EU Referendum

According to an official EU survey, most Romanians believe that their own government officials are improperly diverting European Union funds meant to help the country adapt to EU standards. Most, in this context, means ninety percent of a poll of a thousand respondents.

In a country where the average monthly salary is 6 million lei (€150), corruption is endemic at all levels of society, so the perception of corruption in the handling of EU funds is hardly surprising.

In one of the more publicised cases, Hildegard Puwak, the minister for European integration, resigned last year after being accused of misdirecting EU funds to close family members. The Romanian media revealed that two companies run by Puwak's husband and son had obtained 150,000 euros in EU funding to operate business training schemes after she was appointed to her job in December 2000.

In another incident, Octavian Ionescu a Romanian ex-soccer star turned businessman, alleged that government advisor Virgil Teodorescu and local officials at a Romanian holiday resort had embezzled five million euros of EU money, a case in which a senior government adviser was said to be involved.

However, such high profile cases are extremely rare in a society where journalists are more at risk from exposing corruption than are their targets; where state-owned companies will only place advertisements in pro-government media; and where commercial TV stations rely heavily on government funding.

Neither is exposure helped by the fact that most of the people now in politics are over 50, in the main people who already held some authority before the revolution in 1989 and have skeletons in the cupboards. And, to keep the political elite under control, it seems that the main rule in Romanian politics is never promote someone who cannot be blackmailed.

Altogether, its seems as if Romania is now eminently qualified to join the EU.

Dozens of people were injured, including more than 40 police officers, during clashes which erupted in the town of Acerra, near Naples, on Sunday, according to a BBC report. A spokesman at a local hospital said 82 people had been treated for injuries, including the mayor of Acerra.

Nothing particularly unusual in that, you might think, except that clashes were over protesters trying to stop work on the construction of an incinerator.

Naples, according to the BBC, is in the throes of a crisis over how to dispose of waste in one of Italy's most densely populated regions. There has been sporadic unrest in the Naples area over the summer as hundreds of tons of garbage remained uncollected in the streets.

Furthermore, the unrest has not been confined to Accera. In June hundreds of demonstrators, protesting about plans for an incinerator in another town south of Naples, lay down on the railway tracks, blocking all railway links between central and southern Italy and Sicily for four days.

Officially, the story is that all available waste landfill sites around Naples are full and new incinerators are the only way to deal with the waste disposal crisis. But the real story is somewhat different. There is actually no shortage of landfill sites – what we are dealing with here is the fabled EU Landfill Directive, which effectively requires domestic waste to be incinerated.

Before putting these protests down to excitable Italians, consider for one moment what is in store for us here. To comply with the provisions of the Landfill Directive in the UK, the DETR has estimated that between 28 and 165 new incinerators (over and above the 10 currently in operation) will be needed, assuming incinerators with an average capacity of 200,000 tonnes of waste per year.

Furthermore, it is estimated that capital investment of between £1.4 and £6.9 billion will be required by 2016 to meet the targets of the Directive, with the government admitting that it has no idea where that investment funding will come from. there are also serious doubts as to whether so many incinerators could ever receive planning permission within the timescale required by the Directive, without direct intervention by government.

In order to meet meet its EU obligations, therefore, it seems almost certain that the government will have to over-ride planning laws, as it has already done with its wind farm programme and the notorious PPS22. Should this happen, the prospect of mass protests in these sceptred isles is by no means far-fetched.

Perversely, tomorrow has been declared by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) as the "Global Day of Action on Waste" aimed at countering the "continued obsession with incinerators", as a means of waste disposal. This will be "celebrated" by over 100 organisations and groups in 35 countries, but no more so than by groups in the Philippines where the use of incinerators has been banned, and in Taiwan, where opposition parties are fighting government proposals to build a "strategic ring" of six massive incinerators around the island.

The slogan of the global anti-incinerator campaigners is "putting out the flames", something which the EU had better pay heed to. Otherwise it will risk fanning the flames of civil unrest which may be somewhat less easy to extinguish than local demonstrations in Naples.

In January of this year, when the commission decided to refer the failure of the Council to censure France and Germany for failing to abide by the Growth and Stability pact, I was interviewed by BBC News 24, and asked what would happen to the pact.

My suggestion was that the commission would somehow fudge it, changing the rules to make it easier for the errant countries to comply. I remember the interviewer’s response very well: "I thought you would say that", she said.

And so it comes to pass that the commission is on Friday to unveil proposals to reform pact, with monetary affairs commissioner Joaquin Almunia keen to stress that he is not just making the rules more flexible. In other words, he is making the rules more "flexible" – and a fudge is in the making.

It seems the proposals will allow for debt levels and policy decisions to be taken into account when applying the rules, with a new definition of “exceptional circumstances”, which will allow defaulting countries to claim economic stagnation as a reason for not balancing the books in the short-term, provided they promise to balance them in the medium term.

Surprise, surprise, Germany – with its deficit likely to end this year above four percent - is likely to benefit most from this re-definition and will slip gracefully off the hook on which it is impaled, and which it devised in the first place.

As for the growth and stability pact, this was actually devised to underpin the credibility of the euro but all this latest proposal might achieve is to confirm the ingenuity of the commission in bending the rules when it finds that the bigger players can't – or won't – obey them.

Clearly intrigued by the spectacle of two bald men fighting over a comb (see previous Blog), Lib-Dim MEP Christopher Huhne has joined in the spat between Bill Cash and Digby Jones over parliamentary scrutiny of EU legislation – to make three bald men fighting over a comb.

In a letter to The Times today, Huhne actually argues against the British parliament having the power to reject parts of EU legislation on the grounds that, if every one of the parliaments in the 25 member states could do so, there would be very little left of the legislation by the time every one of them had finished with it.

You can see where Huhne is coming from with his comment that, "for those of us who also want to stop EU red tape from impeding British business, but see that the EU delivers peace, prosperity and the power to tackle problems outside the reach of nation states, there must be other solutions". Therein lies the essential fantasy of the Europhile: "peace, prosperity and the power to tackle problems outside the reach of nation states".

Tell us more, Mr Huhne, tell us how the EU has brought us peace and prosperity… And is subordination to a supranational government really the only way to "tackle problems outside the reach of nation states"?

Anyhow, within the limited scope of Mr Huhne’s thinking, he identifies three origins of bad EU law. The first, he writes, "is a poor EU Commission proposal". His remedy is "to insist on thorough and independent impact analysis", but he does not seem to get his head round the concept that, in many areas, the EU should not be legislating at all. How, for instance, would he deal with the proposed "Commission Directive on Foods Intended to Meet the Expenditure of Intense Muscular Effort (Sports Foods)"? (see previous Blog) and how would a "thorough and independent impact analysis" improve matters here?

His second "origin" is the "failure to amend the proposed law in the European Parliament or the Council of Ministers" yet, as far as the European Parliament goes (of which Huhne is a member), I think there are only four occasions in the history of this institution where the parliament has actually rejected a commission proposal.

As to the Council of Ministers, Huhne sees the failure here arising out of the tendency of British ministers to delegate key decisions to officials. "Because ministers are not properly held to account by the Commons", he writes, "there is no personal advantage to their greater involvement in the EU legislative process. Nor is there any personal disadvantage in laziness or mistakes".

Actually, he completely misses the point here. Because of the huge volume of legislation going though, delegation is an absolutely essential part of the system – the very thing that makes it work. No one person – and especially a busy departmental minister, with domestic affairs to deal with as well – could possibly hope to keep track of all the legislation being processed.

What happens. therefore, is that proposals are discussed between commission officials and the national civil servants who form the little-known Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER). The bulk of legislation is agreed between these two bodies and then goes to the Council on what is known as the "A-list" to be approved by ministers without a debate or vote. Only where there is disagreement amongst permanent representatives is a matter ever referred to ministers and even then, the civil servants instruct their ministers on "the line to take".

If ministers actually took an interest in everything going through in their name – assuming they were capable of so doing - they would actually bring the system to a halt - but they would also cease to function as ministers.

This notwithstanding, Huhne's "third source of failure" is when the provisions of a directive are transposed into British law and Whitehall either adds its own provisions, or interprets the directive in a convoluted manner. But, as has been pointed out in a previous Blog, because the commission now relies more on framework directives and regulations, this is considerably less of a problem that it used to be.

But Huhne wants to maintain the fiction that the problem is one of "scrutiny", hence his closing comment that, "Until ministers are held to account by the Commons for their actions in the council, MPs will continue to be shocked by some of the sloppy decisions nominally taken in their name".

What this man does not want to deal with is the real issue – that in many or all cases, the commission has no business legislating at all, and Britain should have no part in accepting legislation produced by an undemocratic, unelected body. Our parliament should be producing its own legislation, not scutinising that made by another body.

Even with a calculator, it seems this Blog (i.e., me) can’t add up. In the previous posting about the Olympics, I mistakenly put the number of athletes sent by the EU-25 as 4198. The correct figure is in fact 6298.

This of course puts the EU-25 performance in an even worse light, producing 1.30 percent golds and 4.5 percent medals overall – a truly pathetic performance. How typical it is of the commission to crow about it, since it is quite used to crowing about its pathetic performance in other sectors – viz the Lisbon agenda.

One hopes, at least, its addition is better than this Blog’s, although we can claim to have got it right – eventually.

It seems that both President Chirac and Foreign Minister Michel Barnier have temporarily suspended the traditional Franco-American hostility. They both made speeches last week to the annual conference of French ambassadors and both refused to criticize either the United States or the war in Iraq.

This could have something to do with the fact that France is hoping to secure a few lucrative deals with the new Iraqi government or with the fact that both Chirac and Barnier have suddenly realized that the Americans mean what they say about the restructuring of their defence policy. Or it might mean, in M Barnier’s case that he is anxious for the world to know that he is not Dominique de Villepin.

M Barnier is possibly the most European-minded of the leading French politicians. In his speech on Thursday he made his preoccupation quite clear:

“The first reflex, I say bluntly, must be European. I know that this evolution is not inscribed in the long and prestigious history of our ministry. But the influence of our country depends on it.”

“These two men of goodwill have always shown their understanding for these people and their fondness for the Arab and Muslim world.”

“I call for their release in the name of principles of humanity and respect for the human being which are at the very heart of the message of Islam and the religious practices of Muslims.”

“France ensures equality, the respect and protection of the free practising of all religions.”

“ These values of respect and tolerance inspire our actions everywhere in the world ... They also inspired France's policy in Iraq.”

The first of the new member states has announced that it may well have a referendum on the Constitution. The Czech Prime Minister, Stanislav Gross having barely survived a confidence vote in Parliament, has speculated that there might be a referendum in June 2006, possibly at the same time as the national elections.

Mr Gross has a problem. His ruling coalition is at sixes at sevens and, like numerous European governments, is not very popular. In the European elections they were trounced by the ODS, who oppose the Constitution, as do the Communists and the President of the Republic, Vaclav Klaus.

Parliament would have to pass a special law to allow a referendum, since there are no provisions for one in the Czech Constitution. Mr Gross has admitted in his annual speech to the ambassadors (do they all have them?) that it will not be easy to get the Czech people to approve the Constitution, but expressed confidence that they would probably vote ‘yes’, “if they are given sufficiently trustworthy information”. Oh boy, is he in for a shock!

Although Turkey has high expectations of being accepted as a pre-accession country – able to conduct entry negotiations to the EU – with a decision expected in late autumn as to whether this status will be confirmed - the government seems to be going out of its way to complicate issues.

Announced yesterday – to the outrage of the main opposition and women's groups – was its intention to make adultery a crime. Furthermore, this is supposed to be part of the package of reforms of the penal code, aimed at meeting EU criteria.

The outrage stems from the fact that although the previous adultery law, abolished six years ago, was applicable to men and women, it was used mainly against women, leading to "gender inequality".

Apparently the EU is also objecting to this new law, although it is not clear whether this is a principled objection, or whether it is concerned about the "gender equality" issue. If the latter, and the law were applied equally to men and women, presumably it would allow Turkey to go ahead.

However, if adultery were made a crime, some EU parliamentarians could be in serious trouble. But while the MEPs could invoke parliamentary immunity, unless their co-criminals were of the same status, we could see their partners being convicted while the MEPs walked away Scot-free. And how would unfaithful "gays" be treated?

Altogether, Turkey's accession is already something of a "can of worms". But it would be ironic if this was the issue over which its application to join foundered.

If its petty-minded nationalism you want, listen to the crowing of the EU commission hailing the "European" sporting success at the Athens Olympics. "The European Union swept the floor at the Olympic Games," said chief Commission spokesman Reijo Kemppinnen, at a press conference in Brussels.

Kemppinnen even had the nerve to seek to seek a round of applause for "Europe's success" from the assembled hacks, then expressing the hope that at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the expanding bloc will "threaten the dominance" of Asian countries in some sports.

This shameless triumphalism is based on the collective record of the teams sent by the 25 member states of the EU, which together won 82 gold medals and 286 medals overall. This compared with "only" 35 golds and 103 medals overall for the United States, 32 and 63 respectively for China and 27 and 92 for the Russian Federation.

However, while it does indeed look as if "Europe" had "swept the board", the commission has conveniently ignored a few minor little details that rather change the picture – the sizes of the respective teams.

The USA, which topped the league for gold medals, actually fielded 1,418 athletes; China fielded 774 and the Russian Federation 826. By contrast, the EU-25 sent a massive 4,198, including 749 from Italy, 711 from Greece and 706 from Germany.

Clearly, the medal-winning score is not only a function of sporting excellence, but also of size of team. By this reckoning, the EU-25 did not do well at all. In terms of gold medals, China's athletes delivered 4.13 percent; Russia 3.26 percent; and the USA 2.46. The EU-25, however, only managed 1.95 percent.

Comparisons with all results give a similar picture. Russia comes out on top with 11.1 percent; China 8.1 percent; and the USA 7.3 percent. The EU-25 trailed with a mere 6.8 percent. By these measures, therefore, "Europe" was the worst performer of the four major population blocs.

Britain, by contrast, actually did quite well on the team-size comparator. With 355 athletes, it produced nine golds and 30 medals overall, giving medals ratios of 2.53 and 8.45 percent, better than the USA in gold/overall performances and coming second after Russia in the "overall" stakes - easily beating the EU-25 on all counts.

Such performance, of course, went unremarked by the commission but at least Kemppinnen had enough sense to deny any plans for competitors to enter the Beijing Games under an EU flag, although his guarded "not yet", clearly betrayed the ambition. But no such caution from Prodi. In a message issued later in the day, he declared "In 2008 I hope to see the EU Member State teams in Beijing carry the flag of the European Union alongside their own national flag as a symbol of our unity", he said.

Unity it may signal – but that is unlikely. Performance it will not. Hubris? Most certainly.

According to The Times today (actually, a re-run of a story published by the Guardian three weeks ago) Nick Clegg, the former Lib-Dim MEP – described as “one of Charles Kennedy's brightest politicians" (but let's face it, he doesn't have a great deal of competition) - has urged the Liberal Democrats "to adopt a more critical tone towards the European Union".

If they do not, Clegg warns, they risk being seen as out of touch with ordinary voters.

Showing how much he himself is in tough, he notes that the Lib-Dims "are too easily caricatured as doctrinaire supporters of the EU who are unwilling to admit its failings". Apart from the "caricatured" bit, he is spot on.

Clegg's recipe for success is that his Party should "listen to and articulate the doubts and complaints of the majority of people who are neither for nor against but agnostic about Europe". The party should be as critical of decision-making in Europe as it would in any other forum.

However, this is not being "Eurosceptic" – oh no… "Being pro-European is perfectly compatible with legitimate doubts", says Clegg (tell that to MacShame), who then goes on to argue that some powers should be returned from Brussels to Whitehall: chiefly responsibility for social policy and labour market regulations, regional aid and the Common Agricultural Policy.

All this and more is set out in a book due to be published next month, called "The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism", written by party frontbenchers. Amongst other things, it stresses the importance of voluntarism, self-help and self-government above that of the state. The aim is also to show that the Liberal Democrats are now a grown-up force in British politics.

Amazingly, the idea is also to demonstrate that the Lib-Dims have "a front bench that is the intellectual match of the Conservatives".

We knew things were bad in British politics, but even we had no idea that the Lib-Dims had such modest aspirations.

As the ballyhoo around the various Olympic achievements (such as the stadium in Athens surviving and the Games coming to a peaceful conclusion) dies away, some of the stories go on rumbling.

Let’s get one of them out of the way first. There is a great deal of mutual back-slapping and congratulation going on. Wasn’t it all a huge success despite the misgivings? Well, naturally, it is wonderful to witness amazing achievements by various sportsmen and sportswomen (and, by the way, contrary to the impression the British media might give, there were some non-British achievements, too). Those who were not disqualified for use of drugs, had their medals taken away for cheating or dropped out of races because they were not going to be in the first three, did amazingly well and it was a pleasure to watch them.

As for how wonderful all the organization was – this sort of self-congratulation happens after every Olympics. As far as anyone can remember the media was full of it even after the 1972 Games that had witnessed the kidnapping and murder of the entire Israeli team.

Well the tents have been folded and the caravan has moved on. What now? The first thing that will happen is that Greece will realize that it is more seriously in debt than it had been before (latest estimate of cost is 12 billion euros, double of the previous estimate, in itself double of the original and we have not finished yet).

Athens will be left with a lot of buildings that cannot be used for anything else, including, probably, that famous stadium. The politicians who had created the ballyhoo will be long gone while the problems will still be there.

That is certainly what other cities have found. Who remembers the originators of the Sydney Games as the city tries to decide what to do with the various Olympic constructions that are still there as expensive unused eyesores?

Who were the politicians and media followers who sold the idea of the Games to Montreal, for which the city is still paying, thirty years on? People who were not even born when the Games took place, are paying taxes to bring the city back into the black.

Do we want this for London? No, said UKIP London last week and the repercussions of that announcement have been far-reaching. In the first place, Mayor Livingstone’s highly paid minions have still not managed to produce the evidence for his statement that 79 per cent of Londoners support the bid for the 2012 Games.

Nor have they been able to answer (what do they do all day?) the very specific questions about the economic, social and environmental aspect that UKIP London has posed.

Meanwhile, the campaign has been picked up by the media world-wide. UKIP has truly gone international.

Damian Hockney, leader of UKIP London, displayed his linguistic talents in a debate with a French official in his own language on French TV. His great moment came when he challenged the official to hold a referendum in Paris to find out whether the Parisians wanted to have the Olympics there in 2012. Zut alors, la democratie, c’est quoi? The fonctionnaire exited spluttering.

Then New York chimed in. The previous blog about UKIP’s campaign was noted in the well-known and widely read fornightly periodical National Review. The columnist Andrew Stuttaford was so taken by the idea of a referendum that he thought New York should have one, too.

Amazingly enough, even the Jerusalem Post thought the subject worthy of mention. Describing UKIP less than accurately as extreme right wing but more accurately as the party that wants Britain to withdraw from the EU, Pinchas Landau discussed the arguments against holding the Olympics in London, but came to the conclusion that these would not mean much to people in general. No city, no country, he thought would be able to withstand the glitz and glamour of holding the Olympic Games.

We beg to differ. The glamour, on the whole is long tarnished, and the glitz may be attractive to cities that do not see themselves as being important and would like to change that situation. London has no need of that sort of glitz. London is important. It is one of the great cities of the world in every sense of the word and not even Mayor Livingstone’s attempts to turn it into a grey, organized, boring place where only quangos, City Hall inspired events and lobbying organizations (of the correct political hue) flourish, can change that. UKIP may well win this debate and turn itself, in the process, into an international political force.

First Blair, then Chirac and now – possibly – Schröder, the third of the "big three", looks like he may give way to a referendum on the EU constitution.

The hint comes from president of the SPD, Franz Muentefering, who has agreed with his coalition ally, the Greens, to seek a change in the basic law that would permit a referendum. Muentefering is also appealing to the opposition Christian Democrats to support any change in the basic law.

All this comes at a time when demonstrators are turning out in record numbers to protest against Schröder's economic reforms, with opposition particularly strong in East Germany, the chancellor's electoral heartland.

Today, Schröder faces a massive protest in the eastern city of Leipzig, led by former ally, "Red" Oskar Lafontaine. Once Schröder’s finance minister, he resigned in 1999 and disappeared from mainstream politics but now, as the German leader dips in the polls, with his party scoring a mere 26 percent, Lafontaine is re-emerging.

With Lafontaine taking a more active role, it now looks as if the SDP/Green alliance is beginning to unravel, leaving the SDP fatally weakened. Practically the only popular policy that Schröder could now adopt it to go for a referendum, which attracted 81 percent support in a poll in July, as a last ditch effort to hold together the alliance.

The chances are, however, that this would bring only temporary respite, as voters would almost certainly use a referendum as an opportunity to express their disapproval of Schröder’s domestic policies. However, with a key regional election in Brandenburg on 19 September – where the SDP is challenged by former communists of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the chancellor needs every advantage he can gain.

As we draw closer to the signing of the EU constitution, due in October, and enter the ratification period, therefore, it looks like the embattled chancellor might be prepared to ditch the European dream in favour of domestic salvation.

This all goes to prove the point that my colleague made recently, that despite the enthusiasm for European integration, when it comes to a conflict between European and national politics, there is no contest.

Taking over the Economic Agenda slot in the Sunday Telegraph, Liam Halligan, Economics Correspondent at Channel Four News, asks "Is the euro forging a unified Europe?".

In short, the EU commission says "yes" – or words to that effect. Being the commission, it has learnt never to use one word when 16 will do, so its actual answer is "the available evidence is in line with a positive impact of monetary union on cyclical convergence".

However, as one has come to expect, the commission is telling porkies. The Deutsche Bank, it say "no". "We do not see that the euro zone economies have converged." Since 1999, when the euro was launched, Germany has grown only 7 percent in total, compared with 19 percent in Spain. Thus, GDPs are drifting apart. Furthermore, says Deutche, "there are currently no signs that growth differences across the region are narrowing". In fact, "there have even been signs of greater divergence".

This is confirmed by another financial heavyweight, HSBC, which finds "a great divide between France and Germany". Since 1997 (when members "locked" their economies prior to launch) France has grown on average by 2.5 percent annually but Germany has managed only 1.3 percent, while French inflation is 2.5 percent compared with 1.5 percent in Germany, against eurozone inflation of 2.4 percent.

All of this is good news for UK opponents of the euro. "That's because the less convergence there is between euro zone members, the harder it will be to prove - should the chancellor ever wish to - that these divergent euro members have all converged with the UK too", writes Halligan.

In an effort not to scuttle the forthcoming summit between the EU and ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) over the presence or otherwise of Burma, a compromise has been suggested: instead of sending Prime Minister Gen. Khin Nyunt, Burma could make do with a junior official, said some Western diplomats.

This was immediately rejected by the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as being unacceptable.

In the past, ASEAN demanded that Burma be a full member of the event or the new, East European members of the European Union be discarded. More recently they have taken on the EU’s own vocabulary, talking of the need to “engage with Burma constructively”. That is likely to be as successful as the EU’s own “constructive” engagement with, say, Iran.

In the meantime the row within the EU continues. As we have reported before, although the EU has in the past called for all sorts of sanctions on Burma (Myanamar) and made all sorts of statement, when it came to summit, most of the member states decided that well, after all, what does one more tyranny matter. (They have a point. The EU routinely genuflects to all tyrannies – why should Burma be singled out?)

Britain, however, has persisted in what was supposed to be EU policy and has refused to allow Burma to take part in the summit. France has, on the other hand announced that the summit was more important than its component parts (or something like that) and, given the many things Europe and Asia had to discuss, the minor detail of Burma should not be used to undermine the meeting.

Clearly, human rights will not be one of those many issues, despite the fact that the European Union is always proclaimed to be the bearer of freedom, democracy and, yes, human rights in the world.

The Foreign Office seems to have become very undiplomatic and called the French attitude “craven”. Surely not.

Secretary of State Powell had intended to go to Athens to attend the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games. A rather odd decision but no worse than Prime Minister Blair’s to attend the opening ceremony and stand around lobbying for London for the 2012 Olympics.

However, about 1,500 Greeeks took umbrage and marched to the American embassy in protest. Upon which (and presumably in response to a request by the Greek government who may have feared worse) Mr Powell has sent a message saying that he was, after all, too busy to attend and thanking the Greek government for providing such good security for the Games. Actually, much of the secuirty was provided by NATO but let that pass.

According to AOL News:

Many Greeks had wondered why Powell planned to visit this weekend, knowing his presence would likely provoke protests. Until Powell announced his visit, there had been none of the anti-American demonstrations that were feared in the run-up to the games.

This Sunday, Booker in his column illustrates a baleful effect of the EU’s Common Commercial Policy, which is driving Bernard McQuiggan, owner of Mac’s Models, to distraction.

McQuiggan imports collectors’ scale models of American trains and has recently become a victim of the latest trade war between the EU and the USA. The EU is requiring him to add duty on his products at a rate on one percent every four weeks, in retaliation to US action in protect its own indistries affected by dumping.

The point that Booker makes is that this situation has arisen because Britain and all other EU countries have had to hand over all responsibility for international trade to a commissioner in Brussels. Interestingly, that portfolio now held by Peter Mandelson.

Booker also takes on the report of the Electoral Commission which states that no more British elections should be held on an all-postal ballot – with the solitary exception of the very next election to be held, the North East referendum on an elected regional government, due on November 4.

Especially interesting in Booker’s own report is detail of the government's latest "information leaflet" put out in eight languages to the North East’s 1.9 million voters. Although this paean of praise for the benefits of regional government purports only to be giving "information", the game is given away by its carefully staged illustrations. These contrast young, attractive, affluent-looking Yes voters, giving the thumbs up to an elected assembly, with "typical" No voters, such as an old man with a cloth-cap and a stick, a diminutive Asian shot in shadow and an Afro-Caribbean lady.

Booker remarks that this selection so blatantly angled it should earn Mr Prescott an interview with the Commission for Racial Equality. But it is also typical of the regional campaign and of EU propaganda generally – with which it has a great deal of common. Propagandists always takes great pains to project their respective projects as "modern", "forward-looking", "dynamic", "thrusting" – a choice of "positive" descriptions that aims to wrong-foot opponents as old-fashioned and reactionary.

However, what is "modern" about regional structures that were first proposed in the 1920s, to deal with the General Strike, were actually implemented during the Second World War and then abandoned by Atlee's 1945 Labour government, is difficult to see. As my colleague might say, they are "so last century".

Also dealt with by Booker is the latest twist of the O'Brien saga, dealt with also in this Blog, and he concludes with an amusing twist on the ongoing saga of the problems faced by various enterprising firms which have been told that they can no longer use "waste" materials ranging from cardboard to sewage, as fuel to generate energy.

According to UK environment ministers such as Elliott Morley, writes Booker, this is because EC rules forbid the use of ‘waste’ products for anything other than disposal, by incineration or landfill. Thus Scottish Water, unless it wins an expensive court case, faces the closure of a plant specially built to turn sewage sludge into fuel for power stations, which cost £65 million.

But a reader points out that the Government's leaflet "Preparing for emergencies", recently sent to all households, boasts that it is made from "75 percent post- consumer waste". Perhaps, Booker suggests, Mr Morley can explain why he is not going to prosecute David Blunkett and Mr Prescott for acting in breach of EC law?

Perhaps capitalising on public interest in sports, engendered by the Greek Olympics, the omnipotent EU is currently consulting on a new draft directive aimed at regulating "sports foods", the consultation on which is due to end this week.

Needless to say though, the EU could not possibly be content with such a simple, easy to understand term. The name of the proposed law is "Commission Directive on Foods Intended to Meet the Expenditure of Intense Muscular Effort (Sports Foods)".

Aimed, as always, at creating a "high level of consumer protection", what this draft directive actually does is demonstrate in a particularly vivid way that we have a mad legislative machine, totally out of control. It also illustrates a conflict of philosophy on how to achieve effective consumer protection, which makes the draft directive an ideal subject for this Blog.

The idea of the draft is, of course, admirable, in that it seeks to ensure, in its own terms "that foods that are marketed on the basis that they address nutritional requirements associated with the expenditure of intense muscular effort are safe for use, are labelled clearly and adequately and provide guidance on healthy consumption".

The result, however, is a dire, unreadable 11 pages of legislation, to add to the many thousands of legislation already produced, comprising excruciating technical detail of what precisely can and cannot go into foods for which claims are made in relation to sporting activity.

No doubt its advocates – not least the worthies on the EU"s Scientific Committee on Food – who will have spent many thousands of hours discussing and formulating the standards, believe that they have done a good job but the central problem is that a new law is unnecessary. Furthermore, it does not add to consumer protection, as we have had a perfectly adequate law in place since 1875.

The law in question was the Sale of Food Act 1875, which established for the first time a particular offences in respect of sale to the prejudice of the purchaser a food not of the nature, substance or quality demanded. This was re-enacted in the Food & Drugs Act 1955 and again in the Food Act 1974 and currently survives unchanged in current UK food legislation. Furthermore, similar – and in some cases identical – law applies in most if not all EU member states.

Clearly, if a manufacturer makes specific claims of a food, in terms of it being "Intended to Meet the Expenditure of Intense Muscular Effort", and it does not conform with what would be considered reasonable expectations for such a food, then an offence would be committed.

The advantage of this approach, apart from enabling law books to be kept slim, it that the provision applies for all time and in all circumstances, dealing with current formulations but also allowing for changes in science and knowledge, without having to produce new legislation. In other words, it is a highly responsive, economic and effective way of producing law – and ultimately highly flexible.

However, one can see why it would be unpopular with the EU. Such simple economy would not keep the thousands of scientists, advisors, lobbyists and legislators in work, and would deny the EU a role in demonstrating how hard its was working to provide its "high level of consumer protection".

So, for the sake of the EU ambitions, we are to be saddled with this law, and thousands of others like it when, in fact, our own legislators were making perfectly adequate laws before even many EU member states were even countries. That is the measure of the parlous state in which we find ourselves.

Fresh from the school of "you couldn't make it up", the EU commission is set to approve a 517 million euro French loan to its ailing computer company Bull, to allow it to pay off an illegal loan of 450 million euros that it received from… the French government.

Last November, the commission decided to take France to the ECJ for failing to force Bull to pay back the 450 million smackers lent to Bull in 2002 by a June 2003 deadline. The loan was illegal because, under EU rules, a company cannot benefit from state aid more than once in 10 years. Bull had already received 1.3 billion euros in state aid at the end of 1994.

But, since the new loan to pay off the old loan comes after 10 years since the first bail-out, it is now legal and the commission thus has "no major concerns" about it. Nevertheless, the commission is still proceeding with its case against France in the ECJ for failing to recover the loan from Bull which it has now lent Bull the money to repay.

As they say, what a load of Bull.

Whether the EU has a permanent seat on the UN security council has been a hot issue for some time now, with fears that the EU constitution would pave the way for this development.

But it could be that the threat here comes not from the constitution, per se, but from the UN itself, which is looking hard at restructuring the security council to include regional representatives from all the major regions in the world. This would mean that the EU would automatically become a member, and if it acquired its own legal identity through the constitution, it could then represent all 25 member states of the EU.

That, according to Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini – speaking yesterday to the foreign committee of his parliament - is being considered by a panel of experts set up by Kofi Annan, which has suggested that the council could be expanded from 21 to 25 members to include a group of permanent regional representatives with a veto chosen by rotation among the largest states in the region.

Frattini himself is in favour of an EU seat on the security council, even though he is aware that there are partners who "don't even want to hear talk of an EU seat" because "it would cause conflicts in Europe whilst the constitution is yet to be approved". Hence, it appears that those "partners" wish discussion to be suppressed until the constitution is ratified.

That is certainly the case with the current Labour government, with Denis MacShame who, as late as 24 June this year was writing to The Independent to state that:

The UK will retain its permanent seat on the UN Security Council. There will be no EU seat; the EU is not and cannot be a member of the UN or take our seat on the Security Council. The EU constitution cannot override the UN charter, which allows only states to be members of the Security Council, and nor would we wish it to.

It is now officially recognised that this August is the wettest on record in certain parts of the country. This has caused massive problems for farmers, struggling to get their harvest in.

So bad has been the weather that, weeks after the harvest should have been finished, current estimates are that only 30-35 percent of the national winter wheat crop has been gathered. Many farmers are seeing their crops begin to sprout and, with weather conditions still poor, are facing a total loss.

On a national scale, the total grain harvest may well drop about a million tons, down from an expected 16 million tons to fifteen.

But for those who have managed to bring in their crops, their problems are only just starting. The high moisture content – up to 25 percent in some cases – means facing massive drying costs or a delay of several months in selling their crops while they are allowed to dry naturally.

Furthermore, because the harvest is late, wheat in particular has been harvested after it has peaked, bringing protein values right down, and with it the prices, costing farmers £20 a ton in lost value.

In a closed market, that loss would not occur for, as shortages bite, prices go up which in some way compensate for loss of quantity. "Unfortunately", remarks Farmers Guardian, there are more than enough supplies in the rest of Europe and further afield (for the moment) and, owing to our membership of the EU, these supplies have free access to our market and serve to keep prices down.

In fact, the rest of Europe has had a bumper harvest, with the French wheat crop alone up by 9 million tons, so prices are stable and are unlikely to rise. This may be good news for the consumer but it is bad news for farmers.

Furthermore, because of the EU competition rules, national governments are not permitted to pay additional subsidies, just supposing this government was inclined to. All farmers can hope for is an advance payment on their standard CAP subsidies, normally due in December, to help ease their cash flows.

While this Blog would in no way advocate additional payments, or import protection to keep prices high, the issue here is that since the 1960s, British farmers, and especially the large arable growers, have been in favour of our membership of the Community, because of the subsidies it brought with it.

But, as they reckon up their shrinking income this year, they may also pause to reflect that, had Britain not joined the EU, the effects of the current bad harvest might not have been so devastating. Membership, after all, is proving to be a mixed blessing.

In The Times letters today, Digby Jones – he of the CBI – has had a return swipe at Bill Cash, the latter having had a go at our Digby for complaining that MPs are "asleep on the job" when it comes to scrutinising EU laws.

But if ever there was an argument to bring to mind the description of "two bald men fighting over a comb", this has to be it. Scrutiny is hardly the issue when, for the main part, if the legislation was not produced in the first place there would be no need for such oversight.

Digby Jones complains in his letter that scrutiny committee is not adequate because it "operates in a parliamentary atmosphere where EU laws do not appear on the radar early enough", but the point is – and he must know this – that by the time an EU legislative proposal reaches the formal stage of a draft regulation or directive, it is virtually set in stone.

And even where the scrutiny committee does do its job, as we described in a previous Blog, the government can (and routinely does) ignore it.

For some time I have been struggling with an appropriate analogy to describe the process – to avoid using the over-worn cliché of "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic", which effectively describes the process of fiddling with tiny amendments to draft legislation.

For a time I toyed with the idea of the process being similar to allowing a committee of concentration camp inmates to redesign the shower heads in the gas chamber, but this was far too insensitive to be used, even if it perhaps more adequately mirrors what is going on.

So, rearranging the deck chairs it is, with Cash and Jones arguing about who does it and how well it is done. Meanwhile, in the manner of icebergs bearing down on the ship, the commission continues to churn out its legislation.

Perhaps if this pair were more concerned about rearranging the icebergs rather than the deck chairs, we would all be better off.

Loathe as I am to disagree with Ambrose Evans Pritchard of The Daily Telegraph, I simply don't buy the headline of his latest story: Despair in Paris as British take top EU positions.

However, maybe there is no disagreement as Ambrose would not have written the headline and journalists often do not see the headline until they see their own story in print.

Nevertheless, Ambrose's thesis is that "British bureaucrats are racking up one success after another in securing coveted posts in the new European Commission to the chagrin of the French, who have traditionally dominated it".

Admired for a no-nonsense style, British fonctionnaires have secured a high profile as chiefs of staff in the team put together by José Barroso, the commission president. The quiet summer coup by the British has set off a fresh bout of soul-searching in Paris, where angst over lost influence at the heart of the European Union has become a part of daily discourse.

Wim Duisenberg, the former Governor of the European Central Bank, who had been edged into retirement by the French government in defiance of the provisions made in the Maastricht Treaty, has been raising eyebrows. This time the problem is not his wife, a colourful figure, to put it at its most polite, but his eccentric interpretation of the rules of engagement.

The ECB, as all financial institutions, requires a “cooling off period” of a year from all its board members , to prevent possible conflicts of interest. This rule, apparently, was scrupulously adhered to by former Vice-President Christian Noyer, who waited that year before becoming Governor of the Bank of France.

Not so Mr Duisenberg. Seven months after leaving his position with the European Central Bank, on May 14 of this year, he was appointed as a strategic advisor to the German banknote printers Giesecke & Devrient’s board of directors. A month afterwards he joined the boards of Rabobank and KLM/Air France.

There seems to have been some disquiet in the ECB governing council at such blatant disregard of the rules, though the spokeswoman loyally defended Duisenberg. The only one of those jobs that had needed formal approving was the one with Rabobank and that had been applied for and given. The other two positions were personal ones and did not need any clearance by the ECB. Most people would regard this as a piece of sophistry.

The chairwoman of the European Parliament’s economic and monetary committee intends to raise the subject in their first session with the present Governor of the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet. Though what M Trichet can say beyond a Gallic shrug, it is hard to work out.

News reaches us of a forthcoming publication by Polity Press: The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream. It is by Jeremy Rifkin, who describes himself as a best-selling author and, indeed, with a little hard thought I did remember his previous publications on the new business and new economy and new social structures. All of which is, like, so last century.

In the blurb to his book he explains the following:

The American Dream was based on economic growth, personal wealth and independence. It was synonymous with love of country and patriotism, frontier mentality and the unbridled exercise of power. Yet what were once considered prime virtues - cherished and idealised not only in America but throughout the world - are increasingly seen by many as drawbacks and even impediments. But while the American Dream tires and languishes in the past, a new European Dream is being born. Today we see a new set of values emerging which are focused on sustainable development, quality of life and multilateralism. More cosmopolitan and less concerned with the brute exercise of power, the European Dream is better positioned to accommodate the many forces that are propelling us into a more interconnected and interdependent world.

But in order to exercise any real influence in world affairs, Britain must choose to be part of a larger political entity. In a globally connected world, no people can exist any longer as an island unto themselves. The only question for Britain is whether it will make its home with America or with Europe.

There are possibly few more irritating things for regular internet users than the growing volume of spam which clutters in-boxes and increasingly wastes precious time as we struggle to deal with it.

But one thing that may be more irritating is the EU's fatuous efforts to deal with it – in the only way it knows how to deal with anything: making a new law.

Even though all the experts warned that a law would have no effect whatsoever, the EU persisted with its Privacy and Electronics Communication Directive, which it passed last July, and which members states were required to implement by October 2003.

And, precisely as expected, eweek magazine today reports that it has made no difference whatsoever. In fact, seven months after the law had supposedly come into force in all member states, spam volumes reaching new heights, up 67 percent from the month previously.

Part of the problem, of course – and entirely predictable - is that most junk e-mail does not originate in the EU. The US is by far the biggest generator, followed by South Korea. Germany, France, Spain and the U.K each send less than two percent of the world's spam.

But such has been the lack of enthusiasm for the new law that, six months after the deadline, more than half of the EU’s member states had not implemented the directive, states which included the normally law-abiding Germany, Finland and Luxembourg, as well as the usual culprits, France, Belgium and Greece.

Needless to say, the UK has implemented the law, and was one of the first to do so. And had Stephen O'Brien chosen this as an example of "gold plating", he could not have been criticised, as the UK went further than the EU law required - not that anyone is actually objecting.

However, the Information Commissioner's Office, which is responsible for enforcement, has no additional funds to chase culprits and in any case complains that the enforcement procedures as so circuitous as to be unworkable.

It cannot force spammers immediately to cease operations while investigations are carried out, which may take many months. To that extent, the law may be doing more harm than good as US spammers are relocating to the UK to take advantage of what amounts to a period of immunity from informal action while they are being investigated.

As most of them are fly-by-night companies, they can close down known operations and move on as the regulatory net tightens.

The result is what was always predicted. European internet service providers (ISPs) are taking their own measures which, in the final analysis, were always going to be the answer to the problem.

Last Wednesday, a coalition of 150 UK ISPs launched a campaign to target companies who host a Web site with a reputable ISP, while promoting themselves via junk messages on a different network or through a third party. They have little faith that laws can make a significant impact on spam, and believe that, as it is they who are in the front line, they can response more swiftly and effectively.

Nevertheless, nothing of this has any impact on the EU which is looking at strengthening its own laws, oblivious to the fact that its efforts are and will continue to be fruitless. After all, why let that minor detail spoil the opportunity to make another law.

You would have thought that Stephen O'Brien’s views on gold plating, after having been so comprehensively demolished by the Today programme would have been quietly removed from the Conservative Party web site.

But no, there are still there in all their glory, including the ridiculous claim about the so-called "abattoir directive".

Since the Conservative Party so obviously still stands by Mr O’Brien’s claims, it is also worth reviewing some of the other examples of "gold plating" that he offered on the site - which actually reproduces O'Brien's press release.

Straight out of his own specific area (O’Brien is the DTI shadow minister), he argues that

examples of the UK's "gold-plating" culture include the section of the 2003 Modernisation Directive dealing with directors' communication which the DTI converted from a four page to a 132 page document.

When the last Hungarian Prime Minister, Péter Medgyessy, resigned last week because of a botched government reshuffle that had involved bad-tempered sacking of ministers and equally bad-tempered threats of withdrawal from the coalition by the Free Democrats’ Alliance, it was fully expected that Péter Kiss, a senior member of the Socialist Party and Acting Prime Minister would succeed him.

Hungarians are known as being somewhat unpredictable. In this case, the Socialist Party lived up to that reputation and by a considerable vote of 453 to 166 chose the Sports Minister, who is also a business tycoon, Ferenc Csurkány to be the new Premier.

Mr Csurkány’s aide has indicated that Finance Minister, Tibor Draskovics, who is widely respected by foreign investors, will be asked to serve in the new government. We shall see how that shapes up.

At least, skeletons are less likely to come tumbling out of the new Prime Minister’s closet. As he is only 43, he is unlikely to have had a sinister Communist past, unlike Mr Medgyessy or, some years back, Gyula Horn. Perhaps that is why he was chosen.

Irish police (garda) are bitterly complaining that Ireland’s EU presidency – but also Bush's visit to Dublin – have led to a significant reduction in the number of speeding offenders being apprehended.

Unpublished garda figures show that the number of people caught speeding in the first half of this year was 21 percent lower than in the same period last year. Traffic officers were tied up providing escorts and security for EU officials and for Mr Bush and his entourage.

At last, we have detected a real benefit from membership of the EU. With the UK assuming the EU presidency on 1 July next year, perhaps we can look forward to reaping the same rewards – except of course that the magic effect is hardly likely to blank out cameras. Tough luck North Wales.

Confirming its reputation as the most grown-up part of the newspaper, the business section of The Daily Telegraph today offers a report about the contract for compiling Eurobarometer, the EU social opinion survey, having passed into British hands.

The survey, established by the European Commission 30 years ago to inform its policy-making, will be conducted by the market research group Taylor Nelson Sofres for the next four years under a 50m (£33.8m) contract.

However, the more interesting part of the report was a "retrospective" on previous Eurobarometer surveys, with a sideswipe at the findings over term. According to the Telegraph, "the survey suggests that the most democratic decision of all would be for the European Union to disband itself entirely".

Since the 1970s, more than half the population of the EU's member states have told Eurobarometer that they would feel either indifferent or very relieved if the EU was scrapped tomorrow. Of the Britons asked last year, only 16 percent said they would feel sorry if the EU ceased to exist.

The survey showed last December that less than half the EU population now supports the EU project. Earlier this year it showed that, for the first time in 20 years, there are as many people strongly against the UK's membership as there are in favour of it.

The Agriculture Commissioner designate, Mariann Fischer Boel has discarded suggestions that under her stewardship agricultural subsidies would be eliminated, a policy that would have the support of the majority of Danish politicians.

It is not that Ms Fischer Boel thinks there is anything wrong with phasing out subsidies, it is just that, well, the idea is “out of step with reality. It is utopian.” However, she assured the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidend, agriculture’s share of the EU budget will drop from 45 per cent to 36 per cent by 2014.

This is possible, particularly if much of the new member states’ agricultural budget will be renamed as Cohesion Funds, as a result of a sharp drop in income and employment in the area. But it is not precisely reassuring.

Ms Fischer Boel has also reacted robustly to suggestion that there might be a conflict of interests because her husband runs a large farm in Denmark. It would be absurd, she fulminated, if a politician’s husband could not run a business. Indeed, it would be absurd. The point is not that he runs a business but that he receives large subsidies under the CAP provisions. In other word, she is in charge of a sector and a somewhat contentious policy, that benefits her husband and, one must assume, her and the rest of her family, very directly, indeed. The matter becomes somewhat less absurd.

As British farmers struggle with one of the worst harvests in living memory, spare a thought for those poor benighted French farmers, who are going a little er… tomatoes.

Upset (if that can be the right word to describe French farmers) by falling income due to oversupply and imports, they are resorting, in the time-honoured way, to disruptive protests as a means of extorting support (i.e., money) from their government.

At the forefront are the tomato growers who have been hit by the double-whammy of poor weather – which means that the French have been eating fewer salads – and imports from cheaper countries such as Morocco that are undercutting their business through impossible-to-match wage differences.

But, in common with British farmers, they are also getting increasingly miffed at the disparity between the prices they are being paid and the prices of their produce in the supermarkets. Figures published in Le Monde have shown that French consumers have been spending increasingly more on fresh produce over the past four years, while farmers have been paid less.

Milk producers made their point by invading supermarkets in Lyon and other cities, putting stickers on milk cartons and bottles showing the prices they were getting paid versus the retail price. In Nancy, groups of farmers pushed shopping carts full of dairy products into the street without paying for them and handed them out to passers-by.

Farmers also partook in their more traditional sport of dumping tons of tomatoes, peaches, nectarines and melons in front of government buildings, this time in the south-western towns of Perpignan and Montauban.

All of this puts finance minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, on the spot. Much of the support for his UMP comes from the farming community and he is preparing his bid to become leader of the party.

In response to the farmers' ire, therefore, he has suggested imposing a minimum price of 0.85 euros per kilo - up from the current 0.30 market price – which wholesalers and supermarket groups would be obliged to pay. This has drawn the reaction from the head of the union representing tomato farmers, Pierre Diot, that such a move would be "suicidal" without state subsidies for unsold stocks.

But Sarkozy's problems are only just starting. Minimum-price arrangements and government subsidies would almost certainly fall foul of the EU competition rules, and could even fall foul of French competition rules – a particular embarrassment as Sarkozy also heads the state consumer and competition agency, the DGCCRF. Tactfully, it has so far not aired any public views of its boss’s plans.

Taking a historical view of Sarkozy's potential embarrassment, it is rather ironic that the rules for commodity payment scheme under the CAP were in fact devised by France, which forswore national payments in return for community funding, paid mainly by Germany and other member states.

Now that CAP funds are not so easily forthcoming, France appears to want to return to national subsidies. As they say, what comes round, goes round.

There is some minor rejoicing in the Eurosceptic camp about the announcement that Jean-Pierre Chevènement, a former French interior minister and presidential candidate, has spoken out against the EU constitution and is calling for a "no" vote in the French referendum.

But, before the rejoicing gets out of hand – unlikely though that may well be – it is appropriate to reflect on the nature of this new-found ally.

Chevènement himself is something of a fixture in French politics, having been on the scene for over 30 years. He was an ally of Mitterrand in the early 70s and its widely regarded as the architect of Mitterand’s successful coup which brought him the leadership of the socialist party in 1971. He was rewarded with several Cabinet posts but, over the years, he seems to have lost faith with socialism and reverted to a more fundamental French nationalism.

His brand of nationalism brings him into conflict with the project of European integration, but he is also viscerally anti-American, having resigned from the government (not the first time) over French "subordination" to the Americans in the 1991 Gulf War.

In the autumn of 1992, in response to the Maastricht treaty, Chevènement left the Socialist Party and founded the Movement of Citizens (Mouvement des Citoyens — MDC) to champion French nationalism, which he believes transcends traditional left-right politics. But his loathing of European integration occasionally conflicts with his anti-Americanism: a fervent opponent of the euro, he has nevertheless grudgingly accepted it as a means of helping France assert itself against the US and its mighty dollar.

What is interesting and perhaps significant about his current opposition to the EU constitution, however, is that Chevènement seems to have found a way of reconciling his anti-Americanism with his opposition to European integration. Yesterday, he told Le Figaro of his "disappointment" with the Treaty for taking an overly liberal approach to the economy and for giving a "tool of vassalisation to the United States" in the field of foreign policy and defence.

Chevènement's fear is that France will be marginalised in the EU of 25 members, the majority of which, in his view, are loyal to the United States. The new Commission, in which France will only have one member for the first time, will be dominated by liberals and Atlanticists, he said. He thus wants his country to reject the constitution, as a precursor to negotiating a replacement – presumably one which is more in tune with French nationalist aspirations.

Thus does the constitution bring out the worst in French politics which, for British Eurosceptics, makes him a strange bedfellow.

If a horse suffered from this, they'd shoot it to put it out of its misery. But no such relief for the people of the North East. That is what they are going to get if the North East Region agrees to an elected assembly in the referendum on 4 November. So said Caroline Stewart, a member of the North East Environmental Forum, introducing a "Your Say" environment debate yesterday evening at the County Hall, Durham.

And that is the game they are playing. As does the EU promise environmental nirvana if we commit to further political integration, so does the "yes" campaign for the regions promise the same heaven if only people are wise enough to vote for John Prescott's construct.

"We want to give regions more decisions", echoes John Tomany, leader of the North East "yes" campaign. London is a "million miles away", so we want to bring decisions back from the men in Whitehall and give them to the regions.

Yet, not a mention did we hear from Tomany that environmental policy is an EU competence, and that all policy is decided in Brussels. And if London is "million miles away", how far on the same scale is Brussels?

But such trivia did not worry our John. He really does want to bring decision-making closer to the people, by creating a regional structure of 2.5 million souls, considerably larger than many countries in the EU, served by a mere 25 elected assembly members.

Many of us are old enough to remember the 1974 local government reforms, which broke up the matrix of rural and urban district councils, and created those vast and wholly un-loved second tier authorities which incorporate both town and countryside.

Their existence has presaged a continuous decline in popular support for local elections, to the extent that turnouts for council seats in some places fall below the ten percent mark. So we now have a situation where, as local authorities have got bigger and more remote, voters have disengaged from the political process. And what is the answer? Ah, create even bigger local authorities which are even more remote from the population.

This has to be the biggest no-brainer in the history of the universe. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting an EU constitution.

The European Commission has announced that it will donate another 20 million euros to Darfur. This sounds very good but there seems to be no assurance that that money will be monitored.

So far numerous officials have gone into the area only to come back with ever more terrible stories of what is going on. Are we actually doing the right things by sending in commissions, trying to negotiate and sending in aid that may or may not be reaching those who need it?

Poul Nielsen, Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Development (maybe the two should be split rather than assume that development can come only through aid) is the latest official to come back with horror stories and a nice line in deadpan delivery:

"Continuing violence in the region has claimed the lives of thousands of people, and is seriously hampering the delivery of humanitarian aid."

“The situation is still not optimistic from a humanitarian point of view.”

In its August bulletin the Bank of France has called for tougher, EU-wide measures to deal with exceptional measures to reduce their deficit. Well, being a bank, they said that they would like to see “an improved framework”.

Exceptional payments by firms, the bulletin said:

"cannot substitute for efforts in budgetary structural reform ... in fact only delays them several years, at the risk of giving the illusion that the deterioration of the public finances is being limited and to make, in this situation, the unavoidable adjustment more difficult to the countries
concerned."

Wholly unrecognised by the media, for the last few weeks a major battle has been raging within the ranks of the Conservative Party, to define the territory over which the "Europe" issue will be fought during the general election. And the "good guys" lost.

These are the people who want the Party to take a confrontational approach to "Europe", taking back powers and restoring national control in areas of policy dominated by the EU. That is what the fishing issue has been all about – pushing Howard not only to repatriate the CFP but also to committing, in a letter, to using national legislation to achieve that end, in the event that negotiation fails.

At the time, we considered this a considerable breakthrough, as it would have been a direct challenge to the inviolability of the acquis communautaire, which in turn challenged the hegemony of the commission. The result would have been, eventually, to turn back the tide of integration and break the power of the EU.

On the other side is the Europhile wing. Led by characters such as Jonathan Evans, leader of the Conservative MEP group, its followers are absolutely determined to resist any attempt to weaken the historical commitment of the Conservative Party to European integration.

However, they recognise that the mood of the country is such that they must appear to be taking a Eurosceptic line if they are to have any chance of winning the general election and have, therefore, been crafting a careful line which appears to be Eurosceptic but, in fact, does not commit the Party to any radical action.

In that context, the "drivers of regulation" initiative has been far more important than at first realised. It turns out to be the visible part of this core strategy - a quite deliberate, cynical attempt to present the Conservatives as opposing EU regulation, carefully calculated to avoid confronting the key issue of Brussels control over our legislation or reining back the process of political integration.

There are two key parts to the strategy. The first is to present "gold plating" as the primary cause of burdensome EU regulation - by inference suggesting that the original legislation from Brussels is quite benign. The second, fall-back position is to suggest that if onerous legislation does somehow get through the system, this is because of "lack of scrutiny" by the UK parliament, which hasn't been doing its job properly.

Having thus focused the blame, there is no room whatsoever for allowing that the EU system is at fault, or that Brussels is indeed spewing out an ever-increasing volume of insane laws. If that is for one moment admitted, the game is lost because the Party will then have to admit that it is powerless to do anything about it, and has no intention of doing anything about it.

Thus, after O'Brien's comments on gold plating earlier last week, Digby Jones of the CBI was drawn into the "debate" with its complaints that MPs were "asleep on the job", not doing enough to scrutinise EU legislation. Thereby, the two foundation stones of the strategy were laid.

This second part of the strategy was given something of a boost today in The Times by Bill Cash who has blundered into the debate, firstly by defending the record of the British parliament on scrutiny.

He then argues that everyone should support his "Sovereignty and Parliament Bill", which would allow for all legislation, including that of European origin, to be re-examined. It would then authorise the repeal or amendment of "obsolete or unproductive laws", and require judges to give effect to British laws, even if they were "inconsistent with or conflicted with European laws or treaties".

With his undeserved reputation as a "leading Eurosceptic", Cash evades the central issue of repatriating powers, and thereby turning off the tap at source, instead opting for his own brand of fudge.

But the greatest aid and comfort to the Tory strategists came this morning not from Cash but from Lib-Dem MEP, Christopher Huhne. You know something is amiss when the Lib-Dems and the Tories find common cause, but there we had the egregious Huhne pontificating on the Today programme (6.52 am), to a gullible and uncritical Jon Humphrys that the problem was indeed "lack of scrutiny" by the House of Commons and "gold plating".

Huhne even called in aid the infamous "abattoir directive" claiming – quite wrongly – that the problem was the British insistence on full-time veterinary inspection of abattoirs, and the treasury required "real costs" to be paid, which massively increased their overheads put them out of business. That didn't happen in other countries, claims Huhne.

It really is quite intolerable to have these self-important politicians using this directive as a political football – given the damage they did to the industry – but one would expect Europhile Huhne to do anything he could to avoid having to admit that its was the original legislation at fault – exactly the same tactic that the Tories are adopting.

What happened was that – as distinct from the structural requirements which actually closed most abattoirs – there was a mismatch between the continental and British systems of meat inspection, and that the directive required the continental system to be adopted.

Contrary to Huhne's claim, the directive did indeed require full-time inspection, and the charging directive did require "full costs recovery". This was not an invention by the treasury.

The actual problem was that British vets are not trained in meat inspection, unlike their continental counterparts so, in addition to vets’ costs, abattoirs had to bear the costs of meat inspectors. That created the disproportionate burden, but it arose not through "gold plating" but through the insistence of the EU on "one size fits all" legislation. But this is something Huhne would never admit.

So, with the help of the Lib-Dems, the Tory strategy is underway, and this is going to be pursued right through to the general election. There is not the slightest hope now that the Party will change course and the way is now clear for its eventual defeat, as the British public recognise – largely instinctively – the strategy for what it is, empty rhetoric - a continuation of the Great Deception.

They are not having much luck, those new member states. Perhaps, they should have stuck to their original idea, sabotaged by the EU, of forming a Central European Free Trade Association (CEFTA).

The new Czech Prime Minister, Stanislav Gross, has won the confidence vote required by the Czech constitution but only by bringing two sick deputies out of hospital to vote. One arrived in a wheelchair. Gross’s majority is one.

To make life more exciting, one deputy from the ruling coalition has announced that he had been offered a hefty bribe by the opposition Civic Democrats to vote against the government. This was angrily denied by the Civic Democrats’ leader, President Vaclav Klaus, who cast various aspersions on the said deputy’s veracity and reliability and threatened to sue him. The matter has gone to the police.

Meanwhile, the last Czech Prime Minister, who resigned because he did not feel he had sufficient support among his own deputies, has gone to that home of failed politicians: Brussels. Yes, unnoticed by the media, overawed by the amazing talent in Barroso’s new Commission [sic], Vladimir Spidla has become the Czech Commissioner. He is taking on a varied portfolio: Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities.

As incontrovertible evidence comes from Greece that the Athens Olympic Games, apart from being a beanfest of emotionalism, cheating and dope stories, are turning into an economic disaster for Greece, UKIP London has sensibly started a campaign to keep Olympics 2012 away from London.

On Monday, Greece's accounting office showed Greece's public debt for the first half of 2004 rising by 10 percent year-on-year to 195.7 billion euros (240 billion dollars) -- well above 100 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

The Greek deficit, already over the required 3 per cent, has risen considerably. Brussels has launched an excessive deficit procedure against the country, though on past record, that procedure will not proceed very far. Some of the deficit was occasioned by what AFP described as:

"building-up of cash reserves and not-Olympics-related spending unaccounted for in previous government budgets …".

The expected row over Barosso's plans for an increased EU budget is beginning to simmer away nicely, with outgoing budget commissioner Michaele Schreyer taking a swipe at Germany for wanting to limit EU spending to one percent of gross national income.

An outraged Schreyer has told the German newspaper Die Welt that, "When you want to limit expenditure to 1 percent, you have to say which kind of EU policy you want to give up." Not entirely without logic, he added "Deciding all the time to take on new tasks, setting grand objectives to Europe, and then disputing the funding - this does not work at the EU level either."

Yet, even as Schreyer was speaking, in came the news that Germany's public deficit had soared to a massive 4.0 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the first six months, taking the country dangerously close to breaching the European Stability and Growth Pact for the third year in a row.

With that, leading politicians of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) are adamant that they will not accept an increase in the German contribution. If Barroso's planned increase to 1.14 percent of GDP goes ahead, that will add another 13.5 billion euros to Germany's EU bill.

SPD Chairman Franz Muentefering has simply stated that any increase is "out of the question". He is appealing to the länder for support, in the hope that they would block any deal in the Bundesrat, if Schröder does cave in.

Luckily for Schreyer, he will not be around when the battle comes to the boil. In his place from 1 November will be the unfortunate Dalia Grybauskaite, who will be expected to bear the brunt of Germany's wrath while keeping her new boss sweet. She will need all the skills she acquired as minister of finance for her home country of Lithuania but, in the final analysis, she is being presented with an impossible job.

Not for the first time is a Lithuanian politician being presented with the choice between a rock and a hard place, although historically the squeeze was between Germany and Russia. Now it is between Germany and the EU commission. I suppose that is progress, of a sort.

Not content with enjoining Britain's women to clean behind their 'fridges, Mr Godfrey Bloom, UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and Humberside is now extolling the virtues of, er… the European Union.

Commenting on a draft strategy released by the Forestry Commission on its plans to increase tree planting in North Lincolnshire, as a means of reducing the risk of flooding, the egregious Bloom urged the EU to "pay up" for the scheme, telling the Scunthorpe Telegraph that "this should be a good example of how the EU works for the common good".

Bloom's only fear was that "the truth may not match the hype" and instead of receiving a cornucopia of riches from the EU, "we will end up paying twice - once to help in Germany via our tax sent to the EU and once via our domestic taxes".

Such is the egregious Bloom's limited grasp of the issues, that he seems unaware that Germany is the largest net contributor to EU funds, and therefore it is unlikely that any of our taxpayers money will be used in this way.

Nor indeed does he seem to realise that, even if the EU did "pay up", the British taxpayer would end up paying through the nose anyway (as we saw with the Scottish grant of EU funding).

Even then the absurdities continue to stack up. This scheme is apparently to be supported by Yorkshire Forward, the Regional Development Agency - responsible for the sustainable economic development and regeneration of the Yorkshire and Humber area – and part of the regional structure that UKIP supposedly so detests.

Nevertheless, we await with interest the views of Yorkshire and Humberside UKIP voters on their MEP’s Damascene conversion.

August may be the silly season in Britain but it teems with tragic anniversaries on the Continent. Both World Wars could be said to have started in this month. Those anniversaries do, at least, receive attention. Other dates are easily forgotten in a rush to expunge unpleasant and embarrassing memories of the past and developments of the present.

Two days ago we remembered the Soviet tanks rolling into Prague on August 21, 1968. A tragic event, it did, ultimately turn out to be more hopeful than anyone could imagine on that and in the subsequent dark days. The crushing of the Prague spring was the beginning of the end for the Communist system, though few would have realized that at the time. It was also the time when even the greatest optimists had to acknowledge that Communism could not be reformed from inside. It was a question of waiting for those Western leaders who would unquestioningly take the evil empire on and defeat it.

Yesterday’s anniversary is more tragic, for it marked the beginning of a fifty-year catastrophe for Eastern and Central Europe, whose shadow still haunts many. On August 23, 1939 a pact was signed by Molotov and Ribbentrop on behalf of their respective totalitarian state. It is known variously as the Molotov-Riobbentrop Pact, the Nazi-Soviet Pact or, even the Hitler-Stalin Pact, though those two never met.

The Pact was one of non-aggression but it had important secret annexes, which allowed for a division of territory between the two countries. The Baltic States, Bessarabia, now Moldova, western Ukraine and, eventually eastern Poland went to the Soviet Union. Other parts to Germany.

When a couple of weeks later Germany attacked Poland, the retreating Polish army rolled straight into the waiting arms of the Soviet secret police. The Soviet army invaded eastern Poland and helped to destroy that country. Many of those imprisoned by the MVD never reappeared. We have all heard of Katyn where Polish officers were rounded up and shot. There were two other such camps. The aim was to destroy the bourgeois and intellectual classes. To that end, people were also rounded up in towns and villages, imprisoned, deported, murdered.

The same happened in the Baltic States, in Bessarabia, in Western Ukraine and would have happened in Finland if the Red Army had won the Winter War of 1940. In 1941, when the German troops massed on what was then the Soviet border, somewhat to the west of the 1939 Soviet border, trains that should have been bringing Red Army troops westwards, were being used to transport a very different human cargo eastward into Siberia.

It is calculated that in the two onslaughts, one in 1940 and the other in 1944 when the three Baltic countries were re-conquered, about one third of their population was deported. Few returned. On top of that, a partisan war went on in the Baltic States and in Western Ukraine for about ten years after the official ending of the Second World War.

In fact, the national spirit of these countries was never broken and it is worth remembering that the Soviet system, immeasurably more ruthless and single-minded than the EU foundered on irrepressible nationalism.

An article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal Europe by the former Estonian Prime Minister, Mart Laar, deals with these events and their effect on his and all surrounding countries. It also mentions an interesting fact: Russia has never acknowledged responsibility or apologized, in the way everyone is supposed to apologize, for any of the horrors.

President Putin had not been invited to the recent commemoration of the Warsaw uprising because of the Russian refusal to acknowledge the Soviet Union’s role in the suppression of the uprising. The Red Army stopped on the other side of the Vistula and, instead of assisting, waited till the city of Warsaw was destroyed and the courageous people who had risen, murdered. Then they moved in, took Warsaw and installed their own government.

It would be, as Mr Laar points out, to Russia’s benefit to face up to the demons of the past as Germany has done. There can be no true progress towards freedom and democracy in that country until it does so. But the shadow is there over all the countries. News comes that one Estonian town has put up a memorial to those who had been killed while fighting Red Army. There were many like that in all those countries. Caught between two evils, persecuted on both sides, they had to make decisions. The West can barely understand the desperation. It can barely understand the importance of the Pact.

Still, there is a happier anniversary coming. August 31 is the day commemorated by the Balts as the true ending of the Second World War. It was then, in 1994, that the remnants of the Russian army finally left their countries.

Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza has broken the news of a fraud involving a government agency and EU documentation. It seems that officials at local branches of the Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture (ARMiR) were ordered to "correct" data in the animal registration system to facilitate the export to EU countries of a £800,000 herd of cows owned by a firm called the A plus 1.

The EU requires the full history of all animals sold to be recorded on approved "cattle passports", so that the ancestry and movement of cattle can be traced, and subsidies recorded, to avoid double payment. However, ARMiR officials were ordered to make "corrections" to the registry of the animals owned by A plus 1 so that only the first and last owner were included in the animals’ passports. "Correction", in this sense, "meant erasing data from the computer system", explained an ARMiR employee.

Quite what financial advantage has been gained from this activity remains, at this point, rather obscure. But one is very pleased to observe how quickly the Poles have come to terms with the principles of using the community vocabulary. Or, as Humpty Dumpty once told Alice, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more or less".

As our readers will remember the April referendum in Cyprus yielded a peculiar result. The Turkish side voted overwhelmingly for reunification, while the Greek side voted almost as overwhelmingly against it, hoping that they will get an even better deal if they show themselves to be as stubborn and unhelpful as possible.

They miscalculated slightly. Better conditions were not forthcoming but Greek Cyprus became a member of the EU, while Turkish Cyprus did not, which meant that Greek Cyprus (or Cyprus as it is known in the EU) can lobby on the subject of trade.

The immediate reaction on the part of the EU, once the general fury had died down, was to give Turkish Cyprus a large sum in aid and promise more. What, however, is needed much more, as ever, is the possibility of trade and the ending of the economic boycott.

As part of the EU package, there was an insistence of intra-island trade and this has now been reopened. According to the BBC correspondent in Nicosia:

"Less than an hour after the legislation was introduced, vegetable farmers and textile manufacturers were lining up to register their products."

Robin Harris, consultant director of Politeia, has an interesting piece in The Daily Telegraph today.

In it, he comments on the nature of "European federalism". His analysis is spot on:

European federalism is another of those secular religions, like communism or fascism, whose attractions prove so great because they reassure people who have lost their inner bearings that they are still on the winning side of History. Its proponents display the self-righteousness, the intolerance of dissent, the assumption that ends will justify means - including the subversion of a country's democracy - that their counterparts so enthusiastically practised.

Not a few people have been puzzling over how Stephen O'Brien managed to get his story on the notorious "abattoir directive" so disastrously wrong – with the finger pointing firmly at Conservative Central Office research department for producing such duff gen.

But it now seems that the author of the fiction is none other than Timothy Kirkhope, Tory Yorkshire and Humberside MEP. In a speech to the European Convention on 21 January 2003, he spoke thus:

The abattoirs directive left the Commission as a 12-page document, was reduced by the French to a manageable 7-pages and expanded by the British to an unreadable and unacceptable 95-pages!

The YouGov poll in the Telegraph today ranks various professions/trades in terms of public trust.

It is fascinating to see that firemen come out on top, at 94 percent, with the RAF at 86 percent, the Royal Navy at 84 percent and the Army at 79 percent. Unsurprisingly, "political leaders" come out at eight percent, just below estate agents, at nine. The only surprise is that they ranked that highly.

Speaking of trust, the Today programme this morning did a pretty effective demolition job on Stephen O’Brien’s claims on gold plating. To hear the broadcast, click here. The piece was on just after 08.30.

This whole episode has been a terrible wasted opportunity. Instead of going for the jugular, on excessive EU regulation – and thus putting themselves in the forefront of the argument - the Conservatives tried to take the easy way out, blaming the burden of regulation on the British civil servants adding to the directives.

One again, therefore, the Tories have ducked the issue, and have been found wanting. It is precisely this sort of intellectual dishonesty which, undoubtedly, has led to the loss of trust recorded by the YouGov poll.

For decades now, the EU has been devoting considerable energies and political capital to reducing food production in an attempt at cutting back the embarrassing surpluses that have characterisied the CAP. With the latest "reforms" about to come into effect, the link between farm subsidies and production is to be almost completely broken, with the expectation that EU production of most commodities will fall.

However, just as these "reforms" are kicking in, there is disturbing evidence that the world may be entering a period of serious food shortages, partly due to the increase in the world population but mainly because China no longer able to feed itself. And yesterday, it was reported that it had become a net importer of grain for the first time in its history.

The Chinese problems stem mainly from an increase in population and the rapid pace of industrialisation. The combined effect has been to increase demand for food and water, and it is the latter which is proving critical. Water has been drawn away from agriculture and extensive pollution has rendered huge volumes unusable – in a country where 70 percent of crop production relies on irrigation.

With a few years, China might be importing 50m tons of grain annually, more than any other country in the world, putting massive strains on the supply systems. These are already under stress, with harvests for the last five years having failed to match consumption and world grain stocks having fallen from a peak of 104 days supply in 1997-8 to a worrying low in 2003-4 of 60 days – coincidentally, the minimum safe level, according to the UN's FAO.

Yet, as all this has been happening – and widely predicted for many years by global experts - the EU in its own little world has been focused on cutting its production. These cuts may have been valid when the process started in the early 1980s, after farming subsidies dispensed by the notorious CAP had produced huge butter mountains, grain mountains and wine lakes, and global grain stocks for 1985-86 stood at a record 123 days.

But so glacial has been the process of change that it took until 1991 before the then agricultural commissioner Ray MacSharry had succeeded in introducing the first, partial CAP reforms aimed at cutting production.

By then, however, world food stocks had already started falling – and the trend was clearly downwards. But so inflexible has been the EU political system that, despite this, the process of cutting production has continued, through the Agenda 2000 "reforms" agreed in Berlin in 1999, to the so-called "mid-term review" completed last year. Now farmers will be receiving what is known as the "single farm payment" even if they produce no food at all, giving rise to the expected cuts in production.

Yet, if the China situation is part of a continuing trend – and there is every reason to believe that it is - the EU should be thinking not of cutting back food production, but increasing it. But, having spent decades gearing itself up to cut production, it will undoubtedly take as many decades before it can turn round and being to consider reversing the process.

One is reminded of the apocryphal story of the giant dinosaurs which grew so big that it is said of them that tweaking their tails produced a delayed reaction because the signal took so long to reach the brain. In agricultural policy terms – to say nothing of other policy areas - the EU is already exhibiting similar behaviour. And we all know what happened to the dinosaurs.

Who wrote this:

The direction in which France and Germany are dragging us is defined by three orientation points: a stagnant economy model, anti-US foreign and defence policy, and a sense of supremacy stemming from anti-US ideology that invites cultural dictatorship. We should resist.

become not only a binding force cementing diverse groups, but also a new religion with many followers and fundamentalist fanatics.

We can forget the ideological angle as Poles will never convert to anti-Americanism. Our security is an issue, however. The crises in the Balkans and Iraq have given us reason to doubt the reliability of our two European allies who were reluctant to step into action and eager to consult with Russia. The Franco-German tendency to negotiate European security policy with Moscow should serve as a permanent warning for Poland and an argument in favour of tightening the political and defence alliance with the United States.

In his column today, Booker takes on the O’Brien issue, rehearsed in greater detail in earlier Blogs – click here for the main story, which has links to the other posts.

In particular, he focuses on O'Brien's claims about the "abattoir directive", commenting on how his own column used to report almost to the point of self-parody how the forcing out of business of hundreds of British abattoirs was arguably the most absurd regulatory disaster our membership of the EU had yet inflicted on any British industry. But all those words, it seemed, had been in vain.

He takes up the point that "any half-way competent researcher, either for the Tory Party or the Today programme, could have discovered via Google in two minutes that the meat hygiene directive 91/497 in fact contains not 12 pages but 34, while the wordage of the UK regulations amounts to little more".

Booker’s closing comment, however, puts the whole O’Brien incident into perspective. "The terrifying thing", he writes, "is not just that we have handed over the running of our country to such a weird system of government. It is that neither our politicians nor most of our media still seem to have the foggiest idea how it works".

Also in the column is a report about how John Prescott's regionalisation policy is also going to include the fire services, with plans to set up regional emergency call centres, contactable only through a sequence of push-button questions and answers: "press '1' to report a fire", he writes, "then '1' again for a house fire, '2' for a 'car fire' and '3' for any other fire, such as in an office or factory”. And so on. Campaigner Neil Herron is on the case and working with the firefighters to scupper the plan.

That, and two other stories – one of the European health card – make the column a cracking good read.

It would be a good idea for political commentators to remember Gresham’s Law: bad money drives out good. The idea that somehow new members of the European Union will use their own possibly more admirable political and economic systems and experience to improve those of the EU is a clear example of hope winning over experience. Was that not one of the arguments for Britain’s membership of a patently undemocratic system? This country with its long democratic tradition would transform the then EEC, we were told. Alas, thirty years on, the opposite is seen to be true. It is the British system that has been largely undermined Britain’s constitutional democracy largely destroyed.

Given all that, it seems odd that there are such high expectations from the new East European members of the EU. These countries have, after all, had but a short experience of democracy and liberal capitalism. Are these going to be strong enough to fight the entrenched system of the European Union?

There are signs already that the development, as some of us have always predicted, may go the other way. Take Latvia, for instance. A plucky little country that has fought doggedly, if intermittently both the Nazi and the Communist system. One of the heroines of the anti-Soviet fight was Sandra Kalniete, who then went on to have a reasonable political career in independent Latvia and as a diplomat in the West. She was nominated to be acting Commissioner, presumably on the grounds that she already knew her way around in the corridors of power of Western Europe.

Then the government that nominated her collapsed and a new one came to power under Indulis Emsis. This is, incidentally, the 11th Latvian government since 1991, so we may be looking at the Italy of Eastern Europe. Mr Emsis decided that Ms Kalniete was not the right person to represent Latvia on the Commission and sent, instead, one of his own allies, Ingrida Udre, the former parliamentary speaker.

Ms Udre has been dismissed as a former basketball player but, in fact, since her emergence as a public figure in 1998, has participated in a number of committees, as well as a very large number of inter-parliamentary groups. Clearly, she likes travelling, so being a Commissioner in Brussels will appeal to her.

There has been a ruckus in Latvia about this last-minute substitution, as a number of newspapers and commentators have not taken well to this kind of patronage. In Brussels, needless to say, not a word was said. The whole place is about patronage and the dumping of second-rate politicians is the rule, not the exception.

Ms Udre will be in charge of Taxation and Customs Union, a thorny issue as more and more of the taxation system is eyed covetously by the Commission and the Council of Ministers. As we have written in a previous blog, harmonization may have been postponed but the lowering of taxes is seen as an illegal state aid.

Meanwhile, the Latvian authorities have arrested one of her bodyguards and charged him with bribing a customs official. At least Ms Udre’s entourage is finding out about the Customs Union at first hand.

The garrulous Rocco Buttiglione – commissioner-designate for justice, freedom and security, has teamed up with Otto Schilly, the German federal minister of the interior, to recommend "reception camps" in north Africa to "filter" immigrants from the South of the continent on their way to EU countries.

Sounding suspiciously like concentration camps, there is more than a little historical resonance in the fact that they are being championed by a German and an Italian politician in what may well come to be dubbed "the final solution" to the immigration problem.

But to avoid the jibe of "little colonialists", which has already been levied at them, the Axis duo want the "countries on the other side of the Mediterranean" to create the camps, with costs shared "roughly in equal parts" among EU member states.

That way, all the European states would have to do would be to "encourage and support them", thus keeping their hands clean. Buttiglione is also suggesting that there is a possibility of using NGOs "with contacts with European companies" to train workers needed to run the camps.

Methinks Barroso had better start leaning on his man, before things start getting out of control. The backlash on this could tear the commisson apart.

Following on from the claims made by Stephen O'Brien about "gold plating", on the basis of a Conservative Party report, and the follow-up by Digby Jones of the CBI – both of whom cited the now famous "abattoir directive" - which started off variously as 12 pages (O’Brien) or about 30 pages (Jones) and ended up respectively as 96 and 92 pages of British legislation – the BBC Today Programme this morning decided to get to the bottom of the mystery of which directive precisely they were talking about.

At least, that was the apparent theme of the piece that was broadcast, incorporating an interview with Stephen O'Brien. But, in fact, there were two conflicting agendas on the go. Stephen Sakur, doing the interview, was trying to show that claims of the damage done by this directive were an "urban myth" – of the same order as "bent bananas" – while O'Brien, in between having to fend off this attack, was trying to substantiate his claim that the damage was caused not by the directive, per se, but by "gold plating".

Neither was right, but in an attempt to prove his case, Sackur called in aid the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers (AIMS), which – he claims – "told us they had no idea which regulation is being talked about". On that slender basis, he told O'Brien that "British abattoirs seem to have been working very happily with this regulation which you claim is one of those strangling British business".

Given that the policy director of AIMS is Norman Bagley, who has spent the last ten years or more fighting against the depredations of the "abattoir directive", this seems hard to credit. O'Brien rightly protested that there had been a "very severe collapse in the number of abattoirs we have in this country", but wrongly attributed the cause to "gold plating".

While fighting off the charge of perpetrating an "urban myth", however, O'Brien introduced his own – which, amazingly, was not challenged by Sackur:

…the pesticide residues which was a commission directive in 2002, building on ones from 1986 and 1990 and that fixes the maximum levels of pesticide residues... has just over 1100 words and the regulation for England and Wales has 27,000 words.

The Ten Commandments required a mere 300 words and the American Declaration of Independence 1,300 words. However, the EU regulations regarding the export of duck eggs require 26,900 words.

...updates one that appeared in your own letters page on Oct. 1, 1979, on that occasion with reference to the import of caramel products. Mr Varey has rounded down the number of words to 26,900 from usual figure of 26,911 in this urban myth.

In its best-known form, the story was used in a Mobil Oil syndicated column in 1977, by "Pipeline Pete", who cited the economical length of the Lord's Prayer, the Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence, and commented: "So how come it took the federal government 26,911 words to issue a regulation on the sale of cabbages?" In fact, there was no such regulation, and the directive on caramel was equally imaginary.

An early version of the story appeared in a New England farming journal in 1951, but it is believed to date back to the Second World War. It keeps cropping up, often with that magic pay-off number of 26,911.

BBC Radio 4 Today Programme
21 August 2004

Stephen Sackur (SS) interviews Stephen O’Brien (SO)
0750 – 6 minutes 54 seconds.

Is British business being strangled by British government “gold plating” of EU directives?

SS: Now you may have heard us yesterday talking to Digby Jones of the CBI who’s very concerned at the lack of the UK parliament scrutinisation of EU regulation. He thinks MPs aren’t doing their jobs properly. His criticisms came in the same week that the Conservative Party accused the government of “gold plating”, which I think they mean… by which they mean er… further over-complicating EU regulations. This was Stephen O’Brien, the shadow trade and industry secretary, speaking on our programme on Wednesday.

SO: The UK government will gold plate by multiplying the burden of regulation by over three times – that’s over 300 percent, er, from the original directive. An example is the abattoirs directive where the directive left the European commission as a 12-page document. That was reduced in France to seven pages and yet it was expanded in the UK to 96 pages. There are lots of examples like that where they bolt on things as well as over-interpreting and over-implementing.

SS: And as it happens Digby Jones used just the same example on the programme yesterday.

DJ: There’s a directive on abattoirs and how you can kill cows and pigs and sheep and put ’em into butchers’ shops. And it came out of Brussels, it was about 30 pages long. When it went into implementation in France it was seven pages long. When it came to implementation in Britain it was 92 pages long and French is a longer language. All I am saying is that someone in Whitehall took a great opportunity to smack a load more regulation on British businesses and British jobs.

SS: Now, all this set us thinking. Which regulation, exactly, are they referring to? The government says they don’t know. They can’t find out. The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs made this statement:

DEFRA: DEFRA is not sure which directive is being referred to. Ben Bradshaw, the duty minister, has written to Stephen O’Brien to ask him to identify it. If it is the Animal By-products Regulation, which includes abattoirs but it’s not just about them, that is a 95-page EU regulation which we have implemented in 37 pages. If, however, they’re referring to EU Directive 93/119/EC, that was implemented as the Welfare of Animals (Slaughter and Killing) Regulations 1995.

SS: Well, I hope you’re still with us (laughs). We asked the Conservative Party for clarification but after repeated telephone calls yesterday they were unable to tell us which regulation it was. The Association of Independent Meat Suppliers also told us they had no idea which regulation is being talked about here and the Food Standards Agency couldn’t help us either. It’s all very confusing.

Now the shadow trade and industry secretary, Stephen O’Brien, is back with us now. So please help us Stephen O’Brien. Which directive specifically were you referring to all of last week?

SO: Good morning to you. And it’s very interesting, that I’m very pleased that DEFRA’s taken our eight-point plan about gold-plating and deregulation for business, which is a real menace to British business, so seriously that they’ve bothered to read the document at last. So… as you know I’m speaking from my home in Eddisbury in Cheshire in the constituency and all my papers are in my Westminster office. But I’ll just take risk that from memory, the actual directive that is… what is now known as the abattoirs directive, I’m pretty sure that I remember it’s got a much longer and more convoluted name, is I think 91 slash 497. Erm..

SS: interruption

SO: they’ve all got EC on the end, and I think that’s right from memory…

SS: That’s the one that was…

SS: …elaborated, then annexed and amended.

SS: Yes, well. That’s the one that was formulated in 1991?

SO: That’s right… because this gold plating problem…

SS: Thirteen years ago…

SO: …and since elaborated and annexed and amended. And.. I think, as was made clear at the time that I was speaking on Wednesday, and indeed I think in the discussion Jon Humphrys had with Peter Hain and Digby Jones of the CBI yesterday, when they had their discussion about scrutinisation of EU registrations, er.. legislation, which didn’t actually mention our policy initiative but, er, it was all linked to the same thing. And I’m glad to say that Peter Hain admitted on your programme that there is gold plating, in sharp contrast to the DTI who I shadow, whose knee-jerk reaction was simply to condemn…

SS: But Stephen, Stephen O’Brien, if I may interrupt for just a second, there are two key points here surely. One is that in 1991 there was a Tory government… that adopted this

SO: I’m not saying it all started in 1997. It didn’t; far from it.

SS: But the other point, even more obvious surely, is that 1991 is 13 years ago and British abattoirs seem to have been working very happily with this regulation which you claim is one of those strangling British business.

SO: You can’t say that they’ve been working happily. We’ve lost so many of our abattoirs.

SS: They didn’t even know about it. We asked them to comment upon your claim that the abattoir regulations were strangling them and they didn’t even know what we were talking about.

SO: Well, I think that gold-plating has an effect which not only can have an instant effect but can have a long-term effect. We’ve lost a huge capacity in our abattoirs in this country, but…

SS: You seem to be more concerned about it than they are, and they actually work in the business.

SO: I’m very concerned about any loss of British business and capacity. Now, I’m glad that DEFRA have written to me. I’ve not received the letter. It hadn’t been received in my office er, last night, er.. because the call that was made by the Today programme to me to come on this morning was made just before my office staff left in Westminster. I’ll happily go round to DEFRA and give them chapter and verse on this. And indeed whilst I’m going to DEFRA, I may as well make sure they have the, er.. some other examples that come straight out of DEFRA like the pesticide residues which was a commission directive in 2002, building on ones from 1986 and 1990 and that fixes the maximum levels of pesticide residues. The directive has just over 1100 words and the regulation for England and Wales has 27,000 words. Now if you’re telling me that there’s not some element of gold plating in that which can have a serious effect on the competitiveness of British business then I think that British business would think that was laughable and is very glad that somebody is at last doing something about it and we’re not being defeatist because we can do something about it.

SS: Isn’t there a question here, first about how you get your information, but whether that information becomes a series… you could almost call them myths. What you seem to be saying was that the abattoir industry was really suffering because of this directive. They don’t seem to think they are. But because its been repeated throughout the week, people seem to assume there is a problem when the abattoir industry seems relatively happy. It’s a bit like the old bent bananas. That was never really an issue until it became a sort of urban myth.

SO: Well I think it would be surprising that if… even from memory I’ve tried to give you the actual number of the directive that we’re talking about, and secondly, that at the time, and flowing from that, gold plating has led to the very severe collapse in the number of abattoirs we have in this country…

SS: All right, Stephen O’Brien, I’m terribly sorry, but we are…

SO: …those that there are around today must be very pleased that they have survived.

SS: Mr O’Brien, thank you.

SO: Thanks.

Despite Newlab and the Tories droning on in their bids to outdo each other on schools 'n' hospitals, duly echoed by the increasingly dire media, I have for some time felt that these were not truly the issues of main concern to the electorate.

It is something of a relief, therefore – to say nothing of vindication – to see The Daily Telegraph leader today commenting on the Mori poll issued yesterday by the Financial Times which reported that, whereas, three years ago, nearly 60 percent thought the NHS was the most important issue facing Britain, now only 34 percent do. Instead, 38 percent believe defence/foreign affairs is the biggest concern, more than any other policy area.

Amongst other things, there is a belief that "the proposed defence cuts are daft" and so strongly does that Telegraph feel this issue will play that it believes that, "Next year we could see a khaki-ish election like 1945 or 1918".

Equally interesting was the Telegraph's comment that "Europe positively sends the electorate to sleep (UKIP, take note)", although this must be taken with a pinch of salt.

I carried out an analysis of opinion polls some time ago which demonstrated that responses to the "Europe" question depended very much on how it was asked, and in what context (now there's a surprise). Basically, specific polls about EU issues elicited higher responses than when a "Europe" question was tacked on to a more general poll.

This notwithstanding, what the poll indicates is that the electorate (or, at least, the sample questioned) has not understood how closely defence and foreign affairs are bound up with the EU, and the extent to which both agendas are being determined by the EU.

Clearly, Col. Tim Collins's comment in the Mail on Sunday last week, that "The massacre of our proudest regiments isn't about efficiency ...it's about surrendering our soldiers to fight in a Euro-army", as recorded in this Blog, have yet to hit home and need a wider airing.

One suspects that this will not come from the Conservatives, whose shadow spokesman on defence, Nicholas Soames, is distinctly of the Europhile tendency. Whether UKIP is up to the job remains to be seen but, to judge from its recent record, it is more comfortable with commenting on women cleaning behind 'fridges.

One of the immediate responsibilities of competition commissioner Neelie Kroes, when she formally takes over her duties in November, will be to monitor the progress of the commission's action against Microsoft, and the reformulation of its Windows product range to conform with EU rules.

She will also have to counter Microsoft's appeal against the record €497 million fine imposed by the commission for abuse of its dominant market position, which is wending its weary way through the ECJ.

But there is a slender clues that the corporatist Neelie might not have her heart in busting Bill Gates's empire. The giveaway was eight years ago when in 1996 our girl, in one of her many previous jobs as president of the private Nijenrode University, personally awarded the software wonder an honorary doctorate in recognition of Microsoft’s contribution to IT education.

She was then heard to have told Bill that he was "doing a good job", something she repeated after yesterday's love-in with her new boss Barroso at the commission headquarters in Brussels. "You don't give an honorary degree if you are not thinking that he is doing a good job", Neelie told journalists.

Needless to say, our Neelie doesn't think that this will affect her attitude towards the EU's case against Microsoft and, in any case, as she tartly reminded journalists, "I am not a commissioner yet".

In the unlikely event that she doesn't make it through the EU parliamentary hearing, I suppose she can always get a job with Microsoft.

Some EU members, possibly emboldened by the new Commission’s stance on business and economic development, and worried by rising oil prices, have suggested cutting fuel tax. After all, the Commission now says that competitive tax levels are a good idea and, in any case, we need to become the most dynamic economy in the world by 2010 (or a little later).

So, has the Commission welcomed the Italian proposal to cut tax on fuel? Absolutely not. According to the spokesman, Gilles Gantelet,

"If a state decides to reduce an excise for a particular sector it amounts to state aid and must be notified to the commission."

The immigration problem in Italy, and the response to it – articulated by La Stampa – is perhaps more serious than is fully appreciated in the UK, and has considerable implications for the future of European integration.

What is at play here is a scenario not dissimilar to that played out in 1965-6 when de Gaulle opposed further European integration yet accepted exactly that in order to secure funding for the CAP, most of which was to be paid to French farmers.

This scenario is one addressed by US academic Andrew Moravscik, in his book the Choice for Europe, where he addresses "the most fundamental puzzle confronting those who seek to explain why sovereign governments in Europe have chosen repeatedly to co-ordinate their core economic policies and surrender sovereign prerogatives within an international institution".

What basically he concludes integration is the outcome of "interstate bargaining" whereby governments trade-off their powers in return for gains that can only be achieved through concerted action.

In de Gaulle's case, although he did not want to see a strengthening of the powers of the EEC, he desperately needed the money to pay subsidies to his farmers, without whose co-operation the very stability of the French state was threatened. The trade off, therefore, was a centralised agricultural policy in return for money paid by all the other member states.

Currently, we see in Italy a right-wing government headed by Berlusconi, which is not particularly enthusiastic about further European integration – and where in fact EU politics take second place to domestic concerns. Yet we see one of the leading newspapers – La Stampa – calling for further integration, with the apparent support of the bulk of the population.

The reason in this case is not dissimilar from what drove de Gaulle. This time, though, instead of funding for agricultural subsidies, Italy's need is for help with the ever-increasing costs of policing her maritime borders and dealing with illegal immigrants. In return for that help, influential voices are making the case for Italy surrendering her "sovereign prerogatives" and accepting a common immigration policy.

Where Moravcsik goes off the rails, however, is in failing to accept that there is a third player in the field. This is the constituency that sees European integration as a "good" in its own right, which is every-willing to represent difficulties encountered by individual nation states as "European problems" and thus offer "European solutions". These siren voices are appealing and difficult for national politicians to resist, which explains why they are so often gulled into accepting further integration, even though they are not enthusiasts for the process.

Immigration, however, is a problem that extends far wider than "Europe", on the one hand, but in many respects is a problem in part manufactured by the European Union and, in particular, by the common agricultural policy which brought de Gaulle into the integrationalist fold.

This was illustrated in an earlier Blog, when it was pointed out that the iniquitous (and illegal) EU sugar regime was stripping the economies of developing countries of hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars a year, and other subsidies regimes have similar effect.

Without wishing to pre-empt piece in preparation by my colleague on the relationship between aid and trade, it has to be pointed out that if the developed countries continue to adopt protectionist policies, and exclude third-world produce from their markets, while also dumping their surpluses on the world market and thus undermining the economies of developing countries, those countries will continue to have difficulties in supporting their growing populations. And it is the lack of prosperity in those countries – and the political instability which often arises as a result – which triggers migration.

Putting it bluntly – if slightly simplistically – if developed countries refuse to accept surplus produce from developing countries, then we will have to accept their surplus people.

Italy's problem, therefore, is not a "European problem" that can be solved by "European solution" in the way that the siren voices are claiming – an EU-wide immigration policy run from Brussels. In fact, the answer to the problem is, in large measure, "less Europe" – dismantling of the ruinous CAP and opening up our borders to free trade, something the EU has never, ever been interested in.

The problem for us all, in this context, is that the integrationalists are exploiting the difficulties of member states to pursue their own agenda. In so doing, the real causes of pressing problems are misdiagnosed or obscured – simply because the better solutions would not suit the integrationalist cause. We need to recognise this and expose the siren calls for "European solutions" for what they are – drivers of integration.

The new Commission – the one that is going to do miracles, reform the European Union, make it progressive, free-trading, Atlanticist, all the things it was never intended to be – has had its first get-together.

This is all very unofficial, since the Commission has not yet been accepted by the European Parliament, but, frankly, who cares? Individual Commissioners will face the Parliamentarians in the autumn, tell them that they will do wonderful things for “Europe”, answer a few quite simple questions and that will be the end of the matter.

Barroso has also given interviews on what the Commission under him will achieve. High on the list is the idea that it will make Europe the most dynamic, competitive economy in the world by 2010. There is only one problem with this idea: there is no such thing really as a European economy.

There are the various national economies, some of which are doing well, some badly and some, in particular Germany, who has provided the Industry and Enterprise Commissioner, even worse.

What has our Commission President in mind for those national economies, who, together, may be said to add up to a European economy? First and foremost, he will continue with the outgoing President’s plans to increase the EU Budget from around 100 billion euros a year to about 143 billion euros a year. This, he thinks will be necessary to carry out ambitious European policies, which cannot be carried out with “insufficient funds”.

In other words, this free marketeer thinks that the best policy is higher taxation of both successful and unsuccessful economies, in order to have money to spend on grand EU-wide projects or to redistribute it to other parts of the Union, thus ensuring that they remain constant aid-recipients. David Ricardo, he ain’t.

It seems that, just possibly, this curious contradiction in his aims has slipped into Barroso’s consciousness. Quietly, he seems to have acknowledged that making Europe the most dynamic economy by 2010 is a bit of a pipe-dream.

"I think we should do as much as possible to come near that goal. It was a very ambitious goal and many consider it too ambitious."

"The goal of becoming the most competitive economy in the world is one we can achieve and we should not feel discouraged."

Just two days after the Conservative Party produced its rather fatuous and ill-informed proposals for businesses suing the British government for “gold-plating” EU legislation (see my colleague’s blogs), the Confederation of British Industry has decided to get in on the act.

In the past the CBI was a bulwark of pro-EU sentiments, even trying to conduct rather flawed surveys that allegedly proved that British business wanted to enter the euro as soon as possible. These days it is a little more muted on the subject, partly because it has realized that even the large businesse that tend to be the mainstay of the CBI can be adversely affected by all that legislation.

So, as Director-General Digby Jones has announced, they have proposed some ideas of how the MPs can deal with the flow of EU “regulations”. MPs are asleep on the job, thundered Mr Jones. They should have an early warning system and influence EU legislation at an early stage. There should be a better scrutiny system. After all, more than half of our legislation comes out of Brussels.

Perhaps, Mr Jones should start by finding out a little more about how that legislation is done and what the powers of scrutiny might be. In the first place, considerably more than half our legislation comes from Brussels, especially if you take into account the regulations that proceed from framework directives. These regulations are directly applicable and do not need to go through Parliament at all.

Then there is the problem that the EU legislative process obeys its own multiannual plans, whereby strategies result in proposals, which result in framework directives that take years to reach their end, only to spawn many regulations. This is a radically different way of legislating from the British one, which starts with a legislative proposal, that becomes a Bill to be debated in Parliament (except when it is a Statutory Instrument, an ever more favoured method of legislating in this country and the way in which most of what comes in from EU directives is put into law). Nor is it affected in any significant fashion by such fripperies as European Parliamentary elections or new Commissions.

At what stage does Mr Jones suggest the early warning system to be put into place? Experience tells one that very few industries or businessmen start getting worried when the first mention of some EU proposal is mooted. They know it is all a long way ahead and, anyway, they are always optimistically convinced that something will turn up and the big bad wolf will change course.

Then there is the whole question of scrutiny. Scrutiny is not the same as legislation and accountability. You can scrutinize all you like, Britain is one of 25 countries and if a certain piece of legislation is decided on by whatever method – qualified majority voting or consensus as likely as not – we have no choice but to put that into British law.

Mr Jones finds it annoying that interested groups cannot lobby in Westminster in the same way as they can in Brussels. They can, of course, present their case and it is usually listened to, particularly in the House of Lords, whose European Committee produces well-argued, carefully considered reports on many aspects of EU legislation, often well in advance of that legislation reaching these shores. But no, Westminster is not, at least in theory, a pork-barrel-trading organization, unlike the Commission and the European Parliament.

As my colleague has already argued, gold-plating is no longer the problem. It is the volume of legislation that is coming from Brussels and the fact that the final documents that hit this country are regulations. If Mr Jones thinks that Britain can somehow influence anything as long as our relationship with the European Union remains what it is, he is in for a rude shock. Though, quite possibly, if he still has not experienced that shock, he never will.

On the other hand, it is possible that like so many organizations, the CBI and its leaders have no particular problem with the EU’s managerial style of governance and have no desire to return to any kind of democratic accountability of political debate. They merely want a bigger slice of the action.

Olympics aside, the great entertainment throughout the EU at the moment is reading the advice the media is giving in each country to its new commissioners. A wonderful example of this new sport comes from La Stampa, which is urging its man, Rocco Buttiglione, to ensure his country sets a "good example" on immigration.

The newspaper bemoans that fact that jurisdiction over immigration remains "solidly in the hands of national governments", arguing that 25 national laws on immigration now in force in the Union often appear totally unrealistic. It is this diversity, it believes, that has led to "buck-passing" and is responsible for “the tragedies that happened off our shores”.

It clearly wants an EU-wide immigration policy, but the underlying agenda is that it wants the other member states to contribute to the cost of patrolling the country's extensive maritime border. To assist in achieving that, it calls for Buttiglione to tell his own government to set a good example.

It wants him to ensure that Italy co-ordinates its asylum policies with its neighbours, to lift restrictions on the enlargement nations so that these countries might support Italy in seeking to get all member states to share in the costs of patrolling the borders, and thirdly, it should set a step up inspections of workplaces, aiming to discourage illegal immigrants by preventing them working when they arrive. To make his voice heard in Brussels, therefore, he must first make his voice heard in Rome.

Interesting perspective that - one wonders how the British media would react if Mandelson tried the same strategy.

It seems that Central Europe will live up to its historic tradition. Far from being a silly season, August is when it is all happening.

For some time now the Hungarian newspapers have been shaking their heads, tut-tutting and making tart comments about the chaos in the Socialist – Free Liberal Alliance coalition government. The Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy, who has already been in hot water when he was forced to admit after he had been elected that he had served in the Communist secret police, seemed to be unable to control his government.

The ruling coalition had lost heavily to the right and the centre right in the European elections. Needless to say, some of the left-wing socialists interpreted that to mean that the people of Hungary did not want any fiscal reforms.

Medgyessy himself blamed his smaller coalition partners for causing instability in the government, demanding that they back him or he will resign. On Wednesday he sacked three ministers, including the Free-Democrat Economy Minister István Csillag.

By Thursday the Hungarian Prime Minister found himself without crucial support in the government and tendered his resignation. This was accepted. The party president László Kovács has announced that the new leader and, consequently, prime minister will be chosen by the Socialist Party after consultation with their coalition partners. The party, in his words, was committed to maintaining the coalition and carrying on with the government.

Nevertheless, the immediate effect of the chaos in the government was a fall in the value of the forint.

In the meantime Péter Kiss, the Labour Minister will take over as acting Prime Minister, expecting to be confirmed by the end of the week. As Reuter’s news agency points out in its report:

“Medgyessy, a former banker with communist roots, follows in the footsteps of two other departed prime ministers from central European nations which joined the EU in May.

Poland's Leszek Miller and Czech Vladimir Spidla paid the price for dismal showings by their socialist parties in European parliament polls in June.”

Not me this time, honest guv! No less a person than outgoing EU environment commissioner Margot Wallström – soon to take charge of charge of communications strategy – is having a go at the French for their lamentable record on implementing EU environment law.

Many EU countries have dragged their feat in transposing EU laws onto their national statute books, or have done so incorrectly, she says, but top of the list of defaulters is France, with 38 failures. Next in line is Italy, with 33, and Ireland tips the scale with 29, despite Ahern’s love-in with the community during his presidency. Unsurprisingly, Greece comes well up the list, with 26 laws not fully transposed, followed by Spain. Bottom of the defaulters list are goodie-two-shoes Denmark and Sweden.

According to AFP, by the end of 2003 there were 88 cases of environmental laws not being transposed on time, while in 118 cases they were not correctly transposed. Most shortcomings concerned water, waste, nature protection and environmental impact assessments.

For more details click here and for a list of leading cases, click here.

President Chirac and, sometimes, Chancellor Schröder are quick to take umbrage when somebody in the great EU family steps out of line, i.e. does not agree with them on matters of foreign policy. In which case, one presumes, they would never go off on their own agenda. Right? Wrong.

President Putin will be hosting another pleasant little three-way summit in Sochi on the Black Sea, on August 30 – 31. Last time the three got together was in April, when their summit focused on the situation in Iraq.

Presumably, this one will also focus on Iraq. Or, perhaps, they will have some worried conversations as to what might come out in the food-for-oil investigation now conducted separately by the UN (nothing much there), a United States Congressional inquiry (worrying), and, quite soon, by the Iraqi government.

There is a great deal of misunderstanding about the way the EU is governed. It is generally assumed that there is some resemblance between the ways legislation is passed in Brussels and in, say, London.

The idea of passing legislation for 25 highly disparate members is a somewhat fatuous idea, but this does not bother the eurocrats very much. They see the burgeoning state as a vast bureaucracy that is to be governed by management not politics, let alone democratic politics.

We hope to follow this theme up in future blogs. For the moment, let me give one telling example. The European Commission has announced its intention to review community legislation on labelling. This is a long term exercise, with date of completion projected for 2010.

That could be just the date of completion of review or the date when all the legislation, directives or regulations or framework directives or whatever, are passed, possibly by co-decision between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.

The following stage will be the tortuous but legally required implementation of the new labelling legislation by whatever method in the member states. We are talking of a ten year plan at least.

Theoretically, all sorts of things might happen in those ten years, not least elections in the member states and to the European Parliament. But the labelling legislation review that will produce a huge crop of detailed, highly intrusive, controlling legislation and regulation, likely to be harmful to small and medium sized businesses and innovatory practice, will go on and on.

As the British Labour MP Gisela Stuart once said in a fit of semi-understanding, the British Parliament simply does not think in the same time frame as the European Commission. Well, it cannot. It has to abide by the constitutional rules that demand a mandate for the main legislative body, the House of Commons. But however democratic, constitutional and accountable the British Parliament is, it cannot reject the legislation that is produced in those long term exercises behind closed doors in Brussels.

The "construction of Europe" is not a miracle, and that's official – according to the Vatican. So writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of The Daily Telegraph, back from his hols and ready to do battle with the Brussels circuit on our behalf.

His story, Vatican resists drive to canonise EU founder recounts how a campaign to sanctify the European Union through the beatification of its founding father, Robert Schuman, has run into stiff resistance from the Vatican and now appears likely to fail.

It least it seems the Vatican has retained some scruples. Having failed to find any evidence of miraculous healings or visions - a sine qua non for beatification, which is the first step towards canonisation – the investigators have refused to accept that "Franco-German reconciliation in the bitter aftermath of the Second World War was itself miraculous". "So far", writes Ambrose, "the Pope has responded coolly".

Schuman was, of course, the French foreign minister who on 9 May 1950 unveiled plans to pool western Europe's coal and steel production, which led to the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). This in turn provided a template for the institutional structures of the European Economic Community, which survive to this day in the form of the European Union.

But, although Schuman is publicly credited as having launched the ECSC, and is thus revered in some circles as the "Father of Europe" – with the anniversary of his 9 May speech "celebrated" as Europe day, it is well known that the true author of what was called the Schuman Plan was in fact Jean Monnet.

Monnet was a lapsed Catholic who married a divorcee - with a somewhat shady past which included selling, illegally, "firewater" to Canadian Indians. It is rather fitting, therefore, that the true author of "Franco-German reconciliation" could not possibly have been put up for sainthood, and the campaigners who are seeking the effective sanctification of the EU have had to go for Monnet's front man, M. Schuman, thus perpetuating the myth that he was the progenitor of "le Plan".

But the most fascinating detail of Ambrose's report is the fact that Schuman was "a gangly ascetic" who lived on eggs and lettuce. That detail should be more widely known. The judgement of anyone who lives in France, with its incomparable cuisine, and lives off eggs and lettuce, has to be seriously suspect.

Lettuce pray that that others will eventually see that M. Schuman's judgment on "Europe" was equally suspect, and the whole damn thing should be ditched, along with his supporters' ambitions for his sainthood.

Cyril Northcote Parkinson is best known for his eponymous Parkinson’s Law – work expands to fill the time allocated to it – but one of his lesser-known but equally perspicacious contributions was the definition of what has become known as "bicycle shed syndrome".

Parkinson describes the scenario of a planning committee in some tiny rural district council which has on its agenda two items for approval: a bicycle shed and a nuclear power station.

Predictably – knowledgeable as they are in the design and construction of bicycle sheds – the councillors spend four hours discussing down to the tiniest detail the shed. Only then, just as the meeting is about to break up, does the clerk remind them of the other item, and they pass the nuclear power station “on the nod”, without discussion.

As we all know, Parkinson’s Law is alive and kicking – but so is his lesser-known bicycle shed syndrome. For living proof one only has to look at today’s newspapers, which have devoted acres of space, with full, technicolour photographs, to the MoD’s unveiling of "a new range of rations to feed the frontline soldier of the 21st Century". What is particularly noteworthy in this respect is The Telegraph’s headline: "Why curry and rice is Britain’s new weapon on the battlefield".

Er… actually, Britain's "new weapon on the battlefield" for the 21st Century is FRES, about which this Blog has been voluble – see this and this.

But has there been any coverage of it in the mainstream press (apart from in Booker’s column)? No. The fact that it constitutes a long-term, £50 billion investment, and could be one of the most disastrous moves ever made by a defence secretary, has completely passed the media by.

No wonder the politicians get away with so much, when we have such a supine, trivial press. Oh for some grown-up reporting.

In what can easily qualify as a silly season story in France (which has mostly closed down for August) Pierre Moscovici, a former Minister for Europe in the Socialist government, has accused President Chirac of playing fast and lose with France’s interests in the European Commission by his arrogance.

Clearly, M Moscovici has not read my colleague’s blog on the fact that France has not actually done all that badly by getting the portfolio that involves the largest amount of spending money. He thinks that every other large country, Germany, Spain, Italy, the UK, has done better. (Un moment, s’il vous plait, M Moscovici. We were all under the impression that national interests must be subdued to general European well-being.)

On the other hand, M Moscovici’s conclusions have, in different ways and in different circumstances, been reached by other, often more reliable commentators:

“By treating its partners with hauteur, by humiliating them sometimes brutally, and by behaving in a cavalier fashion towards the Commission, the France of Jacques Chirac finds itself sanctioned.”

The European Environment Agency has produced another one of its astonishing reports. As usual, it proves that the world is about to collapse into chaos, disaster and catastrophe. This, in spite of official UN figures that have proved over and over again that life has become considerably better for more people on earth in the last quarter century.

The climate change, says the EEA, is such that we have less than fifty years to deal with the threat. Threat of what? The press release does not make it clear. But there is a threat. And the only way of dealing with it is by more EU regulations that will control more of our economic activity and, presumably, subsidize more studies of this kind.

According to the BBC, ever ready to sound the alarm:

"The report brings together existing knowledge about how the climate is changing, and highlights some pointers of particular concern to Europe."

Now available from the Conservative Party website is the full report, detailing how the party will deal with the "deluge of over-regulation" emanating from Brussels, on which yesterday's press conference was based (see previous Blog).

Entitled "Reversing the Drivers of Regulation: the European Union", it runs to 64 pages, with print so large that there is no need to produce a separate copy for the visually impaired.

Produced by John Tate and Greg Clark of the Conservative Research Department Policy Unit, it is a truly wonderful demonstration of how the party has totally failed to get to grips with the European Union and what is represents. If UKIP had got its act together, it could have a field day.

The one good thing about the document, however, is that it is clearly laid out, with the core details enumerated, so one does not have to spend too much time demolishing the proposals.

On offer are eight proposals, three set down for "immediate action" and the other five listed as "Actions in Europe". The "immediate" actions are: minimum implementation of EU directives; allowing existing gold-plating to be deleted; and supporting only EU legislation with price tags. I will deal with these first.

On the issue of "minimum implementation of directives", the authors of the report clearly do not have any idea of what is happening on the EU legislative scene. As our readers will know, the traditional directives were devices for setting out general objectives in respect of specific EU policy areas, which then allowed member states to transpose them into law, allowing considerable flexibility as to how they were framed, as long as the general objectives were met.

However, that understanding comes out of "Janet and John go to Brussels". Directives have long since been transformed into very different creatures. These days, they are often so detailed that they are virtually indistinguishable from the (theoretically) more detailed regulations, and leave very little room for discretion or flexibility on the part of the member states. Generally, they only need to be copied out into the respective legislative codes to become law.

But there has been a more profound change. As with the British government, which relies more and more for its legislative programme on general "Enabling Acts" which simply create general powers for ministers to frame regulation, so does the EU more and more rely on "Framework Directives" which empower the commission to produce detailed European regulations.

These Regulations have what is known as "direct effect". They come into force the moment they are enacted, or "done in Brussels" as the wording over the signature blocks so kindly remind us. They must be adopted word for word, unchanged, and do not require transposition into member state law books.

In other words, straight directives are "old hat" and the problem of "gold plating" is simply less relevant than it was when the Conservatives were last in power. The Tories, like old generals, are preparing to fight the last war.

To that extent, the second of the proposals allowing existing "gold plating" to be deleted is also less relevant. Many of the directives where it was a problem have been – or will be in due course – replaced by EU regulations.

The third proposal, though, is in a different league – supporting only EU legislation with "price tags". This is nothing more or less than sophistry. There are 28 Conservative (and Unionist) MEPs in a European Parliament of 732 members. Britain is one of 25 members of the Council of Ministers in which most legislation is passed by qualified majority voting. Here, the UK is in a permanent minority, representing 13 percent of the vote. Who cares what the Conservatives will or will not support? The commission is not going to roll over and stop producing legislation just because the Tories want "price tags", and neither will the other member states. This proposal is a waste of space.

That brings us to the other five proposals – the "Actions in Europe". The authors of the report claim they will "force" member states to prove they can comply with proposed EU legislation, before signing up to it. Oh dear. And precisely how will this be done? Can it be done? Er.. no - not without a treaty change. Another waste of space.

Next, the Conservatives will "ensure pre-legislative review", thus ensuring that legislation is fully justified. One can only deal with this in increasingly acerbic terms: haven't these drongos heard of the EU treaties? Do they not know that the commission has absolute right of initiative? There is no requirement for the commission to carry out such a review and it will continue churning out the legislation, as it deems fit, with or without pre-legislative reviews. There is nothing the Conservatives can do to stop it.

Next, the Conservatives say they will "introduce a 'red card' for use by national parliaments", scrapping EU legislation that 50 percent of more of "EU national parliaments" cite as disproportionate or contrary to subsidiarity. Er… not without a treaty change they won't, and that is not likely to happen. In any case, all the Tories are committed to is to "press the case". Big deal. And what if the colleagues say "no"?

Next, they say they will introduce "sunset reviews" of legislation, so that EU laws have automatic expiry dates. Again, not without a treaty change, but read exactly what the Conservatives are proposing: "A Conservative government would argue strongly for the European Commission to insert sunset clauses into new legislation". Big, big deal. Forget it.

And finally… "A Conservative government would call for the president to appoint a commissioner with explicit responsibility for deregulation". Er… please Mr Fox, would you look after these chickens for me? Excuse me while I laugh.

What is missing from the whole of this dire document, of course, is any explicit, detailed proposal as to how the Conservatives aim to cut back any of the 97,000 pages of regulation so far produced. There is only one way. That is to set out specific demands, to threaten to leave if they are not met and to mean it. And that, the Conservatives will not do, and that is why nothing in this document is of any value whatsoever.

These people know nothing, have learnt nothing, and are going nowhere.

Afghanistan, as our readers will recall is top priority for NATO. Unfortunately top priority does not mean shelling out for troops to provide security for the forthcoming elections, as Hamid Karzai keeps asking. No, no, no. The EU, whose members also make up a large part of NATO, has come up with a far better wheeze: it is sending a European Union Democracy and Elections Support Mission, or EU DESM as it is already known to the cognoscenti.

What exactly is EU DSM going to be doing? According to the European Commission’s press release:

“The Mission will assess key aspects of the October 9th Presidential Elections and, upon completion of the process, will make recommendations for the future regarding the electoral and wider democratisation processes. Additionally the Mission will support the work of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and domestic observer groups over the election period. In all 25 elections and field experts will be deployed in centres across Afghanistan for periods of up to three months. The Mission will work in close co-ordination with the EU Special Representative for Afghanistan and the European Commission Delegation in Kabul.”

“According to recent UN figures, the EU accounts for one half of all international support for voter registration and for over 40% of all funds for the organisation of the elections themselves.As with all its support for reconstruction and stabilisation of Afghanistan, this initiative is being closely co-ordinated with the Afghan authorities, EU member states and the
UN.”

"Companies will be able to sue the government if they are suffering financially from unfairly 'gold plated' European Union legislation, under plans to be announced today by the Conservative party", proclaims The Daily Telegraph, albeit from the relative obscurity of the business pages.

This looks good, until you read further: "The Tories are hoping to capitalise on a sense of injustice among companies that British bureaucrats take relatively simple European Union legislation and make it overly onerous on business", so Stephen O'Brien, shadow industry secretary, "wants to let companies challenge EU regulations in court if they feel they are being unfairly penalised compared with their European rivals".

One example cited is an "abattoir directive", which "emerged from Brussels as a 12-page document. It was cut to just seven pages when adopted by France, but expanded to 96 pages when it became British law".

Er… no. The Directive, 91/497/EC is actually 34 pages long, in very fine type, printed in two columns. This was transposed – by a Conservative government – into the Fresh Meat (Hygiene and Inspection) Regulations 1992. With larger print, single column format and with the addition of contents pages, an enforcement section, repeals, explanatory notes and other necessary additions which were not in the directive, the Regulations came out at 61 pages.

The regulations were, therefore, largely a direct copy-out of the directive. True, there were some additions but most of these these were either explanatory in nature or clarifying the text. By no means could the regulations be regarded as significantly "gold plated".

The problem was in fact that the working directive, 91/497, started its life as Directive 64/433/EC, intended to harmonise hygiene standards for the production of meat exported across national frontiers.

This directive was based on a 19th Century German code. Out of date even before it had been written, it had been challenged – for that very reason - by non-EEC countries, including New Zealand. In response, the Commission, unable of unwilling to re-write the directive, modified the rules informally, codifying them in a new, extra-legal guide called the "Vade Mecum".

In the 1980s, the UK Ministry of Agriculture had imposed the Vade Mecum on export abattoirs, also providing grants worth millions of pounds to enable them to comply with the structural standards.

As the Single Market approached in 1992, however, the rules were included in the list of measures to be applied to even those producers who did not export. Without any "gold plating" at all, the new directive, 91/497, posed enormous difficulties for the hundreds of small and medium-size abattoirs. They were going to have to make the same hugely expensive structural changes which were originally required only of industrial meat plants. But unlike their larger competitors, no financial assistance was available for the 'upgrades.

What made the situation still worse was that as early as May 1990, long before the new directive was actually finalised in July 1991, MAFF veterinary officials began "advising" abattoir owners on the supposed new legal requirements. But the instructions were, in fact, derived from the Vade Mecum. In other words, abattoir owners were being told to comply with law that did not even (then) exist, for want of which the Ministry was applying an extra-legal code.

Bemused owners were then told that unless they complied with these standards by 1 January 1993, the start of the Single Market, they would be prohibited from trading. They were given just seven months to make often major and expensive structural changes – some of which, based as they were in the Vade Mecum, were neither necessary nor legally required - without which they would be refused a licence to operate. Faced with what seemed impossible demands, between 1990 and 1992, 205 businesses - more than a quarter of all the abattoirs in Britain - shut their doors.

Thus, the situation was actually quite complex. It stemmed firstly from a draconian and inappropriate directive, and then the imposition of an extra-legal code, which was treated as if it was law. This is a million miles from O'Brien's simplistic picture of "gold plating", and suggests that, once again, the Conservatives have not done their homework.

Furthermore, doing the homework would not have been very difficult. The background recounted here is actually taken from The Great Deception (pp. 301-302), of which Mr O'Brien – like every other MP in the country – was sent a free copy. All he had to do was read it – or get his researcher to read it for him.

Anyway, the idea of attacking "gold plating" is lame. Compared with the central problem of the sheer volume of EU legislation coming through the system, that problem is small beer – but somehow it is typical of the Tories to mess around the edges instead of confronting the main issues. Once again, they are dodging the E-word.

Nevertheless, The Telegraph, in an editorial in the main paper, seems to approve of O'Brien's initiative. It would "make our civil servants think twice before making the outpourings of the EU even worse than they are already", it opines.

But this comment actually does nothing more than demonstrate the fatuity of O'Brien's initiative. Regulations are made in the name of departmental ministers. They bear the responsibility for them – not the civil servants – and if they decides not to sign them off, they do not go before Parliament and do not become law. All the ministers have to do is ensure that their departments do not "gold plate" – taking outside advice if necessary – and the problem is solved. O'Brien's idea of companies suing is gold-plated nonsense.

The chances are that Barroso is going to regret giving the justice, freedom and security portfolio to Italian Rocco Buttiglione. Immigration, already a highly emotive issue in Italy, has this week soared up the domestic agenda with the head of Italy's coastguard, Admiral Eugenio Sicurezza, effectively accusing Berlusconi of leaving illegal immigrants to die at sea.

Berlusconi has already suffered a number of political storms over immigration, not least in June 2003 when a minister in his coalition government, Umberto Bossi, demanded that boats carrying illegal immigrants should be fired upon if they attempted to land in Italy. Quoted in the Corriere della Sera newspaper, Bossi was reported as saying, "After the second or third warning, boom... the cannon roars."

Since then, the Berlusconi government has considerably tightened up its monitoring of landing sites, bringing down the rate of illegal entries into southern Italy by almost half. Migrant-traffickers, however, have responded by ceasing to attempt illegal landings and instead have taken to casting their human cargoes loose in the Mediterranean aboard boats which Admiral Sicurezza describes as "at the limits of seaworthiness".

Earlier this month almost 30 abandoned Africans had died of cold and dehydration before a further 75 barely conscious survivors were saved by a merchant ship. "The fact is," the Admiral says, "that we have to take responsibility for the lives of these poor wretches. Full stop. There is no question that is the way it is. No mariner would ever let people die at sea."

However, there is no indication that Berlusconi’s government, under pressure from its Northern League coalition partners, is ready to relax its hard line. Instead, it is calling for immigration "gateways" to be established outside Europe to help regulate the flow of would-be immigrants. This policy is clearly supported by Buttiglione, who has already called for the setting up of holding centres for would-be immigrants in countries of transit, such as Libya.

But, with the Buttiglione shortly to seek approval of his appointment from the EU parliament, where MEPs may well be appalled by Italy's inhumane treatment of the illegals, we could be seeing Barroso's choice being heavily criticised on the basis that an Italian commissioner is compromised by the actions of his own government.

Diplomats, so the saying used to go, are officials who go abroad and lie for their countries. Since we joined what became the EU, however, the saying has changed slightly. They are now officials who go abroad and lie to their country.

This change illustrates, to an extent, the extraordinary love affair between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, whose officials are the most enthusiastic advocates for the project, and who have been a central part of the deception that has kept the British public in the dark about its destination.

But all that might coming to an end, courtesy of Gordon Brown, who seems to have hit upon the formula for turning FCO officials against the EU.

The opportunity will come when, as from 1 July next year, the UK assumes the six-monthly rotating presidency of the EU. And, as is now well known, running the presidency is extremely expensive – Ahern’s little escapade cost the Irish taxpayers €60.23m, after sponsorship had been taken into account.

But that is not good enough for our Gordon. To help fund the presidency, as well as paying for the G8 summit which the UK is also hosting next July, he is demanding that 80 senior FCO mandarins should be put out to grass. As a result, according to The Times, one FCO official has described morale as "plummeting".

This may be the best news we have heard for a long time – could it even be the end of a love affair?

I suppose one cannot expect too much from a man who proudly proclaims that he is director of Forum Europe and secretary general of Friends of Europe. In other words, he runs not one but two front organizations for the EU and its Commission.

Nevertheless, Giles Merritt's piece in Tuesday’s International Herald Tribune is spectacularly entertaining. He, too, sings the praises of the new Commisison President and his Commission (which Barroso had not chosen, simply allocated jobs to).

Mr Merritt is particularly impressed by the speed with which Barroso had dealt out the portfolios: two weeks ahead of schedule, "something of a first in EU circles, where deadlines are routinely missed". True, but that is hardly a substantive point.

Furthermore, there are no second-class citizens among the Commissioners (only among everyone else, presumably, but what do a few thousand farmers in Eastern Europe matter, anyway). That does not explain the five Vice-Presidents but we must wait and see what will happen about those non-super-commissioners.

Above all, Mr Merritt wants Barroso to make sure that the Commission is not made the whipping boy of European governments. He is rather pained by the fact that in recent years power had seeped back to some extent to the member states’ governments. Of course, those governments had been elected as the Commission had not and still is not, but this detail does not worry Mr Merritt. Nor is he terribly upset by the fact that individual ministers wield power through the Council of Ministers over other member states, whose citizens do not really want them to do so.

Mr Merritt is hopeful:

Perhaps a new chapter is opening in which EU member governments [sic – not states] help raise public understanding of the Union instead of reinforcing national suspicions by systematically putting the blame on the EU.

I suppose I ought to apologize for yet another bad pun but they are almost irresistible. This particular dud Czech is Pavel Pribyl, recently appointed government office head by the new Prime Minister, Stanislav Gross.

Unfortunately, Mr Pribyl has a past. Not to put too fine a point on it, he commanded riot police detachments during 1968 and 1969. He stands accused of breaking up student demonstrations in 1969, on the anniversary of the Prague Spring and its suppression, with water canons and truncheons.

The Prime Minister said that this little peccadillo does not mean Mr Pribyl has to step down. His spokesperson, Vera Duskova, has announced that the Interior Ministry records will be opened up to determine Pavel Pribyl’s exact role.

Mr Pribyl himself does not exactly deny the charges. He merely points out in an interview that he was standing 15 metres behind his men and, anyway, he was ordered to do what he did, which was most definitely not anything like truncheon-wielding but, just in case, he is truly sorry now, as he sees that it was the wrong thing to do.

The question is, will the EU do anything about this. Will it simply say that this is internal Czech matter? Perhaps, and as it happens, this is internal Czech matter, though other countries ought to take note of it. But the Stockholm criteria did clearly state that the incoming East European countries ought not to have past thugs in positions of authority. Also, do I not recall all the EU ministers and politicians getting the vapours because Austrians dared to vote for a rather silly right-wing demagogue’s party as a protest against the rather corrupt permanent division of power between the Christian Democrats and the Socialists?

Are we to understand that Communist thugs are somehow acceptable while silly right-wing demagoguges are not?

So, according to The Times, the French are mourning their loss of power in the commission. Actually, it is the French socialist party that is making the running on this, with Francois Loncle, a socialist MP complaining that "France is being wiped out in Europe's institutions" – all because Chirac's mate, Jacques Barrot "only" got the "relatively minor" transport portfolio in the commission.

But then the socialists would complain wouldn't they… anything to have a go at Chirac and to cover up their own lacklustre performance as an opposition party. The only odd thing is that the centre-right Le Figaro, an ally of Chirac, seems to be going along with the fiction – but then it is the silly season.

And fiction it is. Transport is by no means a minor portfolio, relatively or otherwise. For a start, the transport commission is in charge of much of the implementation of the Trans European Network, Delors' dream which committed member states and the EU to expenditure of over 400 billion euros over term, making it the biggest public works project in history, outstripping both the Marshall Plan and the "New Deal" in breadth and cost.

This project alone gives Barrot enormous scope for patronage, and access to huge funds, as he is able to dip into the EU's own structural funds and the massive lending power of the European Investment Bank. Not least he can ensure that a sizeable portion of the funds disbursed reach French firms, or consortia with which they are allied, giving aid and comfort to his country's ailing economy.

DG Transport is also in charge of the EU's aviation policy, which means it has the ultimate say over the allocation of lucrative landing slots in the major airports in Europe, with further scope for patronage and horse-trading. And, as head of the DG, Barrot is well-placed to protect his ailing flag carrier, Air France. Then there is shipping, and the commercial port system, in which France has vital national interests.

If that was not enough, the DG is also in charge of the EU's space programme, and is the commissioning authority for the Galileo satellite positioning and navigation system. France has a huge financial interest in these areas, accounting for up to 60 percent of all expenditure on the European space programme, and is anxious to expand EU funding of the sector (see previous Blog). With Barrot in place, the French space industry is ideally placed to ensure that it continues to benefit disproportionately from the generous funds available.

All in all, therefore, DG Transport is a dream portfolio for the French. Compared with the supposedly more prestigious trade portfolio given to Mandelson, there is no contest. In trade, Mandleson has very little control over EU funds, has next to no scope for patronage and is firmly under the thumb of the Council, with the French watching his every move.

Then, in the broader context, the commission acts on a collegiate basis, with every major legislative proposal and policy initiative discussed by the full commission, in the manner of the government Cabinet – which in a very real sense it is. At the meetings, usually held weekly, Barrot can fight his corner, looking after the French interests across the whole range of commission activities.

Thus, to suggest that France is in any way suffering from a loss of influence in Brussels, merely on the grounds that Barrot has been awarded DG Transport, is to underestimate the importance of the portfolio to France, and to misunderstand the way the commission works. The glee with which The Times apparently recounts the story reflects nothing more than wishful thinking. France has done very well indeed, thank you very much and is very much up there, in the running.

"Bush seeks leaner, meaner US force", proclaims the Indianapolis Star, one of many newspapers to report on Bush's plans to return up to 70,000 soldiers to the US. But nowhere in the acres of coverage have I seen any real understanding of the underlying principles on which this redeployment is based.

Perhaps the closest is our own Times which, in its editorial, "On manoeuvres", makes some interesting points.

In particular, it homes in on the "revolutionary impact" of new technologies on force projection, which is argues has rendered America's fixed overseas configurations "increasingly anachronistic".

Rightly, it then identifies America's repositioning of its forces as "part of the much deeper transformation on which Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, has been insisting", relying on smaller, highly mobile, and relatively lightly armoured forces instead of the massive divisions of yore.

It agrees that there is a "strong case for maximising technological advantage - in communication, command and control, firepower and force projection - by improving military response times and cost-effectiveness” and notes that, "in preparation for these realignments, the US has invested massively - Europeans, please note - in strategic airlift".

These changes will enable the US to replace fixed bases with transport hubs and small "forward operating" bases, through which forces can pass to combat zones. "Bringing troops home may cut maintenance and could, by simplifying family life, improve military morale and troop retention", the Times writes, "but these are ancillary benefits. The key gain is intended to be greater mobility. The watchwords are 'agile' and 'flexible'."

Without saying so in exact words, what the Times is describing is the US Future Combat System (FCS). But the technology involved is not so much rendering America's fixed overseas configurations "increasingly anachronistic", as the Times would have it, as making it unnecessary. It is also set to revolutionise not only the mechanics but the politics of warfare, the latter having profound implications for the UK, the EU and world stability. But, in order to understand the political implications, it is also necessary to get to grips with the technology of FCS – or at least the principles behind it.

As regular readers of this Blog will already know, the heart of FCS is a family of medium-weight, air-transportable armoured vehicles – but vehicles with a difference. As a formation, they will be equipped with the most advanced electronics and weapons that $92 billion can buy, and each unit will be part of a network that can collect information and share it virtually instantaneously, in constant communication and wholly integrated with the other components of the war machine, including navigation and communication satellites, unmanned spy-planes and even autonomous, land-based spy robots.

Quite how revolutionary this system will be is hard to imagine when, at the moment, it only exists on paper. But for the determination of the Americans to make it happen, much of it would remain firmly in the realms of science fiction.

Also revolutionary is the principle on which the system is based. In any modern warfare, the core of force projection is the tank, the design of which reflects a compromise between three elements: armoured protection, speed and mobility, and firepower. Obviously, the heavier the armour, the better the protection, but there is a limit to what can be achieved without sacrificing mobility and firepower. Equally, firepower can be increased, but at the cost of the other two elements, and likewise speed and mobility.

With FCS, however, all this changes: the heavy armour is dispensed with, along with the heavy weaponry. Instead, the vehicles are optimised for speed and mobility. The protection is no longer needed because, with its array of sensors and integrated intelligence systems, a formation can detect the enemy long before it closes to lethal range. With its communications equipment, and the electronically integrated intelligence, it possesses "exceptional situational awareness" and can command vast firepower from fleets of aircraft and stand-off missiles. It can even call on long range artillery which can deploy "smart" munitions which, once fired, can loiter over the battlefield until it detects a worthwhile target and home in on it.

Thus, enemy forces are detected and destroyed long before they become a threat, which leaves the FCS force merely to occupy territory, take possession and mop up.

So much for battlefield operations, but there is more. The "force projection" of this system is so great that much smaller formations can be deployed, to the same or greater effect as the larger, traditional units. Instead of the division – of between 10-15,000 men (and women) – the workhorse of this new army becomes the brigade, numbering as few as 2-3000 personnel, with 900 vehicles. Fewer vehicles, fewer personnel and – with "smart" munitions and force projection – reduced ammunition expenditure, drastically reduces the logistics train and makes the force that much more manageable. Such is the attention to detail that emphasis is even being put on fuel economy, to reduce still further the support requirements.

All of this means that for the first time in history, a fully-equipped, autonomous military force, is truly air-portable. There is no need for shipping or overseas bases – other than for advanced logistics detachments. The whole force can be kept in the US and deployed when and where necessary, using the fleet of 120 superb C-17s. Each of these giant transport aircraft can carry up to three FCS vehicles and their complements of troops, with a global reach. Not for nothing are they called Globemasters.

That is the point. It is no longer necessary for the US to station sizeable formations of troops abroad, in order to project its power. Within days of a decision, one or more of FCS brigade can be anywhere in the world, ready to fight.

But there is another point – and perhaps the more important one for the UK and its relationship with the EU. With his army safely tucked up at home, no longer is a US President committed to intervene just because his troops are in-theatre at the time of an incident. Each and every decision to deploy troops is a new decision, carried out in the full glare of domestic opinion and under the scrutiny of Congress. Therefore, while the physical ability to deploy troops might be easier, politically it might become more difficult.

That is the one to watch. If the EU insists on competing with the US, or frustrating its strategic objectives – and the UK is pulled along in its wake – when our interests are threatened and we need real help of the sort our European "partners" are unable to provide, a future president may decide that, having brought the troops home, they might as well stay there.

The Future Combat System, therefore, presents the UK with an interesting - and potentialy dangerous - situation.

On the one hand, we can take comfort from the fact that, even though most US troops will be stationed in their home bases, their global reach and speed of reaction means that they can still intervene rapidly and effectively anywhere in the world. On the other, if we continue down the line of political integration with the EU – and support its nascent anti-Americanism – we might find that our current ally has become a "former ally", asking itself why it should want to help out.

Following in the wake of the announcement by Bush that he intends to implement the long-expected pull-out of US troops from Europe and Asia, the Telegraph today reports RAF concerns about the withdrawal of 48 of the 72 F15s US fighter aircraft from Lakenheath in Suffolk.

Withdrawal of this force will represent the depletion of Britain's air defence capability by twenty percent and, it seems, "military chiefs" are concerned that the "restructuring" will leave Britain's air defences vulnerable at a time when the country is axing a fifth of its own fighter force and all its Jaguar ground-attack aircraft.

But what is extraordinary about this report is a comment by an unnamed senior RAF officer who levies the charge at US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld and his policy people, that they "do not seem to care much about allies - just protecting their own".

Excuse me? Under the aegis of Gordon Brown, Hoon has announced savage cuts in the air defence capability of the UK, he is funding the Eurofighter as a competitor to US aircraft, which he hopes to sell to export customers in preference to US models, and all the time is promoting the "European Defence Identity" as a means of building the EU into a "superpower" to counter US influence.

And then this jumped-up little Brylcream boy has the sheer bloody nerve to expect American taxpayers to expend their hard-earned tax dollars on a fleet of modern, extremely expensive fighter aircraft to defend Britain, so that Blair can strut his stuff on the world stage without having to foot the full bill for the defence of his country.

Get real. We should count ourselves fortunate that the US is prepared to leave 24 of their F15s behind.

A small piece in the Telegraph today heralds the soon to arrive European health card – about which we will hear a great deal more in the none too distant future.

The same size as a credit card, it is to replace the familiar E111 form for holiday makers who travel to European countries. It will carry the holder's name, date of birth and an identifying number, and will be valid in all EU member states as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

The idea is a good one, as the card will be valid for five years, instantly recognisable and make the process of obtaining medical services while abroad that much easier.

But there is a price. Announcing its introduction in Brussels in February last year, implementing a decision of the European Council at Barcelona in March 2002, health commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou drew attention to the "powerful symbolic value" of the card. "After the euro", she said, "the European health card is another piece of Europe in your pocket".

This was repeated by Prodi and Ahern in March of this year, with Ahern crowing: "The Health Insurance Card is a very tangible manifestation of an initiative by the European Union which would have real, practical benefits for its citizens".

Needless to say, the card will have "a distinctive European symbol" on it – i.e., the ring of stars and that, together with the triumphal crowing of its progenitors, betrays the real agenda. Once more, a worthwhile example of co-operation between European states has been hijacked by the European Union, in pursuit of building a "European identity", as a stepping stone towards political integration.

That objective was actually flagged up in 1985, in the Adonnino Report (A People's Europe - 6/1985 Bulletin of the European Communities, Suppl. 7/85) as one of the ways of making Europe "meaningful to its citizens", thus making "a substantial contribution to the realisation of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe". The EU, in promoting its version of the health card is cynically exploiting the needs of travellers for its own ends.

In the forthcoming debate on the constitutional referendum, this card will undoubtedly be claimed by the likes of MacShame and others as an example of the benefits of our membership of the European Union. It is no such thing – neither Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway nor Switzerland are members of the EU, yet they are participating in the scheme. It is a good example of intergovernmental co-operation that could have happened without the EU, and is not dependent on it.

By hijacking the idea, the EU is simply bringing co-operation between nations into disrepute, not least – in that it was first proposed in 1985 – because it will have taken the EU 20 years to gets this particular piece of "Europe" into our pockets. Possibly, without the EU, we could have had it earlier.

There is a great deal of rejoicing still in the world’s media about the new Commission that, allegedly will show the wonderful new influence the new member states will have on the EU. (Please note the number of times I have used the word “new” there.) One rather fears that these people who “now ring bells” have not quite grasped the fact that the EU is a process as well as a structure. Therefore, individual Commissioners, entertaining though some of them might be, will not matter as much as all that.

Neither will the new European Parliament, incidentally, as it will be working on business left over from the previous one or the one before that. Elections and changes in members matter little to the EP as the European Union aims at a managerial style of governance rather than a political one.

It is, however, a delight to see that certain Commissioners are beginning to face, how shall I put it, personal difficulties already. First off the mark is the highly rated Danish Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, who has been put in charge of agriculture. It seems that the lady owns a 204 hectare farms and receives something in the regions of 60,000 euros a year under the CAP regime. Probably peanuts compared to some of the pay-outs but one feels that her own decisions might be influenced by this factor.

Apparently not. It is her husband who owns and runs the farm and receives the subsidy. Clearly these facts do not affect her at all. She floats, free as a bird, unencumbered by the knowledge that a large chunk of the family’s income depends on the somewhat iniquitous system she will be administering.

She was Agriculture Minister in Denmark but that is not the point. As long as she declared her interests (and she did, didn’t she) there is nothing to prevent the owner of a farm or one who is married to an owner from being a minister in charge of agriculture.

When it comes to being a Commissioner, the situation is slightly different. For one thing the CAP is EU policy and the Commissioner is, nominally at least, in charge of it. The Danish Agriculture Minister is not. For another, the CAP is generally agreed to be an iniquitous system, badly in need of reforming.

Also, there are clear rules. The Treaty of Nice states in Article 213:

"the Members of the Commission may not, during their term of office, engage in any other occupation, whether gainful or not".

In the Observer on Sunday, a brief report recounted that the British government is facing demands from multinational companies totalling up to £20 billion "after the High Court allowed yet another legal challenge to the Inland Revenue's corporation tax rules".

It appears that more than 300 companies including BMW, Coca-Cola and Adidas have now filed legal actions in London, claiming that the government has taxed them on their UK earnings in ways that break European law. Siemens, Monsanto, AstraZeneca and Carlsberg are also among the corporate giants who are taking on the Inland Revenue.

The multinationals complain that, for much of the Nineties, their UK subsidiaries were forced to pay corporation tax to the Inland Revenue before they were able to transfer their UK profits to parent companies abroad.

The Observer is very thin on details but reports that basis of this case lies in a judgment made by the European Court of Justice in 2000, stating that "this rule broke EU agreements and discriminated against non-UK corporations".

From what detail is given, however, this seems to be a carry-over from ICI v Colman (Case C-264/96), where the ECJ ruled that tax relief for losses incurred by subsidiaries established in other EU member states could be set against profits from companies registered in the UK, a practice which had been prohibited by UK law. It may also relate to the Hoechst case (Case C-410/98), as this judgment was issued in 2000, concerning the payment of Advance Corporation Tax.

Either way. to get to this point, the ECJ has relied on Article 43 of the Maastricht Treaty, guaranteeing "freedom of establishment" which it has taken as over-riding Article 93 giving member states sole rights over their tax systems on the basis of "financial cohesion" – i.e., the right to implement measures necessary to maintain the coherence of their tax systems.

This is part of the continuing story of the gradual erosion of our tax sovereignty by the EU (see earlier Blog) where, over the years, Article 43 has been used by the ECJ as a Trojan horse to attack national tax laws, a horse which is now galloping to the finishing post. The final showdown is planned in the High Court next year, when the Inland Revenue will be making a last-ditch (and probably fruitless) attempt to stem the tide.

If it fails, judging from the number of companies are claiming more than £50 million each, experts believe that Gordon Brown could ultimately be faced with a bill of up to £20bn. No doubt, as one of Gordon's officials signs the cheques, Denis MacShame will be quick to claim his defeat as yet another benefit of our membership of the EU.

In Germany the debate on whether to have a plebiscite on the EU Constitution continues, with a number of people pointing out that no, as a matter of fact, a referendum is not an impossibility in Germany, though there are all sorts of difficulties in the way.

The political elite continues to assert that the vote in the Bundestag and the Bundesrat will be sufficient to impose the Constitution on the German people. The argument is one we have heard before and has to do with representative democracy and power having to be exercised by the people through their elected representatives. And, as usual, it does raise the question of limitation on those elected representatives' action.

Various political theoreticians have weighed in as well. Andreas Mauer of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs explained solemnly that the Constitution should not be put to the vote because...

it is too long and will relatively quickly represent itself as being in accordance with international law. But it's also a treaty that can be changed at any time. It's not a document that the European Union or its citizens can really call a constitution - at least not one that would be comparable to the Basic Law.

Having been careful in the past not to pronounce on the prospect of Turkey's accession to the EU too loudly – instead trying to rig the constitution to include a reference to Christianity, thus making it impossible for her to join – the Vatican now seems to be breaking cover and voicing direct opposition to Turkey's entry.

The "voice of the Vatican" in this case is the Church's top theologian, German-born Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who told Le Figaro magazine last week that Turkey is "in permanent contrast to Europe". Linking it to Europe would be a mistake. In effect, Europe is Christian, so Turkey does not belong.

This is by no means the first time that the Vatican has pronounced on EU affairs, it having openly supported the recent enlargement and actively encouraged Poland to vote "yes" in its referendum. Furthermore, only a year ago, Pope John Paul II was openly stressing the importance of "the new Europe... to build herself by revitalizing her original Christian roots."

This current intervention by Ratzinger may signal a new assertiveness by the Vatican, determined to shape the post-enlargement EU and equally determined to block Turkey's entry.

What many consider is "interference" by the Holy See in the secular affairs of the EU may, however, backfire. The Protestant North has long since overthrown Vatican authority and is hardly likely to take kindly to any attempts to reassert it.

We have received word that one of our Icelandic readers, Hjörtur J. Guðmundsson, has started his own Blog on EU related news from Iceland. This is a welcome addition to the growing list of EU-related Blogs. It can be found here and we will be putting a link on the sidebar.

The latest post from Hjörtur tells us that Halldór Ásgrímsson, the Icelandic Foreign Minister, has said that it is pointless to discuss whether Iceland should join the European Union while it is the policy of the Union to share territorial waters. He has also said that the deal Norway had with the EU in 1994 would not do for Iceland.

This is an interesting confirmation of what Owen Paterson, Tory shadow fisheries minister, found when he visited Iceland recently (see report). He was told that the only way Iceland could even consider joining the EU was if the CFP was repatriated. Whimsically, Paterson observed that he would do his best to create the conditions which would allow Iceland to join.

In a longish op-ed in the Telegraph today by Toby Helm, there is one thing he has got right: "A mid-August gloom has descended on the Tory camp", he reveals:

Sit down and chat to the more thoughtful MPs or officials these days and they tend to look at you despairingly, as if they would welcome suggestions. They feel confused and, as many freely admit, ideologically at sea. They talk about "seeing it through" to the election. "And then, if we do badly," said one, as if he was about to reveal some masterplan to change everything after a third election loss, "God knows!"

A long-running dispute between the US and EU over airline production subsidies seems about to come to a boil, with Bush threatening to refer the issue to the WTO. Mandelson will be the commissioner responsible for handling the EU end of the case, which will put him in the hot seat perhaps faster than he thought.

At the heart of the dispute is cheap state loans given to Airbus Industries - now the world's biggest civil airline manufacturer (in terms of numbers). The US regards these as "unfair", believing they disadvantages its own aircraft maker, Boeing, which has recently had to shed 40,000 jobs.

So far, an uneasy truce has prevailed, as both sides work to a trans-Atlantic civil aviation accord agreed in 1992. This prohibits production subsidies and limits government loans for developing new models to 33 percent of the total cost.

Boeing charges that Airbus gets the loans at below-market rates - something the EU denies - and notes Airbus has not paid back loans on unprofitable models, thus skewing competition.

However, EU authorities claim that Boeing also gets state aid, benefiting from indirect subsidies through research funds granted for defence projects and work for NASA. Boeing, on the other hand, charges that although Airbus' parent firms, EADS and BAE Systems, do similar work and gain similar benefit.

With no agreement forthcoming, and job cuts becoming an election issue, Bush has therefore instructed his trade representative, Bob Zoellick, formally to notify EU officials at a scheduled September meeting that the Airbus subsidies are unfair. The EU has responded in an entirely predictable manner, with officials saying they are willing to consider "disciplining" government support - but only if the US does the same for Boeing.

In what it likely to be a high profile fight where, probably, neither side has clean hands, Mandelson may be forced to concede cuts in support to Airbus just at a time when the UK general election is due, putting jobs at risk in BAE sytems. We will wait with interest to see how Mandy handles this little local difficulty.

I have already written about the times when sport becomes a substitute for all national pride, achievement and endeavour. First it was football, now it is the Olympic bid for 2012.

We all know that staging the Olympics is a horribly destructive, expensive business and all cities and countries who are unlucky enough to gain that right end up in heavy debt, with large constructions that crumble away unwanted and unneeded. (Reminds you of anything?)

Still, the politicians go on competing for the right to bankrupt their cities and uglify the landscape. Five unfortunate cities are in the running for the ineffable right to stage the 2012 Olympics: New York, Madrid, Moscow, Paris and London. They are all spreading out their wares in Athens. But, here is the catch: according to AOL News,

“London's was the only city whose bid included its country's political leader and the only one to include its mayor.”

Booker is on form today, with his column, mounting a full-frontal attack on John Prescott – one of the most powerful – and most under-rated politicians on the contemporary scene.

From an EU perspective, he raises an interesting and disturbing account about how British Standard structural codes from buildings are being replaced by new, Europe-wide codes, predictably known as "Eurocodes".

The story is well worth reading, not least for Booker's quotation of some of the impenetrable jargon in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s response to the report produced by the Institute of Structural Engineers on the practical implications of the new system.

But there are two issues relating to the imposition of Eurocodes which lack of space prevents Booker rehearsing, and which have far broader implications than the simple fact of the issuance of new standards.

The first of these issues related to the costs. According to the Institute of Structural Engineers, the initial cost to a small-to-medium size practice of £250,000, including £20,000 for new software, £72,500 on familiarising people with the new system and a staggering £128,000 on "loss of productivity during the first year of change".

The "benefit" of that expenditure is that there will be henceforth a standard code throughout the EU, which means it will be easier for practitioners in any one member state to bid for business in any other - and failure to work to local codes cannot be used as a reason for rejecting a bid.

In theory, that is fine – although one suspects that there are many more handicaps which make it difficult to bid for contracts in another member state – but the point is that there are and will continue to be many consultant engineers and building designers who have sound practices in the UK and which have no ambitions whatsoever of bidding for overseas work.

The reality of the situation, therefore, is that these businesses gain no benefit from the Eurocodes and, in fact, are paying to make it easier for overseas competitors to bid against them for work in their own country.

This may in the longer term drive down prices for the consumer – although that is unlikely because the costs of doing business are that much higher – but the way the changes are being introduced means that some service providers who gain no benefit are having to pay in exactly the same way as those who stand to benefit. This is intrinsically unfair

The second of the issues has even broader implications, relating – oddly enough – to our very national identity. Although not something we think of every day, British Standards contribute in a very small way to who we are and our perception of ourselves.

The first standards in fact, were developed in 1901 by the Institutions of Civil Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Naval Architects and the Iron and Steel Institute. These three institutions created a committee, to standardise iron and steel sections for bridges, railways and shipping, amongst other things cutting the production of different tram rails from 75 down to five. This alone saved the industry about £1 million a year.

By 1929, the committee became the British Engineering Standards Association and was granted a Royal Charter, which defined the Association's objectives. A year later the Association became the British Standards Institution (BSI).

Now, more than a 100 years after the British Engineering Standards Association first met, BSI has 5,500 employees world-wide and operates in over 100 countries. There are over 20,000 current British Standards, and the mark is accepted world-wide as a trusted symbol of excellence.

For thirty years, however, the EU, through its Comité Européen de Normalisation (CEN), has been gradually replacing British Standards, and the Eurocode introduction is another step in this direction.

For sure, we will not suddenly become "Europeans" just because we work to CEN rather than British Standards. But another little bit of Britain has become eroded, to add to all the others. We now have metric measurement instead of Imperial, we no longer have the imposing, dark blue passport, but have had to exchange it for the European standard model. Instead of the Crown on the driving license, it now sports the ring of stars, and even the word "water" is prohibited on the ingredients label of a bottle of shampoo – the mandatory word being "aqua".

All these are minor in the grander scheme of things, but these and the many, many other things add up. The question is, how much can we take of this, before our national identity is seriously threatened? And where does it all stop?

… what more can we do?

Continued

Humanitarian catastrophes seem to abound. Today we have Darfur, possibly, Burundi again, other African countries. The question inevitably arises what are we to do about them? Can we really look on people suffering and dying in hundreds of thousands without sending help?

We also have vested interests. The aid industry has become vast. Big charities no longer live off private donations but state subsidies, a.k.a. taxpayers’ money. The British government gives large sums but the European Union gives even larger ones. The new Commissioner, Louis Michel, wants to raise the contributions handed over by member states to the EU for the purposes of foreign aid.

The EU money is administered partly through its own agency, the scandal and corruption-ridden ECHO and partly through funds donated to charities or quangos. The difference between the two in the modern world of the aid industry is minute.

Staff of quangos, charities and direct aid agencies have become important players on the scene. In an unrelated article, Gillian Tett of the Lex column wrote in Saturday’s Financial Times of left-wing professionals who live in Hackney and who include journalists and aid workers. It was a telling comment: aid workers have become professionals. In other words they know nothing about the world except how to work for a large taxpayer-funded quango, charity or aid agency. Their agenda both in theory and in their own practice is likely to be on the side of serious government intervention and as an international or would-be supranational organization like the EU can provide more funds and a greater degree of intervention, so they are likely to welcome its assumption of a leading role in the foreign aid circus. The notion that, as far as possible, countries should try to develop their own economies through a free economic relationship with the rich western nations is not part of that outlook.

It is not part of the EU’s outlook either, partly because it is run by professional officials who are obsessed by managerial rather than political governance and partly because aid rather than trade fits well with the prevailing protectionist point of view. If Louis Michel’s proposals are anything to go by, this outlook is not likely to change with the new Commission either.

So what can be done about an immediate catastrophe, before the world’s, that is the Western world’s attention turns somewhere else? Should anything be done? Natural disasters are relatively easy to deal with - they are caused, more or less, by what insurance companies call acts of God and the immediate needs are obvious: food, clean water, shelter, blankets, medication.

There will always be political problems since even natural disasters like earthquakes tend to hit the less well developed countries with the more corrupt governments harder. Last year’s earthquake in Raz was an unimaginable catastrophe that claimed thousands of lives and destroyed a huge area; a similar or even stronger earthquake that happened almost simultaneously in California caused serious damage that was reasonably quickly dealt with. No lives were lost.

Therefore, even with natural disasters the aid has to be handled carefully, to ensure that what is needed gets to the people who need it. The EU, who uses aid as a political weapon and, in any case, operates through large organizations and, particularly, its own agency (the one Louis Michel will be in charge of), is hardly in a position to do so. The fact that there are no proper reports or accounts of aid provided during natural disasters and those that do exist do not meet the standards set by the Court of Auditors would indicate that even in these cases immediate aid, as it is organized at the moment, does little good and, probably, a great deal of harm.

How much more difficult it is to deal with disasters that are the result of political decisions and actions. There is, in the first place, the problem that the constant foreign aid has, by upholding oppressive and corrupt governments, probably contributed to the immediate disaster that needs immediate aid. Can that immediate aid be provided without helping the guilty government or semi-government, since many of the states in question have not simply failed but disintegrated completely? The UN has dropped food in Darfur. Does anyone know who got those supplies and how they were distributed?

The EU is trying hard to negotiate with the Sudanese government to send aid into Darfur. One has to be very pure and elevated in mind to believe that the Sudanese government is blameless of the disaster area that country has turned into.

Other charities, quangos and aid agencies are standing poised to go in when the government lets them. The money, food and supplies have been collected but those who have contributed rarely get told what happens to it all.

The presence of aid workers in difficult areas like Afghanistan or Iraq has been a mixed blessing, to put it mildly. When they are there they require security, which is often ill spared. If they do not get security, they pull out at the slightest difficulty. (This is not to mention the politicking of many of these organizations, ECHO among them, who are trying to push their own agenda, which just happens to be anti-American, anti-British and anti-liberal.)

If they stay in place, they can do little. All the various aid workers who poured into Kabul have stayed in Kabul. They cannot and dare not move outside. In Kabul they have undermined the local economy. By being able to afford higher rent, they have priced most of the available accommodation out of most Afghans’ reach. By paying higher salaries, they have pulled people out of their proper jobs. Who wants to be a badly paid and ill-equipped doctor in Afghanistan when they can earn three times as much driving an ECHO official or aid worker round and round Kabul?

And so it goes. More and more one has to ask oneself whether the aid industry, so beloved by the European Union and its regulatocracy, really exists to help the people in need? If, as the reality on the ground proves again and again, it is not capable of doing so and, apparently, has no idea how to go about it, what is to be done?

To be continued

"The massacre of our proudest regiments isn't about efficiency ...it's about surrendering our soldiers to fight in a Euro-army"

Col. Tim Collins

In the footsteps of the Washington Post, covering territory The Times fears to go, on the front page of the Mail on Sunday today is the headline "Fury at plan to scrap Guards".

With it comes a story revealing a proposal from General Sir Mike Jackson to merge the five Guards foot regiments into one "large/large regiment", in which the individual identities of these famous regiments would be lost.

But what is especially important about this piece is the comment by Colonel Tim Collins of the Royal Irish Rangers, who shot to fame with his stirring pre-battle speech to his troops on the eve of their entering Iraq. He told the Mail on Sunday that "I'm certain this is politically motivated to make our superb Army more like those in Europe, a precursor to a future European Army".

In a separate "op-ed" piece authored by Col. Collins, he also writes about Hoon’s cuts to the size and capability of the armed forces, to "make it easier for us to deploy rapidly to far-flung places and pay for high-tech weapons programmes".

Without actually saying so, Col. Collins is referring to FRES and Hoon’s ambitions to re-equip and restructure the Army to make it the nucleus of the EU’s rapid reaction force. But the point Collins does make is unarguable:

Of course we should keep pace with weapons technology but over-reliance on high-tech solutions, warfare by computer, is not our way and never has been. The British Army has historically equipped the man, not manned the equipment. Our strength… is in our people.

His sneers are typical of the private language of New Labour, peopled by figures whose backgrounds are more revolutionary than they care to admit. They have not forgotten or abandoned their radical dislike of the way the British state is based on loyalty to the Crown rather than the Labour Party. And they have not given up their desire to integrate this country fully and irreversibly into the European Union, whose very different ways they seem to prefer to ours.

Not long ago on this blog and everywhere else we recalled the great leader of the western world, Ronald Reagan. Today we must pause to remember a man, who is, perhaps, less well known but whose thoughts and writings, whose very existence symbolized all that has ever been finest in the true European culture, which cannot be contained in directives, regulations or, even, the Lisbon agenda.

Yesteday Czeslaw Milosz’s family announced that he died peacefully in Krakow, at the age of 93.

Milosz personified in himself both the glory and tragedy of Europe. He was born in Lithuania in 1911, then a part of Tsarist Russia. His parents were part Polish, part Lithuanian. He was educated in Poland and France, became a journalist and joined the Polish underground after the Nazi German invasion of his country.

Unlike many, he survived and tried to serve the new Poland in its diplomatic corps. Unable to submit to the other great totalitarian system, he left the Polish diplomatic service and remained in the West for thirty years, where he taught and wrote, both prose and poetry.

Undoubtedly, his greatest book is The Captive Mind, published in 1953 and one of the finest analyses of the Communist system and what it does to people. Part memoir, part analysis, the book deals not so much with the obvious horrors – the mass murders, the torture chambers, the prisons, the labour camps, the “rehabilitation centres” – but the more subtle oppression. Milosz had witnessed and was anxious to tell the unsuspecting western public about the destruction of the human psyche, the breaking of the spirit, the capturing of the mind. To him the subversion, terrorization and conscription, either willingly or unwillingly, of the intellect was, perhaps, a greater crime than the more obvious gangsterism of Communism.

It is good to know that Czeslaw Milosz went home after thirty years of exile. To many millions the word “home” acquired a mystical and unattainable meaning in the twentieth century. But some managed to go back to it either permanently or just for a while.

The greatness of our history and of our culture can be achieved only if, like Czeslaw Milosz (or like Ronald Reagan, whom we honoured not long ago) we believe in liberty, in the untramelled human spirit.

We are fortunate. For us the fight is not against the terrifying monsters of Nazism and Communism, but the monster, who wants to smother the spirit and capture the mind is there nonetheless, even if he wears the (relatively) friendly face of an EU Commissioner.

It seems that Louis Michel is not the only commissioner-designate to be sounding off – without even waiting for the EU parliament to confirm his appointment.

Also in the megaphone league is Rocco Buttiglione, Italy’s commissioner-designate, who has been handed the justice, freedom and security portfolio. Unabashed by his country’s own inadequacies, not least its overcrowded prisons, he has told Turin's La Stampa newspaper that his first priority is to establish a unit to co-ordinate anti-terrorism policies on the continent and a European border police force to tackle illegal immigration.

In particular, he is "thinking of a more efficient use of European secret services" through this unit. "It could be created under the authority of my commission office. But it would be more appropriate to insert it into the still embryonic structure created for European defence."

Buttiglione also wants a common EU policy on illegal immigration and a "European border police." This is in line with the policy of the so-called Group of Five (comprising Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain – the EU’s five largest member states), which met in Sheffield in July – a meeting hosted by Blunkett - where they decided on a KGB-like force to guard the EU’s external borders.

Not content with his La Stampa interview, however, the garrulous Buttiglione also told La Repubblica that he supported the idea of setting up holding centres for would-be immigrants in countries of transit, such as Libya, where would-be immigrants could be vetted and those who did not have the right to enter Europe could be "discouraged".

He has also decided that he also will give "a general priority" to making "European" justice function with greater speed and certainty, stating that "there is an urgent need to bring both the civil and the penal laws of the various member countries closer."

It seems that we have a worthy successor to Prodi in Buttiglione. Although not president, and from the right of Italian politics, it seems he suffers equally from "foot in mouth" disease and will provide plenty of material for Eurosceptics for years to come.

We ought to have known that Louis Michel would be the first of the new Commissioners (he is not even waiting for the formality of being approved by the European Parliament) to make himself heard. To the delight of various international organizations and quangos he has announced that he will go round all the member states of the EU demanding that the contribution of foreign aid, that is support for corrupt and oppressive governments should be increased.

M Michel has had extensive experience in the former Belgian colonies of Central Africa and has even lectured DR Congo, Rwanda and Burundi on how they should come to an agreement. One obvious solution according to him would be economic integration of the kind Europe tried after the WWII, which has led to the European Union.

One has to say M Michel’s knowledge of European history is not entirely accurate. Perhaps he should read The Great Deception to find out what really happened. Nor does he seem anxious to enumerate the disaster that western interference, particularly on the part of the UN and the EU has led to in those countries.

Rwanda has recently been written about extensively. The combination of UN inefficiency and supineness with French propensity to meddle and use aid to create a “Francophone area” in Africa led to some of the worst mass slaughters in the continent ten years ago.

The war in DR Congo has dragged on for many years with untold suffering and uncounted death toll. The EU’s contribution, apart from periodic sums sent in aid, was a minute military peace keeping force (on what basis exactly?) that stayed in its compound, unable to make any difference one way or another. As I write, news comes through of refugees once again being murdered in Burundi inside a UN camp.

How exactly does Louis Michel think he is going to sort the mess out through more aid and who is the aid going to? And while we are on the subject, Oxfam has supported his statement. Oxfam has been collecting money for all the various emergencies in Central Africa and the Horn of Africa. What we still do not know is how much of that emergency money got through to help the people in need and how many of the supplies are still lying around, waiting for a permission from hostile or dysfunctional governments to be delivered.

While The Times today devoted a full half-page to Mrs Bloom’s refrigerator – thus demonstrating how trivialised a once proud newspaper has become - it took the Washington Post yesterday to raise the alarm about Hoon’s defence cuts and their potential effect on the US.

The article was written by Robert E. Osgood professor and director of the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and entitled Thin Red Line, Getting Thinner, in which the author considers that the current round of UK defence cuts should cause Americans alarm. "The British government", he writes:

…squeezed by the costs of its social welfare state and dominated by a Treasury that has little use for the armed forces, is cutting its military in wartime, and when its armed forces are stretched as never before. It will leave a military more suited for sprints than for distance running; so busy operating that it has neither the time nor the resources to innovate; fielding an army too small to sustain substantial long-term deployments; an air force still inadequate in transport, reconnaissance and ground attack; and a navy that will have two handsome new aircraft carriers but would, in fact, be hard-pressed to hurl the army ashore and then remain off the coast to fight alongside it. Misguided industrial policy and poor choices about force structure have played their part in this sad tale. These are, however, fundamentally the fruits of nearly two decades of steady decline in real British defense spending.

…it has been the extreme desirability of bringing along a coalition, with all of its awkwardness, to a large geopolitical problem. But to have a coalition one needs at least one large partner. The issue is not just capability in some narrow, mathematical sense but the legitimacy and reassurance that comes from knowing a substantial partner is in the fight with us. And the American military has gotten to be so good, so technologically advanced and so tactically adept that only a handful of militaries can operate alongside ours and hope to keep up. Foremost among those who can are the Brits.

Britain is a European power. In NATO it is unique among the militarily serious states. France is hostile to us; Germany is increasingly so, and has debilitated its armed forces by putting them on starvation rations for the past decade. Spain has tilted to France, and Italy, despite pockets of excellence, is an uneven power. The other states are either too small or as yet too poor and inexperienced to provide both muscle and leadership in complex fights.

No matter: They should point out the price paid for such fecklessness in the past. And they might suggest that as the flames of insurgency burn in Iraq, while Taliban guerrillas and warlords fight a new Afghan government, as al Qaeda terrorists plot mayhem in our cities and theirs, when mass murder erupts in Africa and governments teeter in the Middle East, this is not the time to thin the red line to the breaking point.

It was Sir Robert Walpole, the first British Prime Minister who said about the general rejoicing because war against Spain had been declared in 1739, much against his will: "They now ring the bells but they will soon wring their hands."

Sir Robert had to deal with the London mob. What would he have said if he had had the modern media around? Even hardened media watchers on the subject of the EU, such as the editors of this blog, have been taken aback by the completely ridiculous rejoicing at the new appointments by Commission President Barroso. What a heavy-weight team, we are told on all sides. Really? Like who? They will probably get a lot heavier with all the lunching and dining but not intellectually.

A preponderance of liberals, free-marketeers and Atlanticists, we are also told on all sides. This is a team led by a President, who, one and all, think that a competitive economy is something that is established through rules and score cards set up under something called the Lisbon agenda. Their idea of liberalization is taking legislation away from national governments, concentrating it in Brussels and increasing it manifold, then throwing it back to the national legislatures demanding that it should all be put in place, appropriate or otherwise. Not precisely Adam Smith or Frederic Bastiat, is it?

Surely, it is clear that there is something wrong with the whole system, in which 25 people, completely unknown outside their own countries, large or small, can wield that kind of power over an artificially created Union. The Commission is not just the executive body of the EU, it is the sole source of legislation. Those 25 people, chosen all too often, on the principle of buggins' turn, will produce the legislation that cannot be thrown out or even amended by elected representatives. The fact that some of them might be Atlanticists (and what does that mean in practical terms, anyway?) is of very little significance.

Take one example: much as one rejoices to see Peter Mandelson’s career revived and the man himself ensconced in a place where his talents will be appreciated, Brussels, one rather wonders why he should be given the power to negotiate trade deals on behalf of 25 countries (even if he is able to do it with the Council of Ministers watching him like a hawk, as my colleague has written).

What does he know about Greece, Ireland, Finland or Estonia, to name four random countries on whose behalf he will be negotiating? What do they know of him? Did they elect him or want him? No, of course not. Besides, what will he be negotiating? The WTO deal was stitched up again and Tony Blair's friend will not be able to show his so-called free-trade credentials. (Incidentally, this is the first anyone has heard that he is a free-trader.)

Before anyone pulls me up on sarcasm, let me assure our readers that I am rather glad to see Mandy back. I like clever rogues and this particular rogue reminds one irresistibly of those charming, amoral chaps in nineteenth century French novels. How the descendant of the jovial but ponderous Herbert Morrison could have become a low level Rastignac or Georges Dandin is a mystery, but genes work in a funny way.

Then there is the question of the by-passed French and Germans. They do not think so and rightly. Verheugen's new job – one that he apparently did not really want on the flimsy ground that he has had no experience in economic matters – is one of the most important ones. Enterprise and industry are at the heart of the "project" and Germany, too. The twain have not been functioning well together for a while. We shall have to see whether Verheugen will do his best to spread the German disease even further. Should the Constitution ever be adopted, economic policy, let us remember will become Community competence.

And that's another thing. When asked why Mandelson, the British Commissioner, was not made a Vice-President as well as the French, German, Swedish and Estonian ones, Barroso explained that the fifth position was reserved for Solana, who will be Foreign Minister when the Constitution is adopted. Not if, but when. Even the Daily Telegraph let that one pass.

France has not done badly, either. Jacques Barrot's portfolio is not unimportant. Transport covers enormous aspects of inter-state organization and great possibilities for French subsidy of national treasures such as Air France.

Then there is Louis Michel with the Humanitarian Aid portfolio. As we have tried to make clear and will go on doing so, aid for the EU is part of its endless, dangerous and senseless struggle with the United States for influence. Louis Michel was the man who announced two days after the terrorist attack on the US, while other European politicians were still strutting round with NATO's importance, that the war against terror was not Europe’s war. Is M. Michel likely to look at the whole question of aid as anything but a weapon against the "nasty" Americans? Is he likely to stop using the unfortunate people of the Third World as pawns in his tireless struggle against the US?

Above all, the idea that a different selection of Eurocrats is going to solve the problem of sclerosis that Europe is now facing, is laughable. That supposes that somehow there can be a pan-European solution to difficult problems. There are no pan-European problems and, therefore, there can be no pan-European solutions. The task of this Commission, as of every previous one, will be simple: go on creating pan-European problems.

Still, not all is lost. The thought of Margot Wallström as the propagandist-in-chief for the European Union has made me feel for the first time that we have a very good chance of winning at least the important battle of the Constitution

Not yet four months have elapsed since Poland joined the EU and already – as widely predicted – its farmers are in trouble. "Old Europe" producers, subsidised to the hilt – while Polish farmers receive only 55 percent of CAP subsidies – have driven down the prices of soft fruits, grain and rape seed, which are now below production costs.

This has already caused local food shortages in the shops (see earlier report) and is now causing huge frustration in the countryside. There have been several protests, including road blocks around Warsaw, with farmers demanding higher prices for their crops.

As 91 percent of Poland's five million farmers earn only around £100 per month, the EU-funded offer of a pension of £200 per month for those who leave the land is looking extremely attractive.

This, however, applies only to farmers of 55 years of age and over, leaving younger farmers, and especially those with families, increasingly desperate. Few believe prices will get better in the near future, suggesting that the situation will get increasingly volatile.

Hot on the news that the Italian commissioner, Rocco Buttiglione, has been given the justice, freedom and security portfolio by presidente Senor Jose Manuel Durao Barroso (click here), the Italian news agency AGI reports that "there are 49,529 women and men in prison who are living in conditions that are against regulations in Italy".

This is the allegation of the Italian Radical party, which is claiming gross overcrowding in Italian jails. On 56,440 people kept in prison on June 30, 49,529 people – or 87.76 percent – were kept in prisons which are exceeding the regulation capacity set by the Minister of Justice, making conditions "technically illegal". Overcrowding sometimes exceeds 200 percent.

Furthermore, compared with the rest of the EU community, just Greece and Hungary are worse than Italy. But then, neither Greece nore Hungary have just taken on the justice, freedom and security portfolio.

Talking of a sense of humour (see previous post), the taxpayer certainly needs one before reading about the latest development in the Eurofighter saga: according to The Daily Telegraph, attempts by the MoD to save £90 million on the £105 billion project by dispensing with the aircraft’s cannon have spectacularly backfired.

Stripping out the weapon altered the aircraft’s aerodynamics so greatly that the only way to restore handling was to have something that not only weighed the same as the gun but was also shaped exactly the same.

"To make matters worse", the Telegraph reports, "each individual part of the makeweight's shape also had to weigh exactly the same as the real thing. In short, the cheapest option was to fit the cannon. So all 232 of the RAF's Eurofighter/Typhoon aircraft will be fitted with the gun at a cost of £90 million - but in order to save what is now a mere £2.5 million they will have no rounds to fire".

Actually, it is not a sense of humour we need, but a sense of outrage. £90 million spent on a gun that doesn’t work: that’s £90,000,000 – more than I will earn in a hundred lifetimes, the cost of building and running a modern district general hospital; more than the cost of a new Royal Yacht, etc., etc. But then what is a mere £90 million between friends, when the whole £105,000,000,000 spent on Heseltine’s folly is a waste of money.

Yet, in the Telegraph, Air Commodore Andrew Lambert - one of the RAF's leading air power strategists and a former commander of a fighter squadron – dismisses the idea of a fighter armed only with missiles as "old thinking".

He is quoted as saying that "when you are dealing with terrorists and other unpredictable situations you want all the flexibility you can get and a gun gives you a lot of utility... You could also use it for strafing targets like pick-up trucks in the desert."

But that is dangerous thinking. With a single aircraft worth £60 million plus, the last thing you can afford to do is risk using it on a target that might only be worth a few hundred pounds, especially when dealing with it puts you in range of ground fire. The risk/benefit ratio if all wrong, and no commander can risk that amount of hardware for such a target.

Yet the latest saga demonstrates quite how fatuous this whole European project really is. What the RAF desperately needs is some cheap and cheerful ground attack aircraft that can take out "pick-up trucks in the desert" – something like the Jaguar, that Hoon is scrapping to pay for er… the Eurofighter.

So, once again (see previous blog), we see in this accursed aeroplane, a paradigm for the whole EU experiment: we pay a fortune for something we don’t want, that we don’t need, and doesn’t work anyway. And even if it did work, we couldn’t afford to use it but, because we are paying so much for it, we can’t afford the things we really need.

Have I just made the case for opposing the constitution?

The best thing one can say about Senor Jose Manuel Durao Barroso's new commission is that it proves our new president has a sense of humour.

What else could explain his decision to put a Greek in charge of the environment, a Dane in charge of rural development (anybody looked at the Danish rural scene?) and a Maltese, Joe Borg, in charge of fishing? At least, as Star Trek fans will confirm, he has the right name for a commissioner.

Then, to put the humourless, tight-lipped zealot Margot Wallström in charge of communications strategy, to say nothing of appointing Luxemburgois, Viviane Reding, to "Information society and media", has to be a major work of comedy. One cannot wait to hear the dulcet tones of this duo on the Today programme, extolling the virtues of the European Union. With those two on board, how could we not love "mother Europe"?

But Barroso's comic talents clearly do not stop there. To give an Italian, Rocco Buttiglione, the justice, freedom and security portfolio is also a major work of comedy and, given Germany’s recent record for (non) industry, its growing unemployment, sclerotic economy and persistent inability to reform, putting German, Guenter Verheugen, in charge of industry and enterprise has a touch a comic genius about it.

And of all the countries with probably the worst colonial record (not least the Congo), and which cannot even keep its own pitiful country together, what better choice could there be than to give development and humanitarian aid to a Belgian, in the form of Louis Michel.

France, may of course, have a reputation for having good public transport – when the services are not on strike, that is – but only at the costs of huge and totally unsustainable subsidies, which seems to make the Frenchman, Jacques Barrot, the least suitable candidate for running the EU transport policy, which is undoubtedly why Barroso must have chosen him.

Even then, however, Barroso's comic skills are far from exhausted. To put Siim Kallas - a totally inexperienced Estonian – from one of the smallest and weakest countries in the enlarged EU, with bugger-all political clout, into the hottest seat in the commission - administrative affairs, audit and anti-fraud - has to be a joke of immense proportions.

It must have been the same comic strain that moved Barroso to put Ingrida Udre, from Latvia, in charge of taxation and customs union. Yet another player from a dwarf country, she is supposed to stand up to the might of Germany which is the player pushing hardest for tax "harmonisation" – this being code for the accession countries putting up their corporation taxes to stop them being too competitive with er… Germany.

And to complete the comedy trio, asking Dalia Grybauskaite, a Lithuanian, to take charge of financial programming and budget is rather like wanting a two-year-old to run the family finances. Nice to have a fresh face, but a tad short on competence.

Giving corporatist Neelie "nickel" Kroes, queen of the boards, the competition portfolio is also a huge joke. A Dutch person she may be, but her insider view of, and clear love for multi-national corporations makes her about as well equipped to deal with competition as the Borgia family would have been to run a geriatric unit.

Economic and monetary affairs in the hands of the Spanish, I suppose, is better than them having fish, but giving regional policy to Danuta Huebner, the Pole, might be like putting Billy Bunter in charge of the tuck shop. God knows what Slovenia can bring to science and research, in the shape of Janez Potocnik, but Jan Figel in charge of education, training, culture and multilinguism is perhaps better than putting a British commissioner in charge.

But a Cypriot taking care of health and consumer protection just has to be a joke… although not as good a joke as Byrne, the Irishman whom Markos Kyprianou replaces. Then, having Finn Olli Rehn "doing" enlargement is going to be great fun. At least it will tax the skills of the interpreters as they have to find someone who can convert Finnish into Romanian and Turkish, and vice versa. Perhaps the joke is on the translation services.

Charlie McCreevy of Ireland should also be a hoot doing the "internal market and services" – we look to the spread of Irish theme pubs throughout Europe - and Laszlo Kovacs from landlocked Hungary can enjoy all his trips to learn about North Sea oil, as he gets to grips with the EU's energy policy.

One is not too sure what to make of Benita Ferrero-Waldner from Austria being in charge of external relations and the European neighbourhood policy, except perhaps to say that at least Austria has had plenty of external relations in the past, and is not short of neighbours. Equally, it will be fun watching Vladimir Spidla from the Czech Republic tell France and German how to deal with (un)employment, social affairs and equal opportunities.

Just, when you thought that the joke could not last, though, along comes Peter Mandelson, doing trade. This is going to be hilarious. The one exception to the rule – in terms of the dominance of the commission over the council - is trade, where the council, and especially France, rules the roost.

As we saw with the recent Doha Round WTO talks in Geneva, Lamy was kept on such a tight leash that he was effectively emasculated. Now Mandelson, the great Europhile, is going to have his faith sorely taxed as he gets the "full frontal" treatment from the French and learns what the EU is really all about.

To watch our Mandy wriggle and squirm, explaining how the latest stitch-up of trade policy by the French really, truly, sincerely, does actually benefit Britain – to say nothing of world trade – is going to be the best comedy spot in town.

For all that, though, the biggest joke is probably on Barroso himself. Here is a man, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, who thinks he's in charge. But it is the grey little functionnaires behind the scenes who really run the show. In many cases, the commissioners are just the front men, delivering their pre-prepared speeches and swanning about in their chauffeur-driven limousines. As he finds that he has all the levers of power, but they are not connected to anything, Barroso is going to need his sense of humour.

They have shared out the portfolios in Brussels. The smart money was right and Mandelson got trade. Verheugen becomes, as predicted, Enterprise and Industry supremo as well as a Vice-President of Commission.

In fact, there will now be five Vice-Presidents (why not all of them?). Margot Wallström of Sweden leaves Environment where she managed to do a great deal of harm to take up a curious portfolio that involves relationship with other EU institutions and communication with the public, in order to improve the Commission’s poor image and overcome what is now generally described as “euro-apathy”. Once it has a name it becomes an institution. She, too, is now a Vice-President.

The Finn Olli Rehn will be Verheugen’s successor as Enlargement Commissioner and will, thus, be in charge of the rather difficult negotiations with Turkey. Neelie Kroes, the former Transport Minister of the Netherlands takes over the Competition portfolio and Denmark’s Marian Fischer Boel, as predicted, is put in charge of the huge Agriculture budget.

Danuta Hübner of Poland takes over Regions, another big-spending department, and Joaquin Almunia is left with the poisoned chalice of Economics and Monetary Affairs. Jacques Barrot with Transport and Energy becomes another Vice-President. Our readers can see the full line-up if they click here.

Barroso announced that he wants to put the “commission in the driving seat of Europe, a Europe that really benefits our citizens”. Well, that’s good to know. Whether the citizens will feel the same way is not entirely clear. After all, Barroso also thought that he was extremely lucky in having a first-class collection of Commissioners. But what makes one feel particularly doubtful is Barroso’s now routine statement about reinvigorating the Lisbon process, “which aims to make Europe the world's most competitive economy (by 2010)”. Despite his free-market credentials, he still has not learnt that a competitive economy is not created by processes decreed and supervised by officials.

They have started the sharing out of portfolios in the new European Commission, though formal announcements will not be made till next week. It seems that Günter Verheugen, the present Enlargement Commissioner, will not get trade, which, smart money says, will go to Mandelson. (Smart money has been wrong before.) Nor will he be made an über-Commissioner, responsible for the economy.

Instead, Herr Verheugen will probably be given the Industry portfolio, presumably in recognition of Germany’s specatacularly successful industrial policy. With it will go the position of Vice-President.

Other speculations are giving Transport and Energy to Jacques Barrot, the French Commissioner and Agriculture to Marian Fischer Boel, the Danish one. Really, Agriculture ought to go to the Polish Danuta Hübner. That would, at least, make for an interesting five years.

The notion of a French Commissioner being in charge of energy, given France’s singular reluctance to open up its energy market may be risible. But think of Barroso’s dilemma. He has to parcel out the jobs and the Commissioners from the big countries have to have important portfolios. There are very few of those that the big countries have not made a complete mess of in the last few years.

An on-line offering by the Guardian today – courtesy of the Press Association recounts how the Belgian beam trawler MV Esperanza has delivered Greenpeace “a huge pile of dead and dying fish and crustaceans” to demonstrate its anger at the EU's "wasteful" common fisheries policy.

This was the by-catch from a two-hour trawl on the Dogger Bank, and comprised 11,000 dead or dying marine species. It included a variety of flatfish, small cod, mackerel, sole, Norway lobster, edible crab and starfish.

The catch represented a fraction of the estimated 720,000 tons of discarded fish returned annually to the North Sea, including some 12 percent (or more) of the total cod and 40 percent of the plaice catch by weight had been discarded.

So far so good. Every fisherman and campaigner would agree that discarding is highly wasteful, and experience from the successful fisheries of Norway, Iceland and the Faroes demonstrate that banning this practice is an essential past of good fisheries management.

But Greenpeace does not make this point. It uses the information to claim that "this type of fishing practice" – and then lumps beam trawling with otter trawling, which is claims are "particularly prone to picking up unwanted species, because they are inherently indiscriminate".

That, in fact, is not true as a matter of principle. Given good design, these nets can be highly selective – the problem being that the rigidities of the CFP prevent the design and development of more selective gear, and prohibit experimentation to reduce by-catch.

Thus, although much improvement in fish stocks management could be achieved by banning discarding and by introducing different types of selective gear, optimised for each grounds, Greenpeace go for another option – what is calls "a new approach to fisheries management and the protection of the North Sea".

It wants to set up "large-scale marine reserves, essentially the ocean equivalent of national parks", thus effectively banning fishing in certain areas entirely, in order to give fish stocks would have "a chance to recover."

However, while short term closures of spawning grounds are a good idea, and closures of breeding grounds are also helpful – and welcomed by fishermen - what Greenpeace neglects to say is that there are already substantial closed areas in the North Sea – not least the extensive exclusion zones around oil and gas rigs.

These in part may account for the fact that certain species, like haddock, are at a thirty-year high, and that fishermen are taking record catches of large cod, despite scientists' claims that the stock is near exhaustion.

What is needed, therefore, is good management – of which conservation is a part – not conservation per se (i.e., the totally banning of fishing in some areas) which is Greenpeace's agenda. And it is no coincidence that "conservation" of fish stocks is to become an exclusive competence of the Commission under the EU constitution, which makes it suddenly very interested in the issue as it adds to its powers.

Not for the first time, therefore, we see an NGO acting as the vanguard for the commission, jumping on a bandwagon to pursue its agenda. Thus, while we have great concerns about fisheries management and the depredations of the CFP, what Greenpeace is offering is largely disinformation.

Not Sudan this time but OLAF, ECHO and the non-targeted funds supplied to the Palestinian Authority. OLAF, the Commission’s anti-fraud organization, that has been accused of being unable to keep its own house in order, has been investigating the use or misuse of the non-directed funds that the EU hands over to the Palestinian Authority. There have been accusations, based on documents supplied by Israel and authenticated by international experts that some of the money has found itself in terrorists’ hands.

We are not talking peanuts. The EU is the most important donor for the Palestinian Authority. In the past decade, it has transferred about €1.5 billion ($1.9 billion) to the Palestinian Authority. In July the European Commission said that total aid to the Palestinians in 2004 amounted to €250 million.

The European Parliament has managed to avoid coming to any conclusion on this subject and now OLAF has made a preliminary statement, according to which:

"To date, there is no evidence that funds from the non-targeted EU direct budget assistance to the Palestinian Authorities have been used to finance illegal activities, including terrorism."

It seems that the EU will not be able to do anything very much about Italy demanding that BA and other airlines stop undercutting Alitalia , the deeply indebted Italian flag carrier. (Among others it is deeply indebted to the Italian government, that has just granted it an emergency loan of €400 million, which is not likely to help Italy to get away from the persistent deficit.)

Commission officials have explained that Italy may well be entitled to demand that competitors raise their prices under the terms of various bilateral agreements signed under the worldwide Convention of International Civil Aviation of 1944. Apparently, under these agreements air fares should receive approval from the member states concerned and should not undercut the flag carrier. A little out of date in this day of multitudinous airlines, cheap air fares and, above all, the single EU aviation market.

Clearly not. As the destinations involved are outside the EU, the old bilateral treaties will apply. As an analyst with J. P. Morgan put it: “This is a clear case of attempting to close up markets.” Quite so. And, furthermore, it is unlikely to salvage the wretched Alitalia.

Last night, shortly after ten, we made 30,000 hits, exactly 110 days after starting publishing. We appreciate that this is still small beer, especially compared to some of the hugely popular American blogs, which take several thousand hits an hour.

However, what we find particularly encouraging is that, while it took us 86 days to make 20,000, the next ten came after only 24 days, with the hit-rate increasing through the "silly season" despite the paucity of news with many of our readers on holiday.

Yesterday also, Wired Magazine – the authoritative online magazine about the internet – published an article by journalist Dan Gilmour, columnist with the San Jose Mercury News and author of the recently published book "We the media – grassroots journalism by the people for the people", chronicling the social and economic impact of weblogs and other networked phenomena on the business of news.

Called "We're all journalists now", Gilmour's article makes interesting reading, not least because he believes the ability of anyone to be a journalist – and attract and audience – is noteworthy. He also believes that free speech in America has fared "wonderfully well" since the advent of these powerful communication tools.

As yet, Blogs have not really taken off as a political phenomenon on this side of the Atlantic, and we do not have the same potential vast audiences – although we note that we are taking hits from all over Europe, from the US and as far away as Australia.

It was 9/11, however, when it is generally agreed that the Blog came of age in the US. We feel that its day will come with the EU referendum, the first national referendum in which the internet – and weblogs - will be a significant factor in a campaign where good information will be hard to find.

We intend to be up there, in the running, disseminating information of value to campaigners, helping to make our prediction come true. In this endeavour, as always, we thank our growing band of readers and especially those who add value to the site by putting their comments on our Blogs.

As well as sport, scientific research and much else that is included in the EU constitution, one last-minute addition was the inclusion of "space", at the insistence of President Chirac. The role of space in the process of European political integration has been rehearsed in a previous Blog, but there have been further developments which raise disturbing questions about the whole direction of European space policy.

One such development is on the Galileo front, which indicates that the US is not entirely unheeding of the potential threat from this rival global positioning system. According to Aviation Week, the US government is exploiting the fact that US manufacturers supply some of the vital components for the EU satellite system to prohibit the launch of test satellites on Chinese launchers.

The use of these launchers was chosen by the European Space Agency because of delays and problems in the Ariane 5 project, and the urgent need to get a test system up, using the frequencies allocation before February 2006. Unless this deadline is met by the EU, the International Telecommunications Union is free to reallocate the frequencies and, since there are no other suitable frequencies, the Galileo project could stall.

This has led France's Conseil Economique et Social, a government advisory body, to recommend steps to reinforce the European Union's involvement in space matters, and to increase and enhance the contributions of EU nations to the space effort. One recommendation is to name a EU commissioner for space. That move was made possible by insertion of "space" as an EU competence in the EU constitutional treaty.

Since France accounts for 40-45 percent of European space spending, it is unsurprising that Chirac sought its inclusion in the constitution as this is a means by which EU money can be used to support French industries and ambitions.

But the Conseil Economique et Social is going further, urging the merger of France's civil and military space hardware procurement agencies, which would lead eventually to a military dimension creeping into the European space programme. The immediate objective would be to ensure an independent capability to produce strategic space technologies including satellite and rocket gyroscopes, radiation hardened satellite electronic components and rocket fuel, all to prevent the US exercising any leverage over the programme.

The French government also urging its European partners to invest in a space-surveillance system, ostensibly to monitor a forthcoming UN treaty on the non-military use of space which, itself, is blurring the distinction between civilian and military applications. Along the same lines, its government is arguing that "security" and "counter-terrorism" does not breach ESA's prohibition on military involvement, albeit that the technology is identical.

This gives some further insight into the reason why the EU is so insistent on defining Galileo as a civilian project, as its constitution, as currently framed, forbids its involvement in military projects. If it acknowledged the military dimension, it could not participate in this flagship EU venture. Redefinition of "military" as "security" and the development of military-capable technology in support of UN objectives could neatly circumvent this problem.

All this, however, is camouflage. The real driver behind European space policy is the French fear of falling too far behind the US in the development of military-space capabilities. It cannot afford to compete with a programme twenty times larger than its own, so needs European money to stay in the game. "The French have always been concerned about preserving their strategic autonomy", one insider observed.

One of the more objectionable type of headlines one sees – usually in local or regional newspapers – is exemplified by one today in the Scotsman, proclaiming: "Scots projects win £28m in EU funds".

The story relates to an announcement by Lewis Macdonald, the deputy enterprise minister, of awards of "£28 million of European funding to boost skills across Scotland". The headline is immediately objectionable on one central ground: it is not "European funding" but simply the EU returning some of our own money, with considerable strings.

To get that money in the first place, we will have had to pay into the kitty in the first place, and more than we get out. Assuming – and the rate varies year-on-year – we paid in total £9 bn into community finds, we would expect to get back after the rebate something about two-thirds of that. On that basis, simply for Mr Macdonald to be able to announce his £28 million “awards”, we the taxpayers will have paid and "above the line" figure of £42 million into the kitty.

However, that is the "above the line" figure. These are moneys paid out of the European Social Fund (ESF) and, because of the rebate agreement settled by Margaret Thatcher at Fontainebleau in 1984, whenever we draw down fund from the ESF, this affects our rebate calculation through what is called the "claw-back" mechanism – currently 71 percent.

Basically, therefore, for every pound that we draw down, the EU "claws back" 71p from the rebate. Thus, by "giving" the Scots £28 million, the EU is then able to claw back £19.88 million, so in fact the net receipt is only just over £8 million.

It gets worse. This is "Objective 3" funding so, for any scheme to qualify for an "award", match-funding must be found – currently at a minimum of 55 percent. In order to get the £28 million, therefore, an additional £34.22 million must be found.

As most of this comes directly or indirectly from public funds, what we find therefore is that to get what actually amounts to £8.12 million from the EU, the taxpayer must spend £42 million in the first place and then add another £34.22 million in order to qualify for the money. In other words, in round figures, we the taxpayers pay £76 million and we get to see £8 million of our own money given back to us by the EU. Then the Scotsman reports that we are being "given" £28 million of EU funding.

See why the headline is objectionable? And we haven’t even discussed what the money is to be spent on.

Congratulations to the Daily Telegraph for taking Denis MacShane head on, over his slur on Euroscepticism. It its editorial today entitled "Euro-scepticism isn't the same as xenophobia" it deals in a robust way with the issues aired in this Blog click here and here.

Referring to the interview with the Telegraph in which he tried to tax with xenophobia those who query the wisdom of closer integration with the European Union, the editorial states that "it would be easy to dismiss this smear out of hand". However, "there is enough evidence of xenophobic attitudes towards the EU, whether hysteria over the imminent invasion of Poles and Roma after enlargement or in some of the UK Independence Party propaganda, to persuade people that Mr MacShane is right".

Nevertheless, it goes on:

Those so inclined should look at our letter columns this week, where readers have made eloquently clear the distinction between the political goal of extending European authority over this country and hatred of foreigners. The blanket phrase "anti-Europe" used by the minister on the BBC's Today programme yesterday attempts to confuse one with the other.

In the broadcast, Mr MacShane accused "our anti-Europe press" of spreading myths and lies and of demeaning discussion of an important issue. That is an impertinent charge from a government that has sought to brush off the new constitution by likening it to the rules of golf club (Jack Straw, Mr MacShane's boss) or describing it as a tidying-up exercise (Peter Hain, when Downing Street's envoy to the body that drafted the document).

Labour in power has followed its Conservative predecessors in seeking to conceal the true impact of what it has approved in Brussels. As this newspaper has frequently pointed out, the constitution agreed at the June summit and now awaiting ratification is a major step towards deeper integration. It provides for an EU foreign minister, criminal court, prosecutor and police force, removes the national veto in many areas and gives treaty sanction to an outdated, over-regulated economic model.

My apologies for being a little slow off the mark these last few days – I have been affected by horrendous problems with the internet.

Within minutes of signing on, the system dropped out, and reconnecting took hours. Courtesy of the AoL helpdesk, however, we seem to have identified the problem – spyware, interfering with the broadband connection.

Spyware zappers have been downloaded and the system has been cleaned out. So far, the connection is stable and, with luck, normal service can be resumed.

In fact the story of Sudan, its government and the Janjaweed militias is likely to go on and on, together with accusations and counter-accusations as well as wildly varying numbers of victims being flung around. As we, on this blog, think our way round the EU’s pernicious policies towards the Third World, we shall return to it, as well.

For the time being, it has to be mentioned that news comes from Darfur of people being arrested and threatened with torture and murder for speaking to foreign visitors and fact-finding missions.

The government has explained that there had been arrests for security reasons that had nothing to do with speaking to or translating for Secretary of State Colin Powell, or UN General Secretary Kofi Annan. The security dragnet just happened to pull in those people.

One wonders whether the EU report that refused to use the “g” word, and is described as being hastily written by the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (not, to be fair, the most objective of commentators) had in any way been influenced by these developments.

If it weren't so serious, it would be comical. In the run-up to the presidential elections in Afghanistan, with the security situation deteriorating, the European Union, in all its glory is choosing this moment to plant its flag, taking command from Canada of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), set up under the aegis of NATO.

And, for "European Union", in this case, read France. The EU "rapid reaction force" is commanded by Lieutenant General Jean-Louis Py of France, who became commander of the grandiloquently titled "Eurocorps" last September.

In its first deployment outside Europe since it was formed 12 years ago, Py leads soldiers from five nations: Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and Spain. But the total contingent is to number only some 350 troops – equivalent to a reinforced company - as opposed to a "corps" which is usually three divisions.

So short of actual troops and equipment is the European force that NATO commanders are imploring Ottawa to keep its troops in position to beef up the military presence.

With some 7,000 troops, from 34 nations, in theatre, it is the Canadians who have been the backbone of the force, providing the cadre of experienced, well-trained troops and armoured vehicles that give ISAF its teeth. Including support elements in the Persian Gulf, about 2,300 Canadians have been involved in the Afghan peacemaking mission over six months.

The EU involvement, therefore is largely symbolic and the presence of the pitifully small Eurocorps contingent will do little to assist stabilising the increasingly critical situation, as Taliban remnants do their best to wreck the forthcoming elections. Once again, therefore, the EU is playing gesture politics, demanding the glory but not delivering the muscle.

A lot of people might disagree with that statement. The Olympics will be a major national headache and will allow their deficit soar beyond anything imagined in any other country in the eurozone. They are going to have to put up with NATO troops parading around the place, guarding athletes, audience, VIPs, old uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all. It is not quite clear how much of the necessary building work has actually been done. But never mind, the Olympics are “coming home”.

Whether it is entirely accurate to describe modern Greece as being the direct descendant of the ancient Greek city states is a moot point. Let them have their hour of glory.

However, there is a special reason why the Greeks can be said to be having fun. They are banning one sports minister after another from attending the Games. It seems that various countries have decided to reward some of their nastier security apparatchiks and heavies by giving them the sports portfolio. (It used to be youth in the late unlamented Soviet Union. What happened to that idea?)

Under pressure from the EU, the Greek government has banned Yuri Sivakov, Sports Minister of Belarus – he had been named by the Council of Europe as one of the key participants in the disappearance of opposition politicians. Belarus protested, then said that Mr Sivakov was already in Athens, anyway. The story seems to have quietened down, with the Greeks and the EU holding their own for the time being.

Now comes news that Greece has banned Myanmar's Brigadier General Thura Aye Myint and Zimbabwe's Aeneas Chigwedere. As members of Myanmar’s and Zimbabwe’s governments, these two are already banned from entering the European Union, because of the human rights record in their countries. As the Olympic Games are not taking place in France, President Chirac seems to have gone along with the decision.

What with the Bulgarian representative on the Olympic Committee being forced to resign because of accusations of corruption on the BBC’s Panorama programme and drug stories emerging even before the flame reaches Athens, these Games are likely to be quite exciting. The sport might be quite good, too.

The European Union is democratically controlled

Part II – The European Parliament

In Part I, we looked at the UK Representation of the European Commission’s answer to the charge that "Europe is undemocratic and that power lies with unelected, faceless bureaucrats," and dealt with the claim that the Council of Ministers conferred a democratic element to the European Union.

In this second part, we look at the European parliament, the only directly elected institution in the EU, and assess whether it confers any democratic element to the European Union.

All the Commission claims of the parliament is that “direct elections” have “created a body with a clear mandate from the electorate”. “MEPs”, it continues, “are accountable for their work on legislation and in scrutinising the other EU institutions”.

The use of the word “mandate” in this context is interesting. It is generally held to mean the sanction given by electors to members of parliament to deal with a question before the country. In other words, the candidates for the election set out their stalls, the electors look at the rival offerings and choose between them.

In national elections, this choice has some validity because the winning party – or coalitions – go on to form a government, which then (in theory at least) executes the voters’ mandate. But in the European parliament, this cannot happen.

For a start, the election does not produce a government, so the parliament has no power or authority to execute a mandate. It cannot, for instance, decide to repeal any EU laws – it cannot even initiate any laws. Those powers lie elsewhere. Therefore, the candidates – or the parties they represent – cannot produce manifestos in any meaningful sense of the word, as they have no means by which they can deliver on promises made.

Furthermore, in a parliament of 732 members, Britain elects only 78 MEPs, and then from different parties. But even if all were from one party and were clearly set on one course of action, they do not have the numbers to dictate terms. Even as a united bloc, they are swamped by the members from other member states.

Therein lies one of the central defects of the European parliament. The essence of a parliamentary system is that it is the core of a system of representative democracy, where the members go to parliament to represent their electors’ views (and safeguard their interests). But British MEPs cannot represent the interests of their electors – there are not enough of them to do so.

Furthermore – and this strikes at the heart of the concept of a supranational parliament – there is no commonality of interest in the peoples of the member states that would enable discrete blocs to emerge that could be adequately represented by a multi-national coalition of MEPs. In other words, there is no European demos and, without that, there can be no European democracy.

As for being “accountable for their work on legislation and in scrutinising the other EU institutions”, as the UK Representation of the European Commission claims, the suggestion that the EP is “accountable” begs the question of to whom? Without any meaningful manifestos, the electorates have no yardstick (metrestick?) against which to measure the performance of their supposed representatives, so there can be no way of holding representatives to account.

Further, due to the arcane voting system in the parliament, MEP voting performances in the main (plenary) sessions are most often not recorded. By far the bulk of votes are settled by a show of hands, which means there is no record kept of who voted for what. The average voter has no ready means of determining how their MEPs behaved.

But the ultimate indictment of the system is the way that legislation goes rolling on, even when a new parliament is elected. In the UK system, when parliament is prorogued prior to an election, all outstanding legislation – not yet passed – falls. Not so in the EP. Newly elected members can and do find themselves voting on the second or third readings of laws that were introduced to the previous parliament. The names and faces may have changed – the voters may have completely shifted their allegiances – but that makes absolutely no difference to the nature of the progression of legislation through the parliament.

Then there is the scrutiny of “other EU institutions”. In fact, there is no EP scrutiny of the Council, but the only scrutiny worth a light is, in any case, of the Commission. Here, commissioners do put themselves up for questioning by MEPs but, as recalled in an earlier Blog, anyone who has seen this done knows full well what a charade this is.

The strategy is well established and cynically transparent. First you have a sympathetic "chairperson", who is able to make sure the "right" people are picked to ask questions - and also allow for the token antis (just to prove they are "democratic"). Next you pack the committee with patsies who can be relied upon to "soft-ball" the commissioner. Then, you take questions in blocks of five, so the commissioner can "cherry-pick" the bits of the package he/she wants to answer.

You also impose a time limit on the whole session, and let the commissioner waffle on as long as he/she likes, until time runs out without any of the awkward questions from the token antis being answered. And, of course, supplementaries are either not allowed or severely curtailed. As a result of this, the questioning sheds light only on this issues which the commission wants to reveal, and no serious examination every takes place. Sessions end up as an opportunity for commissioners to propagandise or, as the case may be, evade accountability, while giving the appearance to the outsider of being open to scrutiny.

Some apologists for the EU, however, take a different tack when discussing the democratic legitimacy. They point to national parliaments, like Westminster, where most law is passed in the form of regulation, passed automatically through parliament without even a vote; where the government majority can ensure the passage of Bills without being troubled by the opposition.

But there is a difference. Individual MPs do represent their constituents and, if the nation really gets worked up about something, the House collectively can force a change. Even the mighty Thatcher government was forced to look again at the poll tax. Even at a minor level, with technical regulations that are causing problems, chances can be secured by the intervention of an MP, concerned at the loss of votes, or seeing the opportunity to attract some favourable publicity.

That difference tells the whole story. No matter what individual MEPs might think about an existing piece of EU law – and even if all 732 members wanted it changed (which is highly unlikely) – it cannot force a change. The unelected commission has the absolute right of initiative, and can ignore parliament completely.

This makes the parliament a toothless entity but – more to the point – its existence does not confer democracy on an essentially anti-democratic organisation.

Just before Italy closed down for August, political commentators were writing Silvio Berlusconi’s political obituary. As so often in these cases, news of his demise were greatly exaggerated.

True, he had done badly in the various elections (though probably no worse than other European leaders); true, he has had to give in to his coalition partners in one or two issues, notably on the identity of the new Commissioner, but Mario Monti had done two stints already; true there had been gossip when he disappeared for weeks on end to reappear with a different shape to his eyes and when his wife wrote her autobiography (can't wait for Cherie's).

Nevertheless, Berlusconi seems to have weathered it all and gone on holiday with a light heart. He has pulled the coalition together once more and forced several tax and pension reforms through, using the risky method of confidence votes.

He has once again shrugged off criticisms of his business affairs and, presumably, his wife's comments on his inability to grow up. And he has retained his greatest asset: the longest serving Italian prime minister since 1945.

Berlusconi can say and no doubt will say that he has given Italy something it badly lacked: political stability. This is simultaneously and advantage and a disadvantage. By the time the elections come round and if the government does not fall before that, Berlusconi will have done four years and a bit. The Italian electorate may find that rather dull. Questions may also be raised as to what has actually been achieved beyond longevity. Romano Prodi, the contender, will presumably focus on those two points.

In fact, Prodi's greatest argument is going to be Berlusconi's known "gaffes" in foreign affairs. These are not really "gaffes" so much as often comments that other people make in private. His famous description of western culture being superior ot Islamic may well have offended some people but like Kilroy’s similar comment on a lower level, also found some response. His Atlanticism has divided Italian opinion but much will depend on developments in Iraq. In any case, Italian anti-americanism is not of the ferocious French or the niggling British variety.

Berlusconi's unashamed Italian rather than "European" attitude to the world may well resonate in Italy, despite the country's record of slavish acceptance, at least theoretically, of all things "European". The times they are a changin' and the inflation that followed the introduction of the euro, as one of our correspondents has pointed out, has caused a certain amount of discontent.

Not only sport but scientific research. The EU’s Constitution, supposedly a reader-friendly document, whose purpose is to tidy up the previous hundreds of pages and painfully agreed on treaties, is also, as EurActiv points out, providing a “legal basis” for an EU research policy.

Article I-3, which is a bit of a catch-all, states:

The Union shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth, a social market economy, highly competitive and aiming at full employment and social progress, and with a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment. It shall promote scientific and technological advance.

Today's edition of the US online news service, newsmax.com publishes a somewhat alarmist article entitled "China Rapidly Modernizes for War With US".

Arguing that there could be a full-blown war between China and the US as early as 2008, it makes an interesting contrast with the more measured study by the NTI, highlighted in this Blog, but the catalogue of armaments that China is acquiring makes sombre reading - and cannot be dismissed out of hand.

The article also makes it clear just how much EU member states are assisting China in its arm modernisation programme. And, for the first time in a popular US news source, we see an explicit reference to the EU's Galileo satellite positioning system in the context of Chinese military power.

This has been the subject of several Blogs but, apart from the mention in the Booker column, the mainstream media has yet to engage on this subject.

This is one of many issues in which our involvement in an EU project presents a potentially serious threat to US interests, and it is possibly significant that the US media is picking up on this one.

In the UK, however, one gets the impression that the government, aided and abetted by the media, is sleepwalking into a situation that could be highly dangerous. It could find itself on the wrong side of the divide if the balloon goes up and the cold war in the South China Sea suddenly goes hot.

Given the stunning silence on the subject, can we really be sure that our government knows what it is doing?

The European Union has come out on the side of the Sudanese government, the Arab League and the African Union, all well-known supporters of human rights and free speech, and against the United States Congress and, for once, the United Nations.

It is not that the leader of the fact-finding mission in Darfur sent by Javier Solana does not think that there is a problem there. People are being killed in their hundreds, maybe thousands, slowly (Slowly? That sounds extremely nasty.) and villages are being burnt down but – and here is the catch – it is not a genocide. Well goody. That means, presumably, that we can go on sending aid to the Sudanese government and have Sudan on the UN’s Human Rights Commission.

Estimates of those killed in Darfur vary from around 5,000 (Sudanese government estimate) and 30 – 40,000 (all sorts of other organizations). There is no point in coming down on one side or the other, except to point out that the Sudanese government has a track record in mass murder, always maintaining that if anything is going wrong in certain parts of the country, and, as a matter of fact, everybody is exaggerating like mad, it is all the fault of the militias that they cannot control.

That raises one or two questions. For example, do these militias have aeroplanes or do they simply go in on horseback to finish off the business after the villages had been bombed, well, by whom exactly? The Sudanese government has promised on pain of economic sanctions to do more to protect the civilians in Darfur. So far, they have done nothing and there are reports that a number of the “policemen” are simply the old militiamen in uniform.

In the past the problems were in the south and the victims of the non-genocide were African Christians and animists. Now the victims are African Muslims in the west of the country.

The Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has assured all that the government was doing everything it could to protect civilians. In fact, his exact words were that the government was "fulfilling its role completely with regard to the protection of its civilians". Quite a relief really for the civilians. One wonders why they keep running to other countries and into refugee camps.

On the subject of numbers of victims he challenged the international organizations and the American Congress “to bring their names, their families, their tribes, their graves". All in due course, Mr President. In the meantime, he may as well enjoy the fact that the EU is accepting his word on what is and is not happening in Darfur or, indeed, the rest of the country. Anything to oppose the American Congress.

After our sorry little tale about Kenyan vegetable and flower growers being forced out of business by the deluge of red tape emanating from Brussels, now Chinese IT manufacturers are getting a taste of what it is like exporting to the EU.

According to the China Business Times, the EU has recently issued rules which will ban the imports of certain electronic and IT products from 1 July 2006 and which will drive hundreds of Chinese firms out of the European market,

The new rules reflect the obsession of the EU with product safety, and ban imports of second-hand electronic and IT products as well as imports of six "toxic" substances, such as lead, mercury and cadmium.

EU imports of such equipment amounted to $9.72 bn in the first quarter this year and are expected to reach $50 bn for the full-year, and were expected to reach $60 bn in 2005.

Hundreds of Chinese manufacturers will be forced to withdraw from the EU market or lose their comparative advantage due to higher production costs to comply with the new rules. Affected companies in Ningbo in the eastern province of Zhejiang alone stand at some 500, the newspaper said.

That is the wonderful "free-trading" EU for you. First it was tariffs and quotas, and when these were whittled down by GATT and WTO agreements, technical barriers were introduced. Now these have been largely overcome, the latest protectionist device is "health 'n' safety", thus circumventing existing trade agreements.

The facts is that all the banned materials used can be safely recovered, and have residual economic value, but as long as the EU can label them "toxic", it can go rushing to the law books for another round of protectionism, and there is nothing that exporting countries can do about it.

There is an excellent paper summarising the state of play on the EU and its attempts to lift the arms ban on China, published on the NTI site: click here.

While it paints a gloomy picture of the effect of sales of sophisticated European weapons to China, there is also some optimism. The authors question the capability of the Chinese armed forces to integrate such weaponry into its own existing order of battle, which is dominated by relatively unsophisticated Russian equipment. They suggest that the transformation of the PLA into a modern force will take years, if not decades, to materialise.

Their comments are interesting in several respects, not least that it highlights the problem confronting all modern defence forces. With the proliferation of sophisticated new technology, the problem has become making all the bits work together as a seamless whole. That is what the US Future Combat System is all about, and what FRES pretends to be – and both are stretching the budgets and ingenuity of their sponsors.

In a perverse sort of way, therefore, if the European continue selling the Chinese a miscellany of hi-tech equipment, the PLA's problems could get worse not better. However, one somehow doubts that is what is in the minds of the French and the Germans who are so anxious to sell their kit to the Chinese.

As newspapers dwell more and more on the sensational and trivial, becoming little more than a branch of the entertainment industry, the news for grown-ups seems more and more to have retreated into the business sections of the broadsheets – although even there it struggles for space

No better example of this phenomenon can be found than in story in today's Times, one rehearsed previously in this Blog. Tucked well down on page 23 is a story by Elizabeth Judge, headed "EU rules could benefit 'garbage mafia'".

"Britain", writes Judge, "is at risk of being overrun by 'garbage mafia' gangs following the introduction of new EU directives". Surprise, surprise, the EU rules that have trebled the cost for businesses of disposing of waste have created a lucrative niche for cowboy operators.

It seems that illegal waste disposal incidents have already increased 40 percent in the past two years and with the cost of disposal rising, the lure of illegal operators will be even greater for business owners.

In Italy, apparently, Judge informs us,

…the problem of the garbage or "eco-mafia" has been present for many years.
Gangs undercut legal waste businesses by up to 400 per cent before dumping the
waste on illegal tipping sites — often natural beauty spots.

The business of dealing in illegal waste tipping is so big that criminal gangs are
believed to be making up to €2.5 billion (£1.7 billion) each year. Of the 80
million tonnes of waste produced each year in the country, 35 million are
believed to be handled by criminal organisations.

In an attempt to curb the problems, government officials and the Environment
Agency have drawn up plans for a national illegal-tipping prevention centre. The
centre would also liaise with officials in European countries with similar waste
problems — such as Italy — to share information and to clamp down on
cross-border activity, where waste is transferred from one country to another.

Under the new plans, police will stop and search trucks and lorries and,
for the first time, a national database of fly-tipping incidents will be used to
target "hot-spots" where criminal activity is most problematic.

We have been told ad nauseam that one of the great advantages of the European Union is that it creates a large area for free competition and, in particular, it made air travel convenient and cheap. This is what lies at the bottom of the Commission’s constant demands that individual member states should tear up their agreements with third parties and submit to Commission negotiations and decisions.

This rosy picture has already been tarnished somewhat by the Ryanair case and the ongoing saga of “illegal” subsidies to flagship airlines. Now comes the interesting development of Alitalia and its competitors.

Alitalia, the struggling, majority state-owned Italian ariline is about to collapse into bankruptcy. Or it would do if the Italian government did not rush to its rescue with a €400 million loan (to be repaid when?). Even before the legality of such a loan could be discussed, Alitalia and Enac, the Italian civil aviation authority have gone beyond that.

They have demanded that British Airways and Lufthansa cease to offer lower air fares than Alitalia on competing long-haul flights. This has not gone down well either with BA or the UK Transport Department, who have flatly refused to comply (for the time being) and demanded that the Commission intervene.

Lufthansa is in negotiations and Enac has threatened legal action if there is no compliance within three days. It is not clear which court the legal action will be in. Nor is it entirely clear that this sort of high-handedness is of any benefit to Italy, many of whose cities rely heavily on tourists for their economic well-being. And tourists, these days, look for the cheapest flights.

The news of the moment… in South Africa (there doesn't seem to be any worth reporting in Europe, which seems to have shut down for the duration) is that the government has ordered a mass ostrich cull. Some 30,000 are due for the chop in the Eastern Cape, following the discovery of a mild strain of bird 'flu.

Readers will be pleased to know that the effect of the South African ostrich industry will be "quite minimal" as the cull represents only a small percentage of the country’s exports of 300,000 ostriches a year.

Agriculture ministry official Segoati Mahlangu said, "This is to safeguard our international credibility", adding that the EU had been notified and they had fully supported the measures.

The burning question for today therefore is whether – if we slaughter our ostriches – we could improve our credibility with the EU. If so, perhaps we should start with Stephen Byers.

As we know, the European Union is virulently against the death penalty. In fact, one of its many objections to the United States is that many of the states have either retained or revived capital punishment as part of their legal system.

This does raise the question of why it is that the individual states of the United States can make decisions like that for themselves while member states of the European Union cannot.

However, we have run into a difficulty in Iraq. A speedy hand-over to an Iraqi government was in different ways either forcefully suggested or demanded by various European countries. The EU, as represented by Romano Prodi and Javier Solana, not to mention Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder, huffed and puffed about the need for Iraq to be run by Iraqis (in the case of some of these great politicians, any Iraqi would have done, preferably one they could do business with).

Power was handed over to an Iraqi government, with Ayad Allawi as Prime Minister, several days early in a piece of breathtaking insolence on the part of the Americans. I mean, what could the EU and the UN complain about?

Yesterday, the Iraqi government has announced an amnesty for minor crimes committed since the overthrow of the Saddam regime. The EU was very pleased. It likes amnesties in other countries, as long as no friend of theirs, such as the Chinese government, is involved.

Then the Iraqi government has announced that it was bringing back capital punishment for military insurrection, murder and other serious crimes. Minister of State Adnan al-Janabi said that this was not "an open door to execute anyone and everyone, or people whom the government dislikes". The law was limited and will be applied, according to Janabi and Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin, in a juridically organized fashion. They regretted the necessity and when the position is stabilized the law will be abolished.

The point is that under direct American occupation the law had been suspended. There was no capital punishment in Iraq, possibly the first time in its history. What is the EU going to say now? On the one hand, as I said above, it opposes capital punishment, particularly in democratic and semi-democratic countries. On the other hand, it has a regrettable track-record of chumminess with rather nasty dictators, who do execute "people the government dislikes". Perhaps, the simplest solution will be for Solana to call for the restoration of American rule in Iraq.

I do not think any one subject has elicited so many comments, which suggests that Dennis Matyjaszek has hit a raw nerve, or our response to him has struck a chord. Anyway, thank you to all those who told us they enjoyed the piece.

As for the xenophobia slur, it is of course, garbage. In normal human group dynamics, different groups pick on each other's differences and then accentuate them.

Mr Matyjaszek chooses to highlight the behaviour of English football fans abroad, or when confronted with a foreign team at home, but if he thinks the response is xenophobia, he is very much mistaken.

To prove him wrong, all you have to do is watch the crowd reaction when local sides play. The rival fans cheerfully hurl insults at each other, based on the local characteristics of the teams: coming from North London as I did originally, my local team was Tottenham Hotspurs and whenever we played Arsenal (another North London team), the accent in the chants was always very much on the first part of the word. And, of course, should any teams – and anyone in general – come from south of the river (Thames), they were always, automatically "poofters" (gays).

It is unsurprising, therefore, when teams of different nationalities play, the fans will always pick on the most prominent differences – and that will inevitably be nationality. But this is not xenophobia. It is simply group dynamics.

What people like Dennis Matyjaszek also don't understand is that English humour relies heavily on the insult, so much so that to "insult" someone can be a sign of affection and friendship. I would, for instance, only call a Frenchman a "frog" if I was very good friends with him. In the EU parliament, one of the other English groups had a French assistant, and he himself used to delight in calling himself the "token frog".

Living in Israel for a year, on a Kibbutz, I had a Dutch room-mate with whom I was the greatest of friends, but would never refer to him in company in terms other that "that Dutch bastard". I don't know what he called me, because it was always in Dutch, but one of the Dutch girls who heard him describe me blushed a deep crimson.

On the other hand, you sometimes need to beware of Englishmen you know who are polite to you - that means they don't like you. We have a special way of being acidly polite which is far more insulting that any actual insults.

These stupid so-called "tolerant liberals" who are neither tolerant nor liberal, don't understand that either. They want everybody to be "inclusive", gender and race neutral, and thus stop normal human exchange. That way they simply poison relations, as everybody is looking for implied insults, or being terribly careful not to give offence. No one can relax and you can never get to know people.

That is not to say there is not xenophobia around. One of our correspondents reminds us of a speech given by Chirac in June 1991 at Orleans, who observed of Muslims and blacks,

How do you expect a French workman to feel who with his wife earns about 15,000 francs and sees crammed in on the landing opposite a father, with four wives and a score of kids, making 50,000 francs a month on welfare- naturally without working. If you add to that the noise and the smell, that French worker on the landing goes crazy.

In his column today, Booker features the re-opening of the Berlaymont, the EU commission's headquarters in Brussels. Closed for 13 years after an asbestos scare, Booker reveals that, over £1 billion later, the scare was unwarranted and, in fact, the replacement material may be more hazardous than the material taken out.

For those who would like to read a longer account of the debacle of the Berlaymont, there is an interesting account in the Ackroyd Publications journal, The Bulletin.

For his second of two EU-related stories, Booker writes about FRES, the "Future Rapid Effects System" upon which Hoon is relying to replace the conventional Army infantry divisions for which this country is rightly famed.

As one would expect, Booker concentrates on the European integration aspect, noting that the idea of FRES is to provide the centrepiece for the EU's Rapid Reaction Force. But Booker also hints that the system itself may be inadequate because the Europeans cannot afford the complete electronic package. They will get a cut-price version which may not be able to operate effectively.

That is a point which, one hopes, the media will eventually pick up. Although in an earlier Blog much has been made of the expense of the project - which, at £6 billion for a fleet of 900 vehicles, is astronomic – what is beginning to emerge is the system is not expensive enough. The US is planning to spend $92 billion, and only on the first phase of its Future Combat System (FCS), on which FRES is supposed to be modelled.

The expense the Americans are committing to their project gives some idea of its sophistication and the complexity. What they will get for their money is a totally integrated battle information system, which allows real time intelligence from multiple inputs to be processed, electronically integrated and then disseminated to all individual units in a fighting formation at vehicle and sub-unit level, all with amazing speed.

Furthermore, input is permitted from sub-unit level which can be integrated into the overall battle plot and shared immediately between all other units. It is that degree of integration (and the speed with which it is undertaken) which makes FCS unique. It also accounts for the huge software requirement (the 34 million lines of computer code).

What seems to be happening in the UK is that some of the elements that can be found in the FCS are being provided – such as the medium-weight, air-transportable armoured vehicles, and some highly sophisticated battlefield surveillance platforms (manned and unmanned) but the multi-feed processing and system integration, plus the widespread distribution of information, are absent. This means that there will still be transmission delays to field units and unit commanders will be getting multiple feeds instead of a single, integrated display.

Commanders will still have to analyse and interpret data from those diverse sources - some of which will have been filtered by command. Here one has to observe that the separate parts are worse than the sum of the whole. In the modern battlefield, with so much input, the problems are data management and information overload.

The more information that is put into the system, the more difficult it gets to rank it and analyse it, so that the volume increase simply adds to stress and confounds good decision-making. You can get to a point where elements of the system are discarded because there is no longer the ability to cope with the information, or the whole system seizes up - especially when there are multiple decision-makers, each putting a different premium on data from different inputs.

This presents a crucial problem for the Europeans. The very essence of FCS is that it dispenses with the heavy armoured protection afforded by main battle tanks such as the Abrams in return for highly sophisticated surveillance and command and control systems, together with "smart", long-range weaponry. The combination allows formations to detect threats and neutralise them before they come within lethal range, while the exceptional degree of "situational awareness" afforded by the system permits small packages of forces to be used with maximum effect,

Only that makes possible the concept of putting lightly protected armoured vehicles in high-threat environments. With an incomplete, cut-price system, we risk putting our troops at considerable risk.

What is coming, therefore, is a massive "reality check". The "Europeans" may have ambitions of becoming a "superpower" to match the United States but, when the chips are down, they simply cannot afford the technology that will put them in the same league. The danger is putting a cut-price system into the field will prove the worst of all possible worlds. We dispense with those elements of our forces which are proven, and much admired, and replace it with a half-baked, pretend system which may fool the public but, unfortunately will fail to impress – or subdue – our enemies.

Furthermore, nothing of the new system yet exists. The MoD is only issuing initial contracts in the autumn, for a two-year evaluation phase, which will bring us to the end of 2006 before even design contracts can be awarded – yet FRES is supposed to be fully operational by 2009. There is not a hope in hell of this timetable being met.

Gerald Howarth, Conservative shadow defence minister for procurement, told us, "We are cutting today's proven capability for jam tomorrow – when we don't even know what the ingredients are or how to cook it". And, as Booker writes, all so that the EU can puff itself up as a rival "superpower" to the US.

One really does wonder whether ministers past and present really understand what it is they are dealing with when they talk about the EU and the EU commission in particular.

In the Observer today, former transport minister (failed) Steven Byers is pontificating about the commission needing a "radical shakeup" to combat complaints that it is "remote and out of touch".

Byers wants national parliaments to approve or reject programmes from Brussels before commissioners start work on them, apparently as part of a "softening-up" campaign of tackling grievances about the EU in the run-up to the referendum on the European constitution.

If as Byers advocates, individual commissioners publish manifestos detailing their draft programme, which would then have to be debated and cleared by national parliaments first, the commission would cease to function as a supranational government, changing the whole character of the Union.

All Byers is demonstrating by this is that he himself is "out of touch". The exclusive power of initiative is central to the very nature of the EU, and the commission is no more likely to give it up than put back all the asbestos in the Berlaymont. Not least of the obstacles is that a major treaty change would be necessary, and that is not even on the agenda.

Not content with that piece of nonsense, Byers has another idea for his "fantasy Europe". He suggests that Commons committees should be able to interrogate commissioners, as they do ministers. But anyone who has seen EU parliament committees doing this will know full well what a charade this is.

The strategy is well established and cynically transparent. First you have a sympathetic "chairperson", who is able to make sure the "right" people are picked to ask questions - and also allow for the token antis (just to prove they are "democratic").

Next you pack the committee with patsies who can be relied upon to "soft-ball" the commissioner. Then, you take questions in blocks of five, so the commissioner can "cherry-pick" the bits of the package he/she wants to answer.

You also impose a time limit on the whole session, and let the commissioner waffle on as long as he/she likes, until time runs out without any of the awkward questions from the token antis being answered. And, of course, supplementaries are either not allowed or severely curtailed.

The whole thing is a sick charade and if Mr Byers thinks that replicating it in the country is suddenly going to inspire the nation, he is indeed living on another planet.

But such is his tenuous grasp on reality that he seems to believe precisely that. These "reforms", he tells the Observer, would give the government "a chance of persuading people that Europe provides us with a partnership from which we can benefit, and not a conspiracy against us".

From my experience of guiding visitors around the EU parliament, and letting them watch the procedures, the opposite is likely to happen. The more exposure people have to this dire organisation, the less they seem to like it. Perhaps Mr Byers should think again - assuming of course that he is capable of thinking which, on current evidence, is a pretty wild assumption.

UKIP's successful attempts to block Kilroy from standing in the Hartlepool by-election have hit the mainstream press. In The Sunday Telegraph today, Deputy Political Editor Melissa Kite reports that UKIP was in disarray after its members had turned on him.

The story is that "senior party members" moved to block Kilroy after claims that he openly flaunted his leadership ambitions. According to one party member, "Keeping Kilroy down has become more important than getting an MP."

Allies of Mr Knapman are reported to "fear that if the 'housewives' choice' succeeds in becoming an MP it would make his leadership aims unstoppable". However, unsaid by the ST, it may be more than just Mr Knapman's allies who have these fears.

From the "City Comment" section of The Daily Telegraph:

"Consultation" in the lexicon of this Government means allowing everyone the
chance to let off steam and when they've all exhausted themselves, going ahead
with the original plans anyway.

The latest excrescences about Eurosceptic xenophobia in the Daily Telegraph, delivered by our erstwhile Europe minister, Dennis MacShane – aka Dennis Matyjaszek - bring to mind several amusing incidents in the European parliament.

Late in the term, our group was approached by a young, rather attractive Polish student, by the name of Agnieszca. She was anxious to work as a stagière for us: as an Erasmus student at the local Strasbourg university, taking a Masters in political science, she was expected to do a session in the parliament.

I took her under my wing and terrifying she proved to be. Arriving early in the morning, she simply devoured work. Rarely did she have lunch, preferring to work through the break, and about eight in the evening she would come to my office and ask, in apologetic tones, whether it would be all right for her to go home. She spoke three languages fluently, could write a competent report in any of them, and was a mine of information about Polish politics. If the Poles take over Europe, it will come as no surprise to me.

Anyhow, one day she arrived at the office complaining of a rash of itchy, red marks on her skin, displaying the spots all the way up her arms. Living in the university digs, she put these down to some little insects she had seen in her room, so I asked her to describe them in detail.

From her description it was immediately obvious what they were; our old friend Cimex lectularis, better known to all and sundry as the bed bug – and forever etched in my memory from when I brought a pregnant female (bed bug, that is) home to my office to study (don't ask), and it escaped into the bedroom.

Getting rid of these pests is not easy – they hide during the daytime behind the woodwork, immune from pesticides - so fairly major works are needed to clear them out. Thus, I dispatched Agnieszca back to the university with instructions to ask for a new room, and advice that they should treat her existing one.

Some hours later, I got a text message on my mobile from her – cryptic it was. "The French are worse than the bed bugs", it read. When she got back to the office, she told her sorry tale – the fonctionnaires had been totally unsympathetic and had merely dismissed our Agnieszca with a can of insecticide spray – to which, she had told them, she was allergic – and had absolutely refused to change her room.

Some many weeks later, I was in the staff coffee lounge in the parliament – apartheid being practised in this most egalitarian of establishments, to the extent that staff bums are not allowed to soil the seats of the MEP lounges. I was discussing with our multinational group the latest developments on CAP reform and, once again, the French attempts to sabotage them.

As the discussion drew to a conclusion, I pronounced rather more loudly than I should have, "I suppose there are few problems in this world that would not be solved by the extermination of the French race".

In the crowded lounge, there was a sudden silence – one of those occasions when, quite literally, you could have heard a pin drop. Expecting to be seized and Frog-marched off (it was France, after all) to be indicted for xenophobia – or even worse, Francophobia – I looked around hesitantly to see what fate awaited me. To my surprise, I noted a considerable number of the assembled throng nodding in silent agreement.

In my hotel in Strasbourg, I spent many riotous nights in company with our French host, his vivacious and delightful wife, a couple of Belgian socialists – with whom, from my supposedly right-wing stance, I hugely enjoyed trading insults each morning – and a gaggle of French locals. The company and the entertainment went a considerable way to compensating for the mind-numbing dullness of the parliament.

On one day in particular, our conviviality was measurably enhanced by my finding a 100 Deutschmark note in the parliament, which le patron happily changed into Francs (at, no doubt, a usurous rate) for me, and then took them all back over the bar as the evening wore on. But that same man was behind the counter a few days later when a couple of German tourists came in, bearing a fistful of Deutschmarks, asking for refreshment. The hôtel did not change currency, they were brusquely told, and sent packing.

I could recount many more such curious tales, most arising in that melting pot of nationalities of the European parliament, which seems to emphasise rather than submerge national distinctiveness – and rivalries. But the most surreal experience I ever had was after I had spent the day up a tree in the Pyrenees with six armed Basque gunmen (again, don't ask).

That evening, at an interminable civic dinner in some god-forsaken provincial town hall, one of the more villainous-looking of the group leant over the table, his face inches (or centimetres) from mine, and hissed: "I hate Englishmen." He then pulled back, laughed and said, "but I like you!"

After all that, Mr Matyjaszek, who seems so diffident about his father's nationality – or at least his name – that he adopted his mother's, has the gall to proclaim that us "right-wing Eurosceptics" are "latent xenophobes".

Actually, I don't know what my stories prove, but one thing I do know. Dennis Matyjaszek is a prat. Even if his name was Dennis MacShane, he'd still be a prat.

…what more can we do?

Continued

My colleague pointed out in an earlier blog [see A Rapacious Predator] that while the EU has rather proudly given £350 million in aid during the last year, it has managed to siphon off rather larger amounts in lost revenue from developing countries.

With the refusal to reform the sugar regime, as the blog points out, there were foreign exchange losses of about 494 million dollars for Brazil, 151 million dollars for Thailand, and 60 million dollars each for South Africa and India in 2002. Or, to make it quite precise, over £400 million has been stripped from the economies of these countries alone.

In another blog, my colleague has also explained that the EU is enforcing unnecessary traceability rules on Kenyan flower and vegetable growers, that are impossible for the many small ones to comply with. No doubt, as these hard working people go out of business, the EU will send more aid to help them out of the poverty it had plunged them into.

This pattern is found everywhere. In the third country fisheries agreements with Morocco, Mauritius and Sao Tomé among others, the EU consistently uses its economic and political clout (well, we have been told on numerous occasions that the purpose of all this integration is to make Europe’s voice more important in the world, but, perhaps, bullying weak Third World countries is not what most of us have in mind) to impose deals that puts the artisan fishermen of these countries out of business and prevents any development of the fishing industry, in order to let the large, heavily mechanized fishing boats of EU member states in, to take some of the pressure off the stocks in EU waters and political pressure off the various governments. As part of each unequal agreement, large sums are offered in aid.

The various Mediterranean and other Neighbourhood agreements, while offering large amounts of money to the countries of North Africa, the Balkans and former Soviet Union, all to be channelled through the severely criticized ECHO, disguise the fact that quotas, anti-dumping regulations and traceability rules (the latest craze and instrument for preventing developing countries from completing their development) slow down or, even, stop anything remotely resembling a fair trade between the EU and these countries.

By fair trade we do not mean an arbitrarily designed price that is paid by the country or organization that sets the price according to its own ideas, but a free trade that is open to all producers.

Not only is the aid offered in return for curtailed trade less than the lost income, it is also directly harmful. Trade would help the producers to accumulate capital, to invest; it would encourage western investors; the Third World and other developing countries would become richer. In particular, its most productive classes would become richer.

If we are worried about the environment and labour conditions, let us remember that care for both grow only in societies where the basic economic levels have been achieved. Therefore, instead of laying down inappropriate rules and then sending in aid the EU (and other western organizations) should help countries to become richer in order for them to start worrying about conservation and the hours children are allowed to work.

Instead we send aid, which, even if it ever gets there, goes to the governments, who are usually corrupt and unhelpful to the economically active classes. Aid breeds economic dependency, allows governments in politically underdeveloped countries to oppress the people, siphon off money or indulge in frightening foreign adventures. It also encourages the growth of the parasitical fonctionnaire classes, whose job it is to distribute the aid, not forgetting to cream off some for themselves. And so the cycle of deprivation, political oppression and corruption and economic inadequacy goes on with the help of that great organization, the European Union.

To be continued

Following the accession of ten new member states to the EU, Ireland is reporting a dramatic increase in immigrants from those states. Some 23,000 people have sought employment since May, when the countries joined – nearly ten times more than the number given work permits in the first four months of the year.

Almost 11,000 have come from Poland, nearly 5,000 from Lithuania and over 2,000 each from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The majority of Poles are working in the services sector or in "manual jobs" such as on building sites and in meat factories. Irish employers seem well pleased, and are reported to have a high regard for Polish workers.

On the other hand, the chairman of the Czech Doctors' Trade Union (LKO), is getting worried about the number of his members that have sought work in the “old” EU. Out of 33,000, some 2,000 have departed to pastures new. Most are working in Britain and Germany, where some can increase their salaries ten-fold.

However, not all the doctors intend to immigrate. Many commute, taking advantage of low cost airlines in order to enjoy the high salaries where they work while benefiting from the low living costs in the Czech Republic. Not silly these Czechs.

In an almost mirror image of the British Conservative Party, French socialists are deeply split about over the EU constitution (although they do tend to be split over a great many things).

The divisions became apparent in July, immediately after Chirac announced the referendum for the latter part of next year, but now the split have come out into the open with the launch of a socialist yes campaign.

The “yes” side, led by Mitterand’s former advisor and one-time Europe minister, Elisabeth Guigou, together with Bernard Kouchner, founder, organizer and president of Médecins sans Frontières, has formed the comité de la gauche pour le oui.

Quoted in Le Monde, the group state that they "…strongly wish to convince the French left-wing, today divided over the issue”, and that they “have to support this project, in agreement with socialists and socio-democrat parties in Europe."

Nevertheless, the group is not displaying unalloyed enthusiasm for the constitution, although members are willing to bury their reservations over what they call “a compromise text” on the basis that its approval seems “essential to give Europe every chance and strengthen European democracy".

Their stand is opposed by a group of six, including MPs and ex-minister Paul Quilès. Speaking for his group, he asked, "Should we vote yes at all costs for the sole reason that it is essential to move forward?" His members feel there is plenty of time to improve the constitution before it enters into force at the end of 2009.

Ordinary party members will get their say later this year when the party holds an internal referendum, which will determine the way it will call voters to vote. The vote could be a close-run thing, as the most leftist socialists are strongly opposed to the constitution, believing it will "set a liberal Europe in stone".

By this, of course, they mean the EU's drive to detach industries and utility companies from state ownership. This is not generally what others might define as liberalisation.

This is the first of our Friday guest columns. James Norris, an experienced journalist, who has worked in Italy as well as in Britain, warns against complacency in the referendum campaign.

Referendums - a double-edged sword

James Norris

The news that even the Germans are now calling for a referendum on the EU constitution does make one think. They normally avoid referendums, and for good historical reasons. The Swiss demonstrate that referendums can be a force for good, grass-roots democracy. They have them all the time, and on all imaginable subjects.

Too often, however, referendums are no more than a tool used by a government to achieve its political objectives. The people of the accession countries of Eastern Europe were all asked whether they wanted to join the EU. All said yes, which is good, but there’s no doubt in the minds of some the elections observers that a few of the governments had to make sure of getting the “right” result.

Manipulating referendums isn’t just something for benighted foreigners. I recently came across a transcript of a radio BBC Radio 4 programme aired in February 2000 that discussed the (now disbanded) Information Research Department, a counter-subversion unit of the Foreign Office, and its role in the run-up to the UK’s referendum on the accession to the European Economic Community. By a strange coincidence, I have just found a reference to the programme in the excellent book I am now reading by Christopher Booker and Richard North, The Great Deception.

In the early 1970s, public opinion was even more hostile to joining Europe than it is today. As Booker and North say in their book, “in April 1970 a Gallup poll showed only 15% of the British electorate were in favour of a further bid to join the Common Market. Nearly three voters in five were opposed.” Yet, as the introduction of the programme says, “Between June 1970 and October 1971, there was an extraordinary turnabout in public opinion in favour of Britain entering the European Economic Community.”

Leaving aside the tragedy of this event, it would be useful to know how this turnaround was achieved, in preparation for an all-important vote in the House of Commons in October 1971. We all know Heath lied to the public, reassuring them with a promise that membership was purely economic. But it required more than just public statements to turn the public mood. The stakes were high, and Heath was not going to leave anything to chance, so the IRD was put onto the case.

In charge of the IRD at the time was Norman Reddaway, described by the cold war warrior Brian Crozier as “a skilful practitioner in the art of unattributable information”. Reddaway, who in 1965 masterminded the propaganda campaign that eventually led to the removal of the president Sukarno of Indonesia, told the programme’s presenter Christopher Cook that, “we were trying to support Ted Heath’s ambition to get us into Europe. We averaged a letter to the press, or an article, every day for a couple of years.”

Geoffrey Tucker was an advertising guru who helped sell the Conservative Party for the 1970 elections. The programme’s presenter describes how “Tucker told Heath that he knew how to swing the great British public behind the government’s great European adventure.”

Tucker then told the programme, “I went to the European Movement and talked to them, and they helped to put the funding together for a breakfast which we held at the Connaught Hotel.” These were weekly meetings over breakfast for influential people, such as captains of industry, civil servants, television executives and, crucially, journalists.

Tucker said, “We decided to pinpoint the Today programme on radio, picked up by the press and followed right through the news programmes during the day, culminating with the news programme on ITN at night, which was the big one. So round the table came people like Marshall Stewart, who was the brilliant editor of the Today programme, which was a key programme, and they sat down with people who were actually negotiating in Brussels. During that time we got an extra five minutes on the ITN news in the evening added on, which was purely informative, what it meant to the ordinary person.”

Tucker even claimed that they were able to remove Jack De Manio as editor of the Today programme because he was hostile to the EEC. “De Manio was a presenter who was terribly anti-European. We protested privately about this and he was moved.” Tucker said Di Manio was “giving a totally unbalanced view. It would appear that there is nothing good about Europe at all. And Ian Trethowan [Managing Director of BBC Radio and a known friend of Edward Heath] listened and De Manio was replaced.”

This claim is backed up by Lord Hattersley, who said, “the one breakfast I went to was a very chummy affair. We were all European propagandists. We were all fighting the European cause to the extent that some of the protagonists actually drew Ian Trethowan’s attention to broadcasters who they thought had been anti-European, and asked him to do something about it. Now I was so shocked that I decided I couldn’t go again.”

A crucial point is that the European Movement was only involved on approval from Reddaway and his superiors. Ernest Wistrich, then director of the European Movement, told the programme, “I remember one day Norman Reddaway after some weeks coming to [me] and saying, ‘We’re satisfied. You go ahead and run it’. I was being vetted for security reasons and other purposes as well.” Therefore, through these meetings the IRD was able to influence the BBC and ITN in their coverage of the European issue.

Tucker describes Reddaway as “the person given to us by the government as our liaison man,” but it was the European Movement that paid for the breakfast meetings. However, political historian Dr Richard Aldrich tells the programme that documents in George Town University in Washington prove that part of the funding for the European Movement came from the CIA. At the time, the US was pushing for a United States of Europe. No wonder Wistrich had to be vetted for security.

This all happened more than 30 years ago, but it is spookily reminiscent of the dark arts of spinning that has destroyed New Labour’s reputation. It is good to be reminded how Edward Heath won his referendum. And Tony Blair will surely have had many a long meeting with his civil servants going over this achievement, to see how he can pull a similar trick.

Despite last-minute pleas - but to the relief of some party managers (see previous post) - Kilroy-Silk has decided not to stand for UKIP at the Hartlepool by-election.

We understand that he was enthusiastic about standing, but has been dismayed by the lack of organisation, the lack of commitment and the party in-fighting. As importantly, one of the leadership factions felt that Kilroy as an MP would present too powerful a threat to their own ambitions, and have been working to undermine him.

As a result, key backers are no longer willing financially to support the party, which meant that UKIP would not have been able to mount a high-profile campaign.

It is our understanding that Kilroy believed that the campaign planning should have moved into high gear in June, when it was evident that Mandelson was about to stand down. Instead, indecision, personal jealousies and outright sabotage prevented Kilroy taking the initiative.

Rather than set up the campaign, party officials were instructed to seek another high profile candidate - despite Kilroy not having formally conveyed his decision as to whether he would stand - in the hope of blocking his candidature. Private briefings to selected media and senior party members were then given against him, stressing his unsuitability for the constituency and hinting that Kilroy had already pulled out.

Furthermore, party infrastructure had not been, and still has not been put in place – especially in terms of research and information systems – that would enable UKIP to fight a high-profile by-election. No assurances were given that the limited party resources available would be devoted to the campaign.

On this basis, we are advised that Kilroy felt the risks of failure in Hartlepool were too high, so he has reluctantly decided to sit this fight out.

Having failed to capitalise on an unprecedented opportunity to win a Westminster seat by appointing its star performer, UKIP has no suitable alternative. No names have been put forward as a replacement, although the closing day for applications is Sunday. Those local celebrities who have been approached have declined to stand for UKIP.

The possibility is now that UKIP will put up a complete unknown, only to be punished by Hartlepool voters – who may well consider that they have been deserted by a party which offered them the best prospect of lodging a decisive protest vote against the political establishment. The result may well be a vote lower than the current poll average, and the effective destruction of UKIP as a credible political force in the North East.

Such an outcome would also be a setback for the Eurosceptic movement as a whole.

It seems that there are no limits to the lengths Europhiles will go to promote their beloved European Union. A case in point is Mark Seddon, editor of the Labour Tribune magazine, member of Labour’s NEC, student of international relations and one-time friend of members of the PLO, the ANC and SWAPO.

With the humanitarian crisis boiling over in Sudan, the resolution of which is taxing many minds, Seddon seizes the opportunity to tell the EU to speed up the creation of its rapid reaction force.

"It was in order to prevent such appalling acts that the European Union devised the idea for its own rapid reaction force, which could be quickly sent to areas of conflict or disaster", he writes. "It is time to stop merely talking about such a force and start organising one".

To justify himself, he adds, "Those opposed to the EU having a military capability argue that this should remain the preserve of individual nations. But there is strength and moral authority in numbers". He then concludes that: "It is the responsibility of the EU, Africa and the international community to stop the genocide in Darfur and rebuild a war-ravaged country".

Perhaps before putting pen to paper – or finger to keyboard – Seddon should have read the latest edition of the New Statesman, which observed that Sudan is a country 35 times larger than Sierra Leone, which needed 17,000 UN troops to pacify it. "Do the interventionists propose to send 600,000 troops to Sudan?", it asks.

And therein lies the rub. Seddon glibly writes about it being "time to stop merely talking about such a force and start organising one", as if it merely requires someone to put all the pieces together and put it into action.

But, as my colleague pointed out in her piece on this Blog at the end of June, military capability does not come without a cost. The EU is not at all short of organisation, and is only too ready to create yet another structure, or launch another inter-continental ballistic committee, but when it comes to coughing up the readies, the colleagues are often remarkably silent.

The problem, she wrote, is that Europe has no troops. When NATO’s Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called Afghanistan NATO's number one priority, he had to go round the member states with a begging bowl, pleading for manpower. And it is not only troops – as yet EU does not have the military heavy-lift capability, the satellite communication infrastructure, the logistics element to keep large numbers of troops in the field, nor even the command and control systems.

Providing these is not at this stage a matter of organisation. It is one of money, and there is no evidence that any of the member states are either willing or able to commit the funds necessary to put the show on the road.

But even if some miracle were to happen, and the force materialised, how would the EU use it, and under what circumstances? This is the EU that insisted on the US seeking a UN resolution before it went into Iraq. Would the EU be prepared to commit forces to Sudan without authorisation from the UN? And would it get it, considering that China and Russia – with seats on the Security Council – would most likely veto military intervention?

In any case, would even the EU member states be able to agree amongst themselves that they should commit military forces, and would they be able to agree the mission and the rules of engagement?

Quite what the solution is in Sudan, and whether we will be able to stop an even greater tragedy unfolding is debatable – and the signs are not hopeful – but one thing is certain. Neither now or any time in the foreseeable future will an EU rapid reaction force be an option. For Mr Seddon to suggest that it could be merely demonstrates that he, like so many of his fellow travellers, is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Malta has discovered to her cost yet another benefit of joining the EU. In the first summer since she joined, the number of cruise liners calling in to the Grand Harbour has plummeted. Passenger numbers are down to 24,342, compared with 45,809 in the same month last year- a 47 percent drop.

A port authority spokesman had no doubt as to the cause, blaming the removal of tax concessions which applied before Malta joined the EU and which have since been removed as being illegal under EU law.

With plenty of alternative non-EU destinations, such as North African ports - where tax concessions are available to the citizens of EU member states – the attractions of Malta are clearly not enough to tempt either the cruise companies or their passengers.

The Maltese may have cause to wonder why they sacrificed their independence, and the advantages of their unique island geography.

Since this Blog last reported on the subject, a deafening silence has continued to pervades UKIP’s plans for the Hartlepool by-election. But, behind the scenes, it appears, a bitter battle is being played out, the prize being the leadership of the party.

In the earlier Blog, it was suggested that Kilroy-Silk might not stand, and we have since been able to confirm that there has been a concerted campaign in the upper reaches of the party to dissuade him from so doing.

It seems that Kilroy-Silk has made no secret to party members of his ambition to lead the party and the current leadership has taken fright. Rightly, they fear that his winning the by-election would make him unstoppable.

So while Kilroy considers his next move, from his holiday home in Spain, the party leadership have been making moves to prevent him from standing. Without any public declaration, they have opened a list for applicants for the party’s candidature, which they plan to close on Sunday, after which further “applicants” will be rejected.

Needless to say, Kilroy-Silk has not been officially told of the existence of this list, and he has not been asked to submit an application.

Meanwhile, party officials are scouring the country, looking for an alternative candidate, but have been unable to find anyone of even a moderately high profile to stand. They are now prepared to accept a nonentity, and even parachute in one of the party faithful, to ensure that Kilroy is blocked.

Party leaders, therefore, seem prepared deliberately to throw the Hartlepool by-election, to ensure that their own positions are not challenged by a man whom even local Labour party workers believe can win the seat.

... what more can we do?

This is such an important and convoluted issue and one, furthermore, that will be at the heart of the ‘yes’ campaign during the referendum, that we have decided to cover it in several postings.

It is one of the boasts of the European Union that its credentials as a caring political entity are impeccable as it disperses more in aid than any other country or organization. When one adds the extra sums that individual member states hand over on top of the substantial EU aid budget, the amounts become mind-bogglingly substantial.

Yet, there is no improvement in the state of those Third World countries – or not as much as the sums dispersed might warrant – and the EU is constantly accused of not being generous enough. Maybe there is something wrong with the thinking, as many of our recent blogs (on the WTO non-deal, the sugar regime and the Palestinian Authority) indicate.

In the first place the giving of aid seems to be beset with corruption both on the giving and the receiving side. There appears to be no control as to how the money is dispersed and who benefits. No business plans, accounts, receipts or reports are required. The European Court of Auditors has time and again castigated ECHO, the aid-giving organization in the EU and individual programmes. Nothing much has been done to improve either accounting or accountability and large sums keep disappearing.

Rather belatedly (but then, better late than never) OLAF, the EU fraud investigation agency, which, as readers of this blog know, has been running into some problems of its own, is holding a “classified” investigation into the final destination of some of the funds that have been dispersed to the Palestinian Authority (a matter of some 1.5 billion euros in the last decade).

Documents, authenticated by a number of international experts, have been presented by the Israelis that show incontrovertibly money going from the Palestinian Authority to the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade. This has been confirmed by a number of that Brigade’s members but denied by, among others, Chris Patten, who has assured the world that every penny of EU aid to the PA has been accounted for, it’s just err … he can’t exactly lay his hands on the right documents.

The OLAF Commission is going to Israel to interview prisoners there, many of whom have already boasted that they received and direct instructions from the Palestinian Authority.

The reason Patte cannot lay his hands on those documents is because they do not exist. Even if the OLAF commission establishes that money has been transferred to the terrorists (we on this blog are not afraid of the ‘t’ word) what will happen? Will the money be cut back? Not on your life. Will they further look into the amounts that have been creamed off by Chairman Arafat (the EU’s golden boy), his wife, his friends and relations? Guess again.

Will OLAF or, for that matter, the Commission start demanding proper accounts from the PA and numerous other political organizations and governments as well as evidence that the aid money has actually achieved anything? Oh stop asking stupid questions.

To be continued

For all the rhetoric, the honeyed words, the pious statements of intent and all the other extruded verbal material emanating from Brussels about the welfare of developing countries, the EU has been shown up for the rapacious predator that it really is.

That is the real meaning of the provisional WTO ruling issued yesterday, which confirmed that the EU has been illegally dumping millions of tonnes of cut-price sugar on world markets.

The case was brought to the WTO disputes body by Brazil, Thailand and Australia against the EU, which found that the EU exports up to four times more subsidised sugar each year than allowed under world trade agreements, amounting to five million tonnes each year. This is despite the EU's commitment under the Uruguay round of trade talks to reduce its subsidised exports to just over one million tonnes a year (which, incidentally, makes a mockery of any its promises made in the Doha round).

Oxfam estimates that the effect of the EU's dumping has been to depress world sugar prices by 23 percent. In 2002 this led to foreign exchange losses of about 494 million dollars for Brazil, 151 million dollars for Thailand, and 60 million dollars each for South Africa and India – that is over £400 million stripped from the economies of these countries alone.

If that was not bad enough, the EU has also been found guilty of subsidising the re-export of 1.6m tonnes of sugar - the equivalent of imports from the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and India - also in contravention of WTO rules.

Once again the main culprit is France. French sugar production fluctuates between 4.5 and 5 million tons per annum, most of it derived from sugar beet, yet its consumption is relatively stable at around 2.2 million tons. Thus France exports between 2.5 and 3 million tons of sugar, in a market already over-supplied.

With the EU-15 producing just over 15 million tonnes a year, and consuming slightly over 12 million tonnes, French over-production accounts for almost the entire surplus. Having failed (or refused) entirely to cut its production, France is therefore largely responsible for the dumping on the world market which has done so much to damage developing countries.

While all this has been going on, however, the EU has been parading its credentials as the world's largest donor of humanitarian aid, the EU contribution in the last year being in the order of £350 million. This is utter hypocrisy as the cash siphoned out of the developing world by the sugar regime far exceeds that amount.

Thus, the EU gives with one hand and wrecks with the other, all the time uttering pious platitudes about its generosity to less fortunate countries. That is the nature of the beast.

A number of broadcasting organizations have made a decision not to use the word terrorist. This is understandable if they are global companies as one man's terrorist is often another man's freedom fighter. There have been furious complaints about this policy and it has been pointed out that it is possible, without using the 't' word to explain that there are differences between, say, ordinary Palestinians who would like to live in better conditions and, say, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade.

When this inability to distinguish extends to political organizations such as the European Union; when it is further compounded by an inexplicable need throughout the world to be nice to dictators and terrorists and unpleasant to democratic governments if they happen to disagree; when, on top of that, large amounts of taxpayers' money are being handed out to dubious entities such as the Palestinian Authority and these then disappear faster than you can say Fatah gunmen, serious questions need to be asked.

There were several news items in the last few days that indicate a certain lack of attention and, possibly, worse in the EU's attitude to the whole Palestinian problem. We have already covered Solana’s somewhat peculiar behaviour during his visit to the Middle East.

On July 30 the Commission announced that EU aid to Palestine will amount to about 250 million euros. Though the announcement said that the aid will go to the Palestinians, as it is to be filtered through the Palestinian Authority, little of it is likely to get to the people who need it.

According to EurActiv, details of the financial assistance include:

• Contributions to the World Bank's Public Financial Management Reform Trust Fund (65 million euros);
  
• Emergency support to social services, health and higher education (22.75 million euros);
  
• Support to the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP) and the European Partnership for Peace Programme (7.5 million euros);
  
• Support for the implementation of the Palestinian Authority’s reform agenda (up to 5 million euros).

One Palestinian journalist told me that "the worst the Israelis can do is take away our press cards. But if we irritate Arafat, or Hamas, you don'tknow who might be waiting in your kitchen when you come home at night."

The procurement directive is now set to affect Somerset social housing. An issue first flagged up by Booker in his column on 11 July, and covered in this Blog, it has now been picked up by Somerset’s Western Gazette which has reported in its latest edition “EU housing directive gets blood boiling”.

Pity about the headline because it is the procurement directive we are talking about. According to the Gazette:

Councillors and housing associations have told the government to face down a
European Commission Directive that threatens investment in social housing in
south Somerset. The National Housing Federation claims the directive will mean
South Somerset Homes being forced to advertise and accept tenders for public
service contracts from across Europe, in an often time-consuming and overly
bureaucratic process.

Yes, it’s football again. Anyone would think I was obsessed with it. (Though I have noted that the English season started last week. You can’t miss these events if you live opposite a stadium.)

It is clear that there are ramifications to football that most of us had never suspected, and I do not mean the extra-curricular activity that seems to have gone on in the FA.

According to the Financial Times a state-aid probe is being conducted by the Commission into the financial affairs of football teams in Germany, Italy, Spain, france and the UK. (Why not the others, one asks oneself.) Tobias Buck reports:

The European Commission inquiry, which is still at a preliminary stage, focuses on three issues: property deals and public help in constructing football stadiums; tax breaks for clubs; and state assistance in paying social security charges.

The Union shall contribute to the promotion of European sporting issues, given the social and educational function of sport.

From a report on allAfrica.com, a tale of woe emerges that will be all too familiar to British businesses. It appears that small horticultural producers in Kenya are being drowned in red tape and are simply unable to cope.

Their problem is that, in order to continue exporting to EU member states – their main outlet - they must conform with new rules on quality audits, which include the traceability amendment 178/2005.

All exports into the EU have to be traceable to the grower. The numerous, mandatory codes of practice being imposed on the industry are pushing production costs higher and eroding investor profits. Furthermore, the volume of paperwork to prove the audit trail is so onerous that only the larger growers have the resources (and skills) to deal with it.

Thus, of the 200 or so registered growers supplying the export market, only about six big companies are expected to survive. It is feared that the horticultural industry may revert to the control of a few hands as the regulations come into play.

This is reversing the gains that have been achieved in the past decade to involve small-scale farmers, negating much of the development aid that has been devoted to expanding the production base in the country.

My colleague has already reported on the apparent call for a "strengthened system of press regulation" issued by the Director of that perestroika europhile think-tank, the Centre for European Reform. [see Does he really mean what I think he means?] But it might be worth having a look at what else Charles Grant says in his latest opinion piece on the CER website.

In he past, Charles Grant's ideas, apparently produced as intellectual musings, had a habit of reappearing with remarkable speed as official suggestions and even government policies. It was Mr Grant who first started pushing the notion in Britain, of a common defence policy, which preceded the St Malo agreement by just a few weeks. Of course, all he was doing is reproducing a long-standing French political aim, but Mr Blair did not have to know that.

So it is particularly odd that he should take issue with Edward Heathcoat-Amory, who committed the ultimate sin in Mr Grant's eyes of suggesting in an article in the Daily Mail that once the Constitution is through Britain will have to give up her permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

The Constitution quite clearly establishes a common EU foreign policy – something Mr Grant and his colleagues at the CER have been advocating for some time – and a single spokesman for that policy, an EU foreign minister, in fact. Presumably, that will mean that this single foreign minister, or his staff, will negotiate on behalf of the whole European Union. What else is a common foreign policy?

Once that has been put into place, what precisely will be the point of member states having individual seats on international organizations, including the UN Security Council? As there is only one policy, so there will be only one spokesperson and only one seat. QED Mr Grant.

Then there is Melanie Phillips, who says quite reprehensibly, that the "overt purpose" of the European Court of Justice is to bring about a superstate. One can quite imagine Mr Grant thinking that in a well-organized society a "lie" of that kind would be severely punished.

Let us not get too excited about the word "superstate". The EU is big enough and the averred purpose of numerous politicians is to be the alternative centre of power to the United States. Whether that makes it a superstate can be debated. However, it is a single state in the making.

The Consolidated Treaty on European Union, aka the Treaty of Nice says in Section 4, Article 220:

The Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance, each within its jurisdiction shall ensure that in the interpretation and application of the Treaty the law is observed.

The Member States shall coordinate their economic and employment policies whithin arrangements as determined by Part III, which the Union shall have competence to provide.

According to The Times this morning, the eurozone’s recovery remains fragile and is vulnerable to frail consumer demand and the risk of a further rise in the already strong euro.

This was the view of the International Monetary Fund, which has just carried out its annual "health check" of the eurozone’s economic prospects. It agreed that short-term prospects were better than had been forecast but called for "urgent action to tackle both immediate problems and deep-seated long-term challenges".

But Michael Deppler, director of the IMF’s European Department, was not convinced that the necessary measures were in place. "The area’s structural and fiscal policies do not add up to the forward-looking response needed to revive long-term growth and deal with fiscal pressure arising from rapid population ageing," he said.

In a swipe at the EU’s "Lisbon agenda" for economic reform, he cut to the core of the economic pretentions of the eurozone members. "Everything is a priority and, hence, nothing is a priority," Deppler said.

Perhaps they need another task force - to prioritise their priorities. But will they give it sufficient priority?

Press censorship should be on the agenda. So writes – or appears to write - Mr Charles Grant, former Economist journalist, biographer of Jacques Delors and currently a director of the Europhile think-tank, the Centre for European Reform (CER).

His view can be found in the current CER Bulletin (Issue 37), under the innocent title of "the peculiarities of the British", in which he offers ideas as to why the British are so different from other European countries in disliking the EU.

Grant has four explanations. Three can be dispensed with fairly quickly: history, and especially Britain's relatively glorious role in World War Two; geography, which placed Britain on the edge of Europe and open to the oceans; and economics ­ the UK has out-performed much of the continent over the past ten years.

But these are mere cover for Grant’s other explanation: Britain has a unique popular press – it is mainly Eurosceptic, speaking to three-quarters of the 30 million people who read a daily newspaper. And even those that are not still print much that criticises the EU. He even suggests that the BBC (not exactly a newspaper) is infected with Euroscepticism - something which will bring a hollow laugh to many.

What is more, according to Grant, in the Eurosceptic newspaper groups, journalists are expected to write stories that knock the Union. Articles which attempt to present a balanced account of an EU issue are unlikely to be published. The Times and the Telegraph, two serious newspapers, almost never print an opinion piece that presents the EU in a favourable light.

"In no other European country", writes Grant, "is it acceptable for leading journalists to report tendentiously on, or even lie about, the EU". Journalists "get away" with "factual inaccuracies because they are accountable to no one but their bosses and they face no sanction". "The British system of press regulation is toothless and does virtually nothing to encourage truth-telling or balance", he asserts.

In other words, contrary to the situation in some of our EU partners – where the main newspapers are either state owned or controlled - we have a free press.

Mr Grant does not like this. The Eurosceptic tide cannot be turned unless… He then suggests that Britain's political leaders should be prepared to explain the benefits of EU membership; business and trade union leaders should point to the huge economic cost of withdrawal.

But his main point - and what looks like the whole point of his article – is that Parliament must reform and strengthen the system of press regulation, so that journalists think twice before being cavalier with the truth.

We do of course have a word for "press regulation" – especially when it seeks to arbitrate on what is the "truth". It is called censorship. And this is precisely what Mr Grant seems to be suggesting.

Despite the holidays, EU commission continues to toils away in pursuit of its agenda, to which effect it has just announced the launch of a twelve-week "stakeholder consultation process". The intent is "to gather input for its mid-term review of the Gothenburg sustainability agenda".

The EU's Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) was adopted at the June 2001 Gothenburg European Council and now, being three years old, the mid-term review is "to assess what the strategy has achieved and where further progress is needed during the next five-year term of the new incoming Barroso Commission".

What seems to be worrying the commission is that, since Gothenburg and the August 2002 Johannesburg World Summit, the EU's other major strategy "to become the world's most competitive knowledge society by 2010 (the 'Lisbon agenda')" seems to have overtaken the EU's commitment to sustainable development.

Hinting at some fierce fighting behind the scenes, the commission remarks that:

...fierce stakeholder lobbying battle on REACH (the EU's chemicals policy) and the Commission's leadership role on fighting climate change have started a new debate on the relationship between economic growth, competitiveness and the EU's commitment to the environment and sustainable development.

Regular readers of this Blog might have detected a certain interest in what has been described as the growing waste crisis, not least the increasingly vexatious abandoned car mountain brought about by insane EU landfill rules.

But never fear. After an article in the motoring section of The Times earlier in July, which raised precisely the fears that had been rehearsed in this Blog, Baroness Young, erstwhile Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, has today come to the rescue with a letter back to the Times.

According to the fragrant Baroness, who writes from her equally fragrant address in one of the nicer – bijou even – parts of Bristol, there is absolutely no problem at all. Anyone who has to dispose of their faithful old car, it should be a "comfort" that "her properly depolluted and shredded remains can still rest legally in peace in an appropriately licensed landfill site, just as they could before the change in waste disposal rules on July 16."

"Car breakers have not shut up shop and clogged the streets with abandoned vehicles", the Baroness chirps. "Used cars are being taken away and dismantled. Vehicle dismantlers have been required since last year to remove batteries, mercury, fuel, oil and other hazardous substances from old cars."

She does, concede that "It does cost more", but the Baroness does not find that a problem. "Given our love affair with our motor cars, it is the price we have to pay to prevent them remaining a pollution risk in death as they are in life", she purrs.

If this was not a civilised, family Blog, one would be tempted to observe that this complacent, patronising garbage might impel someone less restrained than myself to rip out the fair Baroness’s lungs, chop them, mix them with her verbal excrescences and feed them back to her, line by line until she choked. But, as this is a family Blog, we could not even think of saying such a thing.

Nevertheless, we can observe that the Baroness has not exactly addressed the points of concern, and is being more than a little disingenuous in her bland assurance that "properly depolluted and shredded remains can still rest legally in peace in an appropriately licensed landfill site, just as they could before the change in waste disposal rules on July 16."

Furthermore, in deconstructing her text, we can learn a great deal about how the official mind works – if that is the right word. In the above section, the key words are "properly depolluted" and "appropriately licensed", and they tell the tale.

For a start, the confusion and difficulties lie in the definition of what constitutes "properly depolluted". The problem is that it is the Baroness's own organisation, the Environment Agency, that decides and, so far, they have not been able – or willing – to tell the breakers exactly what it means. The breakers must guess and hope they get it right, in the knowledge that if they do not – and fall foul or some retrospective definition – they will be prosecuted.

Then there are the weasel words "appropriately licensed". If the shredded, un-recyclable remains are, by some definition as yet not known, classed as non-hazardous, they can be disposed of in a normal "appropriately licensed" landfill site (for the moment – until the increased recycling quotas kick in, but that is another story).

If they are hazardous waste (because of residual pollutants, at a level as yet unspecified, according to a test which has not yet been specified), then they must be buried in an "appropriately licensed" hazardous waste site – of which there are now far too few to meet demand.

The trouble comes if (or when) the breakers get it wrong. It is an offence to dispose of hazardous material in a non-hazardous site, but it is also an offence to dispose of non-hazardous material in a hazardous site – damned if you do, damned if you don't.

For the moment, however, there is an uneasy truce which has prevailed since 21 July when the Environment Agency issued a statement offering a "three month window" during which "a simplified de-pollution checklist" can apply, to allow breakers time to develop "the capability to comply" with EA guidance.

But it was precisely that guidance with which compliance was impossible, or impossibly expensive. For now, though, the breakers have gone back to work, but the problem will re-emerge later in the autumn when, no doubt, Baroness Young can write another soothing letter to The Times.

Telegraph readers will have already noted this morning's story headed "Heath was ready to give Madrid sovereignty over the Rock", detailing how Ted Heath's Tory government was in 1973 prepared to hand Gibraltar over to the Spanish in a deal with General Franco's regime.

But what is really chilling about the story – if the betrayal of the Gibraltarians is not enough – is the blithe assumption at the time that, within ten years, the European Community would have become a "political and defence union". That was certainly the hope expressed by Alan Goodison, head of the Foreign Office's southern European department, who wrote as much in a note to then foreign minister Julian Amery.

This was seen as the ultimate resolution to the Gibraltar problem, with Goodison opining, "We hope that within 10 years the European Community will become a political and defence union. When that time comes Gibraltar will be neither British nor Spanish. It will be European."

One is always cautious to avoid falling into the trap of taking a conspiratorial view of history, but it has to be said that in no way was the British public at the time appraised of the ambitions of their masters. Furthermore, it is fair to say that the idea of a political and defence unions would have been an anathema to the majority of the population, and still is.

Yet, despite the lack of enthusiasm for either project – and the total absence of any democratic mandate – it is also true to say that these ambitions remain undiminished amongst many of the ruling elite. And, in many important ways, they are that much closer to their goals, despite still being without any democratic mandate.

When we have successive governments, therefore, pursuing agendas which are neither fully declared, nor have the approval of their people, is it any wonder that there is disillusionment with the political process, and a lack of trust?