>GUEST POST byRichard North:
A Caveat Of Great Significance For EUroSceptics, in the light of Angela Merkel‘s collusion with David Cameron – but be conscious of Angela Merkel’s domestic difficulties CLICK HERE
.
~~~~~~~~~~#########~~~~~~~~~~
.
Hi,
unlike Richard I am not entirely sure I would start an article regarding Angela Merkel and the EU with the phrase ‘Cutting through the fluff…’
I tend not to see either in that category so perhaps ‘To cut to the chase …’ might prove more apposite to the cautionary and VERY important caveat he provides in this article:
Cutting through the fluff, we note the report on today’s visit by Angela Merkel, which tells us that the German Chancellor is understood to have indicated to the Prime Minister that she is prepared to back his proposals for strict limits on migrant access to benefits and public services.
British officials, we are further informed, hope the German leader will signal support for new rules to persuade British voters to vote “in” in a referendum on EU membership planned if Mr Cameron remains in Number Ten after May’s general election.
And there lies the germ of a treaty. There is a distinct possibility here that we are seeing the foundations laid for an Article 48 “simplified revision procedure” treaty, albeit the language coded and obscure.
If we are anywhere near to identifying the path chosen by Mr Cameron – and there does not seem to be any other credible alternative – then these are dangerous days for Eurosceptics.
One recalls how easily the media was gulled into believing in Mr Cameron’s treaty “veto”, so much so that even to this day the Prime Minister parades this non-existent victory. It is thus entirely possible that the media will accept claims for a new treaty, and fall in behind calls for remain in the EU, on the basis of successful “reform”.
What is particularly exasperating here is that the likes of the Financial Times, with its pretensions of “high quality global journalism” is misreading the meeting, telling us that Merkel “is expected to remind Mr Cameron that Germany will not back any British demands for a major rewrite of existing EU treaties”.
The paper goes on to acknowledge that Mr Cameron has in recent days said his proposed reforms would require treaty change, but then informs is that Merkel “opposes any British deal that would lead to an unstitching of EU treaties or require ratification by referendums in any member state”.
But, if the FT stopped one moment to think about what it had written, that does not in any way rule out a “simplified revision procedure” treaty, covering specific measures on benefits and public services, relating to migrants. Thus, despite a headline that says Merkel is to “rule out treaty change”, there is everything to play for.
That much is evident also from the exposition in Deutsche Welle, which raises the possibility – if tangentially – of amending Article 45 of the TFEU, noting that Cameron would “require alterations to EU treaties” while being confident that he would be able to “get that done”.
We are also getting similar mood music from The Times. Under the headline, “Merkel backs migrant benefit cuts”, we are told: “Hopes are rising in Downing Street, however, that Mrs Merkel will go further than ever in backing changes to EU treaties beyond those needed to reform the eurozone”.
Mr Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have backed the idea of scrapping rules that allow EU migrants to claim benefits for their children who still live in their home country. The payouts cost Britain about £30 million each year. Rules on the payment of child benefit abroad are enshrined in EU treaties, meaning that all member states would have to agree to alter them. Germany is considered to hold particular sway.
Nevertheless, one expects the media to play up the personality politics, to the exclusion of any more detailed analysis. They will need little encouragement to stoke up high-level theatricals, invoking a dispute between Merkel and Cameron, and such would serve all the better to pave the way for another of Mr Cameron’s victories.
It would be unforgivable, though, if the eurosceptic community allowed this “play” to be completed without challenge, or without attempts being made to explain how attempts are being made to manipulate public opinion.
Without pre-emptive action, I see us being outflanked, facing the prospect of a referendum on the basis of “successful” renegotiations, which would have us fighting a losing battle. Mr Cameron bringing a treaty back from Brussels would be a formidable opponent, and the sooner we start discounting his ploy, the better.
Commissioners have told an MEP that too much time has elapsed since the funding was awarded for it to be clawed back when the West Bromwich building is closed and turned into a sixth form college.
It had been feared that Sandwell Council taxpayers would have to foot the bill.
But confirmation that they would not emerged after independent Eurosceptic MEP Nikki Sinclaire asked a question in the Brussels Parliament about what would happen to the funding, awarded between 2003 and 2008 to the £72m West Bromwich venue.
Commissioner Johannes Hahn replied that the rules allowed money to be demanded back if the use of the building was changed within five years.
But he said: “In this case, the managing authority would not have a legal basis to request a repayment of European regional development funding as too much time has passed since the decision to award funding was taken.
“The managing authority has been and remains in contact with the local authority representatives and, given the available information, agrees with the current proposals for the project fit with the scope and criteria of the original.”
Miss Sinclaire said: “I am relieved that local taxpayers will not have to foot the bill.
“This was our money in the first place that was coming back to the UK from the European Commission for this project. I would not have wanted to see it taken away again. However it does raise questions about how this money is awarded if the purpose of a building in receipt of it can be changed after just five years.”
Sandwell Council leader Councillor Darren Cooper said: “We have been in regular contact with all the original funders of The Public project, to keep them up to date with our plans.
“We have been clear that in addition to becoming a sixth form college, the building would still support enterprise, business and arts.
“We are obviously pleased to note the European Commission agrees we do not have to pay back any European money, and have secured the agreement of the Department for Communities and Local Government as the managing authority on this.”
Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich East, said: “This is welcome news for everyone who has a stake in the future of this project.
“I’m sure that Sandwell Council has provided sufficient reassurance that art will still form a component of the building in future.”
Sandwell Council is set to sign a deal to let Sandwell College use the building.
It will also include arts space and a business support facility.
The deal, which will see the college and council enter into a 25-year partnership, is set to be put to Sandwell Council’s cabinet of senior councillors on October 16.
The plan is expected to save taxpayers £37 million over 25 years.
relative to the £Billions which vanish into the EU and its abject failure to manage to provide valid accounts and a clear realisation by the public and complacent acceptance by the EU’s self serving and unelected bureacrats the £8Million in question is but a drop in the ocean.
However extending this level of profligacy and indifference to public funds across the board, as The EU clearly does, is what makes up the £Billions that have gone missing and preclude the EU from producing balanced books.
It is as a result acceptable to point out that the £53Million, or so, squandered by the British Government on our membership each and every day, is clearly funding this corrupt institution – a scam by any standards!
That Britain borrows £Millions every day and only saves itself from bankruptcy by artyificially, and thus dishonestly, controlling interest rates at 2% should concern every citizens and cause them to ask why is Britain a major contributor to this corrupt organisation?
The £53Million a day is NOT Government money it is borrowed money for which the British tax payer is liable and at a time when Britain is around 900% of our GDP in debt how can anyone responsibly advocate t6his level of unbridled lunacy.
Would you be happy to owe 9 times your annual income before tax (and rising), with nothing to show for it as it dribbled away funding scams and daily bills?
Just who do our MPs, MEPs, Civil Servants and petty political apparachiks represent? Clearly it is not Britain, our interests or our peoples!
May I remind you that The Weirmar Republic collapsed in ruins, leading to WWII and that Britain’s debt exceeds that of the Argentine when it collapsed, America when it collapsed in the great depression between WWI & II, Italy, Greece, Spain and Eire – IF we remain in the EU it is not a matter of IF we collapse but when!
Yet our politicians lie, cheat and defraud us to remain in this monstrous POLITICAL scam despite its failure in economic terms and in the manner in which the British peoples are defrauded!
07-Sep-2012A National Conference ‘ celebrating’ the 20th Anniversary of the Single Market, organised by our supposedly Eurosceptic Government and the European Commission, is being held at 1. 00 p.m. on Thursday 18th October 2012 at Lancaster House in London.
How they can consider it appropriate to ‘celebrate’ an arrangement which has directly resulted in exporting jobs and created unemployment on a massive scale in Greece, Spain and other Mediterranean countries is quite beyond me. It displays openly the arrogance of those who rule us and their utter disregard for the plight their policies have visited upon the working (now non-working) peoples of Europe.
It’s time we displayed our anger to them and protest against the EU’s bureaucratic dictatorship and the UK’s membership of it.
DON’T MISS IT!
Thursday, October 18th, 2012
Lancaster House, London. 1:00 pm
Take this very important opportunity to have your say and demonstrate your annoyance of this job destroying regime, even if it means taking the day off work.
.
Regards,
Greg_L-W..
~~~~~~~~~~#########~~~~~~~~~~
TO LEAVE THE EU
What is the exit and survival plan for these United Kingdoms to maximise on the many benefits of leaving The EU. It is the DUTY of our Politicians and Snivil Cervants to ensure the continuity, liberty and right to self determination of our peoples – they have a DUTY to protect against crime and secure both our food and our border.
NONE of these DUTIES has a single British politician upheld for 40 years. They have drawn their incomes fraudulently and dishonesty.
Politicians are failing to tell the truth, but so are almost all wanabe Politicians, the MSM and Snivil Cervants.
The fact is that even if EVERY British MEP wanted change in The EU it would achieve NOTHING.
Every single British Politician, of EVERY Party, elected since before we joined the EUropean Common Market, has promised to change The EU’s CAP – In 40 Years they have achieved absolutely NOTHING towards that goal of unanimity in aim!
To try to put a value on OUR Freedom is as futile as floccipaucinihilipilification and as odious as the metissage of our societies, as we rummage in the ashes of our ancestors dreams, sacrifices and achievements, the flotsam of our hopes and the jetsam of our lives, consider the Country and Anglosphere which we thus leave our children and the future, with shame!
Regards,
Greg L-W.
01291 – 62 65 62
PLEASE POST THIS TAG AS FOLLOWS: ON YOUR eMAILS & BLOGS, FORUM POSTINGS & MAILINGS – GET THE MESSAGE TO THE PEOPLE IT IS OUR BEST HOPE AS WHOEVER IS APPOINTED WILL MAKE NO DIFFERENCE AS PROVED!
I SUGGEST – since there is clearly no political party of repute, advocating or campaigning to Leave-The-EU for these United Kingdoms and restoration of our independent sovereign, democracy, with Justice & the right to self determination in a free country & minded that membership of The EU is sucking out the life blood and identity of our Country in a counter patriotic manner and at a cost in hard cash of some £53 Million a day we must consider:
Denying the self seeking & meaningless wanabe MEPs and the no longer relevant MPs the Mythical Mandate for which they clamour.
Diktat is imposed from The EU but Law should be made at Westminster, for our Country & our Peoples by the peoples of our Country.
It is time that the entire mechanism of governance in these United Kingdoms, which has so clearly failed our Country and our peoples, was radically overhauled and updated to democratic status – failure to change will mean when we Leave-The-EU and/or it finally collapses, as it surely will, we will be no better off as the self same self styled, self enriching clique will be all too willing to betray us as they have done relative to The EU and its fore runners.
An MEP Campaigning Rationally Against The EU is unusual by any standards –
they are usually making petty self interested Party points, or actively campaigning for re-election, with most of their staff working for them to get them back on the gravy train –
as with Derek Clark, Stuart Agnew and the other rascals in UKIP!!!
Nikki Sinclaire MEP Challenges the Commission Over Unemployment – “Admit to Your Negligence!”
€82Billion sitting idly in Commission
Issue Date: 24th April 2012
The European Union has 82 billion euros it needs to use by 2013, and seemingly no concrete plans as to what to do with it. This is at a time of economic crisis and growing unemployment.
The money is sitting in the bank accounts of the European Structural Fund a €347 budget (2007/13). This sum dwarfs the €76 billion that was allocated to the European Social Fund for the period of 2007-2013, which is intended to stimulate employment.
British MEP Nikki Sinclaire has slammed the European Commission, asking them in a formal parliamentary question to admit to their negligence. “1 in 5 young people under the age of 25 in the EU cannot find a job, and this money – given by taxpayers – is just sitting there. 7.5 million people between 15 – 24 are neither in work, education, or training.
The Commission is presiding over the creation of a lost generation, and this is a tragedy that Europe will have to live with for a long time” she said in Brussels today.
Miss Sinclaire is a member of the European Parliament’s Employment Committee, where she is often outspoken in her criticism of the EU and in her defence of British workers interests.
Last year she exposed the fact that whilst being a major contributor to the EU budgets, the British government had failed to make any use at all of the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) which is intended to help to retrain redundant workers.
“With up to €500million available each year, money has gone to retrain workers from such companies as Nokia, Peugeot, Renault, Volvo and others on the continent, but not one single penny has ever gone to redundant British workers.” She revealed.
This is despite the fact that the EGF actually has a UK representative in the Department for Work and Pensions!
ENDS
Notes for Editors:
The EU allocated €347 billion to its ‘Structural Funds’ for the period 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2013. €76bn of this is allocated to the European Social Fund, with the aim of creating employment.
Between 2007-2013 England will receive £2.5 billion is from the European Social Fund (ESF), but this is subject to match-funding by the UK government.
This is going to run and run. But, illustrating how sensitive the EU commission is about an increased budget, it has produced a sort of rebuttal, claiming to be the good guys.
But what I particularly like here is item five, where the commission tells us that: we are wrong to assert that: “The EU budget is decided by Eurocrats without any democratic procedures”.
The annual EU budget, it tells us, is decided by elected politicians, in the European Parliament and in the Council that brings together the Member States. Thus, we are told, “The Commission only proposes the budget, and has to respect the ceilings set out for a period of time (currently 2007-2013) by these elected politicians”.
And there you have it … the fatal (but probably deliberate) mistake in assuming that elections necessarily, or at all, confer democracy. Of course, without a unified demos, you cannot have a meaningful election. It the demos has no power to assert its agenda, there is no democracy.
More to the point, I have read numerous commission reports and study papers on the nature of democracy, and the so called “democratic deficit” within the EU. There is certainly no misunderstanding within the heart of the institution, and a full awareness that the Union is not democratic, and nor is its decision-making.
One of the most important of those papers was the white paper on European Governance, with a critique here, actually written by myself (ghosted for Nigel Farage) but, rather bizarrely, attributed to Dr Cris Shore (now corrected, with commendable speed).
When you see what they know, and what they actually say, it thus becomes evident that the Commission is playing games. As bad, they are insulting our intelligence. That is a very silly thing to do.
The original article can be seen on Richard’s new (old) blog at its new home CLICK HERE – Do make4 a note of Richard’s new home for your daily reading 😉
Greg Lance - Watkins (Greg_L-W)
. Re-TWEET my Twitterings
Ukip-vs-EUkip 