispute over the UK government’s failure to implement the Public Procurement Remedies Directive, which gives companies access to legal and administrative redress if they have not been dealt with fairly in the handout of public works contracts.

Neither is the commission at all impressed by Brown's claims that the procurement process is rigged, a spokesman saying that, "It would have been helpful if the Commission had received a copy of this report, rather than the Westminster lobby correspondents."

He added, "We share Gordon Brown’s concern about companies which feel they have been unfairly excluded from contracts – but I find it hard to believe that British companies are being singled out for harsh treatment and that other EU countries are prepared to give contracts to companies from other member states but not to those from the UK."

You really do have to ask what we are doing being a member of this dire organisation. This is the politics of the madhouse, an Alice-in-Wonderland world where there is absolutely no sense in anything, and nothing makes any sense. And this, we are told – just in case you had forgotten – is what the "Vote No" campaign is in favour of.

And who the hell cares anyway? I give up.

Vlaams Blok becomes Vlaams Belang

As predicted by us, as well as some others, the outlawed Vlaams Blok, found racist on somewhat dubious grounds and deprived of state funding in a country where private funding of political party is banned, has disbanded itself and formed a new party: Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest).

The new website gives the text of the “new”party’s manifesto, which is not all that different from the old one. Some of the terminology may have been toned down.

They proclaim themselves to be the party of the Flemish national interest, insisting that the state should serve the people, not the other way round, the obvious implication being that the Belgian state does not serve the Flemish people.

In some ways, the Vlaams Belang is fighting battles that were fought in the nineteenth century, showing that politically, the legacy of the French Revolution and its wars is alive and well on the Continent.

The ideology of the Vlaams Belang can be described, in the continental-European semantic context, as a “nationalist party of the right” (as opposed to the collectivist, etatist “left”). In an Anglosaxon context the term “conservative” would be used (as opposed to “liberal”). Indeed, we recognise man as a free agent, with all his human qualities and flaws, and we reject ideologies that presuppose the “makeability” of mankind and that advocate social engineering. Tradition, virtues and morality, as these have grown through time, must be respected and are constitutive elements of the society of the future.

The party insists on its separate identity from the other, Wallon part of Belgium and on the closeness of the Flemish language and culture to that of the Dutch; it opposes European integration, preferring to see co-operation between free nations; and, going on to its most controversial ideas, it insists that immigrants must accept and adopt the culture of the country they live in, or face repatriation.

It must be made clear to aliens and immigrants in Flanders that they are expected to comply with our laws, and also to adapt to our values and morality, to our habits and to important traditional principles of European civilization,such as the separation of church and state, democracy, freedom of speech and the equal status of men and women.

Their values include freedom, law and order together with equality before the law, an emphasis on the family and free enterprise.

Given their previous electoral success, their opinions that are likely to resonate with many people in the Flemish section of the country and their newly acquired status of political martyrdom, the Vlaams Belang is likely to grow in popularity. Given the determination of the Belgian government, supported by many in the European Parliament and other EU strata to destroy the party, we are likely to see an interesting fight that may, in the end, bring down the European Union together with its “home country”, Belgium.

Goodbye Prodi

There was a time when, if Prodi spoke, it would be on the front page of every newspaper in Europe – or near enough. But no longer. On his way out after a less than glorious career as commission president, for his last interview in the post he only gets to speak on Belgian national television and the report is picked up by AFP and not much else.

And how fitting that this interview as president should be lament. Echoing a theme that he has oft repeated, he lamented that the EU remains "divided" and regretted that the EU constitution did not go far enough in integrating power.

His big grief is that "Europe" has the euro but we doesn't have a harmonised economic policy. "It is a very, very difficult problem," he wailed, "to have a single currency and not to have a single policy to protect that currency. There is a great risk." And, as regards the constitution, he feels it leaves veto rights intact in many policy areas. "With 25 countries, it is impossible to take decisions," he said.

Goodbye Prodi. We shall miss you.

The telling silence of the BBC

On 7 November, we carried a story on our Blog, highlighted by Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph concerning the introduction of new electrical "safety" regulations through an amendment to the Building Regulations which, as Booker reported, would add considerable cost and inconvenience to anyone wishing to have electrical works carried out in their houses.

What was going on, we reported, was a poorly understood and little-advertised procedure, known as the "new approach" to harmonisation. Through this procedure, first introduced in 1983 and then amended in 1998 by an extraordinarily opaque directive (98/34/EC) "laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations", the EU no longer has to issue harmonising laws.

Instead, it works through European standards bodies such as CEN and CENELEC, and once these standards bodies adopted a new standard, the relevant member state standards bodies are obliged to adopt it and, as necessary, the member state governments are obliged to implement them in nations laws – with no obvious EU fingerprints in evidence.

When The Daily Telegraph reported the story the next day, we invited readers to compare and contrast its treatment with that of Christopher Booker, where there was absolutely no mention of the EU link.

We remarked that one could never be sure whether omissions like this reflected the amateurism of the journalists involved, or whether more sinister forces were at play. Either way, the net effect is that the hidden hand of the EU stays hidden and the people are thus less informed than they have a right to be.

Incidentally, The Daily Telegraph have again covered the story today, and once again there is no mention of the EU link, and again one is not sure whether amateurism or something more sinister is at play.

However, the story was also covered today by the BBC's "You and Yours" consumer programme on Radio 4, and here there can be no doubt. The story was clearly informed by Booker's Sunday Telegraph story and we have it on unimpeachable authority that BBC researchers were fully briefed on the EU links.

But did the programme's Sue Barclay mention the EU? Did she hell. Instead, she had Stewart Burchell from the Electrical Contractors Association, a beneficiary of the regulations – as a body which can charge to certify electricians – telling us that the rules were being brought in because "people are killed, fires are caused and people are injured on an annual basis…".

Then, instead of Christopher Booker, who broke the story upon which they relied, the BBC had Jeff Howell, strangely also a columnist with The Sunday Telegraph. Nevertheless, he told us that the rules were not the right way to regulate and would further complicate the issue. But he was not allowed to tell us why such a complicated, absurdly expensive scheme was being introduced, or why there was such urgency to get the rules into place.

At least in one thing, I suppose, the BBC is consistent. When it comes to giving us any information that might bring its beloved EU into disrepute, it is nowhere to be seen.

Sykes refuses to back Tories

In a Yorkshire Post report today, Yorkshire tycoon Paul Sykes is said to have told the Conservative Party that he will not give them a penny for the next general election. But, in a move designed to inflict maximum pressure on the main parties over Europe, he has vowed to help fund any individual candidate who advocates withdrawal from the European Union.

The YP claims that the Tories had hoped that Sykes, who has given an estimated £6m to anti-EU causes, would turn some of his financial firepower to their side after he had defected from UKIP following what is styled as "a toughening-up of the Tories' Europe policy" and the return of leading Tory eurosceptic John Redwood to the shadow cabinet.

However, Sykes, who has turned down an invitation for personal talks with Michael Howard, said: "I will be voting Conservative at the next general election but that's all I'm doing. I'm not coming back to join the Conservative Party. I can't and won't fund the Tory policy at present. It's misleading.

He added, "I don't agree with their policy over the EU, but they're the best of a bad bunch," stating that he would give assistance to any candidate, of any party, who agreed with him over the EU.

Procurement and the WTO

Continuing with the theme of the procurement rules so sadly abused by our continental "partners", see here and here, Mr Brown, with the aid of The Times, is bleating that the EU commission is "impotent" and that it should take more action. This, of course, plays into the hands of the integrationists, who would dearly love the commission to have more powers to enforce its laws.

However, one of our readers has very kindly informed us of the existence of the WTO Agreement of Government Procurement, which, to my shame, I have to admit I did not know existed.

As UK negotiator for the original agreement, our reader informs us that the UK would have more quote rights under its WTO membership than it has within the framework of the EU. The WTO would allow us to take action against France, Germany, etc., whereas the EU version depends much on EU commission input. "And," he adds, "we all know what that means in terms of corruption, factionalism etc."

The WTO website (link above) observes that in most countries the government, and the agencies it controls, are together the biggest purchasers of goods of all kinds, ranging from basic commodities to high-technology equipment. At the same time, the political pressure to favour domestic suppliers over their foreign competitors can be very strong.

Therefore, an Agreement of Government Procurement was first negotiated during the Tokyo Round and entered into force on 1 January 1981. Its purpose was to open up as much of this business as possible to international competition. It is designed to make laws, regulations, procedures and practices regarding government procurement more transparent and to ensure they do not protect domestic products or suppliers, or discriminate against foreign products or suppliers.

The agreement has 28 members (including all the EU member states). It has two elements - general rules and obligations, and schedules of national entities in each member country whose procurement is subject to the agreement. A large part of the general rules and obligations concern tendering procedures.

The present agreement and commitments were negotiated in the Uruguay Round. These negotiations achieved a 10-fold expansion of coverage, extending international competition to include national and local government entities whose collective purchases are worth several hundred billion dollars each year. The new agreement also extends coverage to services (including construction services), procurement at the sub-central level (for example, states, provinces, departments and prefectures), and procurement by public utilities. The new agreement took effect on 1 January 1996.

It also reinforces rules guaranteeing fair and non-discriminatory conditions of international competition. For example, governments will be required to put in place domestic procedures by which aggrieved private bidders can challenge procurement decisions and obtain redress in the event such decisions were made inconsistently with the rules of the agreement.

The agreement applies to contracts worth more than specified threshold values. For central government purchases of goods and services, the threshold is SDR 130,000 (some $185,000 in June 2003). For purchases of goods and services by sub-central government entities the threshold varies but is generally in the region of SDR 200,000. For utilities, thresholds for goods and services is generally in the area of SDR 400,000 and for construction contracts, in general the threshold value is SDR 5,000,000.

The text of the Agreement is also on the website here and is a useful addition to the armoury of those who would seek to counter the propaganda that the EU is the answer to all evils.

The unsung heroes

I suppose it was inevitable that we would see a self-congratulatory piece sooner or later about the wonderful success of the official North East campaign in securing a "no" vote in the NE elected assembly referendum.

And so it has come to pass that James Frayne, "campaign director" for NESNO, has written just such a piece, published in the somewhat unlikely "personal view" slot in the business section of The Daily Telegraph today.

Dressed up as an analysis of the implications of the campaign for the EU constitutional referendum, I will leave it to Neil Herron’s team to write the definitive rebuttal of Frayne’s claims to glory (which will be appearing on his Blog, later today) but have to add my views on the offence cause by this self-regarding article.

According to the Frayne myth, as late as August, an ICM poll was predicting a 2:1 advantage to the "yes" campaign but, in mid-September, "as the campaign began properly", people focused on it "and the polls moved quickly in our favour".

To those who know anything of the detail of the campaign, they will be aware that the ICM poll was commissioned by the "yes" campaign with a rigged question that could only have elicited the response that it did. It never did represent the popular sentiment, and the tide was already turning in favour of a "no" vote, and had been doing so long before Frayne and his bunch of johnny-come-latelys arrived on the scene.

That the opposition was already solid owes much to the work of Neil Herron and many others, the "unsung heroes" who had been slogging away on the issue for the last two years and more, building solid local coalitions, rehearsing the issues and pushing the issue up the agenda. Our considered view of the campaign, therefore, was that it was won despite the late appearance of NESNO, not because of it.

Turning to the substantive issue, of the implications of this referendum for the EU constitutional referendum, Frayne nevertheless makes some good points, although they are the most obvious ones, which were brought to his attention from diverse sources, not least by Herron’s team. But Frayne, in a manner typical of his ilk, claims the glory for himself.

What he did not address, therefore, was the downside of his own activity – and that of his colleagues – was the downside of his intervention, the fact that it had a divisive impact, splitting the "no" campaign and allowing the "yes" campaign its only serious opportunity of making an impact.

And it is precisely that same mechanism that could do irrevocable damage to the EU referendum campaign, as the self-appointed "Vote No" campaign takes to the field, claiming proprietary rights over a campaign that is much bigger than them and is far too important to allow a bunch of chancers and money-men to grab as their personal play-thing.

Already, we have seen the lack-lustre performance of this team but what is not obvious – and cannot be - is the lack of intelligent behind-the-scenes preparation and strategy development.
In what must be a campaign fought by the widest possible coalition of activists - against what will be the full weight of the government, with all its resources – we should be seeing a process of consultation, alliance-building and planning, with resources devoted to training and motivating the activists, assisting them to develop the tactics that will bring out the "no" vote on the day. And on top of that, we should also be seeing the establishment of a well-founded think-tank which will give intellectual weight to the "no" arguments.

Instead, we see a premature and divisive programme of cinema advertisements, a second-rate web site and some seriously flawed pamphlets, developed by a team which has no street-fighting credentials and which has never had to fight a real campaign in which public participation will be critical. We see no sign of intellectual depth, or even any indication that the players have any real grasp of the issues, yet we are supposed to bow down in awe and await our instructions on the day, from these masterminds.

Perhaps Mr Frayne, now ensconced in the safety and security of his London office, believes he has scored a notable victory, and is no doubt preening himself on his clever self-promotion in the Telegraph. But, for those of us who are less concerned with self-advancement and are more focused on winning the forthcoming campaign, we feel nothing but sadness at the thought that he and people like him are let loose to posture and prance. As always, however, it will be the unsung heroes who will do the work.

And another thing…

For all the weeping and gnashing of teeth about those cunning continentals who are rigging the public procurement system to their own advantage, as reported in this posting and further elaborated by The Times, perhaps Mr Brown ought to have a quiet word with his colleagues in the Ministry of Defence about their decision to nominate the German company MAN Nutzfahzeuge, of Munich, as the preferred bidder for the £1.8 billion contract to supply trucks to the British Army. See here, here and here.

As defence contracts are not subject (yet) to EU law, there was absolutely no legal reason why the MoD should not have awarded the contract to an enterprise which would build the trucks in Britain and, as we have reported previously (see links above), all the indications are that the MAN trucks are technically inferior and more expensive.

This somewhat puts into perspective the bleeding heart article in The Times, under the heading "Commission is all but impotent to stop abuses", which starts off with the sorry tale that:

...when the Italian fire service, police, coastguard or forestry department want a new helicopter, they don’t think too hard about where to buy it. The Italian Government has a long-standing policy that all Italian public sector helicopters have to be bought directly from the Italian firm Agusta. No other helicopter company can bid for the contract.

So the Italians get away with an illegal national preference but, in the instance where it would have been perfectly legal for the MoD to have bought British, the Germans get the contract.

Law or no law, can anyone in their wildest dreams imagine the French, the Germans or the Italians, each with their own national truck builders, buying their Army trucks from another nation. But here we are, entirely unforced, destroying any chance we might have had to rebuild our military track manufacturing capacity.

Yet, The Times is weeping about public procurement in the EU being worth €1,500 billion annually. The British Army truck contract is worth £1.8 billion – that's POUNDS, not micky-mouse euros. It is all very well for The Times to bleat in its leader about loss of British jobs as a result of the procurement directive abuses, but what did it – or any other newspaper for that matter – say about the truck contract? Absolutely sod all.

Pah!

Well, there is a surprise

According to the front page of The Times this morning, British firms are losing out in the battle for the £1,000 billion European public works market because other governments are unfairly discriminating against them and rigging the rules to help their own companies.

And guess who reported just that on 11 July this year – none other that Christopher Booker in his column, with further analysis on this Blog. Then, Booker described the procurement regime as "one of the greatest, if largely unreported, scandals of the EU".

Anyhow, now that The Times has caught up with the story, it elevates it to its front page, as it retails news of a report that is to be published today.

The report, from Alan Wood, chief executive of Siemens, the engineering and electronics conglomerate, will show big failings in the much-vaunted EU single market. He finds that complex rules, unfair national preferences, and a wavering commitment to competition in other parts of the EU are holding back the creation of a truly fair and competitive market for government contracts.

The report also details instances of unfair practice. These include the award of contracts to national suppliers even where foreign bidders are believed to offer better quality or price; the drawing up of contracts to suit a national company; putting pressure on suppliers to use locally-based sub-contractors; and inviting foreign bids simply to beat down local businesses on price, not because they have a chance of winning the contract.

The report was commissioned by Gordon Brown, who is planning on a speech tomorrow, that will call on Europe to reform its single market rules, to remove the “huge obstacles” that stand in the way of fair competition in European markets, and which harm British and other EU businesses.

Funnily enough, in 1999, when I was first appointed to my research job in the EU parliament, I decided to make it a priority to look at the procurement system. Looking though the Official Journal, it was even then plainly obvious that most of the contracts advertised were from British authorities, and many of them went to foreign firms.

Later, we had a French assistant, and I asked her why the system seems so skewed, and why the French did not seem to notify many contracts, as they are obliged to do under EU law. She gave me such a withering look – part pity, part scorn - and sighed, "Oh Richaaaar…".

Now bleats our Gordon, "Other countries must open up their markets to fair competition." We wish him the very best of luck. But he might as well save his breath. The system is rigged and as long as there is a Frenchman on this planet, it will stay rigged.

Klaus hits the spot

Three cheers for the Canadian Financial Post, which has published a rumbustical article about the Czech president being "leery of EU constitution".

"Imagine if Canadian energy policy were set by a bunch of NAFTA bureaucrats, a NAFTA court of justice and an overarching NAFTA constitution and you would get an idea of what it might be like living under the new European Union constitution", it writes.

That is the way Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, puts it, and he thinks "the idea stinks". Although he is in favour of further European economic integration, especially if it frees up markets and gets rid of trade barriers (dream on), adopting a new constitution for the 25-member block is taking things one step too far.

Klaus, who along with his better-known political opponent Vaclav Havel was the driving force behind the Czech Republic's post-Communist rebirth, thinks a European constitution is a radical step that would eventually lead to the demise of individual European nation states.

It would, he argues, eliminate the legal autonomy of individual European countries, introduce a EU legal personality, and in terms of international law, transform the EU into a state.

He likens it to Canada, the United States and Mexico adopting a constitution under the North American Free Trade Agreement and allowing it to supersede the constitutions of the three countries.

"Can you imagine someone transferring the energy issue from Canada, the United States and Mexico to NAFTA authorities?" Mr. Klaus said in an interview in Toronto ahead of a speech arranged by the Fraser Institute.

Mr. Klaus said there was no alternative for a small country at the heart of Europe to become part of the European Union. The Czech Republic was one of 10 countries that joined the union on May 1 last year in the biggest enlargement in its history. "We are a small European country and that means we have to be part of the European integration process," he said.

The country spent years amending its legislation as a pre-condition for entry but the new constitution would push European hegemony into a further 40 areas of human activity, including energy, sports and culture, he said. The bureaucracy of Europe, already big enough, would continue to swell. He jokes about sports.

"I'm sure there will be a bureaucracy created to tell us that when you play basketball you must have either white or black or red or blue dress and when you play volleyball you can have green or yellow," he said.

The union would be better off concentrating on implementing an institutional framework that would preserve basic civil, political and economic liberties and freeing up markets and labour.

"Internal movement [of markets] needs deregulation and liberalization not centralisation... not standardisation," he said. "I want to have the best imaginable relations with my neighbours - Austrians, Germans Poles, Hugarians, Slovaks - but I still think I'm a citizen of the Czech Republic not a citizen of Europe."

"This constitution introduces citizenship of Europe and I'm quite happy with my Czech passport and I don't mind showing it at the Canadian border."

What's sauce for the goose ....

The European People’s Party (EPP) is not happy. The Socialists have managed to get a nominee Commissioner out and they have not. Not fair, they say. We want a scalp as well. (Nobody seems to be claiming the Latvian Ingrida Udre’s substitution by Andris Piebalgs as a particular victory. I wonder why not.)

The one the EPP wants out is the Hungarian László Kovács, a former Communist, now Socialist, who was first given the energy portfolio. He seems to have been so incompetent and ignorant in his replies during his interrogation by the relevant Euopean Parliament committee that even the MEPs noticed.

In the new or, rather, renewed old Commission Mr Kovács has been given the tax portfolio and Mr Piebalgs energy. They and Mr Frattini, the new Italian nominee, will be questioned again by the MEPs next week. It seems that Mr Kovács has already told some of them privately that his knowledge of tax is no greater than that of energy. One wonders about his general intelligence if these are the sort of things he admits to readily. Or could this be part of a general Hungarian plot to destabilize the European Union as they have destabilized various empires in the past?

In the meantime the Socialists have accused some of EPP of dirty tricks. Apparently the latter have been circulating compromising pictures of Mr Kovács on the internet. No, not that sort of compromising pictures, just ones that prove he was in the Communist militia. It is not quite clear what is meant by Communist militia in this case or how the Socialists know that the pictures are fake, but it all adds to the gaiety of nations.

According to The Times this morning, the European Parliament, intoxicated by its political success in postponing the actual enthronement of the Commission is demanding further concessions. They want to have the power to get rid of individual Commissioners they do not like (presumably those who do not admit to their own secular, statist morality) rather than having to fire the whole Commission, a nuclear option they have never taken up and never will. In other words, they want to have more leverage in those complicated and not entirely transparent deals that are struck behind closed doors in Brussels and Strasbourg. Surely, even they do not pretend that this has anything to do with democracy or accountability.

The trouble with constitutions…

It is not only Spain that is having to confront legal problems in order to ratify the EU constitution. Its neighbour, Portugal, is also finding it tough going. And the main problem, it seems, is er… the constitution – the Portuguese constitution that is. It does not allow the exact text of a treaty to be put to a referendum.

To get round this rather strange prohibition, the government has a choice. It can either alter the constitution, although that needs a two-thirds parliamentary majority to do that, or it can word the referendum question in such a way that voters can make their feelings about the treaty clear without being asked to vote directly on the text of the constitution.

Despite both main parties favouring ratification, however, the opposition is not giving the government an easy ride on this. The issue has become bogged down by squabbling over the wording of the question to be put, which means a date for the referendum cannot yet be set. And before matters can be resolved, the constitutional court must rule on the wording, possibly leading to more delay.

Nonetheless, the government is still confident that it can hold the referendum at the end of March or the beginning of April. The worry is though that the question will be so unclear that confused voters will stay away from the polls, in a country that traditionally suffers from a low turnout in referendums. Some commentators believe that this combination could even result in a "no" vote.

The continuing saga of the special relationship

An odd aspects of the special relationship between Britain and the United States is that it is the weaker partner that is more likely to be negative about it and the stronger one positive. One is much more likely to hear British politicians, journalists, commentators, old uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all pronounce that there is no special relationship or that it is all one way from us to them or that Mr Blair is little more than Mr Bush’s poodle. American politicians, journalists, commentators and so on, fall over themselves in trying to explain that the special relationship is alive and well, that Mr Blair has a huge influence in Washington and ought to have more, that the relationship is both ways with each needing the other.

What is one to make of it all? Some of this is psychological mirror imaging. If I may make what is a difficult generalization, the United States, though undoubtedly the strongest and most powerful country at the moment, does not like the situation very much. It likes having allies and likes showing off about having allies, particularly if one of them is Britain, a country much admired though not much known in America.

British attitude to America and Americans is somewhat more complicated. Yes, there is a special link there, which is historic and unbreakable. But there is also an astonishing and incomprehensible amount of resentment. It is as if there was a feeling across the country, especially among the great and the good, that it is all wrong that America is where it is – at the top of the world’s power structure; it ought to be Britain. Why is it not Britain? Must be a mistake. Perhaps, if we go on behaving as if we were the most powerful country in the world still, everybody will believe us.

As we have written before, Mr Blair’s visit to the United States produced a great deal of advice on both sides of the Atlantic. All tended along the lines that President Bush owes Prime Minister Blair a great deal and should pay his debt; the two have a lot in common and certainly many interests in common; they should support various initiatives together; above all, President Bush should support various rather nebulous ideas that Prime Minister Blair might bring with him especially about the Middle East and Europe.

Very muddled, all of it. In the first place, it is hard to see what Mr Bush owes Mr Blair that he does not owe other supporters of the coalition of the willing, such as John Howard of Australia or President Kwasniewski of Poland. Mr Blair is, indeed, popular in many parts of the United States (particularly Washington DC) but it is hard to believe that all those millions of Americans voted for Bush because Our Tone is his friend.

On the other hand, it is true to say that Britain and America do or, at least, should have many interests in common. Both countries have fought against enemies of the liberal west before and are fighting the same fight again. Both have an interest in extending the liberal western ideas as far as possible in the world, partly for moral and partly for political reasons. (It is interesting that many of the opponents of military action against terrorists and states that harbour terrorists exclaimed in horror at the crudity of it all, babbling on about the need to deal with the roots of terrorism. But what was horrifying them was precisely the firmly expressed American intention to do just that – by trying to scotch terrorist regimes and aiding and abetting the growth of democracy.)

So what has actually come out of Prime Minister Blair’s visit? Very little and this, alas, will confirm some people’s view that Blair is no more than Bush’s poodle. As a matter of fact, poodles are useful hunting dogs, so calling someone a poodle is hardly an insult. Would that politicians were that useful.

There is another mystery here. When the British Prime Minister or the government or, indeed, the country shows friendship and loyalty to our greatest friend and ally (however exasperating it might be occasionally), there are sneers and jeers and accusations of poodledom. But let anyone even suggest that we ought to renegotiate seriously our relationship with other European states and the same people throw their hands up in horror, gasping out the words: treaty and breaking.

The odd thing is that Blair could have got various things out of the visit, over and above the fulsome praise bestowed upon him by Bush. It’s just that he seems to be unable to think of what it is he really wants.

Take the Middle East, for instance. There is no point in asking Bush to try to further the peace process as he has already proclaimed himself ready to do so if the various Palestinian organizations will show themselves willing to engage in real negotiations. The only thing Blair could add was a rather typical suggestion of a conference in London in January. Well, of course, such a conference would be a feather in Mr Blair’s cap (and make life absolutely hellish for anyone who lives and works in London, what with all the security and other problems) but what would it achieve?

One cannot help agreeing with the long editorial piece in today’s Sunday Telegraph. Mr Bush will, quite rightly, agree to a conference that may bring about some development. But if it is only an excuse for yet more hot air (what of global warming, one asks oneself) then let’s forget it. The people of London can relax.

Then there is Europe or, to be quite precise, the European Union, since Europe as such is hardly a problem. It cannot possibly have escaped American attention that it is not only in Iraq that the “official” EU line is: find out what the Americans want to do and oppose it. In the Palestine there was the unthinking and undiscussed support for Arafat and his hoodlums, however harmful that may have been to the cause of peace and the Palestinian people.

In other parts of the world it is the equally unthinking and undiscussed support for any tyranny, as long as it is anti-American and a great flaunting of “dialogue” with anyone, but anyone, the United States considers to be an enemy. There has to be another alternative to either slavishly falling in behind the Americans all the time or equally slavishly opposing them all the time. As between the two, given the sort of allies we acquire by the second alternative, perhaps we should think a little more carefully about the first one. Or just start thinking rather than reacting.

Still, Mr Bush is planning to take a European trip on which he will, no doubt, be greeted by the same hysterical screaming crowds he was greeted by last time, made up of people who seem to believe that there is no power in the world worse than American. He will almost certainly be snubbed by President Chirac and criticized by assorted other European leaders. And that will probably be that. Mr Blair will be left to pick up the pieces and face his own backbenchers yet again.

And that seems to be the extent of that famous shopping list that Mr Blair took with him to Washington. He seems to have had no ideas about Russia, China, Africa, the role of international organizations or anything else (unless there were secret talks we know nothing about). Above all, he took nothing to offer – no glass beads or, even, bales of silk.

As my colleague has written on occasions too numerous to refer to (but here is one, anyway), British defence policy (if there is such a thing) has gradually deprived the British forces of their ability to stand anywhere near the American ones, all in the name of further integration into the projected European Security and Defence Identity. Mr Blair’s insistence on the need for a European army and a European foreign policy has made him a less than important ally. From what one can gather there is a growing understanding in Washington of the danger the European Union is or will be to the western alliance. Mr Blair, if he had any imaginative ideas about the future of Europe away from the European Union, would probably have been listened to with interest. But he does not. He remains a European integrationist who, somehow, cannot see that he cannot combine that with the continuing special relationship. And so, he, his government and its policies drift on, as does the country.

Sunday blues

With our masthead declaring that our purpose is "to discuss issues arising in relation to the UK referendum on the constitutional treaty", we have interpreted our brief pretty widely – ignoring complaints from some Europhile readers that we have been too liberal (as one does).

Yet, despite our obvious interest in the subject, we have resisted the temptation to get embroiled in commenting on the Iraqi War, voluntarily confining ourselves to the margins where EU issues are involved. Even the comment in our previous post on Fallujah was limited to a discussion on the implications of the battle on British and EU defence policy.

Reviewing the newspapers this morning for the Blog, as one does – in order to select and post those stories that are of relevance to the debate – I could not avoid the leaden feeling of how dire they all were. With all the events in the world, it is somehow fitting that the story the media got most excited about was the demise of Mr Boris Johnson MP.

In a fit of the Sunday blues, one almost felt like going back to bed but, instead I did something useful for once, and swept the leaves from the garden.

Returning to the task of reading the papers, I reflected that the coverage of Fallujah, in times gone past when we had grown-up newspapers, would have been written up as a great feat of arms – as indeed it was. But what characterises the reports today is their maudlin, infantile sentimentality, their sheer, rank amateurishness and negativity.

Having spent the best part of the day yesterday reading through battle reports from media and other sources all over the globe, I got no sense of what had transpired from the British press.

While the Sunday Times headline concentrates on the suicide bombers who have escaped, not untypical of the more general coverage is the report in The Observer which focuses on the plight of the civilians, the "private doubts" of (unnamed) "senior military officers in Britain and the US" about the effects of the battle.

This is interspersed with scarce-concealed admiration for the "insurgents" (i.e., head-hacking murderers) who have surprised US troops by their ingenuity. "Aware that their communications can be listened to by the American soldiers, they have used flags to concentrate their attacks." Wow.

No reports, of course, of the ingenuity of US troops using unmanned aircraft (UAVs) equipped with video cameras to detect armed head-hackers on the roofs, with satellite links that enable their co-ordinates to be beamed down to gunners some ten miles away who can then, minutes later, unleash precision ordnance on them, leaving unharmed US troops not yards away.

If dear reader, you now feel that I am breaking the bounds of the "EU Referendum" brief, bear with me because this is not about Fallujah. It is about the infantilisation of the media.

The point, of course – as I so often say – is that if you have a media that is so distorted and so incapable of anything close to objective reporting, whether in what it says or does not say, then we have a serious problem on our hands. Developing that point, if I was in the position of designing a newspaper, to which stories would I give more prominence?

One contender might be one which has – rightly - attracted some attention from the Eurosceptic community today. That is the page two story in The Sunday Times which reports that ministers are considering whether European Union citizens who live in Britain should be allowed to vote in the referendum on the EU constitution.

Many of the 1.3m citizens of other EU countries who have made their homes here are believed to be likely to vote for greater integration, so the story goes, and their inclusion could boost Tony Blair’s “Yes” campaign.

I would, without hesitation, elevate the stories in the Booker column not least because this week he deals with yet another development in the on-going saga of the asbestos "rip-off".

For some considerable time now, Booker has been a lone voice on this issue, and today he reminds us that the bill just for surveying and sampling Britain's social housing stock for asbestos has been estimated at £2 billion, a rediculous impostion, made worse by the EU's insistence in including white asbestos in its legislation, alongside the harmful types.

Then there is his story about the bizarre crisis facing a firm in Oswestry, Shropshire, run by the celebrated Swedish balloonist Per Lindstrand, who has been blocked from selling his own “aerostat” balloons, by a combination of EU law and inept British bureaucracy.

This is followed by a story about how Trading Standards Officers are taking the law into their own hands in their bid to expunge Imperial measurements from English life and then Booker picks up on a story trailed in this Blog about China supporting the EU constitution. Strangely, or perhaps not, this has not been reported anywhere in the mainstream media until now.

However, the story I would have put straight on the front page was in fact tucked away on page 2 of the business section of the Sunday Telegraph. Headed "Talks on naval shipyard merger in hot water".

I doubt whether many people gave this story even a second glance. It has actually been a long-standing saga, as the government has for some time been encouraging defence shipbuilders to merge. But, with the industry on the point of doing a deal, what electrified me was the news of the rumour that the government is insisting that “stakeholders” for the merged company should include Thales, the French defence giant.

One industry executive has said: "The Government have thrown a hand grenade into the discussions. Thales don't even own any shipyards in the UK." But it is much more than that – it is more of the defence integration by stealth agenda, highlighted in one of our earlier postings.

What is terrifying is that the media have failed completely to even notice what is going on, much less report it.

Finally, one thing I thought some of the papers got about right was the Arafat "missing money" story, although I would have given more prominence to the EU's involvement. Here, I did appreciate the story in The Sunday Telegraph, headed "That money belongs to the Palestinians, not to him", and the comment about Christopher Patten the EU commissioner for external affairs, who had resisted scrutiny of EU funding alleged to have been misused by Arafat.

So, that was my Sunday. The leaves are cleared, but the blues remain.

Ah so! Renegotiation

According to the Sunday Telegraph - and doubtless other papers - John Redwood, the shadow secretary of state for deregulation, has laboured long and hard on his task, and has come up with "annual quotas" for the amount of business regulation that government departments can introduce. Any regulations that cost more than the department's budget will be blocked.

However, there is a slight snag. At least half of all new business regulations are imposed by the EU, which member states have to implement. Thus, Redwood's regulation quotas are likely to be used up implement EU law, leaving nothing for legislation proposed by British politicians. And then, of course, there is the question of what happens if EU law exceeds the quota.

Redwood, it seems, is unabashed by these minor problems. "Well, we don't want that," he says. "That's why it is so important that there is a renegotiation with the Commission to ensure that we stop wave after wave of new regulation. At the moment British businesses are regulated by two governments, for three times the cost. That is clearly unacceptable."

There you are then… renegotiation. And with one bound, he was free.

Reflections on Fallujah

Despite the anti-war rhetoric, the dire warnings of a "quagmire" and the predictions of a bloodbath for the US troops, militarily the battle of Fallujah has been a stunning success. and that success has enormous implications for British and EU defence policy.

When they come to study the battle, military strategists will note that the "home team" had the advantages of knowing the ground, had plenty of warning and thus time to prepare the defences and had an apparently unlimited supply of munitions, on top of the inherent advantage of fighting in a congested urban environment which has always favoured the defender.

They will note also that many hundreds of them died, that there were few coalition casualties and that the whole city was secured in less than a week after the troops jumped off.

On the face of it, the military success has to be a testament to the skill, tactics and equipment of the US forces, but what can “European” planners learn from the battle?

The first thing is – as we observed in a previous posting - was the key role of the Main Battle Tank. Working closely with the infantry, they were used to tempt the insurgents into battle, flushing them out in order that other arms could deal with them

Secondly, there was unprecedented employment of aerial surveillance, including the use of hi-tech unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), with on-board video cameras, affording continuous observation of the battle area, giving real time intelligence on enemy movements. Integrated with satellite positioning information, the "intel" enabled directors to give immediate, accurate targeting data to a variety of assets, including ground attack aircraft and long-range artillery.

Thirdly, the complexity of the air war was staggering, as was the extraordinary range of air assets employed, ranging from Cobra attack helicopters, with their Hellfire missiles, AC130 gunships, F-18s and even B2s.

No fewer than twenty different types of aircraft were thrown into the fight and so crowded was the sky that they were layered in stacks above the city, directed by ten teams of ground controllers.

Then there was a negative factor. The much-vaunted Stryker Brigade, using the prototype vehicles that provide a model for the FCS/FRES concepts, were not much in evidence. The MBT and Bradley teams were in the front line - so-called "heritage" platforms - not the more modern platforms, casting serious doubts on the utility of light/medium weight armoured vehicles in urban warfare.

Nevertheless, what the success amounts to is that, as even The Times agrees, the Americans have rewritten the rules of urban warfare. But they have done more than that. They have rewritten the whole book on counter-insurgency and projected the "Europeans", with all their pretensions of a "defence identity", so far into the second league that they might just as well be equipped with bows and arrows.

Any idea that the Europeans, militarily or politically, can even begin to act as a counterweight to US power is strictly for the birds. Not even the combined weight of all the forces of all the EU member states, and not even the best of their technology, could they even begin to match the scale of the US achievement.

They are so far behind that, whether we are on our own or with the "Europeans", it makes no difference. Allied to the US, however, we are at least alongside a winning team. If we ratify the Constitution, however, that will firmly lock us out of that alliance and relegate us permanently to the second division.

A parallel universe

"The Atlantic alliance, the core of the wider community known as the Anglosphere, has never been stronger," opines The Daily Telegraph today in its leader, "America listens to its strongest ally".

The paper is referring to the meeting between the newly re-elected George Bush and Tony Blair, interpreting this as a sign that the UK is now "America's strongest ally." This, it believes, "is to Mr Blair's credit" and the rest of us have cause to be grateful.

However, in Eurofacts, today – albeit a slightly less well-read journal – we read in the front-page story of Blair's "European obsession" that "puts all our lives at risk".

In the article, informed not least by posts in this Blog, that the mechanisms of defence co-operation are being put at risk by our ever-closer integration with the EU defence dimension. "The pattern is clear", Eurofacts claims:

Step-by-step, the tested foundations on which our national defences have been established are being undone and replaced by grandiose, untested and even absurd schemes that answer to political rather than security needs. We will be at greater risk as a consequence.

Readers will know that it is this Blog's thesis that these schemes are so undermining the "special relationship" that the Atlantic alliance cannot survive.

Clearly, with such a wide divergence between this Blog – and Eurofacts for that matter – and the Telegraph, we cannot all be right. We seem to be inhabiting a parallel universe. If we are right, then that begs the question as to how the newspaper leader-writer could have got it so wrong.

My theory is that journalists are now so obsessed with the "soap opera" drama of politics, and are so ignorant of the detail of both EU affairs and defence technology, that they are incapable of understanding the issues. If that is the case, then the Telegraph leader today was not only complacent and ill-informed but dangerous.

Not a superstate, honest guv!

The Irish Times really surely cannot even begin to understand what makes people tick, if it thinks its latest piece about the EU is going to engender anything but a quiet rage in its many readers.

"In the future", its Brussels correspondent, Honor Mahoney, chirps, "Irish diplomats will be able to choose whether they want to work for the national service or opt for a European diplomatic service." She continues:

This new service, which only made it into the new European Constitution at the last minute, will back up the powerful EU foreign minister, who will be responsible for external representation of the Union - a wide-ranging brief that also covers trade and development.

It seems that Solana, who will become the EU's foreign minister if (Mahoney writes "once") the constitution is in place, - at the earliest in 2006 - has already set up a task force to examine the issue.

He is acting, of course, in the interests of "efficiency" - the cry of the technocrat since before the word was even invented – having remarked that the around 40,000 "EU diplomats" (i.e., diplomats employed by member states), in comparison to the 10,000 US diplomats, have not made the EU four times more efficient.

The idea is to rationalise "EU external action", which at the moment, Mahoney reports, is a hotchpotch of national foreign ministries, Commission delegations, an EU foreign policy chief (responsible for diplomacy) and an EU external relations commissioner (responsible for aid).

But the real agenda, as always, is political integration. A strong EU foreign minister backed up by a large diplomatic service would, in the eyes of its advocates, "continue to bring foreign policies closer together".

All that remains is to sort out the incipient "turf war" between the Council, the European Commission and member-states, and the EU has another symbol of statehood, its own fully-fledged diplomatic euro-corps, working from the 128 Commission delegations already in place around the world.

And, despite the loft dismissals from Blair and his cronies, Mahoney reports that "talks are also under way to see if the EU could eventually have its own representation at the United Nations."

Considering all the sneering garbage we take from the Europhiles about the EU "not becoming a superstate", we really would like to see them explain this one away (notwithstanding that we see nothing "super" about this tawdry "state" the colleagues are building).

So you thought it was the British Parliament that legislated?

After the catastrophe of the 2001 foot and mouth disease and its handling by the British government under the benevolent regard of the European Union, the right to legislate and create contingency plans on the subject has firmly passed to the EU.

In 2002 it issued a detailed directive of many hundreds of pages. It now has to be implemented into British legislation. Because it is so long and so complex, the process is quite a difficult one and is taking a great deal longer than expected. Parliament, however, is not involved.

What we have at the moment is a sequence of stakeholders’ meetings and consultations, some of which result in more papers and discussions, some do not. Eventually, next March a draft Order in Council, that is a Statutory Instrument will be published, there will be another twelve week discussion period and, eventually a detailed and complicated legislation will be in place without any open discussion whatsoever.

Part of the delay is due to legal advice. DEFRA’s lawyers have, apparently, explained that the highly contentious Animal Health Act, passed in 2002 after a great deal of trouble in the House of Lords, is not compatible with the Directive. So, guess what has to change? The Act, of course. Two amendments will have to be made, at least one of which, eliminating the right of discussion before slaughter of animals is very serious. But, because it is a question of making British legislation compatible with the EU one, there will be no parliamentary debate.

The possibility of any member of either House being against the amendments cannot be considered. And, should the amendments not be introduced till after the next General Election, the results of it will not make any difference either.

Financing education is becoming EU competence

This is rather a difficult story, as the Ealing Borough Council seems to be in the wrong. There is, however, some matter of principle to resolve.

The story concerns a young Frenchman, Dany Bidar, who moved to Britain in 1998, completed the last three years of his secondary education in this country and went on to university, specifically, University College, London and applied to Ealing Borough Council for funding. This was in 2001, when he had lived in the country for three years.

He was given assistance with his tuition fees but his application for a maintenance loan was turned down as he was not considered to be settled in this country, government guidelines on that being that the applicant has to have lived here for four years.

Mr Bidar challenged the decision as being discriminatory on the basis of nationality. The European Court's Advocate-General, Leendert Geelhoed, in a non-binding opinion, upheld his challenge, pointing out that, although in the past student maintenance costs had not been within EU competence, the Treaty of Maastricht had brought education within “the scope of the community”.

Mr Geelhoed explained that he was aware of the possible dangers of “student loan tourism”, but if a student had

"… a real link with the national education system and society, these conditions must be appropriate and they must not go beyond what is necessary for achieving that aim".

The case will now go to the European Court of Justice and a decision is expected in the spring of next year. In 80 per cent of the cases the Advocate-General’s decision is upheld.

While one feels the young man was probably entitled to the loan, the probable decision in the European Court will open up all sorts of possibilities in the future.

The hypocrisy of the EU

One of the greater scandals of the European Union – not only for the money they cost but for the damage they do, and the people they kill – are third country fishing agreements, whereby the EU pays third world countries to allow member state fishing fleets to exploit their waters.

These deals are big business. Between 1993 and 1997 they accounted for 1053 million euros from Community funds and in 1998 accounted for five percent of the total Community external budget.

Yet, according to a report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), issued on 27 December 2001, "Developing countries which open up their waters to foreign fishing fleets may lose far more than they gain". The report goes on to note that over-exploitation resulting from such deal is "driving people into ever greater poverty" as well as "robbing the marine environment of a key link in the food chain".

Argentina was cited as an example of how devastating can be the economic impact, the report assessing that the current EU agreement had actually cost the country $500 million whereas, had they developed their own fisheries, they could have made $5 billion. This is reinforced by the Namibian experience, where the country refused to enter an agreement with the EU and developed from scratch an industry which is worth $10 billion.

The UNEP report described the impact of the fisheries agreement on Argentina as "stark" and, of another agreement in Senegal, noted that it had had "a serious impact on local food supplies".
Courtesy of a British Channel 4 TV documentary on the Mauritania agreement, we know that the agreements actually cost lives. Over 200 local fishermen have been killed, some deliberately run down by EU fishing boats. Others have been lost as they have been forced further out to sea in frail craft in order to catch the fish left by the industrial fishing fleets.

Yet all of this seems to have passed by the Commission. It sponsored its own report in 1999, which concentrated on the economic benefits to Community countries. This is a strange slant, considering that much of the funding comes from the external (i.e. development) budget.

However, even this report - which was essentially a "whitewash" - conceded that there were problems with the agreements, noting that countries "did not always have sufficient means to enforce inspection arrangements", something of an under-statement. It also records that, as regards the funds paid to third countries, "the destination of the funds paid into national budgets is not traceable".

In fact, this is the biggest scandal of all. Most of the money paid from Community funds goes to the political elites of the countries concerned. Very little of it reaches the indigenous fishermen who are effectively robbed of their livelihoods. Essentially, money from EU taxpayers - including the poor - is being paid to the rich of third world countries - robbing the poor to feed the rich!

Despite all this, a new agreement with Mauritania was agreed in 2001, covering a five-year period from 1 August 2001 to 31 July 2006, making it now the biggest and most expensive fisheries access agreement that the EU has with a third country.

The deal costs 430 million euros, allowing 248 vessels from Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland to pillage the waters, targeting a range of stocks including hake, crustaceans, cephalopods, tuna and crawfish.

As the Institute for European Environmental Policy observed in a recent report, "such is the nature of the fishing agreement system that it confounds the very purpose for which development aid is supposedly made available. Clearly, the damage done is not sustainable and third country fishing agreements should be discontinued."

Now, further evidence has come to light which points up an unexpected side effect of the EU’s barbarous practice. Summarised in the National Geographic and on the BBC, a report in today’s Science magazine gives evidence that these third country deals are also driving some of the bushmeat trade in Africa.

Dr Justin Brashares and colleagues from the universities of California-Berkeley, US, and Cambridge, UK have told the Science magazine that consumption of bushmeat in Ghana rises whenever the supply of fish in the country falls. The region is blighted by overfishing, much of it by EU-subsidised trawlers, says Dr Brashares. "We took annual estimates of wildlife abundance and compared them with per capita fish supply and found that years of below average fish catches had greater declines of wildlife on land."

Brashares' team could also see this link played out in meat markets, where more bushmeat was being traded in years of low fish catches; and on game reserves where poaching increased at times of poor fish supply. What is more, this link was most obvious in coastal communities.

The possibility that over-fishing off West Africa might be having an impact on land biodiversity has been suspected for some time - but this is the first clear evidence to tie the two together.

Other bushmeat research groups working in West African states - such as Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Equatorial Guinea - believe the link probably exists in their areas, too. Although many of the species taken for bushmeat are often small and abundant creatures (such as rats), significant numbers of rare and endangered animals are also being trapped and shot for food, including the great apes.

"The species we see having declined most drastically [in Ghanaian reserves] include almost the whole suite of large carnivores - the African wild dog, lion, hyena, and leopard," Dr Brashares said. "Certainly primates are hit hard; things like the black and white colubus monkey; elephant, hippopotamus and bongo antelope are also taken."

So much for the EU’s concern for the environment, biodiversity and third world development. Full of honeyed phrases and gushing concern, the reality is that it is a big bully pressurising weaker states. "These (fishing) agreements are extremely unfair," says Daniel Pauly, director of the Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia, Canada. "If you have a very powerful economy negotiating with a weak one, then it's very difficult for the weak ones to say no."

But it is the hypocrisy of it all that really gets to you. We have known for many years that these deals should be stopped. And what does the EU do? Precisely nothing that addresses the issue.

Foxes to investigate chicken coop

According to The Daily Telegraph today, the BBC has set up an "independent" panel to investigate allegations of pro-Brussels bias.

This completely independent panel, however, is to be chaired by a former civil servant, and not just any only civil servant, but Lord Wilson of Dinton, the former cabinet secretary. Lord Wilson, incidentally, is a non-executive director of Xansa, an "international business process and IT services company" which has made provision for "EU political donations and expenditure" totalling in aggregate up to £50,000 per year.

This thoroughly independent chairman will "consider" complaints from Eurosceptics, no doubt in a thoroughly independent and impartial manner, that "anti-EU, pro-withdrawal voices" are routinely marginalised by the BBC. Apparently, his panel will also look at criticisms that too much of the broadcast coverage is seen "through a Westminster prism", and that it has contributed to public apathy about Brussels by failing to explain European issues and their impact on British life.

In addition to Lord Wilson, who is also a non-executive director of Sky – there is a thoroughly Eurosceptic organisation for you - the panel is made up of two Europhiles and two supposedly Eurosceptics.

The pro-EU duo are straightforward – the rabidly Europhile Sir Stephen Wall, a board member of Britain in Europe, and Lucy Armstrong, a business consultant. But representing the "antis" are Rodney Leach, chairman of Business for Sterling, and Nigel Smith, chairman of the No-euro Campaign

These are the duo who brought us "Yes to Europe, no to the Euro" and who are now backing the self-appointed "Vote No" campaign which has produced the stunningly original slogan of "Yes to Europe, No to the constitution".

Given also their dismal grasp of the issues – if the facile, amateurish pamphlets produced by the "Vote No" campaign are any guide – we can be wholly confident that this wholly independent BBC review will be able to produce a wholly independent report that will state that the BBC has done a wonderfully impartial job, not least because it was advised by two leading "Eurosceptics! – who just happen to support Britain's membership of the EU.

Talking of BBC bias, another new Blog has hit the streets, this one taking apart BBC news coverage. Although primarily focused on the dismally inadequate Iraqi coverage, it is well worth a visit.

Iran on the brink… of what?

Call it cowardice if you like, but we’ve been avoiding covering the continuing saga of Iran, and the EU intervention – perhaps not consciously, but with a certain sense of weariness that it's all to much to take on board.

However, not that the situation seems to be coming to a head – or not – we can retail a Reuters report that Iran looks likely to accept a deal brokered by the EU, suspending potentially weapons-related nuclear work in return for avoiding UN Security Council referral.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has told Iran it must inform it of its intention to suspend key nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment, by today if it is to be included in a report by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei due to be circulated to IAEA board members on Friday.

Iranian officials said earlier on Thursday the Islamic state's clerical leadership was still grappling with the question of whether to accept the EU deal. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said there were some "problems" with the agreement.

Western diplomats said Iran was pushing for some tangible benefits, such as the immediate resumption of EU trade talks, in return for agreeing to suspend nuclear fuel cycle work.
Iran, of course, denies US accusations it is seeking nuclear arms. It says its atomic ambitions are limited to producing electricity from nuclear power reactors.

What any intelligent person might be asking about all this is why Iran, with some of the largest reserves of oil and gas in the world, needs to consider using nuclear power for its electricity generation.

Furthermore, understanding Iran’s motives are further complicated by the recent signing of a mega-gas deal between Beijing and Tehran worth $100 billion. Billed as the "deal of century", this agreement is likely to increase by another $50 billion to $100 billion, bringing the total close to $200 billion, when a similar oil agreement, currently being negotiated, is signed in the near future.

The gas deal entails the annual export of some 10 million tons of Iranian liquefied natural gas (LNG) for a 25-year period, as well as the participation, by China's state oil company, in such projects as exploration and drilling, petrochemical and gas industries, pipelines, services and the like. The export of LNG requires special cargo ships, however, and Iran is currently investing several billion dollars adding to its small LNG-equipped fleet.

No doubt this deal has its larger political ramifications as it has united two players, if only in trade, which are hostile to the US. And, with Israel cast as a US "client state", there was always a possibility of Israel repeating its tactics against Iraq's French-built Osirak reactor in 1981, when an air strike took out the facility before it became operational, which may have promoted the current alliance.

Altogether, this is a messy, muddy story, in an unhappy, troubled area of the world but, now that we have broken the ice, so to speak, it is one to which, no doubt, we will return.

Working together?

As Prime Minister Blair prepares to be the first world leader to visit President Bush after his re-election, there is no shortage of advice about what the two must talk about. Over on this side of the pond, there seems to be an assumption that Bush owes Blair something and, therefore, a shopping trip is what is being planned.

At any rate, that is how yesterday’s Daily Telegraph approached the subject. Unfortunately, their shopping list was short and unimaginative. Dear Santa, I should like peace negotiations in the Middle East and friendship between all European countries and the United States.

Mr Blair has always maintained that there should be negotiations over peace in the Palestine and the Americans and Europeans should facilitate these. Well, nobody actually disagrees and as everybody has pointed out, the prospect is now a possibility. The Telegraph is probably right in counselling caution. Mahmoud Abbas may have been elected to be Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, but who knows if this is the final election.

As for friendship with European countries, the United States does not actually get on badly with most of them. France and Germany with their acolytes are a problem but it hard to understand why Chancellor Schröder, who is reported to have spent an hour on the telephone to President Bush when he called to congratulate him, should need Tony Blair’s intercession. As for France and President Chirac, no amount of intercession is going to sort that out. Still, there is no harm in chatting about that, one supposes.

A new WebMemo by the Heritage Foundation, entitled The Bush/Blair Washington Summit: Strengthening U.S.-British World Leadership, clearly takes a slightly different line. It views the relationship as one between equals and the discussion as necessary for the solving of the world’s problems, namely Iraq, the Middle East and, once again, the US-EU relations.

The key recommendations are fairly straightforward on the first two: hold out in Iraq against terrorism, reject Kofi Annan’s call to pull back from Fallujah (an unnecessary instruction) and challenge France and Germany to come off the sidelines; support all attempts at peace negotiations in the Middle East and promote the idea of a London conference, while insisting that Israel’s right to peaceful existence must be recognized, support for individual liberty and democracy.

On the US-Europe relations the recommendations go slightly awry:

“President Bush should make clear his support for a multi-speed Europe, based on the principle of each individual state having greater choice about its level of integration with Brussels. A Europe where national sovereignty remains paramount regarding foreign and security policy and where states act flexibly rather than collectively will help America to engage European states most successfully. He should express growing concern in Washington over the impact of the European Constitution and the effect it may have on limiting the freedom of Britain and
other European allies to work alongside the United States. The President should give voice to U.S. concerns over French and German moves to advance further European Union integration in the sphere of foreign policy. At the same time, President Bush should make a firm commitment to undertaking a new effort at public diplomacy in Europe.”

While it is good to know that some American political thinkers are concerned about the EU Constitution and its impact on US-European relations, one wonders where they get that idea about each state having any choice, never mind a greater one about “its level of integration with Brussels” (a somewhat meaningless concept in any case – it is not Brussels we are integrating with)?

According to the International Herald Tribune, who does not seem to be that interested in Blair’s visit, Europeans will try to work with Bush. Big of them, one might say. What are their alternatives?

However, officials also warn that they (whoever they may be) will also continue “to press their own approaches on Iran, Israel and other issues, even if that rankles administration hardliners”. (The other issues, incidentally, boil down to Iraq.)

Nothing wrong with that. No reason why Europeans – it is unclear whether it is the EU that is meant here and Javier Solana as the spokesman, or France and her followers – should necessarily try to please the American administration or its hardliners. The question is what those approaches are on the three “I”s.

On Israel, the Europeans are pompously saying that they will insist that President Bush start peace negotiations with Chairman Arafat’s successors. Not surprisingly, the President has already declared himself ready to do so. After all, the US government has been trying to by-pass Arafat for some time, recognizing the fact that he was an insurmountable obstacle to any agreement. And who insisted that he should be the one and only representative of the Palestinian people? Who supplied him with money and resurrected his political fortune whenever it looked like fading away? Why, the EU, of course.

Then there is Iran. The EU, or rather France, Germany and the UK have been insisting that they can do a deal with Iran over the nuclear reactors it is building or preparing to build. The US government says that Iran is not interested in deals and the whole problem should be taken to the UN Security Council. Why the European countries are opposing that is not made clear – after all, they are in favour of the UN Security Council when that annoys the Americans.

However, as of Wednesday the deal is no longer being discussed. Iran has pocketed all the many concessions the three European countries have offered, and refused to do any deals over nuclear power or, for that matter, its considerable support for terrorist groups. As of now, it is not clear what the Europeans are going to say when they “press their own approaches” on Iran.

Then there is Iraq. France and Germany, having opposed the war, refused to provide peace keepers or help train the Iraqi forces, are now demanding that the January elections be postponed because some Sunni clergymen have been calling for a boycott in response to the fighting in Fallujah. The Sunni clergymen may well change their minds when Fallujah is taken.

In the meantime, I imagine, Prime Minister Allawi may have something to say to advice from countries that are sitting on the sidelines, dissing his government. He is not a man to mince his words if his letter to Kofi Annan (father of Kojo Annan of food-for-oil scandal fame) is anything to go by.

Secretary-General Annan, as our readers will recall, warned last week against a coalition offensive on Fallujah, saying that this might increase violence and disrupt the elections. In the past he had also called for postponement of the elections. In reply Mr Allawi expressed some surprise at

“… the lack of any mention in [Kofi Annan’s] letter of the atrocities which these groups [in Fallujah] have committed. I believe that the blame for the violence and difficulties in Iraq at the moment should be laid squarely at their door.”

On the whole, one is forced to agree with the Wall Street Journal Europe editorial. There is no need to be surprised. That is Kofi Annan all over.

So there we are: the Europeans will press for their views against the American ones but it will not matter to them what the aim is, as long as the views are anti-American. Not very hopeful from the point of view of the western alliance.

However, is there not something missing from all this advice and analysis? What about the rest of the world? Will Bush and Blair talk about Africa, which becomes Blair’s number one priority every six months or so? Will they discuss China and her involvement in the Galileo project? What of Russia, who has cancelled a summit with the EU, is steadily sliding into an unstable dictatorship and is eqally steadily demanding western support for its inhumane and unsuccessful policies in Chechnya while giving no support for the wider fight against terrorism? What of the countries around Russia, her near abroad, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Georgia, the Caucasus and the Central Asian republics? Is it not time the United States and the European countries became worried about some or all of those subjects?

One down .... twenty-four to go .... perhaps

Lithuania is the first country to have ratified the EU Constitution with a parliamentary vote of 84 for, 4 against and 3 abstentions. The ratification instrument was passed on the last day of the parliamentary term.

Some civic groups have pointed out that there had been no debate on the subject and the legislation was passed with unseemly haste. On the other hand, the Lithuanian parliamentarians were congratulated by the European Commission spokesman Reijo Kemppinen.

Former French President Giscard d’Estaing, father of the unwieldy Constitution, sent a message, thanking the men and women of Lithuania for their brave and bold step. The trouble is that the men and woment of Lithuania probably did not know what was happening and have not quite realized what their parliamentarians have voted through.

Sometimes, it doesn't make sense

This Blog is by no means alone is worrying about what appears to be the growing rift between Nato and the EU.

That the rift exists seems to be undisputed, and various speakers in the Federal Union seems now seem to believe that Nato has run its course. Stephen Haseler, for instance, in a speech to the Union’s AGM in March 2003, spoke of the need to "rethink" Nato, arguing for "a European declaration of independence".

The collapse of the Soviet Union, removing the threat to Western Europe, he maintained, removed the cement that underpinned American-West European relations that had created and sustained NATO.

In the new post 9/11 strategic environment, however, "Europe does not need America", he claims, "any more than America needs Europe - for its fundamental defence and security." It now seems likely that with or without Britain, a new European security system, either as a refinement of Nato or a replacement for it, would eventually come into being.

Rather like the euro, Hasler concluded, it will face Britain with a simple choice: to enter, and to help mould and determine its development, or to stand off from it, and make its way in an uncertain world.

More recently, George Irvin, in an essay on the Federal Union web site, called in aid the recent Bush election victory to claim that the trans-Atlantic love affair was over. He writes:

The EU's political voice in world affairs may still be weak, but its commitment to a socially inclusive state at home and to multilateralism in foreign affairs remains crucial. Economically, the EU is now larger in population and marginally richer in combined GDP than the USA... The EU can no longer rely on the protective tutelage of the US. That option finally ended in the early hours of that fateful Wednesday morning as the result of the US election became clear.

On a more practical level, this growing split seems to be confirmed by a piece in today’s International Herald Tribune, where Judy Dempsey reports that, while Nato and the EU appeared to absorb former Communist nations and other new members with ease last spring, "diplomats from both groups say that doubts about the reliability of some countries and lingering disputes have brought the important function of sharing secrets to a virtual standstill."

"Co-operation is simply not developing," moans a senior Nato diplomat, mainly because Malta and Cyprus have not been cleared to receive intelligence information and thus Nato, which processes the information, is reluctant to share it with the other EU members, fearing that its intelligence would be compromised by being shared with Cyprus and Malta, who have no right to see it.

With recent pieces in The Guardian and the Financial Times, reported in this Blog, briefing against Nato, and the Nato secretary general making what appears to be a despairing plea for unity, the case seems pretty well locked-in that the Atlantic Alliance is in serious trouble.

Then, as everything looks so solid, the case knocked back by an article in DefenseNews, headed "NATO, France Have 'Relationship That Works Well'".

It seems that US Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, NATO's military commander and America's top soldier in Europe, recently paid handsome tribute to France’s contributions to the Atlantic alliance and said French-US military relations have never been better, despite political differences between the two countries.

They are so strong, it seems, that French special forces are operating under US command on the Afghan-Pakistan border, in the search for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. "I don't know if we could have better relations than we have with the French military," Jones says. "France has a healthy and robust presence in NATO."

Then the penny drops. This is on a military-to-military level. At that same level, it is understood that French generals were both ready and willing to join US forces in the second Gulf War, not least because they felt that their forces would need the tactical experience, in order to stay in the top league of military forces. They were reportedly appalled when Chirac blocked their deployment.

What the piece looks like, therefore, is a carefully contrived piece of "spin", with Jones stating that the EU"s defence ambitions did not conflict with Nato’s goals. Perhaps there is an element in the US forces that really cares about continued European commitment to Nato but, if Jones’s comments are taken at face value, they do not check out with other strands of information coming in.

In many ways, this is why I prefer to watch the technical issues as much as the posturing and commentary of politicians – political and military. Something on the purely technical front that seems to point to growing problems is an apparently unrelated piece, also in DefenseNews, reporting on the US Army’s efforts to standardise their electronic tracking equipment.

This enables their forces to provide real-time displays in combat vehicles of the presence of friendly and hostile forces but what emerges from the piece is that, even within the Army, there is very real difficulty in ensuring interoperablity between equipment supplied by different firms. And, as the system becomes more sophisticated, and complex, employing the latest US GPS satellite navigation signals, and communications satellite relays, the fear is that the Army is heading for an electronic Tower of Babel.

Furthermore, it seems, the US Marines have a completely different system, currently incompatible with Army systems, and considerable expenditure will be needed on software modifications to allow the systems to talk to each other.

Here, the real problem for Nato begins to emerge. If it is difficult to ensure that the systems within the same country, the US, are able to talk to each other, and there is considerable expense required to ensure interoperability, what are the chances of systems produced independently by European manufacturers being able to talk to the systems used by the US.

Hard facts, therefore, cut through the rhetoric. The ability of different forces to operate together on a purely technical level will determine whether they can operate on a political level. And, without the political will to make that happen – and the commitment of funds that stems from it – Nato members will drift apart. In other words, Nato will not survive unless all its members are determined that it should survive. Clearly, that determination is not there.

Perhaps it does make sense after all. Whatever the military might think - or want - politically, the Alliance looks doomed.

Freedom of speech – Spanish style

The unease with shared by many over the application of the European Arrest Warrant, replacing the established extradition agreements between EU member states, should be doubly reinforced by recent sinister developments in Spain.

A post on the Periscope blog recounts an appalling episode involving the Spanish judicial authorities which have just confirmed a decision by a lower court to sanction two journalists – for telling the truth.

The affected pair are José Luis Gutiérrez, former editor-in-chief of the defunct Diario 16 newspaper, and Rosa María López, former Diario 16 reporter, who were indicted in 1996, months after allegedly violating Moroccan King Hassan II's right to "maintain his honour".

The indictments took place after Diario 16 published a story about the seizure of five tons of hashish inside a truck belonging to the Moroccan Royal Crown. Even though the story was proven accurate, the defendants were found guilty and sentenced by two lower courts.

In order to indict them, the courts used two arbitrary laws inherited or adapted from the Franco dictatorship, including the 1982 Protection of Honor, Privacy and Right to a Respectful Image Law, which places the burden of proving truth or falsity upon the defendant, and Franco's 1966 Press Law, most of which is still current, and by which not only the author of the article is incriminated but also the editor-in-chief and the publishing company as well.

Despite the travesty of this position, this year Spain's Supreme Tribunal rejected the journalists’ appeal, alleging the headline of the story was "insulting and untruthful," even though in the same sentence the magistrates acknowledged the article was accurate. Also, a yet-to-be-determined fine could cause catastrophic financial ruin to both journalists, who have appealed to the country's highest court, the Constitutional Tribunal.

For more details, refer to the current World Press Freedom Committee newsletter but, in the meantime, ponder whether we want to be tied in with a nation which does not even seem to be able to support the basic tenets of press freedom and which still has laws on its statute book that were created by a Fascist dictator for the explicit purpose of suppressing free speech.

Lest we forget

This year is the ninetieth anniversary of the start of World War I and today, Remembrance Day, marks precisely 86 years since it ended. But today is also the twentieth anniversary of another event.

On 11 November 1984, two portly middle-aged men stood holding hands in front of the largest pile of human bones in Europe. One was the President of France, François Mitterrand; the other the Chancellor of Germany, Helmut Kohl.

The reason why the two most powerful political leaders in western Europe were staging an act of reconciliation before tens of thousands of graves was that the site of this ceremony was the ossuary at Douaumont, just outside Verdun in eastern France.

And if there was one historical event which more than any other inspired what was eventually to become the European Union, it was the battle which had raged around Verdun in the First World War.

For the British the defining battle of that war was the Somme in the summer of 1916. For France and Germany it was the colossal battle of attrition launched in February the same year, when the French commander, General Philippe Petain, pronounced that the fortresses on the hills overlooking Verdun on the River Meuse were where the advance of German armies into his country would be brought to a halt. His legendary words "Ils ne passeront pas" were endorsed the same day by France's prime minister, Aristide Briand.

For nearly a year, the French and German armies battered each other to destruction in the most intense and prolonged concentration of violence the world had ever seen. French artillery alone fired more than twelve million shells, the German guns considerably more. The number of dead and wounded on both sides exceeded 700,000.

The impact of this battle on France was profound. Because of the way in which her citizen soldiers were rotated through the front line, scarcely a town or village in France was untouched by the slaughter.

Among the two and a half million Frenchmen who fought in the battle were France's future President, Charles de Gaulle, and Louis Delors, whose son Jacques would one day be President of the European Commission. Present for several months fighting for the other side was the father of Germany's future Chancellor, Helmut Kohl.

So deep was the wound Verdun inflicted on the psyche of France that the following year her army was brought to mutiny. Its morale would never fully recover. And from this blow were to emerge two abiding lessons.

The first was a conviction that such a suicidal clash of national armies must never be repeated. The second was much more specific and immediate. It came from the realisation that the war had been shaped more than anything else by industrial power.

As the battle for Verdun had developed into a remorseless artillery duel, trainloads of German shells were arriving at the front still warm from the factories of the Ruhr. The battle, and the war itself, became less a trial of men and human resolve than of two rival industrial systems. And the French system had been found sorely wanting.

Particularly inferior had been the heavy guns, many dating back to the 1870s, able to fire shells at only a seventh of the rate of their German counterparts. More and better guns became vital.

But, as France's politicians found to their consternation, manufacturing them and the huge quantities of ammunition needed was beyond the capacity of an industry which compared equally poorly with Germany's. This had since August 1914, under the inspiration of Walter Rathenau, been put on a fully integrated war footing, under the control of a War Raw Materials Department.

In the summer of 1916, therefore, a crisis-stricken French government gave an industrialist, Louis Loucheur, near-dictatorial powers to reform and develop the manufacturing base. Before the war, Loucheur had been one of the early pioneers in the use of reinforced concrete. In a national economy dominated by artisan manufacture, he was one of the few French technocrats familiar with the techniques of mass production.

With all the power of the state behind him, Loucheur succeeded in his initial task, even building new factories to make the new guns. But improvements in production precipitated critical shortages of steel and coal, exacerbated by the German seizure in the first weeks of the war of around half France's industrial base in the north-east of the country.

Remedying these shortages required massive imports from Britain, and then from the United States. In turn, this placed considerable demands on shipping. All this required unprecedented economic co-operation between the Western Allies, leading Loucheur to conclude, like Rathenau before him, how far success in modern warfare demanded industrial organisation.

Thus, Loucheur came to reflect, industrial organisation was the key to waging war. From this he developed the idea that, if key industries from different countries, above all their coal and steel industries on which modern warfare so much depended, were removed from the control of individual nations and vested in a "higher authority", this might be the means of preserving peace.

From this beguilingly single concept came the spur that led Jean Monnet, 34 years after the battle of Verdun, to suggest to Schuman the idea of a European Coal and Steel Community, which in turn was to lead to the European Economic Community and thence the European Union.

In that sense, the intellectual father of the European Union was not Monnet, much less Schuman, nor even Spinelli – all of whom are honoured in the hagiographies of the European Union. The greater claim to being the "father of Europe" rests with that almost totally unknown Frenchman, Louis Loucheur, whose work undoubtedly provided the inspiration for Monnet.

The great tragedy though is that the idea picked up by Monnet in the 1920s (and translated into institutional format by the English civil servant Arthur Salter) was out of date by the time it came to be implemented in 1950.

An idea born out of the carnage of the First World War, intended to prevent future wars, was a model in fact designed to prevent the Second World War. In 1945, however, when peace was finally imposed, the geopolitical situation had changed beyond all measure. That 1920s model was totally out of date and no longer appropriate.

Nevertheless, it was still pursued by a group of old men (all of whom would have qualified for bus passes, had they existed then), reliving their youthful dreams and unable to understand how much the world had changed. This is something also we should not forget. The "failed" model is called the European Union.

Yasser Arafat

"His passing has to be a positive sign for future Middle East peace prospects, because under his leadership things could not have been worse."

Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles

"Yasir Arafat's legacy is one of terrorism and failed leadership. Instead of building a state for the Palestinian people, he focused on ways to destroy the Jewish state of Israel."

Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League

"With him disappears the man of courage and conviction who, for 40 years, has incarnated the Palestinians' combat for recognition of their national rights."

French President Jacques Chirac

"The Palestinian people, both within and outside the Palestinian Territories, have lost a historic leader and a democratically elected president, whose devotion and single-minded commitment to the Palestinian national cause throughout his life was never in doubt,"

Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, president of the EU

You pays your money and you takes your choice

The euro has risen to an all-time high. Well, the all-time is not such a long time as the currency has been trading on the foreign markets only since 1999. All the same, breaking through the $1.30 barrier, even briefly, was spectacular … and traumatic.

Remember those heady days of 1999 when the euro was going to rival the dollar? Remember the crowing when it looked like the American economy was weakening in 2001? Remember the joy of politics vanquishing economics, as Le Monde gleefully described it at the time?

Well, it seems Lady Thatcher was right. You can’t buck the market. Not that we didn’t know, but eurocrats are a bit slower than the rest of us. A strong euro is not even a mixed blessing. It is a curse, pure and simple. The thing is, EMU did not do all the things it was supposed to. It did not automatically make the member countries reform their social and economic systems; it did not strengthen growth; it did not raise economic indicators. So, with most of the Eurozone economy still in doldrums, a strong euro is little short of a disaster, as it is likely to harm exports.

The Commission has now rather worriedly agreed with the ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet, who said, rather curtly on Monday:

"The recent moves, which tend to be brutal on the exchange markets between the euro and the U.S dollar, are not welcome from the standpoint of the ECB."

So now we know.

Losing it the French way

Over the last two days, there has been an intense battle – and no we are not talking about the US Marine action in Fallujah. This one concerns the location of the proposed International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, a multinational experiment aimed at developing nuclear fusion for electricity production, the Holy Grail of nuclear science.

Altogether, the budget is projected to be €10 billion ($13 billion) over the next 30 years, promising rich pickings for the country which is to be its host. And, up to press, it was to be located in Rokkasho-Mura, in north eastern Japan, an option supported by two of the biggest backers, the United States and – rather predictably – Japan.

But that was to reckon without the European Union – and France. For those two days, during negotiations in Vienna, the EU has been pushing for the project go to Cadarache in southern France, obtaining the support of Russia and China. Initially blocked by the US, its resistance has been worn down and France is now looking to be the favourite.

Needless to say, this will not be achieved without large sums of money changing hands. According to Japanese sources, the matter is likely to be settled once the winner offers the loser a substantial consolation prize for the loss of the project. "The host will have to make a generous proposal to the non-host," said Satoru Ohtake, the director of nuclear fusion at Japan's science and technology ministry.

And from where is this "sweetener" to come? Enter "Brussels", where an EU official has conceded that the European Union had offered the requisite amount of dosh, but then refused to say how much, other than it was "a reasonable offer".

If the project does go to France, however, EU munificence will not end there. The EU plans to finance 40 percent of the €10 billion budget, while the French government is only having to pay €914 million, or 20 percent of total construction cost – for which it will have a facility that employs 3,500 scientific workers.

To be even-handed about this, there is some sense in the project going to Cadarache, as there is already a nuclear research facility there. The project could be up and running very quickly as the infrastructure and science base is already in position. Nevertheless, what would be the betting on the same level of EU support being available if the UK was in the bidding instead of France?

Who ever said that France was losing its influence in the portals of the European Union? And if it is, could we please also start losing it as well - the French way?

Anti-US alliance "would split Europe"

Nato secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has been expressing his concern about what seems to be the increasing rift between the EU and Nato.

Against the continued background of briefing against Nato (click here and here), he has called for an improvement in transatlantic relations and a stronger political consensus within the alliance, stating that: "Uniting Europe against the United States is a non-starter."

At a recent meeting at the Berlin Press Club, he warned the European governments against seeking agreements without involving the United States; and also advised against regarding Nato as a competitor of the EU. European unity was not alternative to an alliance with the United States. "Europe is unable to unite against the United States; this would result in a split in Europe," he said.

The price of democracy?

The Times today offers what appears to be an important piece. Headed: "The soaring price of democracy" by Philip Webster, it confirms something that we knew already – that there are more politicians than ever before and that they are costing us more.

Furthermore, the article puts a price on this. Voters are paying almost twice as much as in 1997 with costs 1997 standing at £1.3 billion a year, a rise of £575 million in annual expenditure in the past seven years.

Just under half the extra outlay can be put down to the running costs of the elected institutions set up by Labour since 1997 — the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Greater London Authority and the London Mayor. Labour also created the utterly useless Electoral Commission to oversee elections.

There has also been a 75 percent rise in MPs' salaries and allowances, a 40 percent rise in the cost of House of Commons facilities and administration, and a 71 percent rise in local government representation and management costs, with big increases in the allowances of councillors a key factor.

The figures actually have been obtained from a paper "to be published soon" by Andrew Tyrie, shadow financial secretary to the treasury, MP for Chichester and a former senior treasury adviser, and it is comforting to see an opposition member working for his living and apparently providing some value.

But, just as one begins to warm to Mr Tyrie, one particular comment hits you between the eyes, of such horrendous stupidity that you wonder whether the man is safe to let out on his own, much less be an MP. "He has excluded the cost of the Lords — now £76 million from £38 million in 1997 — on the ground that it is not a democratic body," says The Times, yet Tyrie includes the UK share of the European Union parliament, at £105 million a year.

Thus illustrated is the classic trap, into which so many politicians and others fall - the confusion of form with substance. Presumably, in Mr Tyrie’s book – no doubt crafted originally about Janet and John – MEPs are "democratic" because they are elected, while their Lordships are not democratic because they are unelected. This is such a basic myth that one is appalled that such a senior politician should perpetuate it. What do they teach them in school?

With that, however, the spell is broken. On reflection, the title of The Times’ piece is all wrong. It is not about the "price of democracy" – it is about the cost of politicians, an altogether different thing. We actually have very little true democracy left in this country and I think that what really upsets people most is not the cost of our politicians but the fact that they perform so badly and have let democracy erode.

In toto, even at the inflated cost of £1.3 billion, the system would be good value if it worked – although we could easily save £105 million by getting rid of our useless MEPs. For instance, if MPs did their jobs properly, they could save us, the taxpayers, billions. And, by doing their jobs properly, I do not mean acting as overpaid social workers looking after their constituents, but by supervising the executive and holding it to account.

For instance, recalling that FRES is set to cost £6 billion in purchasing costs, with an additional £50 billion over the life of the project, and there has not been a single debate on the concept, with there being good arguments that the whole project is a military cul-de-sac, parliament could save its own costs many times over by preventing governments spending money on ill-founded projects – and that is before you even begin to consider the £100bn a year cost of regulation, which only parliament could relieve us of.

Unfortunately, neither Tyrie nor The Times seem to understand this. In its leader, the newspaper ignores this issue altogether, and goes meandering off about the NE regional assembly referendum, arguing that the "winning message" was, "enough already. No more politicians." It concludes:

This is a small island nation, replete with complex layers of elected government laid down over many centuries. When unelected regional assemblies are elbowing for space in the policy-making process with local and county councils as well as MPs and MEPs, voters have every right to be confused about who has a true mandate to speak for them in the corridors of power, wherever they now lead. The Government must not revisit regional assemblies after the election, as it has hinted it might. If it is serious about strengthening British democracy it should cede real power to existing, or reformed, local institutions even at the risk of losing their allegiance. The result will be more democracy, at lower cost, and, hopefully, rather fewer politicians.

Actually, this does not follow. If we are to get more democracy, we need politicians who, unlike Tyrie, know what democracy is, and then we need them to do their jobs properly.

Quagmire in Côte d’Ivoire

The Parliamentary Speaker of the Ivory Coast, Mamadou Koulibaly, has accused France of imperialist occupation and promised them a war that will be “their Vietnam”. Which shows that in the Ivory Coast they follow the European and American media closely, for is that not the constant hysterical refrain about the United States in Iraq? On the other hand, in France they are paralyzed with surprise at the Ivorians’ reaction.

Professor Philippe Moreau Defarge of the Institute of International Relations said heartbrokenly that they thought they had understood the former French colony but it seems they do not.

In the first place, permit us to disagree with M Koulibaly on historical parallels. France’s Vietnam was …. Vietnam. Just try saying Diem Bien Phu to a Frenchman d’un certain âge. (Although, as it happens, actual French losses were not all that high. The military command had cheerfully abandoned their camarades of the foreign legion to their fate.)

France had always maintained that her relations with most of her ex-colonies, particularly the Ivory Coast, were warm, close and friendly. Furthermore, unlike many other African states, the Ivory Coast, remained peaceful and relatively prosperous, until 1999 that is, when simmering tensions between the Muslims in the north and the Christians in the south broke out into an open rebellion.

As there are many French residents in the country and as this is the centre of the cocoa trade, French paratroopers went in to sort things out. They did not have UN approval but one cannot expect logic when an ex-colony is having problems.

Last year a truce of sorts was brokered and other UN troops, this time with the approval of the ineffable Kofi Annan (father of Kojo of food-for-oil scandal fame). The truce lasted about as long as any truce of that kind does and now there are riots again as we have mentioned before.

President Laurent Gbakbo’s government has intimated that they did not think the French were as neutral as they always maintained, but favoured the northern rebels, though the spokesman also insisted that the killing of the nine French soldiers during an attack on a rebel stronghold was an accident.

The French thought otherwise, destroyed the tiny Ivorian air force and brought in more reinforcements. They needed them as the Ivorians, possibly egged on by unknown government officials, went on an anti-French rampage and the many expatriates had to be saved at the last minute.

It is all a bit of a mess; a “fiasco” to quote Michel Barnier’s favourite word about Iraq; in fact, a quagmire. French reprisals go far beyond the purported UN mandate but that is not going to be a problem for anybody. And we are ready to lay odds on Kofi Annan’s reaction: he will approve ex post facto. While the end remains nowhere in sight.

What will they do now in Belgium?

This blog had a piece about the disgraceful behaviour of the Belgian Government under the “liberal” Guy Verhofstadt and some Belgian courts in April. We pointed out that Mr Verhofstadt was conducting an entirely unjustified hunt against the Flemish separatist party, the Vlaams Blok.

The Vlaams Blok has been accused of being racist and xenophobic and under laws passed soon after Mr Verhofstadt coming to power this means a deprivation of state financing – death to a political party in Belgium – and stringent fines on anyone who is involved with such an organization or works for it.

For a while various courts refused to pass the judgement demanded by the Belgian government, arguing that a political party must be judged by the voters. They have, indeed, judged it by making it the most popular party in the country. In the European elections of June it received over 13 per cent of the vote and in the Flemish regional elections at the same time they received over 24 per cent. Present polls show that they now have over 26 per cent support in Flanders, which accounts for 60 per cent of Belgium’s population and is the productive part of the country.

Eventually a court in Ghent was found that agreed to judge the party to be racist. The Vlaams Blok appealed and in a completely predictable move the Belgian Supreme Court has upheld the judgement.

The party’s policy on immigration is not seriously different from some other, more official ones, such as that of the Dutch government. They want to stop any further immigration and repatriate any immigrants who do not adapt to the culture of the host country. Unpleasant maybe, but not something that requires a persecution and a ban.

The Vlaams Blok maintains that their real crime is that they preach Flemish separatism, a market economy and are strong on family values and other “outdated” ideas. Their message is that the productive Flemings are supporting the etatist Wallons, who seem to be natural bureaucrats battening on the hard working inhabitants of Flanders.

A number of their opponents, as we have already pointed out, seem to agree with this, adding only that such ideas are out of line with the modern world of international organizations such as the EU (and Belgium, if truth be told) and various charters of human rights, that apparently no longer allow for freedom of speech.

The Vlaams Blok will, no doubt, survive, reinvent itself under a different name and gain in popularity from its status as a martyr. Whether the state of Belgium and its ruling class will survive is another matter. But, coming so soon after the Buttiglione affair, this is another disturbing development. Once again, one does not have to agree with the opinions voiced to worry about the growing intolerance of the “liberal” ideology that underpins the European project.

Not a coincidence?

In today's Financial Times, Martin Wolf, associate editor and chief economics commentator, writes advocating that "Europe" should have its own military forces.

This is linked to the result of the US election, with Wolf opining that, with the end of the cold war, Europe "is important to the US neither as an arena nor as an actor." He continues:

Many Americans see a collection of states that are neither willing to follow obediently nor able to help effectively. They view the European economy as decrepit and the European future as dismal.

To address this, Wolf, the economics commentator, argues that the "European" economy must be revitalised, but then adds that this is just the beginning. On it must be built two crucial changes:

First, Europe must have military forces able, at the very least, to bring security to Europe and its immediate neighbourhood and, ideally, to act effectively abroad. Only then are the Americans likely to take Europe's voice seriously.

Second, Europe must avoid both the current British policy of slavish obedience and the equally depressing French policy of instinctive opposition. Europeans need to have foreign policies of their own. Frequently, they will be allies of the US; sometimes they will wish to stand aside; and - only occasionally, one hopes - they will find themselves in carefully calibrated opposition.

Readers will note the similarities to the arguments proposed by The Guardian’s senior foreign correspondent, Jonathan Steele, in his opinion piece on Monday.

That piece smelt like part of the covert Europhile campaign to abolish Nato and bring to UK further into the maw of a "European defence identity". That a similar piece should now appear so conveniently in the Financial Times, therefore, does not seem to be a coincidence. There is an "agenda" here, and it ain't pretty.

Danes on the rocks

It is a given amongst the Eurosceptic community in Britain that of all the EU member states, the most likely to reject the EU constitution – apart from Great Britain itself - is Denmark.

Yet, according to a Gallup poll published today in the Berlingske Tidende, this perception might be a little bit rocky. Nearly half (49 percent) the Danes polled said they would vote in favour of the constitution. Only 26 percent claimed they would vote "no" and only 25 percent were undecided.

The poll surveyed 994 people between 3 and 7 November 3-7, just after five political parties representing a large majority in parliament agreed jointly to recommend to their countrymen to vote in favour of the EU constitution.

It seems the story being presented to the Danes is that a "no" vote means withdrawal, leaving political scientist Hans Joergen Nielsen of Copenhagen University to remark: "Danes want to follow the EU, and nobody really wants to pull out of it". Furthermore, there seems to be some support for the euro, as 56 percent of those polled supported the idea of an additional referendum question on whether to abolish the euro opt-out.

With the referendum slated for 2006, it seems that Danish Eurosceptics will have their work cut out ensuring that the constitution is blocked.

An ironic twist

I could not help but smile (although grimace might be closer) as I read a comment in the Philadelphia Inquirer dated 9 November.

David Aaron, director of Rand Corporation's Center for Middle East Public Policy, predicts that if the battle for Fallujah unfolds like other urban-combat operations in Iraq, a big part of it will involve troops on foot working closely with heavily armoured vehicles to probe the city's neighbourhoods, drawing fire that reveals enemy positions.

"I believe you’re going to see a major use of tanks and infantry," he says. “It turns out that the tank we thought we were going to fight the Russians with is the best thing we’ve got to fight in an urban environment."

The point, of course, is that this beguilingly simple – and obvious – statement turns the currently fashionable military doctrine on its head, whereby lightly armoured, "network enabled" wheeled vehicles are all the rage – relying on enhanced intelligence and stand-off weapons for protection.

It is that ethos which underpins the EU's "Rapid Reaction Force" and it is to afford the kit that Hoon is getting rid of regiments like the Black Watch and scrapping dozens of our Challenger tanks.

It will be seriously ironic if his commitment to the "new religion" of "network enabled" kit turns out to be a cul-de-sac and the most effective weapons turn out to be low-tech infantry and heavy tanks, just the things Hoon and his EU friends think they can do without.

Another "democrat" speaks

Steve Richards, political correspondent for The Independent, has responded to the debacle of the North-east referendum by arguing that politicians shouldn't avoid difficult questions by asking voters to decide the answers.

On the surface, he writes in today's edition, referendums appear to resolve everything: a simple question is posed and voters respond with an equally straightforward answer. In reality, though, referendums resolve nothing.

Richards' thesis is quite intriguing. In his mind, the decisive "no" vote in the North-east referendum was not as clear as it seems. Some voters wanted an assembly with more powers, and thus rejected Prescott’s schemes because not enough powers were on offer; others simply wanted to "stick two fingers up" at politicians; others feared dominance by one part of the region over the others.

The implications of the result, therefore, are a muddle. "Referendums are never the end of the matter. They hold out the enticing prospect of addressing thorny issues, but never do so."

As regards the EU constitution, in actuality, Richards maintains, the referendum is being used as an excuse for postponing or avoiding awkward arguments. We are not having a referendum because the government is confident of the pro-European sentiment in Britain. We are having one for precisely the opposite reason, that it lacks confidence about the pro-European case or at least in putting the case until another election is safely out of the way.

Thus, concludes Richards, there is only one clear lesson from last week's poll: "political leaders should avoid the promise to hold referendums." The promise, he writes, "gets them out of short-term holes, but the prospect of holding the unpredictable polls creates bigger problems that do not go away."

How fascinating is this view. Richards is a confirmed Europhile and like so many of his ilk, is extremely ill at ease with the prospect of democracy in action. So democracy is a messy business, and messages are always mixed. But is that a reason for doing away with it? For Mr Richards, it seems, it is.

France has no need of integrated anti-terrorist measures

A Federal District Judge, James Robertson, has stated that the President had overstepped his powers in establishing special tribunals for the prisoners in Guantánamo. But is anyone paying attention to the ones who have been released and sent back to the countries they are citizens of?

The British are threatening to sue the American government and, no doubt, there are many organizations who are ready to help them with advice and money. Indeed, one of the former Guantánamo prisoners had had criminal proceedings pending against him in this country and these, for some unexplained reasons, have been abandoned.

In Sweden the government has offered to help one of the released prisoners to sue the United States for damages.

So, which are the two countries that have taken a very different attitude to the returning prisoners? One is Russia, as we have already pointed out, where seven former prisoners have disappeared from view. They had not been all that desperate to be released to the Russians and who can blame them. Guantánamo must be a little like a holiday camp compared to what awaited them back home.

The other one is France, the country that had been the most vociferous in its condemnation of all things American. (Incidentally, try to imagine the hyperventilation that French politicians and the French media would have experienced if the United States had behaved the way France is behaving in the Ivory Coast.)

Four prisoners were returned to France. They were immediately arrested by the French authorities and … have disappeared from view. Amnesty International, where are you? According to French law these people can stay in prison for three years without trial while the authorities will decide what to do.

According to the Washington Post (not precisely a pro-Republican, pro-Bush newspaper):

“Armed with some of the strictest anti-terrorism laws and policies in Europe, the French overnment has aggressively targeted Islamic radicals and other people deemed a potential terrorist threat. While other Western countries debate the proper balance between security and individual rights, France has experienced scant public dissent over tactics that would be controversial, if not illegal, in the United States and some other countries.”

French authorities have, without much ado, expelled a dozen Islamic clerics for allegedly preaching hatred and religious extremism. The likes of Abu Hamza get short shrift with the gendarmes and the French judicial system.

According to French counter-terrorism officials and officers, pre-emptive action has paid off and they managed to prevent several possible plots and radical Islamic groups. Presumably, none of this radical and potentially dangerous activity had anything to do with the Iraqi war that France opposed extremely vociferously.

As France tries to present herself an emollient, sympathetic, understanding power in the Middle East in opposition to the supposedly harder American approach (give or take a few million American dollars in aid), its internal policy is hardening even more. Interestingly, France does not appear to need the various integrationist policies that her politicians are advocating for the European Union to deal with what they see as the immediate problem in their own country.

“France has embraced a law enforcement strategy that relies heavily on preemptive arrests, ethnic profiling and an efficient domestic intelligence-gathering network. French anti-terrorism prosecutors and investigators are among the most powerful in Europe, backed by laws that allow
them to interrogate suspects for days without interference from defense attorneys.”

Whether this is going to solve the long-term problem remains questionable. France has a very large Muslim population (around 6 million), most of whom are North Africans. They have not been well treated and there is a great deal of seething discontent in the areas populated by them (usually the poorest and most derelict banlieus). Extremist imams and agitators, no doubt, take advantage of this situation.

The ferocity with which the authorities have been acting, their disregard for civil liberties and human rights, might well negate the other efforts that have been made to appeal to the French Muslim community at large and to bring them into the fold of the French Republic. So far, there have not been many protests, because, as in most other countries, the vast proportion of Muslims have no desire to support the terrorists. But there have been episodes in recent French history when suppression of extremism extended well beyond that into suppression of all dissent and airing of genuine grievances.

One more question remains: how long can President Chirac represent himself as the man who speaks for all that is finest and most noble in European tradition?

It's the Sun wot said it

Somewhat belatedly - but nonetheless welcome - the Sun newspaper has picked up on the tripartite alliance between Germany, France and Spain, with the headline "Secret plot to kill Nato".

According to the Sun, this "secret EU plot" to wreck Nato and torpedo the UK's influence in Europe was sensationally laid bare by Spain's prime minister yesterday, when he "vowed his country would stand shoulder to shoulder with fellow Iraq war weasels France and Germany — to dictate a common EU defence policy that would leave Britain sidelined."

Zapatero, it seems "brazenly declared" the ultimate aim was to challenge America, saying: "Europe must believe that it can be in 20 years the most important world power. We want to arrange the European future at the side of France and Germany. Spain sees itself with France and Germany as never before."

The Sun thinks that these comments were "a huge blow to Tony Blair", especially as Zapetero is arguing that the constitution is a "milestone" on the road to a European military and economic superpower. This is not what Blair - who has invested a great deal of political capital in trying to cement relations with Germany and France - wants to hear.

Neither is the underlying message a happy one. It is becoming increasingly evident that there is an EU agenda to sideline Nato and the only dispute one might have with the Sun is with their claim about "a secret plot". The agenda is hardly secret, but that is an academic distinction. Secret or not, it is certainly dangerous.

Cheap tanks, but no bargain?

Hot on the heels of the announcement of a new "triple alliance" between Spain, Germany and France, yesterday Schröder was in Northern Spain meeting his counterpart, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, for the 19th Spanish-German summit, alongside meetings of other ministerial counterparts.

One of the key issues raised, it appears, was the EU budget for 2007-2013, with Germany sticking to its stance that it wants an upper limit on expenditure of one percent of the community gross domestic product, against the commission's proposal of 1.14 percent.

This is a particularly sensitive issue for Spain as, since its accession in 1986, it has been the chief recipient of structural and development funds - currently worth some six billion euros annually - and is not keen to see any reduction.

But, while there was no meeting of minds on this issue, both countries have decided to "intensify existing defence co-operation", with German defence minister, Peter Struck, agreeing to lease to Spain on extremely generous terms 108 main battle tanks until 2016, whence the Spanish army will own them outright.

Spain also expressed a wish to increase co-operation with Germany via future acquisition programmes" in several fields, including the Eurofighter jet aircraft programme, naval communications and missiles for Tiger helicopters, while both Schröder and Zapatero spoke up for "advances in European security and defence policy" through greater integration at EU level.

From the school of "nothing is ever what it seems", one is hard put to understand why the Spanish would want 108 second-hand tanks (presumably Leopard IIs) from Germany, as there is neither a strategic nor tactical need for what amounts replacement tanks for an armoured division, when the whole concept of heavy armoured formations is considered obsolete.

Clearly, there is a strong element of gesture politics here. Germany has large numbers of tanks surplus to requirements, so the transfer will cost it little, but this will certainly cement Zapatero further into the "triple axis".

This may also have the side-effect of detaching Spain – once an enthusiastic member of Nato – further from the Atlantic alliance. If this is the true agenda, Spain will have sold itself very cheaply, but the price may be higher than it bargained for if the US takes the hint and walks away from the Alliance.

Stupid and dangerous

Even by the standards of The Guardian, today's opinion piece from its senior foreign correspondent, Jonathan Steele, is more than usually stupid. Headed, "Nato is a threat to Europe and must be disbanded", Steele's thesis, encapsulated in the strap, is: "Our security doesn't depend on the US; we should free up our thinking". In fact, this is more than stupid. It is downright dangerous.

In the interests of greater "European" foreign policy coherence, Steele argues, vague pleas for Tony Blair to end his close links with the White House are not enough. The call should not be for "more" independence. We need full independence. We must go all the way, up to the termination of Nato.

Says Steele, an alliance which should have wound up when the Soviet Union collapsed now serves almost entirely as a device for giving the US an unfair and unreciprocated droit de regard over European foreign policy. As long as we are officially embedded as America's allies, the default option is that we have to support America and respect its "leadership".

Apparently, this "makes it harder for European governments to break ranks, for fear of being attacked as disloyal," so we should now dismantle Nato. It has become a threat to Europe, also acting "as a continual drag on Europe's efforts to build its own security institutions. Certain member countries, particularly Britain, constantly look over their shoulders for fear of upsetting big brother." This has an inhibiting effect on every initiative.

In this Steele's observations are one-dimensional – and wrong. Unlike the European Union, Nato is a voluntary organisation. No member is obliged to belong and none can be forced or in any way required to take action – or participate in any action against its will. And, as we have seen over in recent times, various members have been entirely uninhibited in opting out of Nato initiatives, with the "European defence identity" proceeding apace.

But what makes Steele's argument particularly stupid is that, before one advocates the abolition of an institution which has in the past unarguably contributed considerably to European, and therefore world, security, it is necessary to examine fully its role and current contribution - which he has not done.

Here, one needs to look beyond the headline roles – the grand alliances and high-profile initiatives – and look at the more mundane tasks with which Nato is involved, not least the development of common tactical doctrines, the establishment of joint military planning systems and, especially, the Nato harmonisation programme.

It is this latter programme that is one of the great, unsung successes of Nato, a programme which has ensured, over time, that allied forces can physically operate together. At one end of the scale, this is as mundane as ensuring that, for instance, the couplings on refuelling bowsers and aircraft fuel-tanks are standardised, so that allied aircraft can be fuelled with the equipment of any other ally.

But, at the other end of the scale, as theatres of operation become ever-more sophisticated, there is the need to standardise the various electronic systems, used for surveillance, weapons guidance and command and control – without which no modern armed forces can operate.

In this complex area, Nato has more than proved its worth with a demonstration programme – perversely under Pentagon leadership – set up in 2000 called the Coalition Aerial Surveillance and Reconnaissance, or CAESAR. This connected five intelligence and reconnaissance systems: the U.S. Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) and Global Hawk, the British Airborne Stand-off Radar (ASTOR), the French Horizon system, Canada's RADARSAT and Italy's CRESO, or Combined Heliborne Surveillance Radar.

Nato officials took all these platforms that did not interoperate and fixed them, allow them to plug and play through software patches, without everyone having the same equipment. On completion, the programme was called the "hidden jewel of Nato" and an example of what could be done if money is invested wisely.

Without such efforts, the forces of all the Western allies are weakened and, crucially, will be unable to work together. Yet, as outlined in an earlier posting, the EU commission is already turning away from such genuine co-operation. Under the aegis of the European Defence Agency (EDA), it is promoting common, EU-wide procurement and standardisation throughout the forces of member states, with ambitions to operate a compulsory standardisation programme, managed through CEN rather than through NATO.

This alone will mean that European states and the US will drift further and further apart and it is in fact only through Nato that this can be prevented.

However, Steele clearly does not understand this, and that is why he is dangerous. He sees the involvement of Nato as wholly negative while, at the same time believing that ending Nato would not mean that Europe rejected good relations with the US or ruled out police and intelligence collaboration on issues of concern.

Europe, he writes, could still join the US in war, if there was an international consensus and the electorates of individual countries supported it, but Europeans must reach their decisions from a position of genuine independence. In fact, without the close technical co-operation that comes from working as allies, in order that our forces are technically "interoperable" we cannot join the US in war.

Thus, Steele's conclusion is fatally flawed. "We can and, for the most part, should be America's friends. Allies, no longer," he asserts. In fact, unless we are allies, we will find that we can no longer be be friends.

Before the Blogosphere there was Samizdat

The best thing about the week-end that has gone by was the annual realization that November 7, the anniversary of Lenin’s coup d’état in Petrograd is no longer celebrated in the fine military style it used to be and the evil empire that it inaugurated is no longer with us.

That realization is tempered by the knowledge that there still are evil communist states around, China being the most notable, though how long it can stay communist remains questionable, then Cuba and North Korea. Belarus under the egregious Alexander Lukashenka seems to be slipping back into totalitarian mode, Russia is hovering on the brink, but Ukraine may well escape and various other countries have. Even in Russia, the worst that is likely to happen will be Putin consolidating an old-fashioned pre-1905 tsarist-type autocracy. This is not satisfactory and ten years ago one hoped for greater things. But it is better than what the Russians had for seventy-odd years. And many European countries have escaped completely (no thanks to their western neighbours, though.)

It is important to remember how long and difficult the fight to bring down communism was, how many victims there were (apart from the many millions of victims whose only crime was that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, born in the wrong family, were too intelligent to submit or, simply, wanted to lead an ordinary life according to their principles without interference from a poisonous ideology).

In May I was privileged to lead a discussion with Professor Dennis O’Keeffe at the Centre for Research inot Post-Communist Economies on the subject of Samizdat. The word means self-publishing in Russian and in the sixties, seventies and eighties it became the symbol of the growing resistance to communism in theory and practice in the Soviet Union and countries of Eastern Europe.

The talks and the discussion have now been published by CRCE. It is an instructive tale and one that needs to be remembered by people who think that they are oppressed at present as well as by those who despair of ever achieving anything about our own problem: the European Union, its un-democratic and anti-liberal ideology and managerial form of governance.

Samizdat consisted of different strands. The most obvious difference was between that produced in Eastern Europe, where, Prague spring and its crushing, the Solidarnosç movement and its crusing notwithstanding, life grandually became easier than in the Soviet Union. By the mid-eighties people were travelling abroad, they could meet foreigners in their own countries, banned literature was circulated widely if clandestinely and unofficial lectures and tutorials were held in people’s flats.

That is not to say there was no danger. Even in East European countries people were arrested and imprisoned and the memory of harsher repressions was ever-present.

In the Soviet Union the people who disseminated banned literature, translations, political writings were persecuted and imprisoned. They were a tiny minority and their somewhat inward looking attitude – inevitable in the circumstances – limited their appeal before and after the fall of the regime.

There was also a division between samizdat that was for home consumption, that is writing that people inside those countries wanted to read but could not except illegally and clandestinely and the samizdat, whose purpose was to acquaint the West with what was going on.

Sometimes the two became one. Information went to the West and was then broadcast back to the Soviet Union and its colonies. Many Russians, Ukrainians, Balts, Georgians and others found out about their own country by listening with great difficulty and in great danger to the BBC, Voice of America, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe.

Not only we do not live in the same danger, but our technology is much harder to control. Samizdat texts were typed on typewriters in about ten copies, then handed out to people who proceeded to re-type it all in ten copies or so again. The bottom copies, as those who remember the old typing with copy paper and flimsies will recall, were barely legible. The typewriters were old and noisy. Handing material on was fraught with difficulties. Photocopiers and small printers were illegal. Possession of one meant an arrest.

Listening to western radio was illegal and in the Soviet Union all the western stations were jammed after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Yet people went to great lengths both physically and mentally to acquire information, to position themselves in the one place where they could hear the crackling sound of some BBC announcer reading the news of what was really happening in the world and their own country. Some, as I can testify, having worked in the BBC East European Section, even wrote letters in response to programmes.

It is difficult to overestimate the courage of these people who spoke up in the name of truth and freedom. And it is difficult to overestimate the contribution of some western writers, journalists, translators, commentators, ordinary tourists who helped to disseminate the literature both in the West and in the Communist countries.

Compared to that we have an easy time. I sit here in my own house, in front of my computer, writing this in comfort. I am certain that our readers will also be safe and comfortable when they read this or any other posting. Nor will things become too difficult for them if they decide to pass some of the information on or respond with comments. For this we must be grateful.

We must also be grateful that we have the technology to communicate efficiently across many miles. The internet is a great weapon against oppression. The Iraqi websites and weblogs are flourishing. In China there are thousands of inernet shops and, even though the authorities close some or all of them down periodically, they cannot control information as they could fifty years ago.

Therefore, we must take advantage of what we have. On this blog we have written before of the way political discourse has changed in the last few years, pointing to the developments in the United States where the mainstream media and the networks have found themselves outmanoeuvred by the sharpshooters: bloggers, websites, radio commentators. (One thinks of the Finnish skiers in their light but warm ski suits quite literally running rings round the much larger, better equipped but heavy and unwieldy Soviet army in 1940.)

This development is slowly, too slowly, reaching these shores as well. One of the biggest and most effective blogs is called Samizdata, in honour of the intellectual freedom fighters in the old Soviet empire. (At least, I hope that is why it is called that and not because its editors think they run the same dangers.)

We, on this blog, are proud of being part of that great political revolution, as we have said before. Properly used, this weapon will help us win the war, though it will take a long time. And we honour those who went before us, went in great danger and hardship, the authors, editors, translators and disseminators of samizdat.

The really invisible no-men

With a delicious sense of timing, just as the self-appointed "Vote No" campaign got itself flagged up in the Financial Times and BBC's Radio 4 World at One programme - for its "success" in having persuaded "400 business leaders" to attend a fund raising dinner - its web site went down.

Actually, the site was not so much "down" as disappeared: for a time the URL only got you to the domain registration company. But for the Google "cache", there was no evidence that it had ever existed.

Although the site is back up (click here), few would mourn its permanent absence. The prospect of this lacklustre outfit hoovering up all the available funds has not been greeted with unalloyed joy by other campaigning groups. Many are feeling the pinch as the invisible no-men soak up funds for their cinema ads and other jolly japes.

The greater problem, however, is that while Neil O'Brien, so-called "campaign director" of "Vote No", claims that their success is a clear sign that industry is becoming increasingly eurosceptic, all the indications are that neither business leaders nor Neil O’Brien have the first idea of what being Eurosceptic really means.

Not only are the bulk of so-called "business leaders" politically naïve the self-appointed "Vote No" campaign, in going for the business fraternity, is holding itself hostage to fortune with its woolly "love Europe, hate the Constitution" message that is neither intellectually credible nor honest, simply to keep these babes in arms on-side.

While this may have been a useful stratagem for the fight against the single currency – where the business view was important – the EU constitution is not primarily a business issue. There is no logic, therefore, in affording business interests a leading role in that campaign. This is an issue for the whole of the population and the lead should come from the people, not the business fraternity in what is increasingly seen as an exclusive "top down" campaign.

However, as happened with the NE referendum, it looks like the "glory boys" will be looking to sweep up the brownie points and the money, which is why they are courting the "business leaders". Meanwhile, the real campaigners will live on a shoe-string, ignored by the "above the line" funders who are more impressed by posh accents and pin-stripe suits than they are track-record.

But it is these campaigners – the really invisible no-men – who will win the battle, leaving the others to prance and posture and then write their reports on how they really won it.

The hidden hand stays hidden

Compare and contrast the treatment of Christopher Booker's story in The Sunday Telegraph on the new electrical rules for domestic dwellings, and The Daily Telegraph's treatment of the same story in today’s business section, this one written by Richard Tyler

Apart from the more sober headline, though, the interesting thing about Tyler’s version is that, unlike Booker, nowhere does he mention that these rules are EU based. Instead, he treats the issue as a domestic story, leaving the reader under the impression that the British government is responsible.

One can never be sure whether omissions like this reflect the amateurism of the journalists involved, or whether more sinister forces are at play. Either way, the net effect is that the hidden hand of the EU stays hidden and the people are thus less informed than they have a right to be.

We seem to have a problem with the Dutch police

As the moves towards integrating security and judicial as well as policing activity across the EU, we should cast a worried look at the activities of the Dutch police. This is rather surprising, as the Dutch authorities are normally seen among the most liberal of the European ones. But liberal is as liberal does. The new “liberal” ideas in Europe resemble what the Americans call “liberal”. In other words, far from the old-fashioned John Stuart Mill type liberalism that emphasises tolerance and individual liberty, it defines what is allowed and what is forbidden in a “liberal” political structure.

Thus, it is “liberal”, “radical” and daring to criticize certain religions, churches and their members but not others. Judaism and, above all, Christianity fall into the first category. Islam into the second. Of course, the fact that those who are deemed to criticize Islam are often murdered by certain illiberal members of that religion, may have something to do with this attitude.

The story concerns the Dutch police, however. On November 2 the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh was murdered and a Moroccan young man, who lives in the Netherlands has been charged with the murder.

Van Gogh was a professional exciter of controversy, a man who had attacked Christianity and Judaism, and had been proud of the protests his work had invoked. Every free country has film makers like that. He has also made a film about Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch politician who was murdered two years ago because of his statements about immigration.

Van Gogh’s crime seems to have been a film about the brutality some Muslim women are subjected to in their society. In this he worked together with Somalian-born Dutch MP Ayann Hirsi Ali, whose personal experiences seem to have been quite appalling. And so the man was murdered with Index on Censorship, that impeccably “liberal” magazine publishing an article that blames him for his own murder. It served him right for his opinions and, anyway, it was a publicity stunt to promote his film.

The story is, however, about the way the Dutch police behaved when a mural was painted in Rotterdam in protest against the murder. In fact, the mural showed an angel and the Biblical words “Thou shalt not kill.” As there were attacks on several mosques in the wake of the van Gogh murder, you would think the Dutch police had its hands full. Not so, but far from it.

The local imam appears to have complained about the mural as being racist. One cannot help wondering how he arrived at that conclusion and why the Dutch police should have agreed with him. But agree with him they did, smashed up the mural, arrested the TV journalists who were filming the episode, confiscated their cameras and destroyed the film.

It is time to start worrying about closer co-operation, legally enfoceable sharing of information and other suchlike initiatives when events like that go on. And it is certainly time to worry about the European Arrest Warrant, which, as our readers will recall, has been signed by this country’s government with almost indecent haste.

Babes in arms

The annual CBI conference starts today and, according to The Times (online version), its president John Sunderland is going to be using the event to whine about the EU.

"British business is frustrated with Europe's failed attempts to catch up with the US economy", he will say, in an attempt to send a message to incoming EU president José Manuel Barroso that a handful of governments must not be allowed to hold back the urgent need to reform Europe’s economy.

In the time-honoured style of newspapers reporting events before they happen – and then ignoring them afterwards – we learn that Sunderland will make these comments when he delivers the opening address of the conference. "The vision of Europe becoming the world's most competitive economy remains a very much distant one," he will then tell his audience.

All of this, of course, is a bit late. For most if its existence, the CBI has been staunchly "pro-EU" and its predecessor, the FBI, was one of the organisations which campaigned for British entry to the EEC. Now, when things are not going so well – and certainly not delivering the benefits that the CBI expected, Mr Sunderland still has not got the message,

Despite the obvious and growing evidence that they represent structural failures, he is to tell business leaders that these problems can be cured. The CBI wants the commission to reduce regulations and increase the flexibility and skills of the labour force, while it wants the member states to carry out economic reform, especially of unsustainable pensions and social security arrangements in countries such as Germany.

And still, Sunderland will proclaim its fealty to the CBI's EU masters, proclaiming that: "British business is pro-European. That is not a political view, just a statement of this country’s economic interest… but we would be failing in our duty if we did not speak out when policymakers endanger wealth creation and jobs."

It really is quite surprising (although it should not be) how apparently intelligent and successful businessmen can be so naïve about political issues. Like the businessmen supporting the self-appointed "Vote-No" campaign – who just love Europe but hate the constitution, politically, these people are babes in arms.

More hidden integration

Christopher Booker's notebook today presented a classic illustration of how newspapers can so often superimpose totally inappropriate headlines on the pieces they publish, obscuring rather than describing the contents.

Actually, it is worse than that, as The Sunday Telegraph, with its first title to Booker's column: "Some bright spark has had a very dim idea", not only fails to describe the contents but somehow manages to trivialise an important subject of general interest.

The actual issue, on which Booker writes, is that, in seven weeks' time, new electrical rules for private houses do are being rushed through by John Prescott, to "harmonise" Britain with the rest of Europe. As a result, we face the prospect of a startling shortage of self-employed electricians, considerable extra costs, more bureaucracy and the possibility of heavy fines for householders who fall foul of the rules.

This is well worth a read (link here), but in many ways the more significant issue is that neither through the various documents produced by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, or even the amendments to the Building Regulations, which bring these news rules into force, is there any clue whatsoever to the fact that these are harmonising regulations of EU origin.

In the past, one could usually tell whether this was the case from the preambles to the regulations, which would offer as their "authority" the European Communities Act, but there is no reference in this case to the Act.

What in fact is going on is a poorly understood and little-advertised procedure whereby the EU is gradually harmonising technical laws in the Community, first introduced in 1983 and then amended in 1998 by an extraordinarily opaque directive (98/34/EC) "laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations".

What this Directive did was introduce what has been called the "new approach" to technical harmonisation.

The process was to continue to work through the EU standardisation bodies such as CEN and CENELEC, which would continue to churn out "European standards" but, instead of these then being turned into EU directives and regulations, this new directive required the various national standardisation bodies (such as the British Standards Institute) to confer "the status of a national standard to these standards" and "to withdraw any conflicting national standards."

The effect of this is also to impose a "standstill" on all national work falling within the scope of EU competences, so that the national standards bodies no longer produce their own standards but work with others and the EU bodies to produce more European Standards.

However, the standards retain a national identity – although in name only – and are then adopted by member states, often by means of domestic legislation, achieving the commission objective of further integration without it in any way being obvious.

That is precisely what has happened with the new electrical rules, which are going to have a devastating effect both on electricians and their customers. A "bright spark" with "a very dim idea" hardly begins to describe what is going on.

Who do they think they are kidding?

An extraordinary amount of effort seems to be going in to playing down claims that the US is threatening to blow the EU’s Galileo satellite navigation system "out of the sky" (see previous Blogs).

Part of this is a letter to the Sunday Telegraph, published today, from John B Sheldon of the Centre for Defence and International Security Studies (CDISS). Referring to Booker's article last week, which claimed a confrontation between US and European officials at a recent conference, Seldon asserts that this incident never took place.

Notwithstanding that the "confrontation" occurred during a private discussion and not as part of the conference proceedings, and therefore Sheldon has no means of knowing whether it took place or not, it is interesting that he denies the incident but not the substance, the US is actually preparing measure to shoot down Galileo satellites.

The whole of this issue, however, depends on the intent or otherwise of Galileo clients to use the system for military applications. Further confirmation that this is precisely what they intend to do comes from the Indo-Asian News Service report on Indian involvement in the Galileo project:

India and the EU, it appears, are close to an agreement on joint participation in the projects and the Indian government has pledged 300 million euros in order to participate in it.

However, for that money, India has made it abundantly clear that it would expect to be an "equal partner" and just a "mere customer". "If we are putting in 300 million euros we must have a say in the control of the satellite," a senior official has said, adding: "If we don't have access to their codes we can be denied access to Galileo's signals in times of war."

In response, the EU has assured India that denial of service would occur only if there was a "global war," more or less confirming the substance of the claim that the EU would not withdraw service if weapons using the Galileo signal were targeted by China at US assets.

And, if India is objecting to the Galileo signal being withdrawn in the event of war, can anyone seriously suggest that China – which has committed 200 million euros on the project – has agreed a deal for anything less than the Indians will get? If they do, who do they think they are kidding?

Buttiglione on Europe and America

One of the subjects that came up at the very successful Bruges Group Conference yesterday was the inevitable comparison between Europe and America in political and, interestingly, moral terms.

I shall write a little more about the conference itself in another blog, but, at this point I want to mention Bernard Connolly’s comments about the European ideology that has grown out of eighteenth century Jacobinism, that is the worship of the state and a short discussion, triggered off by one question. A member of the audience referred back to the undoubted fact that much of the pro-Bush vote was rooted in a certain moral and Christian attitude to life and asked whether an anti-EU vote could be galvanized on purely religious grounds.

The discussion did not get very far beyond repeating that the EU’s own state based ideology and state-defined morality is probably incompatible with a religious ethical outlook. As it happens, I think it is incompatible with any ethical outlook that believes in the primacy of individuals and individual opinions. But it is probably true that the United States is the one democracy where religion is supremely important and where moral questions become naturally part of a political debate. Britain today is rather different. That may change or, possibly, deep down it is not even true.

However, I do think and I did say at the conference, that the episode with Rocco Buttiglione is a very worrying one to all of us, whether we are Catholics or even believing Christians. As it happens the man himself wrote on the subject in the Wall Street Journal Europe last week. In an article entitled Of God and Men, Signor Buttiglione pointed to the inexorable drifting apart of Europe and America on

“their vision of a democratic society and of the proper relationship between politics and ethics”.

Buttiglione compared the views of Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of the American republic and co-author of The Federalist Papers with that of Jean Jacques Rousseau, progenitor of such ideas as the Will of the People. Hamilton, as Buttiglione puts it

“was convinced that politics needed values it could not produce itself and had to rely on other agencies (mainly the churches) to nurture the virtues civil life needsa. The state could therefore not privilege any church in particular but had to maintain a positive attitude to religion in general.”

This attitude would accept, one assumes, the centrality of moral thinking in political life.

“Jean Jacques Rousseau thought, on the contrary, that the state needed a kind of civil religion of its own and the existing churches had to bow to this civil religion by incorporating its commandments in their theology.”

Opponents of the religious in political point to the many wars and massacres that have been caused by religion in the past, as well as the oppressive nature of various churches. This is undeniably true.

On the other hand, religion, and Christianity in particular, has many other aspects that historically opposed the violence and oppression that the churches and the beliefs often engendered. One cannot say the same of the sort of civil religion or state worship that has grown out of Rousseau’s ideas. Not only has this, in its various guises, claimed millions of victims in the twentieth century alone, its positive vision is regimented and disdainful of individual liberty.

As Buttiglione points out, the state religion was predicated on an eventual change in people, their lives and values. Some of the values may have changed (history is nothing but a long tale of changing values) but many of the same circumstances have remained. The article contrasts the fact that Americans, by and large, have accepted this, while the Europeans are still struggling in the toils of their own state religion.

He ends with the following words:

“Our struggling economy and ageing society can survive and be modernized only if we recover at least some of the values of the past – among them the ethics of hard working and caring fathers and mothers.

This is difficult in Europe because our intellectuals were always convinced that modernity brings with itself the extinction of religious faith. Now America, the most advanced country in the world, shows us that religion may be and indeed is a fundamental element of a free society and of a modern economy.”

As the old examination papers used to say: discuss.

Diplomacy á la française

As we all know, Tony Blair, in a vain attempt to be that bridge between the US and the EU that he has always said Britain should be, told his colleagues at the Brussels summit, to come to terms with Bush’s re-election. Accept it, he said. It is not entirely clear to me what else they can do. As we have pointed out before (to the discontent of some our readers), American Presidents are elected by the American people. How different from the home life of our own dear EU.

In return, as my colleague wrote in the preceding blog, Blair was nobbled by the new triple axis of France, Spain and Germany. The notion that they will run some kind of a European foreign policy is laughable. They do not speak for Europe or most European states. Neither are they prepared to put their money where their mouths are, with the rare exception of France reasserting its role in its former colonies (of which more below).

In the meantime, the EU leaders are coming to terms with the unpleasant fact that they cannot dictate to the American people how to vote. They may yet come to terms with the even more unpleasant fact that they cannot dictate to the people of Europe how to vote.

Some officials, on the other hand, are relieved. A Kerry victory might have put France and Germany into some perplexity. They might have been asked directly for help by the new President, in the name of multilateralism. What would they have said then? Presumably, much the same as they said to Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi who went to Brussels to ask for help and to suggest that the “spectator” nations might like to get involved in building a more democratic Iraq. Not on your life, was the general gist of the reply. We might help later on, when everything has settled down, but meanwhile sort out your security. But do not, said they, and were backed by Kofi Annan (father of Kojo of food-for-oil scandal fame), use force in Faluja. It might upset people. And we can all guess what Mr Allawi might have said to that.

There are voices in France that welcome the Bush election (apart from those French, unreported by their own media, who actually did suppot him), because this will speed up the European project. And, indeed, there have been some politicians and commentators who have wept and wailed and demanded the immediate ratification of the Constitution because George W. Bush had been re-elected. They should get things into perspective. Bush will be President for four years. After that, who knows? There may be a Democrat President (though if it is Hillary Clinton, it may not help much as she has repositioned herself as something of a hawk). Is this a reason for long-term decisions that cannot be undone?

The ambush of Blair by the triple axis has gone some way towards undoing whatever advantage the French President may have seen in the Bush victory. Far from unifying Europe, Chirac and his two friends have re-opened the divisions.

Several French commentators have pointed out that the second Bush presidency will be very different. In it, they say, the administration will consolidate its position and reopen negotiations with potential allies. Of course, negotiations never closed and many potential allies became real ones in the fight against terrorism. What they mean is that the administration will now be nice to France, recognizing that French support is essential in this wicked world. I wouldn’t bet on it.

According to François Heisbourg, director of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research:

“It may seem counterintutive, but the French have a broader margin of manoeuvre with the United States than say, the U.K. or Italy.”

Mmm. Counterintuitive is one way of putting it.

Alain Marsaud, of the governing UMP, was another one who affirmed that

“Bush II will be totally different from Bush I. We need the United States and, I think, they might be realizing that they need us, too.”

If they are realizing this, they are showing precious little sign of it, but perhaps it is all too subtle for the rest of us who are not French politicians. But what is it the United States will need France for? M Marsaud thinks that the USA will draw on France’s experience and diplomatic relationships in the Middle East.

An interesting thought. France’s main aim has been to counteract American influence, no matter who might benefit from that. The only thing the Americans can learn from that is to watch where Chirac goes and expect trouble there.

Other aspects of French diplomacy have included political and financial support for the unspeakable Assads (père et fils) of Syria, unconditional support for the terror master, now dying Chairman Arafat, and deep involvement in the food-for-oil scandal.

In fact, President Chirac displayed the much vaunted French diplomatic ability during the European Council, when he tried to change the words of welcome for Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi and discovered that he had unavoidable engagement as the other leaders sat down to lunch with the man. Interestingly, Chirac found time to speed to the hospital where Arafat was lying in a coma or something quite near it.

Meanwhile the French have been merrily destroying aircraft in the Ivory Coast, near the capital Yamoussoukro. This was in retaliation for the killing of nine French soldiers during an attack on a rebel stronghold.

France and the UN have condemned the attack and French reinforcements have gone in. The French government says its actions are justified by the UN mandate. Well, actually, the UN mandate was rather a belated addition to the exercise. In the first place, French troops simply went in after the 1999 coup, to sort matters out. Last year a peace agreement has been signed between all the warring factions and French troops have remained in the country as UN peace keepers.

The peace agreement has not precluded a great deal of fighting between various rebels and the Ivorian government forces. The latest one of these resulted in the somewhat heavy-handed French action. The response to that have been severe anti-French riots in Abidjan, the main city. Property has been looted, schools burnt down and slogans demanding that the French go home or they will may not be able to do so later on. No doubt the extra two companies of troops and three jet fighters will deal with the problem. Another example of what France understands by multilateralism and international order.

"Spectator" states

Ever since his most reliable ally, prime minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain, got dumped in favour of socialist Jose-Luis Zapatero, Blair was always going to be in trouble. The Spanish-UK alliance – particularly on the Iraqi issue was one of Blair's great trump cards, which helped him counter the "coalition of the unwilling", headed by the unholy alliance of Schröder and Chirac.

Now the effects of this seismic shift in Spanish politics have become fully apparent, not least in the Telegraph headline today: "EU 'triple axis' gangs up on Blair."

France, Spain and Germany have united to form a three-way coalition against Blair, a naked power grab aimed to controlling the EU's foreign policy and leaving Blair out in the cold.

At the centre of the "axis" is, of course, the loathsome Chirac, driven by his obsessive anti-Americanism and still smarting at the loss of one of Frances most valuable commercial customers – Saddam Hussein.

Precipitating the alliance seems to have been Blair's comments that some European leaders were "in denial" about Bush's second term victory, with his injunction that they had to face up to the new reality and move on.

Not one ever to face reality, Chirac responded by calling Schröder and Zapatero to early morning private discussions, without Blair, to stitch up their own response to the US election result.

This is "old Europe" plus one, i.e., Spain, extracting their revenge, but the last laugh may well go to "new Europe", also named the "coalition of the willing". With the European Council having wined and dined interim Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi, European leaders were rewarded by Allawi describing the non-participants as "spectators".

An indication of how well that went down comes from Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg, who spluttered, "I don't like the expression 'spectator states' at all. I don't understand it, and if I do understand it right, I don't like it at all."

Tough. If the cap fits, as they say, wear it.

So do the children squabble

While Arafat lies dying in a French hospital and the Mid-East is at the point of who knows what, and the US is poised to drive on Fallujha to clean out the insurgents, what is our government – i.e., the European Council in Brussels – getting all worked up about?

Well, as you might expect, it has something much more important on its mind: the "correct" name for the Republic of Macedonia

Formerly, a state within the Yugoslav Federation, the country acquired its independence in 1991 and proudly unveiled a constitution which instils democratic values and celebrates its multi-ethnic composition.

Built into the constitution was it name which drew immediate objections from its neighbour, Greece, which claimed that the new nation adopting the simple name Macedonia implied territorial claims over the Greek province of the same name.

As a temporary solution, in 1993 it was allocated the "official" name of the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", in order to gain the acceptance of the United Nations and the European Union,

However, in recognition of its consistent moves towards democracy, and for its support in the war in Iraq, the USA on Wednesday recognised Macedonia's preferred name, invoking the fury of the Greek Republic, which has even gone so far as to warn the US citizens in Greece of possible violent reaction.

The State Department, however, is unmoved, saying that the recognition was not done to spite Athens but simply to reward Skopje, "not something that's in any way directed at Greece."

Exhibiting the mature response that would be expected of a long-term member of the EU, the Greek government has now threatened to veto Macedonia's possible entry into the EU and NATO and has now called on its pals in the European Council to back it up.

And so it came to pass that, yesterday, taking time off from sorting out the rest of the world's problems, EU President, Jan Peter Balkenende, announced on behalf of the European Council that the EU would continue to refer to Macedonia as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

So much, of course, for the EU (and the UN for that matter) recognising the right to self determination of a democratic state, and its right to draw up its own constitution in its own way, according to the wishes of its peoples.

But then, for a group of nations whose governments are intent on signing away their own rights as they fall over each other in their haste to ratify the EU constitution, it is hardly surprising that little Macedonia's wishes are the least of their concerns. When did the EU ever worry about the democratic wishes of anybody?

Telling it like it us

As flagged up in an earlier Blog, our government – i.e., the European Council in Brussels - has gone ahead and adopted the Hague programme.

This is an initiative aimed at taking "a more effective, joint approach to cross-border problems such as terrorism, organised crime, irregular migratory flows and smuggling of human beings as well as the prevention thereof…".

On 23 October, we wrote that this is "serious federalism, naked in tooth and claw", yet its significance has scarcely been understood and reporting has been overshadowed by the controversy over the government's intentions to permit QMV on asylum and immigration policy.

But, even as the BBC is silent, the Chinese news agency Xinhuanet has given the game away, announcing the move this evening with the headline: "EU launches new program to promote integration".

"The European Union," he reports, "has launched a new five-year program to further promote integration by strengthening co-operation in areas of freedom, security and justice."

Ironic isn't it that it takes the report from the news agency on a totalitarian, Communist state to tell us like it is. But then, since the Peoples' Republic of China supports and endorses European integration (see earlier Blog), its agency perhaps does not understand the significance of revealing what is going on.

Thus, such a headline will never appear in a British newspaper. That really would be telling it like it is, and that would never do.

Galileo in parliament

During yesterday’s Commons debate on defence procurement, the subject of Galileo was raised by Gerald Howarth, shadow minister for defence procurement. The exchange is reproduced below:

Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con): I turn to Galileo, the EU's proposed competitor to the US's free-to-users global positioning system, which provides aeronautical and motor car navigation systems—although more advanced Members no doubt have SatNav in their BMWs…

The Galileo project represents a potential source of growing transatlantic discord. It has serious military potential. Ministers insist that they will resist any attempt by France to give Galileo a military application. On 7 June, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson), told European Standing Committee A that it:

would not be used for operational military matters. [Official Report, Standing Committee ESCA, 7 June 2004; c. 6.]

Is that also the intention of the MOD?

Furthermore, the Minister will have seen last weekend's article by Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph, which referred to a discussion at the Royal United Services Institute on 11 October when the question was posed whether, in the event of a conflict involving the US, the EU would agree to deny Galileo facilities to America's enemies.

I understand that that is the case, as I have been told in a letter from Astrium. At that meeting, when EU officials replied that they would not be prepared to turn it off, US officials unsurprisingly responded that in such circumstances the US would be forced either to jam the Galileo signal or destroy Galileo's satellites.

There is a further cause of concern in that China has been admitted to the project as an equity partner. It will therefore have access not only to Galileo's facilities, but to the technology, and is reported to have said that it will resist any US attempt to deny access to Galileo—whatever that means. These are extremely serious issues on which the country is entitled to know the views of the MOD, as well as the Department for Transport.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Ivor Caplin): The hon. Member for Aldershot asked about Galileo. It is a civil system under civil control, as has been confirmed by successive EU Transport Councils. The requirement for navigation and timing information to support UK armed forces will continue to be met by GPS, which remains the de facto NATO standard.

(Hansard: Columns 492-3 and Column 534)

And so the lie continues, with the Labour minister still maintaining the fiction that Galileo is a civilian project. The full debate can be read here.

Targeted gloating

YEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAA!

"Gloating," writes John Derbyshire, in his excellent piece in the National Review about the US election, "is definitely uncouth, undoubtedly bad manners."

"Still," he continues, "the fact that the good Lord gave us the capacity for bad manners suggest to me that He meant us to use that capacity — in a properly measured and carefully targeted way, of course. So let's talk about targeted gloating, precision gloating."

Top of the list must be John Prescott, who’s one-man obsession put regionalisation on the agenda and kept it there, despite lukewarm interest from his colleagues. He and he alone must bear the responsibility for the estimated £10 million wasted on the referendum when, if the sounding exercise had been conducted properly and honestly, it would never have been attempted.

Another gloat must be targeted at Sam Younger and his electoral commission. Despite his incomprehensible decision to award designated status to the Tory-backed North-East Says No Campaign, the will of the people prevailed and not even the incompetence of NESNO managed to dent the vote.

Then a huge gloat must be despatched towards the media, but mainly the BBC, which continued to talk about "devolution" when Prescott’s folly was anything but – an exercise of robbing local authorities of some of the few powers remaining with them and vesting them in the wholly artificial construct of an administrative region.

However, I won’t gloat at the leader of the "yes" campaign, John Tomany – that would be one too many (who could resist the pun). His dismal performance got its just rewards and at least he did have the sense to recognise that the peoples of the North East had blown a huge raspberry in his direction.

A raspberry, more than a gloat, must also be directed at UKIP, which backed the wrong horse in supporting NESNO and then remained invisible throughout the campaign.

Another very large raspberry should also be despatched to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB). Despite very clear opposition to regionalisation from its members, who cast an 82 percent vote against in their annual conference (thus closely reflecting the eventual result), the policy committee chose to remain neutral on the issue, mainly because the NE regional committee has been captured by New Labour luvvies, and was looking forward to the "jobs for the boys" that the new regional structure would bring.

But that’s almost enough gloating, ed. The true significance of this referendum, and its relevance to this Blog, is that in many respects it was a test-bed for the EU referendum. We can all take cheer that the people of the North East voiced what most commentators are now recognising is a healthy contempt for the political elites who are attempting to foist their own agendas on their unwilling voters.

But the last word must go to Andrew Marr who, on this morning’s Today programme, noted that the referendum was "partly about Europe". "A lot of people", he said, "felt that this was about the Balkanisation of England, creating regions that would be easier for Brussels to rule". "Those people who are thinking ahead about the European constitutional referendum ought to look at this very carefully too," he added.

Don’t worry, Andrew. We're already on to it.

The people speak

"A decisive defeat". That was the verdict of the BBC at just gone one in the morning, with 78 percent of the votes cast recording a "no" to elected regional assemblies against a pitiful 22 percent "yes", with 893,829 votes cast, a "turnout" of 47.71 percent.

Not a single one of the 22 electoral areas votes for the proposition, with Newcastle (the area thought to be most in favour) recording 75 percent against, Sunderland, 80 percent, Tony Blair’s Sedgefield 72 percent and Alwick 81 percent.

Earlier that evening the BBC showed how out of touch it was, from its coverage of the NE referendum. Just after eleven, BBC News 24 interviewed political analyst Tony Travers from the LSE who spoke of the result being "very close", with the possibility even of a very narrow "yes" margin. All that was on the basis of a prediction from John Prescott, that totally objective observer of events.

By then, I had already received unofficial reports from the count indicating massive support for the "no" campaign, with some areas voting 5:1 against Prescott’s folly.

Minutes later on BBC News 24, we had reporter Richard Moss confirming an unofficial "no" victory, without giving any indication of the scale, against a higher than predicted "turnout" approaching 50 percent.

But to show quite how out of touch he was, he then lined up representatives from the "three main parties" for a discussion: Joyce Quinn for Labour, Martin Callanan for the Tories and Ed Davey speaking for the Lib-Dems.

There is the BBC framework: it cannot see outside the "bubble" of the established political orthodoxy yet, if there was anything that characterised the campaign, it was the leading role of the "peoples" no campaign, carried outside the cloying grip of the parties.

After the result, Prof John Tomany, leader of the "yes" campaign, at least showed some understanding of the situation. Speaking on the result, he said that the verdict reflected peoples’ growing rejection of political institutions. Concluded Tony Travers, Prescott’s ambitions for regionalisation in England were "as dead as a doornail".

Needless to say, the BBC did not interview Neil Herron. But, whatever the claims from the johnny-come-latelys, we know who really did the work. And now for the big one.

Three new papers from Global Britain

Always good to know that there is somebody out there who will read statistical compendia, Pink Books, IMF Balance of Payments of Statistics Yearbooks and others of that ilk, then process all the data into easily manageable papers for people like me to read and, sometimes, understand.

So, three cheers for Global Britain and its Director, Ian Milne, a wizard on statistics and economics.

He has just produced three more papers (and they are just that: one A4 sheet each, with lots of information). One of them tells you that customs duites are hardly worth collecting. It seems that

“[o]f the £396 billion raised in taxes by the UK in 2002/3, under one half of one per cent - £1.9 billion – came from customs duties charged on imports under the EU Common External Tariff. Those customs duties were immediately handed on to Brussels.”

Well, well. Another supposed benefit to be discarded. Read all about it on the Global Britain website.

The other two papers are more analytical, though in very easily digestible gobbets. One explains in words of almost one syllable and four points why free trade with the Single Market would continue if the UK left the EU. The basic point is so simple that supporters of the EU who tell us they are that only for good economic reasons, must accept:

“Mutual commercial self-interest would ensure that trade between the EU and apost-withdrawal UK would be as free, if not more free, than it is at present …”

But there, don’t believe me, read the paper on the website, together with the nine basic facts about the UK in the Global Economy.

The last paper is a little more sombre. It explains why the UK is sliding down in the international league tables (as are most EU countries). All of which proves that even coming out of the EU is not going to be the end of the story. Many more things will have to be done on the political and the economic fronts. (And, please, could we not have any more demands for me to admit openly that I do not think the EU with its heavy taxation, regulation, control freakery and centralization is the right future for Europe. I think I have made my views pretty clear.)

Apologia

My colleague has reminded me that something is known about Franco Frattini, the new Italian commissioner designate. He it was, who explained that there was no need for a referendum in Italy because:

the majority of people understood this constitution does not create a European super-state, not a federal Europe. It does not mortify countries' identity.

Whatever that may mean. (Full story)

Back in the topsy-turvy world of the European Union

How long can one go on writing about democratic elections even with the various attempts to sidetrack discussion to the cul-de-sac of whether a federal structure is a good thing or a bad per se? It is time to get back to the topsy-turvy world of the European Union, where the news is that as the European Council meets under the dual shadow of another Bush presidency (their expression not mine) and the probable imminent death of their very own pet terror master Yasser Arafat, the Commission is once again ready for its line-up.

The whole thing reminds one of nothing so much as the excruciatingly funny sequence in the Marx Brothers’ A Day at the Races, where the highly strung and ever more nervous horses keep lining up at the starting line only to have something else go wrong as Groucho, Chico and Harpo desperately try to delay the race in order to find their horse.

The latest addition to the stable is a new Italian eventer, Franco Frattini. He is the Foreign Minister and a member of Forza Italia, one of the parties of the coalition government. Nothing much is known about him for the moment, but that can change in the next week or so.

Berlusconi will now have to find another foreign minister. Perhaps, Rocco Buttiglione will apply. After all, he has become something of a hero in Italy because of his treatment by the European Parliament and the new Commission President.

Frattini is being offered the law and justice portfolio, which is actually a lot more important with Tampere II (already reported on this blog) being agreed on at this luckless European Council.

The other Commissioners are staying in their proposed positions, the Dutch and the Danes respectively supporting Neelie Kroes and Mariann Fischer Boel, despite allegations of financial irregularities and possible clash of interests.

The new Latvian Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs will be given the energy portfolio and the Hungarian Commissioner, László Kovács, criticized by the MEPs for his Communist past and total lack of knowledge of anything to do with energy, will take on taxation. Whether he knows aught on that subject will be seen during the next round of questionings by European Parliament committees.

Both Commission President Barroso and European Parliament President Borrel have made statements on their certainty that this time round things will work out and the Commission will be able to get down to work quickly. (Speed is not necessarily the most important prerequisite in politics but let that pass.)

Meanwhile the European Council will discuss Tampere II, Wim Kok’s report on the lack of progress in the Lisbon Agenda (of which more anon), the situation in the Middle East, Iraq and Iran, none of which the European states can do much about, as their contribution to the achievement of peaceful stable societies there remains minimal.

Oh yes, having welcomed the verdict of the American people, they have sternly warned the newly re-elected President that he will have to make some changes in his government. No doubt in the same way as the European Union makes changes.

Democracy brings its own rewards

I did like Stephen Robinson's comments in his op-ed in The Telegraph today. Headed: "If only Britain had the problems that beset American democracy", he noted that there were:

two parties slogging it out over important issues, including the role of the state, appropriate levels of taxation, the national defence against terrorist attack. How we would like, on this side of the Atlantic, to have the problems of America’s returning officers this week in trying to deal with rocketing voter turnout.

Compare and contrast this with the piece by Alice Miles in The Times yesterday, which commented that “Our rulers are in denial about the big issues and are seeking refuge in the little things,” pointing out that "the next election will be, instead, about the little things, a scatter of issues that lacks any coherence and ideological purpose.”

The expected reward will be a record low voter turnout and an increased disillusionment with politics and it does not take a brain surgeon to work out that these two phenomena are connected. Take away politics from the people and they will withdraw from politics – simple really

There is, of course, another connection. Our government is meeting today to discuss, amongst other things, the results of the US elections. And no, it is not meeting in the Cabinet Room in Whitehall. It has assembled in Brussels for its quarterly meeting, the European Council, comprising the heads of state and governments of the 25 member states of the European Union.
That is our real government, unsullied by elections, bereft of a manifesto, acting entirely outside the mandate of the people without a shred of democratic accountability and, as I observed in my Blog on Alice Miles’s piece, it deals with all the “big issues”.

The only consolation I can take from this is the headline from Deutsch Welle which gloomily reports: “Bush victory clouds EU summit”, predicting that, as the “EU leaders gather in Brussels Thursday for a summit focussed on economic reform… reactions to George W. Bush's re-election and the divisive issue of Iraq are expected to overshadow discussions.”

Whether pro-Bush or Kerry, the joy of Bush’s victory is the apparent discomfiture that has brought our unelected and unrepresentative government. But rather than brood, perhaps its members should note that democracy brings its own rewards.

OH 10 sails again

I could not resist remarking on the historical parallel raised by the central role of Ohio state in the current US elections, and earlier events. Ohio once again it seems – depending on your point of view – has come to the rescue of the free world.

The previous occasion, as history buffs will know, was when the Ohio – pride of the Texaco fleet – limped into the Grand Harbour, Valetta on 15 August 1942, with its precious cargo of gasoline, thus lifting the siege of Malta.

This coincided with the feast of Santa Maria ans was widely regarded as a miracle by the highly religious peoples of Malta. Had the Ohio not made it, Malta had been scheduled to surrender to Axis forces by 31 August, the repercussions of which for the whole of the Allied campaign would have been profound.

Europe may not even have been released from the tyranny of the Nazis, now to be able to boast about exporting its "European values" back to the Americans.

And why OH 10? That's what the British matelots nicknamed the ship, just to wind up the Yanks. In certain things, nothing changes.

Wrestling with jelly

Someone told me afterwards that I'd spoken in specifics whereas he'd spoken in generalities. And that's how it was. Until recently, Walter Schwimmer, Austrian born, had been secretary-general of the Council of Europe and he should have been in a position to give us chapter and verse on the "European project". But, in our debate last night, he did not.

Sitting in the "green room" with him just before the debate began, we got to talking about Strasbourg, where Schwimmer had been based – just across the river from the EU parliament. I told him that many times I had driven there and, with the journey from Calais almost exactly following the line of the 1914-18 Western Front, that we’d spent time visiting the battlefields, and especially Verdun.

There, the scene of such great slaughter in 1916, I told Schwimmer my belief that the battle spurred the intellectual birth of the European Union, when the French learned that warfare had become as much an industrial as a military enterprise. From this had stemmed the core idea that, by integrating the primary industries of war – the coal and steel industries – no country could have an independent capacity to go to war and the succession of "fratricidal" wars between France and Germany could be ended.

I could tell by his attention and body language that Schwimmer had never heard of this idea before, yet it should not have been news to him. This is a man who calls himself a European and has spent the better part of his career serving the European Council.

The relevance of this quickly became apparent when he started to speak. His history of the "project" began in 1945 and went from there. And locked into this time-frame, he entirely dismissed my argument that the sovereign nations of Europe could manage perfectly well by voluntarily co-operating on matters of mutual concern. That was an "illusion". Co-operation had been tried before and had failed. We needed something more, the EU with its supranational bodies to over-ride the nation states.

It is a bit rich having to give a 63-year-old, brought up in post-war Austria, a history lesson. But I had to remind him that it was the dictatorships of Europe – in Italy and Germany – that had failed to co-operate. Then, at the end of the Second World War, the allies had conquered and occupied Germany, imposing democracy on its peoples, and then keeping in place an army of occupation, which latterly became a defender of the democracy it had created. And democracies were able to co-operate.

But Schwimmer could not – or would not – see this. It was the European Union that had kept the peace, had made war impossible. As such, it had been a great success. And, for such a great reward as ever-lasting peace, the sacrifices were worth it. Despite its shortcomings, he said, it was "amazing what we've achieved since 1945."

I had opened my talk with a brief account of my recent experiences on the Fleetwood trawler, where we were forced by the CFP to dump thousands of juvenile fish into the sea, dead, and pointed out – having been armed by his book, "The European Dream" that, while he could have his dream, we had to deal with its consequences – in this case, slaughtering thousands of immature fish. I found it very difficult to see a connection between this and preventing the French and Germans slaughtering each other.

I would be tedious to give a blow-by-blow account of the rest of the debate, but the exchanges give you a flavour of the arguments: high-flown rhetoric versus down-to-earth reality. Oh yes, and we had "it can't be a superstate" because the commission only has a staff of 35,000. Myths galore, but nothing of substance – it was like wrestling with jelly.

Real democracy on display

At around five o’clock GMT yesterday, John Kerry conceded and soon afterwards, George W Bush claimed victory in the first election of the war against terrror. It had been rather a fraught battle, with a great deal of ill feeling on all sides and a great deal of money spent by both parties, not counting the money put up by non-party organizations for various advertisements. George Soros, alone, has wasted many millions of his wealth to unseat Bush, only to find that real democracy cannot be bought.

However, like the brilliant John Derbyshire (another journalist we lost to the Americans) in the National Review On Line, I do not see that one need to or, indeed, can gloat at Senator Kerry. Had he won, this blog would have welcomed him as the chosen leader of the American people – chosen by those people. We do not agree with his views on the UN and, like many other people, we do not know what his views are on numerous other subjects. But, had he been elected, he would have been the President as a result of a fully democratic, singularly transparent system.

And that really is that. The great and the good, the self-righteous media, the transnational oligarchs or tranzies, the NGOs, or the unelected, unaccountable, self-appointed would-be international legislators have to accept that the largest and greatest liberal democracy in the world has spoken.

It seems that the OSCE, the organization that has fruitlessly and helplessly watched scores of fraudulent elections in many countries, sent observers to the United States. Apparently, there were no irregularities detected. Well, no kidding. You mean, the opposition candidate (in this case Kerry) was not exiled because he attended an “illegal” political meeting? This happened in Kazakhstan but I have heard a London University academic pooh-poohing criticisms by wondering what observers would have said about the American elections.

It seems that the media was not stifled either, as it has happened in most of the Central Asian republics and Belarus; nor were there unexplained attacks on the leader of the opposition as it happened in Ukraine; newspapers were not threatened and journalists were not attacked as in Russia. In fact, much of the mainstream media seemed to be on Kerry’s side. Shame on the people – they let the TV channels down.

It seems the EU, that great democracy, also sent observers. One wonders what they observed and whether they would recognize democratic procedures.

It seems that as far as the British media is concerned the whole business is not over. The BBC is weeping into its cups and AOL is inviting people to vote on line whether the Americans had chosen well.

They have a point. If in the European Union one can have re-runs of referendums when the results are “unsatisfactory”; if the Commissioners can be chosen and re-chosen on the basis of absurd negotiations behind closed doors; why do the Americans insist on having open elections? Have they not heard of post-modernist post-democracy? Apparently not.

Well, we can look across the pond and see what democracy is like and how it works. We can see that in the United States, unlike the European countries, the electoral turn-out has gone up (strangely enough, those who turned out to vote, often did so to cast their vote for the Republican ticket). And we can say as they did in those old advertisements: “One day this will all be ours.”

Meanwhile, let me leave our readers with a happy thought: Ohio, the crucial swing-state which declared almost last, could have gone to Kerry, had those Guardian readers not tried to interfere.

Well, back to the real battle.

Luckless Latvian lady leaves

Some of our readers may remember the old limerick:

There was a young lady of Riga
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger.
They came back from the ride
With the lady inside
And the smile on the face of the tiger.

One cannot help recalling those words as one reads the sad tale of the previous Latvian Commission-designate, Ingrida Udre, usually described as a eurosceptic but, actually, a close associate of the now-resigned Latvian Prime Minister. We have already chronicled Ms Udre’s career and warned that her appointment might cause problems.

(Yes, thank you, I am aware that there is another version of that verse but this is a family-friendly blog.)

In fact, the real problem with Ms Udre is that she was appointed by the Prime Minister, Indulis Emsis, for no very good reason. Now that the government has resigned, as we have already reported, just as Mr Emsis was gearing himself up to go to Rome for the grand and somewhat unimpressive signing of the EU Constitution, her star also splutters.

The European Parliament committee that questioned her was rather excited by accusations of party funding irregularities, for which she is under investigation. It seems rather odd that MEPs should get worried about any kind of funding irregularities, given their own habits, but there we are. Had the government that sent her stayed in power, it might have done what the Hungarian and Dutch ones did and say no to suggestions that their nominee be withdrawn.

The Latvians came up with an immediate substitute: former Finance Minister and EU envoy Andris Piebalgs, who can be relied on to say the right things to the European Parliament and assembled hacks.

Needless to say, this development has been hailed as a great achievement for the European Union and its institutions. The egregious Josep Borrell, whose own presidency of the European Parliament was called into doubt at the time, made the following pompous but appropriate statement:

“We are now seeing a prompt and positive response to the genuine concerns raised by the European Parliament. It shows the system is capable of handling this kind of shock. There is clear evidence that the system is working and responding.”

Quite so. Responding to what, precisely?

As we look across the Atlantic and watch democratic forces at work, we have to wonder how is it that the Continent that prides itself on being the birthplace of democracy has come to this pass, where the system is all and the way it works and responds is through back-room deals for the most important positions and hysterical outbursts by members of a so-called parliament that represents nobody and is accountable to nobody.

Almost there

Our rulers are in denial about the big issues and are seeking refuge in the little things. So says Alice Miles in today’s copy of The Times (online version).

She notes that the voters are likely to give Prescott a bloody nose over the North East elected regional assembly referendum, and correctly identifies the "no" movement as "a rejection of authority itself" and of party politics as well.

"The 'no' campaign", she writes, "specifically branded the assembly not just an expensive talking shop, but a talking shop for party politicians." Hence Labour's campaign co-ordinator, Alan Milburn, saying this week that the general election campaign will be "as much fought locally as it is nationally. Messages about the record of national achievement tend to mean less than what is happening in Darlington, Derby or Dartford."

"Everything is smaller now," Miles observes. "Mr Milburn on Monday listed what he saw as the critical election issues. They are: crime, pensions, childcare, choice, equal pay and social mobility. No health, no education — although the choice agenda plays into both. Their absence from that list is in itself an amazing development, after two elections dominated by those public services."

"The next election will be, instead, about the little things, a scatter of issues that lacks any coherence and ideological purpose," she adds. "It is as if the Government has given up on the big things, and taken refuge in the little ones. Making the next election, unlike the big US poll, lots of very little ones."

That is, of course, what Milburn wants but, despite what Alice Miles may think, he may not get it. That is what the NE "no" campaign – the peoples' campaign - was all about. We are fed up with party politics that has politicians seeking to set the agenda, telling the voters what they are concerned about, and what to vote for.

Having given up many powers to the European Union, and set to give up many more, the Labour government has very little left over which it can exercise control, so must focus on the tiny things that it can still influence. Hence, the obsession with hunting and the attempt to ban parents from smacking their children.

But more and more people are looking at the world around them, and then looking at the closeted, narrow-minded vision of Westminster, and fail to see any connection – because there no longer is one. They actually want opinions, and government, on real issues and not just those which the politicians feel comfortable with.

So, while Alice Miles may finally have noticed that the politicians have retreated into their own little fantasy world, she has not yet fully understood why the people are ditching their politicians. However, she is almost there.

Air wars

Despite the agreement of the EU member states to start accession negotiations with Turkey, a tense situation still exists between Greece and Turkey over alleged airspace violations.

With serious violations reported in this Blog in early October, Greece, according to Associated Press, yesterday complained to the EU and NATO about further alleged violations of its Aegean Sea airspace by Turkish jet fighters.

The Greek National Defence General Staff claims that three Turkish F-16s allegedly violated air space near the island of Rhodes, in one case involving the harassment of a Greek army helicopter.

In Ankara, the deputy head of the Turkish military said his country had just resumed flights over the Aegean Sea that had been interrupted during the Aug. 13-29 Olympics.

"In the months of August and September, as proof of its good will toward the Olympic Games in Greece, Turkey had cancelled planned military manoeuvres and had reduced routine flights to a minimum level," Gen. Ilker Basbug said.

He disputed Greek claims that Turkey was violating Greek rights, and said the flights were "indispensable in line with its rights and interests in the Aegean."

"Greek claims that Turkey has increased flights in the Aegean don't reflect the truth, and there is no extraordinary activity," Basbug said, adding that "Greece's flights in the Aegean are far more than those of Turkey."

AP notes that long-standing disputes over airspace and territorial rights in the Aegean have nearly led to three wars between the two NATO allies since 1974, not least because Greece says its national airspace extends to 10 miles but Turkey recognises only 6 miles - the same distance as territorial waters.

One really does wonder how two long-standing belligerents like this can really sit down to talk about accession, and whether Turkey is really serious about wanting to come to terms with Greece.

A small but possibly important "straw in the wind" came two weeks ago when Turkey declined to buy Eurofighters, which would have brought it closer into the EU defence orbit, and instead chose to upgrade its fleet of US-built F16s.

At the very least, this suggests that Turkey, or perhaps the powerful military, is hedging its bets.

Cheese-eating vacation monkeys

We did it last week, but who could resist Jeremy Slater's title on his piece over at Tech Central Station on Wim Kok’s "high level group" reporting on the Lisbon Agenda's progress - or lack thereof.

Much trailed, and very much leaked, hence our report, the official report is actually due to be published tomorrow but, as Slater writes, "to anyone who had hopes for an economic revival for Europe it has made depressing and enervating reading."

In laying out the failure of the EU to come close to the targets which the leaders of Europe set themselves in 2000, Kok certainly does not hold back any punches. His report claims, "What is at risk ... is nothing less than the sustainability of the society Europe has built and to that extent, the viability of its civilisation."

The full piece can be read from the link above, and it is worth the visit to get the full flavour of Slater’s work.

I take issue with his conclusion though, that “we Europeans” will still suffer the consequences of sluggish economies, but be cushioned by a social system that encourages only a small part of the population to work while the rest sit around with nothing to do. As the joke goes, "who is this 'we', white man?" But I like his pay-off: "If that is the case then we truly will become nothing better than cheese eating vacation monkeys."

The things they say

Tomorrow, I will be debating with Herr Dr. Walter Schwimmer, secretary general of the Council of Europe, on the subject "The future of Europe". This event will be held in Room G73, Franklin Wilkins Building, King's College, Stamford Street, Waterloo, SE1, starting at 6.30 pm for one hour.

In preparation for the debate, I have been re-reading Schwimmer's latest book, "The European Dream" (foreword by Chris Patten) and happened on the following passage on the flying of the "European flag":

The importance of the role played by such symbols in forging consciousness cannot be over-estimated. Wherever it flies, the flag means we belong to Europe, we are Europe! If all European countries systematically flew it with their own, this would send a strong emotional message: we are all Europe - one Europe! Similarly, always playing the European and national anthems together, with people standing for both, would undoubtedly help create a European consciousness.

Not so much a dream as a nightmare: I think this should be an interesting debate.

What would happen if ….. ?

It seems that the armed police unit SO19 officers are not happy. 120 of them have downed tools, that is, guns because of the court finding that the killing of Harry Stanley in 1999 was illegal. Harry Stanley was the chap who was shot because the wrapped table leg he was carrying was mistaken by the police for a sawn-off shotgun. It is not clear whether there will be prosecutions but, at any rate, the killing is deemed to be illegal.

The officers, according to Glen Smyth, Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, no longer know what sort of rules they operate under and, therefore, understandably, would rather not operate with guns in their hands. According to Mr Smyth, as quoted by Reuter’s “it had been accepted that the officers who had been suspended were acting during the incident in accordance with their training”. That raises the question of training that instructs officers to shoot because somebody is carrying a parcel that might conceivably be a sawn-off shotgun but probably is not. We are not, after all, talking about Belfast or Baghdad, but the streets of London.

There is, however, another aspect to the problem of police operating in London, and one that has not, so far, been raised by anyone in authority. Mr Smyth talks of the officers seeking “guidance, clarity and reassurance”. Well, may I humbly suggest that some of us would like some guidance, clarity and reassurance on the subject of Europol and some rather odd aspects to its existence?

On the Europol website there is this solemn introduction:

“Europol is the European Law Enforcement Organisation which aims at improving the effectiveness and co-operation of the competent authorities in the Member States in preventing and combating terrorism, unlawful drug trafficking and other serious forms of international organised crime.”

Excellent, one thinks, but somewhat unnecessary, as Interpol has been dealing with the same issues for some time, reasonably successfully and there is no particular reason to suppose that this organization would be better.

Further text is no more revealing. What does the following sentence mean, for instance:

“The mission of Europol is to make a significant contribution to the European Union’s law enforcement action against organised crime, with an emphasis on targeting criminal organisations.”?

We know that the war on terror has been a useful excuse for the EU to try to integrate many of the law promoting and law-enforcing organizations, pleading that integration is absolutely essential for information to be passed from country to country. It isn’t as it happens. What is essential is the will to deal with terrorists and terrorist organizations not the mealy-mouthed ambivalence that has characterized European attitudes.

Among the suggested measures are a greater uniformity of law and criminal procedure, the creation of a European Public Prosecutor (an old idea that, together with the European Arrest Warrant, predates the attacks of 9/11), a European Corps of Border Guards, more power to Eurojust and – here is a thing, as they say – making Europol into an investigative police force. We have covered these suggestions in several earlier blogs.

The position of Europol thus becomes rather interesting. But it is not altogether surprising. Some suspicion was raised a while ago when it became obvious that for just a few hundred staff, a rather large and elaborate structure both in managerial and resource terms was being set up. Whatever for, we asked ourselves.

Then, in 1997, several Statutory Instruments were passed, more or less on the nod, about the European Police Office. Of particular interest is SI 2973/97, entitled The European Communities (Immunities and Privileges of the European Police Office) Order 1997.

The title does not deceive. It goes through all the various immunities staff of Europol will have wherever they happen to operate, in this case the UK. No taxes or rates, no insurance or car tax or VAT; they are not to be hassled by customs or excise, should they wish to import or export anything; and their office and files will enjoy diplomatic protection, that is, no matter what information they might collect and no matter how many Acts of Freedom of Information we may pass, Europol will keep its secrets.

Part II, Article 6 states:

“Europol shall have immunity from suit and legal process, except to the extent that the Director shall have waived such immunity in a particular case, in respect of any damage caused to an individual as a result of legal or factual errors in data stored or processed at Europol.”

Hmm. One cannot help wondering about that.

Or what are we to make of Part III, Article 15:

“Except in so far as in any particular case any privilege or immunity is waived by the Board, in the case of the Director, Financial Controller and members of the Financial Committee, by the Director, in the case of staff members of Europol, or, in the case of the members of the Board, by the Member State of the European Union of which the member is the representative, such persons shall enjoy immunity from suit and legal process in respect of acts, including words written or spoken, done by them in the exercise of their official functions, except in respect of civil liability in the case of damage arising from a road traffic accident caused by them.”

Good. At least, if they prang your car, pursuing a suspected international drug dealer, they will be liable to you. Though if said suspect turns out to be completely innocent, well, too bad. The officers in question are exempt from suit and legal process, unless their bosses say otherwise.

That brings me back to the table leg case. As we know, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs already describes Europol as an operational force and that is certainly what is proposed under Tampere II. Well, now, what will happen in the case of a joint operation? Will Europol officers have immunity, if a man gets shot because he is carrying a wrapped table leg, which could be a sawn-off shotgun, while Met officers have to be responsible for their actions? Do we know what the chain of command will be? Who will be taking responsibility? More to the point, does the newly appointed Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair know?

You shall be known by your friends

According to the Chinese news agency Xinhuanet, in Beijing today the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, Zhang Qiyue, has expressed her government’s support for the EU constitution.

China, she says, believes a unified and integrated European Union (EU) will offer new opportunities for the further development of China-EU relations.

China always supports the EU integration process and is willing to see greater progress the EU will make in its political unification and its positive and constructive roles in European and international affairs, Zhang noted.

With support from such a liberal democracy, which itself provides a model for political integration which is so demonstrably benign towards its peoples, we can now see that any objections to the EU constitution are totally misplaced.

Lord Pearson asks a rhetorical question

Lord Pearson of Rannoch has sent out a 12 page summary of his arguments against British membership of the European Union. Knowing his lordship’s views, I can safely say that he actually does not think the wretched thing should exist at all but, probably rightly, feels that its dismantling can be done only gradually.

This document is called What is the point of the European Union? and it is a “brief summary of our relationship with ‘Brussels’ including the case for the United Kingdom to leave the EU, and the case to stay”.

In the accompanying letter Lord Pearson explains that this may be his last “turgid tract on ‘Europe’”. Unless he means that he has said everything he wants to or needs to say in this document I hope he is threatening in vain. Most readers enjoy these far from turgid guides.

This one is actually rather jolly and even includes a couple of jokes, which I shall not repeat as I should like our readers to go through the whole document.

Under such headings as :

Our democracy betrayed
How bad is it now and how does it work?
How much does EU membership cost us in cash? (In fact, he calculates it in district hospitals, which is a novel and useful idea.)
What does the proposed new Constitution have in store for us?

and others, Lord Pearson enumerates the various aspects of the whole project and Britain’s involvement in it, attempts to calculate its financial cost on the basis of Ian Milne’s pamphlet A Cost Too Far?, and merely analyzes the price this country has paid in lost freedom, democracy and the lesser matters of economic competitiveness.

There is also a scrupulous attempt to pull together all the arguments the euro-integrationists have produced over the years and to answer them.

In a carping sort of way, I should like to point out one error and one omission. On page 3 Lord Pearson says:

“The fourth feature is that no changes can be made to the Treaties unless they are agreed unanimously in the Council of Ministers. So, renegotiations of the Treaties is not realistic; the only way out is the door.”

In fact it is the European Council, made up of the heads of state and government and assisted by the ministers of foreign affairs, meeting nowadays four times a year, that has the right to change the treaties. The rest of the point is fair.

On page 6 there is an attempt to add up the amount we hand over to the Brussels machine every year and the amount that is given back (considerably less) “for projects here which are diseigned to enhance their wretched image”. It is worth mentioning that the money that is handed back has to have matching funding.

Apart from these points I can find nothing wrong. So, for once, this blog is actually encouraging people to read and disseminate something. The full text is available on the Bruges Group website. Let us remember the motto of the mongoose: Go seek!.

Does the government know what it is doing?

China Daily, the Chinese government news agency, is stepping up its propaganda war on Galileo while the US has quietly put into service a new weapon designed to jam enemy satellite communications.

The Chinese move was announced in a release yesterday evening, with Fang Xiangming, deputy general manager of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, reported as being "keen to stress that China intends to use the system for civilian purposes only." Crucially, he was speaking during high-level Sino-French dialogues in aviation and spaceflight, implying French approval of his stance.

As regards the US dimension, its anti-satellite equipment, designated as a "Counter Communications System", was declared operational late last month at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.

This was revealed by the Reuters news agency which had questioned the Air Force Space Command last week, when it was admitted that it had on its inventory ground-based jammers which uses electromagnetic radio frequency energy to knock out transmissions from hostile satellites.

They can be used on a temporary and reversible basis, without frying components, the command said, following which "the space-based capabilities used by the adversary can return to its original state."

However, a pamphlet published by the Centre for European Reform last week, called "Europe in Space", indicated that this might not be enough. In a section on "European defence and space technology", it is revealed that financial provision has been made in the Galileo programme – which the pamphlet acknowledges is part of the "European military space system" – for adding a "jam-resistant military signal" to the system.

Under current US doctrine, the options for dealing with hostile satellites are described as the "five Ds" – to deceive, disrupt, deny, degrade or destroy targets. If Galileo is made jam-resistant, therefore, this ups the ante and makes it more likely that the US might have to destroy satellites if their signals are used against them.

With the Chinese developments, the increasingly close association between France and China, and with the US taking increasingly concrete measures to maintain its space dominance, we are insidiously creeping further down the line of the militarisation of space, with the UK allied to the EU as partner in the Galileo programme.

Once again, therefore, we must reiterate the question put by Allister Heath in this Sunday’s The Business, reproduced in this Blog: "Does the government know what it is doing?" And, given the lack of interest from most of the mainstream media, does anyone actually care?

BBC bias?

The BBC has picked up the FCO press release on the "Guide to the European Union".

Being the entirely neutral public service broadcasting organisation that it is, it featured the guide on the Radio 4 PM programme, having Eddie Mair introduce it with the following words: "Are you confused by the EU, unsure of what the EU constitution is all about? Well, stop worrying…"

And who does the BBC chose to interview about the guide? No less than the "avowedly pro-EU" Paul Adamson. Adamson is the founder and publisher of E! Sharp magazine, and a trustee of the Europhile think-tank Friends of Europe.

Adamson, unsurprisingly, thinks the guide is "a pretty valiant attempt" to explain the EU and the constitution and gives it eight out of ten for achievement.

He agrees with Eddie Mair, though, that this is "a campaign by stealth", an attempt by the FCO to get us to love the EU, and thinks the reason why the EU is so unpopular is because we don’t understand it.

One hesitates to suggest that if we are reliant on the FCO, we will never understand the EU - which is precisely what they seem to want - so hats off to the listener who got an e-mail off to the programme in time for it to be read out just before the news, saying the reason the EU is so unpopular is because we do understand it.

A tissue of lies

It only takes a quick read of the FCO's "Guide to the European Union" for the heart to sink. By any definition, it is a tissue of lies.

Here, of course, one has to be precise. I remember from school days learning from the Catechism – in the days when we did that sort of thing - and still recall distinctly the definition of a "lie". It was not only the act of uttering an untruth but also included "default and omission". That ethos survives in the oaths given in court where one is required to tell "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth".

In the main, this document (or its authors) lies through omission. It is not what it does state but what it leaves out. But there is also the lie direct. Some of the statements are downright lies.

To give a flavour of this mendacity, read page 4 on "How did the EU start". Says the document:

Fifty years ago, the countries of Western Europe wanted to make sure they would never again fight each other, as they had in two World Wars. They also wanted to boost their economic recovery. Six of them (Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) joined together in 1958 to create the European Economic Community (EEC), which later became the European Union.

Apart from peace and stability, the main goal was to make it easier for member countries to trade with each other. This remains one of the main purposes today. But over the years, the member countries of the EU have decided to work together in more areas. For example, through the EU, Europe’s nations now work together to combat environmental pollution, organised crime and world poverty.

This is a parody. From reading this, one gets the impression that "fifty years ago" an idea suddenly popped into the heads of "the countries of Western Europe" who wanted to make sure they would never again fight each other.

The truth, of course, is that the EEC was the third attempt post-war to achieve political union, and attempt by a very small group of politically motivated men, without the knowledge of understanding of most of their fellow countrymen (and women).

As for economic recovery, this was happening anyway – not least through the Marshall Plan – and was never on the agenda of the EEC. The same applies to "trade with each other". The EEC was a customs union, a Colbertian, protectionist construction designed mainly to promote political union. And it is "political union" which has always been the primary objective of the construct. Remember the first preamble to the 1957 treaty?

Determined to lay the foundation of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe

But this the document conveniently ignores. What we get is that, after all these countries suddenly decided to work together, they suddenly "decided to work together in more areas," – like the environment. Nothing of engrenage, the steady process of accumulating powers all directed towards the one objective "ever closer union".

We will continue to deconstruct this document but we can say with confidence, even at this stage, it is a thoroughly dishonest document.

The propaganda war continues

The FCO today issued a pamphlet in which it claims to present the basic facts about the EU and what it does. It also claims to also summarise the main aspects of the new Treaty to establish a Constitution for Europe.

Under the gripping title of "The Guide to the EU’, it was launched by foreign secretary Jack Straw, who tells us that, "Britain’s relationship with the European Union is a vital part of our future prosperity and security. Yet many people say they know too little about what it does and how it does it."

He hopes the guide "will answer some of the basic questions about the EU, and explain its processes."

It won’t. of course, but does so in a nice, simple way, of which Janet and John would be proud – so much so that Martin Cutts, Research Director of the Plain Language Commission, has awarded it his organisation’s "Clear English Standard mark".

Cutts says that the guide has "passed rigorous checks of clarity, grammar and layout.". However, he says nothing about truthfulness.

At 48 pages, the guide can be downloaded from the FCO site here. We will post a review as soon as time permits.

Passing of The Times

When newspaper owners start to behave like governments then we are really in trouble. I remember distinctly when the tabloid edition of The Times was first introduced, there was an unequivocal assurance from the editor that the broadsheet would remain available for those that wanted it.

As of today, however – despite those assurances - only the "comic" is available. The broadsheet died on Saturday. And all we get is a smug, "dear reader" letter from the editor, stating that "there is no doubt that some readers accustomed to the broadsheet will take time to adjust to the new format."

If early reaction is any guide, then the newspaper is in trouble. By the time I got to my local shop, there were plenty of the "comics" on the shelf and The Daily Telegraph had sold out. Spurning the tabloid, I was reduced to buying a copy of The Guardian to read with my morning bacon buttie and coffee. This reader will have no difficulty at all in adjusting to the new format – he simply won’t buy it any more.

Talking of governments, I am glad I ignored the excitable nonsense about the speculation of a snap February election in some of the Sundays yesterday. The Guardian today, through Alan Milburn – Labour’s election supremo – comprehensively rubbishes the idea.

But what is chilling about the front page piece in which his comments are retailed is a "warning" from Milburn: "What we cannot allow is for the next election to turn into some form of referendum purely on the government’s performance," he says. Er… I thought that’s what general elections were for.

One can understand where he is coming from though, with the report in The Telegraph about the NE Referendum, which informs us that turnout is likely to creep past 40 percent – hardly a ringing endorsement in its own right – with the indications that Prescott’s folly will be rejected. Milburn perhaps fears he would also lose an "election-referendum".

The anticipated success in the North East is largely due to the efforts of Neil Herron and his team who have run a spirited campaign, despite the last minute appearance of a Tory dominated team which captured the official designation, in what is seen by many as a rehearsal for the "big one" the EU constitutional referendum.

With the dismal performance of the self-appointed "Vote-No" campaign for that referendum, and the self-destruction of UKIP – which has been invisible throughout the NE campaign - many people will be looking to Herron to copy the formula of the "peoples’ campaign" to fight the constitution

And you thought this Blog was about the EU referendum? Well, it is. But "Europe" seems to have taken the day off today, as far as the media is concerned. With the US elections tomorrow, one can understand the focus on this issue but, when that is over, I suppose their normal service will resume.

Referendums not quite in the bag

(Warning: this is another UKIP-free posting.)

The signing of the constitutional treaty has been described as subdued, according to some of the media because of the “crisis” caused by Barroso’s retreat from the European Parliament. Possibly, some of the leaders who had gone to the jamboree in Rome did realize just how ridiculous the whole thing looked but, much more likely, they were thinking about the forthcoming ratifications.

The decisions they have to make to push this unwieldy document past suspicious electorates are several. First of all, they have to decide whether to go for a referendum or a parliamentary ratification. Most of those decisions have been made or half-made.

A parliamentary ratification is easier, as the various political elites will push the treaty through without the slightest difficulty. That, as the European political class is beginning to realize, stores up problems for the future in that the decision will not be seen as democratically acceptable, though perfectly valid.

A referendum, on the other hand, is fraught with difficulties. On the one hand, most governments are in a position to manipulate the campaign and to focus it on the “benefits” of the actual membership of the EU. This might be particularly effective in the new member states, who have only recently, though reluctantly (remember those low turn-outs) voted to go in and who may well still confuse “returning to Europe” with “advancing to the EU”, as President Václav Klaus puts it.

So the hope is that a basically favourable electorate will vote the treaty through. But there are problems. The whole process will take several months, during which texts of the Constitution will become available and some people, at least, will scan them and realize the various implications. News of that may spread and, coupled with other problems, such as the preposterous behaviour of the European Parliament, the much-discussed but unsolved “democratic deficit” and the continuing economic problems, will increase general discontent with the project.

The various government will then have to move away from the general feeling of well-being and try to concentrate on the Constitution itself and its "benefits". That, as we know, is likely to be quite fraught as the "disbenfits" become more obvious.

Take Poland, for instance. There, it has been confidently announced, the electorate has come round to the EU, particularly as some of the farmers are beginning to get their cheques under the somewhat inadequate CAP agreements. Following on from there, says the International Herald Tribune, about 75 per cent is now in favour of the Constitution as well.

The Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka, who seems to have more lives, politically speaking, than the proverbial cat, is a little less optimistic. He has said that there was a “considerable chance” that the Polish people will accept the Constitution. He may remember sundry episodes in Polish history when the Polish people proved themselves to be somewhat less than amenable to the instructions from on high.

The date for the referendum has not been set but preparations for it have begun. Even so, the Polish Foreign Minister Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz has already sounded a somewhat uncertain note, pointing out that the document was “not perfect”, that there were problems with the voting system that had not been sorted out and, at the same time, there were still too many areas subject to unanimity, which could result in ineffectiveness.

On the one hand, he wants the EU to take more power to itself, to become more efficient, whatever that may mean; on the other hand he would like to see Poland have more say in whatever decisions are left to individual ministers. Presumably, the people of Poland, who regained their independence just over ten years ago, do not come into his equation. They might provide the unknown factor x, though.

Then there is Spain. Prime Minister Zapatero, in his eagerness to prove his European credentials and to ensure that the subsidies that have gone to Spain over the years, do not diminish, has proclaimed that his country will be the first one to ratify the new treaty. To that end he has called a referendum for February 20, confident in the usual europhilic tendencies of the Spanish people. As we have written before, these tendencies may not produce the right results when the text of the Constitution becomes available.

Another problem has emerged to plague Zapatero. Spain’s legal experts have pointed out that the EU Constitution may well clash with the Spanish one and it will be the Spanish one that will have to be amended. The decision on whether this is so will have to be taken by the Constitutional Court.

The process is not simple. In fact, it was made deliberately and understandably difficult after the Franco years. A major change of this kind would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers in two successive legislatures. Which means that the current legislature would have to endorse it, then dissolve itself; an election would have to be held, the new legislature would have to endorse the changes by the same majority in both houses and only then could the referendum be held.

Zapatero is pooh-poohing the whole problem, saying that he will hold the referendum first and then confer with the Constitutional Court, undoubtedly hoping that it will not try to undo the result. It is, on the whole, a risky game. If, as we keep being told, the Spanish electorate “has grown up”, they may not like being manipulated in this way.

Mixed blessings from world leaders

It seems that Polish prime minister Marek Belka made the most of the opportunity afforded by the constitution signing ceremony in Rome and took a little diversion into the Vatican to have a chat with the Pope on Saturday.

According to the Italian government news agency, AGI, Pope John Paul II affirmed his continued trust in Europe's future "despite the constitution lacking a specific reference to the member states’ Christian roots, everlasting values dictated by the Gospel, which inspired and will inspire all those who take on the responsibility of governing our continent."

Nevertheless, Pope is said to be convinced that the EU, which he defined "a community of free nations", will "do its best to avoid taking their spiritual heritage away, but will preserve it as a uniting value". However, that did not stop him stating that it was "not possible to have a long-lasting unity without the rich roots of Christianity". "Europe will not be truly united unless it blends in spirituality", he added. He wanted Europe "to breathe with both lungs: the western and eastern ones".

In a stronger than normal voice, he added, "I hope that in the years to come Christians will continue to bring to all circles of European institutions the gospel message that is the guarantee of peace and collaboration between all citizens in the shared pursuit of common good."

His comments are seen as double-edge, reflecting in part Vatican disappointment that Italy's nominee, Rocco Buttiglione, had to step down from the commission "because of his religious beliefs". They are also causing some nervousness amongst secular politicians, aware of the risk of offending Turkey, which the Pope seems to be ignoring.

Buttiglione, meanwhile, in an interview with the Italian daily La Repubblica, described himself as "an innocent victim" of the parliament and observed that being anti-Christian had become the only acceptable prejudice in Europe. "I sparked a battle, that has only just started and will continue," he said. "Europe is scared of itself, of opening a discussion about what it really is ... Instead it swings between two states which cannot identify it: its economy and political correctness."

Meanwhile, that other great world leader, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan hailed the signing of the constitution as "a major milestone" in EU history. "This important and positive step opens new horizons for the European Union in the 21st century and provides a unique opportunity to preserve and strengthen democracy, peace and prosperity," a spokesman for Annan said in a statement issued on Friday,

"The Secretary-General expresses the wish that the European Constitution will also offer new opportunities to strengthen the important co-operation established between the United Nations and the European Union in the furtherance of the goals and principles of the United Nations Charter," the statement added.

Leaders of the EU member states may wish to distance themselves from that statement some time in the future when, as is widely expected, Annan is found to have had his fingers firmly embedded in the till over the Iraqi oil for food scandal. Then, as with the Pope, his support might prove to be a mixed blessing.