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STATISTIC OF THE WEEK Number of provisions in the original (supposedly abandoned) European Constitution: 447 Number of those provisions also present in the (supposedly completely different) Lisbon Treaty: 445 Source – European Scrutiny Committee of the House of Commons |
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LATEST NEWS Leading
academic calls for greater independence from EU From
Strasbourg with indifference Poll
shows majority in favour of referendum on Lisbon Treaty City
Minister attacks proposed EU regulation MEPs
cost the taxpayer five times as much as MPs A
cushy job, but what's the point? Ireland
will vote again on an identical text EUtollahs
refuse to respect referendum results Bulgarian
criminals avoid prosecution by standing for European Parliament Secret
preparations for joining the euro Departing
MEPs to share £20 million payout |
QUOTES OF THE WEEK "Last year British Labour MEPs voted with their
Socialist colleagues to strip Britain of an opt-out from an EU directive
that limits working hours. In doing so, they were going against
the policy of both the British (Labour) government and majority
public opinion in Britain. But most British voters have no idea
that they did this." "[The EU] is simply too big and culturally diverse
for EU-wide rules and laws – however reasonably intended –
not to be insensitive to local customs or ways of doing things." "We in the UK are having to confront the collective
failure of UK political leadership right now and one of the tasks
of the next UK Parliament will be to rebuild trust in political
institutions. In the European Parliament the trust has never really
been there in the first place." "Unless the Government comes to its senses, the
result will be catastrophic for the NHS, with patient safety on
a knife-edge, surgeons not being properly trained, waiting lists
going up again and even hospitals closing... We have already reached
the point where patients' health has been endangered." "Europe's elites have crossed a political line
by reviving the EU Constitution under the guise of the Lisbon Treaty
and ramming it through without referendums, after it had already
been rejected by French and Dutch voters. To continue a second time
after rejection by the Irish – alone in voting – amounts
to a putsch." "An open till waiting to be robbed" "Sometimes I like to compare the EU as a creation
to the organisation of empire. We have the dimension of empire." "The wasteful practice [of throwing unwanted
fish back into the sea] is one of the biggest problems facing European
fisheries." "MEPs can claim an enormous £363,000 a
year in expenses – not a penny of which requires a receipt...
In other words, MEPs can spend their allowances on holidays, duck
ponds, moats, mortgages or whatever takes their fancy, safe in the
knowledge that neither the dreaded media nor taxpayers will ever
find out... as late as April this year, a majority of British MEPs
(60%) voted to keep details about their own expenses and information
about misuse of EU funds secret." "Access to documents is the lifeblood of a healthy
democratic system. It allows the public to find out about proposals,
to debate and discuss them, and to make their views known. We are
still waiting for the enshrined right of access promised in the
[1997] Amsterdam treaty and the present discussions mean this right
is still a long way away." "Why do the Irish need to be consulted twice
on the same issue when all other Europeans haven't even been asked
once?" "In the past few months, however, the single
currency has changed from a stabilising factor into a new source
of vulnerability for members of the eurozone." "If opponents of the European Union are looking
for evidence of political meddling and overreach, they could hardly
find a better example than the new draft directive on alternative
investment fund management... All it does is enhance the suspicions
held by some in the UK that it is highly risky to engage with the
continental Europeans on matters of crucial British interest."
"The problem is the presence of wide-ranging
powers in a set of institutions that don't command the loyalty of
the people over which they rule... democracy is impossible without
a demos. There is no 'European People' for the European Commission
to be accountable to. Primary political loyalties reside inside
the nation state, the only place where a genuine demos exists." "[The EU is] irredeemably corrupt and unreformable." "Like a fish, Europe is rotting from the head...
Europe's top jobs are not awarded on the basis of electoral success,
but on whether you fit into an opaque political matrix." “This government is not interested in keeping
London alive as a financial centre. Hedge funds are not yet flying
but they are fluttering. Everyone is thinking about leaving.” "Should Britain leave the EU but maintain close
trading links? "The proposed European directive on hedge fund
and private equity regulation is a financially illiterate dog's
dinner of the oppressive and protectionist which flies in the face
of the principle of subsidiarity and promises further to undermine
the City's position as one of the world's leading financial centres...
Drawn up without consultation, it doesn't deserve even to see the
light of day, let alone be passed into law. Alarmingly, there is
every chance that it will, as the directive requires no more than
majority support in Europe, and among member states only Britain
has a private equity and hedge fund industry of any size to defend." "They don't even know how much power we already
have." "It is revealing that even in the midst of the
worst financial crisis in 70 years, one widely and somewhat justifiably
believed to have begun in the US economy and resulting from US policy
mistakes, the flight to safety of world savings was to US treasuries,
and not noticeably to the euro." "[MEPs' expenses are] so lax in some areas that
you can find yourself putting money in your pocket before you know
what you're doing." "I firmly believe that in the current economic
situation the taxpayer should not be asked to cover any shortfall
of the [MEPs' second] pension fund." "That [2005] manifesto promised a referendum
on the European Constitution, we renamed it the Lisbon Treaty and
reneged on that promise." "It's a crazy rule. It's not wanted. It's not
needed. And it could, potentially, devastate the sheep industry." "People are going to die because of this." "Don't refer to the great lunch you have had
with an industry representative privately or add a PS asking if
he/she would like to meet for a drink." "The most important task is to make sure that
debate over problems is not silenced as an attack on the very idea
of European integration. We have always believed that being allowed
to discuss such serious issues... is at the very core of democracy." "A recipe for chaos in our corridors" "The Lisbon Treaty is something unique in history
as it intervenes in the sovereignty which has formerly been reserved
for national governments... the proponents' argument that the Lisbon
Treaty makes the EU more democratic and more efficient is to be
rejected, not only by German lawyers." "Had we not been able to suffer a 25 per cent
devaluation in our exchange rate, we would have suffered a 25 per
cent devaluation in output and jobs." "The legitimacy of government derives from the
consent of the governed, and therefore no government should have
the right to hand over its authority to some external body which
is not democratically accountable to its own people... [However]
the framers of the EU arranged for the nations of Europe to do exactly
that." "Neutral factual information... is not enough
on its own." "There are... significant parts of EU legislation
over which the Parliament has no real power – including agriculture,
fishing, taxation and parts of its annual budget. And the MEPs still
do not come up with new laws, just amend legislation that has been
created by the European Commission." "These [EU regulations on pesticides] could hit
food production for no recognisable benefit to human health." Euro-myth of the week: European politicians represent their country's interests in the European arena. EU waste of the week: EU spends £20 million on Caribbean swimming pools See also: The top 100 examples of EU waste and fraud EUphemism of the week: Astroturf organisations Did you know? The EU's law book, the acquis communautaire, grows by an average of 10 Acts each day the Parliament meets – not bad for an organisation supposedly "paralysed" by the need for the institutional changes in the Lisbon Treaty Site map statement of principles Post to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit |
Brusselswatch believes:
- that the Lisbon Treaty is practically identical to the supposedly abandoned European Constitution (as many European politicians including Valery Giscard d'Estaing have confirmed) and that its return under another name is an appalling breach of promise
- that the Lisbon Treaty will mean a far greater (and more permanent) change to Britain than any change of government – yet if any change of government took place without a popular vote, there would (quite rightly) be rioting in the streets
- that the European Union is a fundamentally undemocratic organisation as its only democratically elected element, the European Parliament, is no more than window dressing without real power to hold the numerous unelected EU bodies to account
- that all transfers of power from elected national governments to the EU therefore involve a loss of democracy, as power passes from elected representatives to unelected fonctionnaires, and that this, rather than international cooperation, is the real raison d'être of the EU
- that democracy is self-correcting in that you can vote out whatever government you voted in, whereas the power structures of the EU have been deliberately placed beyond the reach of the electorate
- that there is no inherent benefit in forcing 27 vastly different countries to adopt identical solutions to every problem
- that there is a great difference between agreeing to cooperate with other nations on particular initiatives, the limits of which are known in advance, and handing over entire swathes of government to unelected bodies
- that the benefit of free trade between the nations of Europe could be achieved without the EU, that non-EU countries can trade freely with the rest of the world without falling foul of the EU's external tariff barrier, and that even on the European Commission's own figures the EU costs businesses four times as much as the single market saves them
- that the Common Agricultural Policy is major factor in Third World poverty
- that it is undemocratic to treat "yes" votes in referenda as binding for all time but "no" votes as a temporary inconvenience, to be overcome by making the people vote again
- that when the EU has an unelected President, as the Lisbon Treaty mandates, it will have absolutely no credibility when criticising other countries for being undemocratic
- that the trend in every EU body is towards Qualified Majority Voting in areas that formerly required unanimity, meaning that member states could be forced to accept measures that harm their interests, and that the notorious "passerelle" clauses in the Lisbon Treaty allow for yet more policy areas to adopt QMV without the need for another treaty
- that EU standards of accounting would be considered unacceptable (and probably criminal) even in a small family-run business, with auditors now having refused to sign off on the EU's accounts for 13 years running
- that the nations of Europe will always, without the need for compulsion, adopt policies that have been shown to work elsewhere, and that the EU forcing member states to harmonise their laws often leads not to the spread of best practice but to the replication of disastrous mistakes
- that the exchange of power between member states and the EU should be two-way, allowing national governments to repatriate powers if they choose to do so
- that Britain pays far more into the EU budget than it gets back, and in any case EU money is spent in Britain to suit the EU's priorities (especially for self-publicity) rather than Britain's
- that the EU (and national governments acting at its behest) should not be allowed to spend taxpayers' money on pro-EU propaganda, especially that directed at children
- that the EU is the most pressing issue of domestic politics, as it dictates 84% of all new laws in its member states
- that the EU would be far more unpopular if the true extent of its interference in national politics were widely known (instead of which the EU plasters its flag over anything that might be popular, while leaving national governments to carry the can for legislation they have been forced by the EU to introduce)
- that the misguided tactic of sacrificing Britain's interests in order to "influence the EU from within" has failed as the EU continues to get worse in every measurable way – waste, fraud, the expenses regime, the CAP, the over-regulation of Europe's businesses, the persecution of whistleblowers etc.
Brusselswatch aims to provide information so that people can make an informed choice, and to counter the massive amount of pro-EU propaganda on which the EU and national governments so lavishly spend taxpayers’ money (see manufacturing consent and funded by the EU for more details).
| "The
idea that there is some hidden agenda to destroy national identity
in the EU is one of the most common scare stories peddled by the
Eurosceptics." |
"This
is a big change from the basic concept of nation states. It’s
a change of centuries of history.” |
Brusselswatch is not affiliated with any political party or pressure group, though it supports organisations campaigning for democracy and self-determination throughout Europe (see links page). Although written primarily from a British perspective, much of this site will be equally relevant to citizens of other European countries, whose politicians are ignoring their wishes in the rush towards closer European integration.
"Why do you not bestir yourselves, why do you allow
these men who are in power to rob you step by step, openly and in secret,
of one domain of your rights after another, until one day nothing, nothing
at all will be left... Do not forget that every people deserves the regime
it is willing to endure!"
Leaflets produced by the White Rose anti-Nazi resistance group,
written by Hans and Sophie Scholl