So long, farewell, au revoir, auf Wiedersehen, good-bye

I'm in the midst of packing up my apartment here in Brussels, ready to move back to Unoccupied Europe: five years behind enemy lines is enough. All of which means I will be away from this blog for sometime. Thanks to all of you who've been following my EU coverage these past years.

When Van Rompuy held hands with Gaddhafi: Nigel Farage's idea of euro-art

The thing about the European Parliament is that, no matter how many times I go into the place, there is always something new to annoy me.

This afternoon I headed into the parliament -- to be specific, into the Altieri Spinelli Building, named for a dead Italian communist and European Federalist -- bound for a brief talk with Nigel Farage in his office. And if you want to know how Farage is, the answer is happy and more confident than ever after the House of Commons woke up last week, listened to their constituents and defeated the Government's plans to bomb Syria.

But I was hardly in the door from the Place Luxembourg, still a long way from Farage's office, when there it was, the annoyance of the day: a poster announcing an exhibition of Lithuanian pictures 'from the European Parliament's art collection.'

That's right, pain, misery, unemployment, failing commerce and industry, bust banks across the EU and the members of parliament are amassing their own art collection, just like Louis XIV: your tax money decorating their walls. How much? The parliament's officials say the 387 pieces in the collection are worth almost £15.2m

I was still exercising my annoyance over the art collection when I arrived at Farage's office. While he finished his telephone call, I checked his walls for signs of 'euro-art'.

No chance. Here is what the UKIP leader has on his wall while other Members of the European Parliament enjoy taxpayer-funded pictures. If I may fall back onto my time in Bond Street where I studied Old Master Pictures, I will point out that the hand clasp is a particularly tender passage in this composition...

'I like your taste in pictures,' I told Farage. He said the shot was a souvenir of his attack in the European Parliament - well, I'd note that should be one of his attacks - on Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, over the warmth of his relationship with the Libyan dictator.

Here's a transcript of the moment on March 16, 2011. I'd call it performance art.

'Mr van Rompuy, I hope you resist the calls for military action this afternoon, indeed the Liberal leader, Mr Verhofstadt, made a very pro-war speech. I hope you will resist that on the grounds that there is no legitimacy or consent for the European Union to take military action, and that experience shows that if you go into military action, that may be easy, but getting out of it can be rather more difficult, and getting involved in Libya could indeed be a Vietnam-type experience, so please, please resist it.'

'But on Colonel Gaddafi, himself - you're quite right to say that what is happening in Libya is really very wrong indeed. But, of course, we knew that even before the uprising. Just last year he declared a holy war - a jihad - against the Swiss; he tried to blackmail the European Union - do you remember? He said give us 5 billion euros or we'll flood you with migrants.'

'And of course he's the man who was happy to embrace Al Megrahi, the man who committed the biggest ever mass murder in British history.'

'But what you didn't tell us in your speech was about the fact that you actually know Mr Gaddafi. Indeed you went to meet him in December didn't you? Do you remember?'

'In fact there's a jolly nice photograph of you and Mr Gaddafi holding hands - in fact I have to say, I've never seen you smiling more or looking happier. Perhaps he's an old drinking mate. I don't know!'

'But, I wonder why? Why would you want to be photographed with Mr Gaddafi? And I put it to you that it could well be that since you were appointed as President of Europe - and your side-kick, the Noble Baroness Ashton became a High Representative for Foreign Affairs - that you know that you've been seen on the global stage like a couple of political pygmies.'

'As Wikileaks showed you were very unhappy that you weren't being recognised - unhappy that you were snubbed by Obama - and here was the chance to go along and be accepted by a head of state.'

'I don't think that you, there, parading with dictators, was a very good and sensible thing to do, indeed not just you. The British Labour government made similar mistakes.'

'But I do ask you at this juncture - with the horrendous things that are going on in Libya - I do ask you: Do you accept that it was an error of judgement to be photographed as recently as December with Colonel Gaddafi and would you please, if you do, apologise for it.'

One still waits for the apology... call it 'Waiting for Uh-oh.' More performance art.

Do German voters know? 'Germany must lend, give and spend or euro is in a hospice'

This just in from the veteran economist Brian Reading at Lombard Street Research. Given the strength of Mrs Merkel in the opinion polls in the run-up to the election, it appears to me that the German voters haven't figured this one out yet:

'Germany must lend, give and spend with abandon to save the euro. Unless nominal growth exceeds debt interest rates, stabilising debt ratios requires primary budget surpluses. Big surpluses are needed to reduce big debt. But retrenchment destroys growth. Optimistic IMF forecasts show mission impossible.'

'Trillions of words have been written about the euro debacle. In the process most have lost sight of debt-trap arithmetic...'

Reading then produces charts based on 'somewhat stale IMF April forecasts,' but these provide 'all the data needed to do the arithmetic.'

I won't take you through the thickets of the charts, but they cover the unfudgeable facts of debt interest rates and what kind of budgets and GDP growth it would take for the eurozone periphery countries to get out out of their fine mess. The figures don't look do-able.

'Unless growth spurts despite the drag from retrenchment, it will be hard to obtain market access at current rates given continued high debts and sizeable bailout loans to repay. The euro can be rescued by official lending of more good money for bad at artificially low rates, essentially gifts rather than loans or haircuts.

'Will Germany be willing to accept this task?'

'Otherwise the euro is in a hospice.'

Let's hope the German voters wake up and refuse to 'accept this task.' Putting the euro in a hospice sounds good. Though of course I'd prefer putting it in front of a firing squad.

 PS Today, Tuesday, Open Europe have published the first part of a three-part poll about Germans' views on Europe. The headline fact: 'German voters say next Chancellor' -- that'll be Merkel, then -- 'lacks mandate to press ahead with further financial support for eurozone.'

Their analyst Nina Schick reads it this way: 'German voters' support for "more Europe" seems to be mostly limited to strict control over other countries' spending. On all other eurozone initiatives currently being discussed -- including debt write-downs and a banking union -- a majority of Germans remain opposed.'

So it looks like there is indeed no taste in Germany to 'lend, give and spend with abandon' to save the euro. It's just a matter of time...

 

 

 

 

 

Courage, power and allies: Iceland may be independent, but it is not isolated

Here is my column from Monday's Irish Daily Mail -

Take the 100,000 mortgages we now know are in arrears in this country. Multiply the 100k by, say, the four to five people in an average household. That makes nearly half a million people in this country whose lives are paralysed by mortgage debt.

I’d like every one of those half-mil who are over 18 – no need to upset the children on this one - to take this thought into a corner and thumb-suck over it: in Iceland, a country which suffered a financial and economic crash every bit as spectacular as our own, the government is ready to cut up to 20 per cent off every mortgage.

The Reykjavik government can do this because the Icelandic economy is now strong enough to bear the fiscal cost. The economy grew 4.4 per cent in the year to the first quarter, unemployment is back below four per cent, and the banks are now liquid and well-capitalised, while non-performing loans have declined.

Iceland’s progress on the road to recovery is impressive – and it is a genuine recovery, not some irrelevance like our non-recovery goal of ‘leaving the troika programme’ while our economy continues to shrink.

No more negotiations

It was no surprise last week that the new eurosceptic                        Icelandic government said it will now consider dissolving the committee negotiating to join the EU. No committee, no negotiations: Iceland stays independent, though the government will hold a referendum to give the people a chance to confirm this policy. Polls show a big majority against membership.

Even the pro-EU online journal, EurActiv, admitted last week that ‘the decision of Iceland to stop the accession talks can be seen as bad news in Brussels. Croatia’s recent accession gave EU leaders the opportunity to boast about the attractiveness of EU membership, despite the economic and sovereign debt crises.’

Of course, Iceland has stopped negotiations. When the country is achieving growth, the like of which the eurozone can only dream, why surrender sovereignty to the over-regulated, failing, ageing, economically-illiterate, sclerotic EU?

Commission stalker

Not that the European Commission is willing to take no for an answer. At the midday briefing at the commission headquarters on Friday, the spokesman for the commissioner in charge of enlargement indicated that as far as the commission is concerned, the Icelandic application for membership ‘is still on the table.’

This is the commission in stalker mode: standing outside Iceland’s house night after night, staring up at beautiful Reykjavik’s darkened bedroom window, refusing to accept that she means it when she tells him she’s not interested. Reykjavik has other suitors: Chinese ones. More details in a moment, but it can be no surprise.

Last week Capital Economics in London noted all those economic statistics above, and added this: ‘The private sector [in Iceland] is well into the deleveraging process as debt is repaid and loans indexed to foreign currencies are written off. Household debt has fallen from 134 per cent of GDP to 110 perc ent, while firms have halved their debt loads to 150 per cent of GDP. Even public debt has fallen six percentage points to 98 per cent since 2011.’

All those trends are just bliss. Okay, there are still problems. A cut of 20 per cent off all mortgages ‘could hamper efforts to lift the capital controls.’

Another problem is that because ‘exports concentrate in only a few products – fishing and aluminium account for 60 per cent – Iceland is vulnerable to sharp swings in its terms of trade.’

Chinese investors

But Iceland appears to have no intention of leaving its economy so dependent on just a few products. What Capital Economics don’t mention are the Chinese investors poised to pour multi-millions of dollars into Iceland.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg financial news service reported that ‘Chinese billionaire Huang Nubo is ready to put money into developing property in Iceland as the new government reviews investment laws that had blocked his previous bid.’

What Mr Huang has planned is the development of a $200m resort and mountain park. According to Bloomberg, the 116 square miles of land on which he has his eye would become a platform from which to invest elsewhere in the Nordic region.

I will interrupt that Bloomberg thought to point out that, except for Norway, the countries of the Nordic Region are all in the EU: but Mr Huang knows that basing his investments in independent Iceland is no barrier to operating there. Iceland operates inside the European Economic Area (EEA), which means it and its foreign direct investors can operate inside the single market exactly as they would if Iceland were an EU member.

Geothermal energy

There are more Chinese projects lining up. In April, Iceland became the first European nation to sign a free trade agreement with China. What is it selling to China? For a start, it is selling its expertise in geothermal energy.

But there will be more. On August 12th the Financial Times ran this story: ‘Chinese cargo ship to attempt historic first transit of Northeast Passage.’ The FT had a map showing the route climate change will allow Chinese shipping to take over the top of Russia and down into European ports.

But what the map showed was far more than just the added speed with which shipping could move between European and Chinese ports. What it showed is just how close this new trade route will be to Iceland. Suddenly that island nation looks less far-north and more dead-strategic.

I bounced the map over to Hjortur Gudmundsson, a political scientist in Reykjavik, to ask what he thought about it. He told me: ‘This has been discussed a lot in Iceland in recent years. The Chinese have been looking at Iceland for quite some time as a possible place for a large container port. And perhaps something more than that.’

Manufacturing

As far as I can tell, the possible ‘something more than that’ is signalled by that new free trade agreement between Iceland and China. Geothermal energy is just the start. If the Chinese set up manufacturing in Iceland, the goods will have the same access to the single market as do goods manufactured in Ireland or any other EU country. Asian generic pharmaceuticals, anyone?

None of which means that Iceland intends to stop building up its fishing industry. Recently the EU has been trying to bully Iceland with accusations of over-fishing. I won’t go into details – if you really want to know about total available catch and quota allocation on Atlanto-Scandian herring, maybe some other time – but the Icelanders know illegal sanctions when Brussels tries them on.

Iceland has independent representation at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and many other international trade organisations which are at a higher level than the European Commission.

I’d guess that is why Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, the new prime minister of Iceland, was so relaxed when I saw him after his first meeting with commission president José Manuel Barroso earlier this month.

At the press conference, a reporter asked Mr Gunnlaugsson how his country would cope with sanctions imposed by the EU. The Icelander batted away the problem with a single phrase: ‘I think it must be unlikely that such sanctions would be put in place, particularly sanctions that would not be in accord with the WTO and EEA agreements.’

Exactly. Iceland has its own seat at the top table of global trade organisations, it has the same powers as other independent states at the WTO and the UN organisations. These organisations make the trade law which the EU is obliged to put into its directives.

So Iceland may be independent, but it is not isolated. It has powers. It has allies. It has standing. And it has courage. Go thumb-suck over that, too: what it means to be a sovereign state.

Putin's Russia: no place for sissies, gay or straight

Here is my column from Monday's Irish Daily Mail --

Gay bashing is bad in Russia and it may be getting worse. Thugs have been seizing gays – or men assumed to be gay -- assaulting and humiliating them, taping the attacks, and putting the stuff online.

One thug who filmed an attack on a 21-year old student accused of being a ‘passive homosexual’ said: ‘This is how it will be with every homosexual.’

A Moscow activist, Alexander Verkhovsky, head of an organisation that monitors such violence, last week told the Daily Beast that anti-homosexual groups ‘are meant to terrorize the entire gay community.’

He then told the Financial Times that ‘while homophobic violence is poorly reported, attacks appear to be on the rise and are no longer occurring at random or in isolation.’

This isn’t new stuff. Homosexuals have for a long time been the victims of attacks in Russia. That would be less likely to surprise you if you understood how violent the country is in every way. The rate of homicide in Russia is among the highest in the world. The rate of violent deaths of all kinds is phenomenal: by some reckoning the rate is 16.2 per 100,000. Compare that with the United States, where, even with the thousands of killings linked to the drugs trade, the rate of violent deaths per 100,000 to just 6.5. In the United Kingdom the rate is a slight 1.1 per 100,000.

So thugs in Russia attack homosexuals, but then thugs in Russia attack almost anyone, and they are drunk while they do it. Russia has one of the highest rates of alcohol consumption in the world. It is a country where the chances of any man dying of old age in his bed are slight by Western standards: murder or assault or a drunken car crash will get him first.

Or in the case of a young homosexual, drunken skinheads with baseball bats will get him first. Russia is no place for sissies, gay or straight.

As I say, this isn’t new, but it is in the news now because the Winter Olympics are to take place in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in 2014. Campaigners in America and Britain in support of equal rights for gays say that the games should be shifted out of Russia because President Putin is encouraging these attacks on homosexuals.

Mr Putin and his officials say they aren’t encouraging any such thing. Rather, they say, what they have done is put in place laws prohibiting homosexual propaganda directed at under-18s.

This, the government insists, is in line with the norms of Russian culture and society -- and anyway, they say, the laws have not been much enforced and attacks on homosexuals remain criminal.

Problem is, of course, that the laws against such attacks have not been much enforced either, and the thugs are getting away with their crimes.

So far, so reasonable, if you want to campaign against all this, indeed, if you want to campaign against holding the Winter Olympics in Russia. This violence is repellent stuff. Call Vladimir Putin almost any name you like and I’m probably going to say: ‘You’ve got a point.’

But here’s the thing. Some of the equal-rights-for-gays campaigners have tipped over into territory that has nothing to do with equality and everything to do with bullying and suppression of the freedom of speech.

Last Thursday Yelena Isinbayeva, a Russian two-times Olympic gold medallist pole vault champion, defended her country’s laws on homosexual propaganda: ‘We just live with boys with women, women with boys. We never had these problems in Russia and we don’t want to have any in future.’

Cue Western mob attack on the woman for daring to express her opinion. Within hours Miss  Isinbayeva was forced to ‘clarify’ her statement in a press release from the International Federation of Athletics Federations, the world governing body of athletics: ‘English is not my first language and I think I may have been misunderstood.’

Subtext: please may I have my pole back now?

If she’d not done a recantation of her ‘homophobic’ statement, you can bet the greatest woman pole-vaulter of all time – or so I’m told she is – would find her ability to compete in future ruined by those who cannot tolerate anyone who disagrees with their views on homosexuality.

What this ‘outrage’ over Miss Isinbayeva shows is that, with some campaigners, supporting equal rights for gays means suppressing equal rights for anyone who might want the liberty to support his own cultural taboos.

Of which all cultures have plenty. I’m reminded of a tag-line for National Geographic: ‘We’ve taken you around the world exploring behaviours and lifestyles that are acceptable in some cultures but forbidden, illegal or reviled in others.’

Fashionable American and British campaigners may refuse to grasp this, but what is   acceptable in San Francisco or Islington is not acceptable in most other cultures of the world. Plenty of what goes on in San Francisco or Islington is, as the line goes, forbidden, illegal or reviled elsewhere.

Yet somehow San Francisco and Islington now think they have the right to impose their cultural colonialism on such places.

This is where I part company with those who support equal rights for homosexuals: I leave at the point where they turn illiberal.

Or irrational.

For irrationality, I give you the campaign which is being organised by a British television comedian, Stephen Fry. He claims the Winter Olympics have to be shifted because President Putin ‘is making scapegoats of gay people, just as Hitler did Jews’ before the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He says Putin is ‘eerily repeating this insane crime.’

I’d say that there would have been a lot of Jews between 1933 and 1945 who would have been grateful if all Hitler did was pass a law barring propaganda in favour of Judaism. Putin’s law is obnoxious, but telling the Russian people, who lost more of their own to Hitler than did any other nation, that their present government’s law is ‘eerily’ like Hitler’s crimes is insulting and absurd.

More, Mr Fry is engaged in cultural colonialism. He insists that if the games are held in Sochi, ‘the five rings’ would be ‘ruined in the eyes of the civilised world.’

That implies there exists an ‘uncivilised world,’ one which has a similar outlook to Russia.

I call this to your attention: many countries, especially countries in Africa, have cultures which abhor homosexuality. A Pew Research poll published in June showed that in sub-Saharan Africa, at least nine-in-ten in Nigeria (98 percent), Senegal (96 percent), Ghana (96 percent), Uganda (96 percent) and Kenya (90 percent) ‘believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society.’ Overwhelming majorities in the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed also said homosexuality should be rejected.

Are these countries therefore to be left out of Mr Fry’s list of what countries can be considered ‘civilised?’ Such a 19th century British colonial attitude, that.

Mr Fry then goes on to say that the summer Olympics of 2012 ‘were one of the most glorious moments of my life and the life of my country. For there to be a Russian Winter Olympics would stain the movement forever and wipe away any of that glory.’

Mr Fry’s definition of ‘stain’ is pretty selective. The 2012 Olympics were awarded to the Blair government in 2005. This was the same government which joined in George W Bush’s 2003 invasion and destruction of Iraq.

The games were awarded to Britain in the midst of the Iraq War, a war rigged up on lies and bent intelligence. Iraqbodycount.org say they calculate between 112,017 and 122,438 civilian deaths were suffered in Iraq between March 20, 2003 and March 14, 2013.

One could say that a gay in Moscow would have a better chance of survival than almost anyone in Iraq under the invasion which only occurred because the Blair government agreed to join President Bush in his plan to topple Saddam Hussein.

Yet the 2012 games were awarded to the Blair government, and Mr Fry found them ‘one of the most glorious moments’ in his life.

As I say, this is where I part company with such campaigners: when they become irrational. What Putin may be doing to gays is as nothing to what Blair did to Iraqis of every sexual direction. Yet the Olympics went to London, and they are now not supposed to go to Sochi. Fry’s a comedian. It must be a joke.

Queasy in Brussels: remembering when Clegg did Love Boat at the EU

I understand yesterday's Love Boat photo-op of Nick Clegg and his rich corporate lawyer wife gazing into each other's eyes onboard a Thames commuter craft left plenty of people in Britain feeling queasy.

But don't complain about it, just consider that it was your turn.

The first time Clegg came here to Brussels after he was made deputy prime minister I watched his performance at the British Permanent Representation to the EU. It made its own kind of queasy. Here was my report from March 2011, to remind:

Well, that was enlightening, in ways the deputy prime minister never intended.

Nick Clegg gave his speech this evening at the British Permanent Representation to the EU. Since the deputy prime minister was due to talk about what should be the European response to events in Libya, I thought the room would be mostly journalists, diplomats and whoever was travelling with Clegg.

Nope.

At ten minutes to showtime, the room filled up with Continentals in suits and ties: it seems Clegg's Brussels fan base is made up of EU think-tank types.

So I was across from the director of the Egmont, the think-tank of the (Belgian) Royal Institute for International Relations, which is a long title for something that could be covered as: 80 percent funding from the Belgian foreign ministry to push for ever closer union (in the EU, not Belgium, of course. Belgian doesn't have ever-closer anything, since it hasn't had a government since last summer. A situation of which I thoroughly approve, but that is for another post.)

I was behind a couple of suits from the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), which gets its funding from -- now, wait you're going to love this. The CEPS website announces that it 'obtains its funding from a variety of sources, which helps to guarantee its independence.' And right next to that is a pie chart showing 31 percent of its money comes from running projects funded by the European Commission.There are another couple of slices from other EU institutions. That's what passes for 'independent' in this town.

Also sitting in front of me was Hans Martens, chief executive of another think tank, the European Policy Centre (EPS), which also proclaims its independence...right above the admission it gets money from the EU.

Which explains what followed Clegg's speech. (If you want to know what he said, it was along the lines of 'I would like to very warmly welcome President Barroso's call this morning for a pact for democracy and shared prosperity' and the need for 'a bold new European offer.' So, boilerplate.)

Here comes the enlightening part. As soon Clegg finished his speech, the diplomat with the mic said there would be just 15 minutes for questions, and then immediately handed the mic to Hans Martens, the man from the 'independent' EPS.

Martens hadn't even had his hand up. I smelt a rat.

Here is how Think-Tank Martens began: 'I have a question for the UK Deputy Prime Minister, formerly Nick.'

At which all the think-tank types around me gave knowing little Continental chuckles, because of course, 'Nick' is One Of Them. This was the Manchurian Candidate come back to visit his mates at his Old School for the day.

Remember: after Clegg worked his five years as a eurocrat in the commission, and after he had his five gold-plated years as a member of the European Parliament, Clegg had a job doing research for -- right, the EPS, whose boss was given the favour of asking the first question.

Later the same boss asked me if I thought the way he had asked the question -- the 'Nick' opening -- had been all right.

I assured him I thought it was perfect....and it was, in so many ways.

The new king of the Belgians: I decline to celebrate

Today, Sunday, is the day Albert II, King of the Belgians, abdicates in favour of his son Philippe. This is not going to be a big deal here in Belgium - well, not in terms of festivities anyway, no crowd of visiting monarchs or anything - because the King only announced three weeks ago that he was stepping down.

The 'celebrations' - though you can bet the Flemish separatists won't be doing much celebrating - will be run as part of a beefed-up annual National Day.

I would ignore it, but I'm not going to be allowed to.

(If you want to know my thoughts on the origins of the monarchy in Belgium, see my blog post of May 6th.)

As I say, I'm not going to be allowed to ignore it. I've already been warned, by a notice dropped into my letter box last week by the bureaucrats at my 'commune' (local borough) that today '101 coups de canon' will be fired in the Parc Du Cinquantenaire between 12.45 and 1.35 pm, 'en hommage' to 'Roi Philippe.' 

I live practically on top of the Parc, so I'm going to have to get the full 101 blasts, followed by the Belgian army band roaring away the national anthem, and worse, Beethoven's Ode to Joy, which the EU has tainted forever by claiming it as their 'anthem.'

It's that last bit I find impossible to take.

But I'm ready for it. All my windows are open and between 12.45 and 1.35 pm there will be quite a lot of Jimi Hendrix (look, there is nothing on earth louder than Purple Haze) coming out of my apartment. At whatever decibels are needed.

 

71% of Britons want out of the EU: the eurocrats know it, but the Brits don't

Seems I had my eye off the ball this week. On Thursday morning as usual I picked up the     European Commission's Daily Press Review on my way into the midday briefing. I've mentioned this thing before: it is a 250-300 page printed bundle of stores from newspapers across Europe, circulated to the eurocrats at commission headquarters (yes, you pay for it, and no, you can't have a copy).

I flip through every day it to see if there's anything I've missed on the web -- and also to see which stories it is the eurocrats who put the thing together are choosing for their colleagues to see. (Hint: my stuff almost never makes it, not even when I take the whole leader page in the Irish Daily Mail.)

This particular headline did stop me. It was on page 194 of the review, on a page copied from the Daily Express: 'Call to leave the EU is backed by 71%'

The poll was commissioned by the very serious Bruges Group, so I reckoned: 'Well, that's an important story. How'd I miss that on the news websites this morning?' But then I went off chasing another story I may pitch to the Mail next week, and just assumed a similar sort of headline was in the other British papers.

Except now I realise it wasn't. I saw the story, whoever who read the Express saw the story -- and more to the point, the eurocrats running the press review felt the poll was important enough that even the boss-eurocrats at the top of headquarters had to see the story -- but  almost nobody else did. As far as I can see, just the one paper carried the poll.

I have no answer for why the others did not. Have they got summer work-experience interns running the the news desks or what?

So, to make up for what you most likely haven't seen on the news pages of whatever papers you read, here it is, from the Bruges Group:

'A majority of voters would prefer the UK to be a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) as opposed to the EU, according to a new survey published by the Bruges Group.'

'Of those expressig a preference in the survey, a clear 71 percent said that Britain would be better off as a member of the trade group EFTA, as opposed to 29 percent who thought that Britain should remain a member of the EU.'

'The 71 percent in favour comprised support across voters intending to vote for all of the major political parties. (Conservative 81 percent, Labour 54 percent, Lib Dem 50 percent, UKP 95 percent, and others 62 percent).'

'EFTA differs from the EU in that it would not have jurisdication over the UK's agriculture, fisheries, home affairs or justice policies.'

'EFTA would also allow the UK to negotiate free trade agreements with countries outside the EU.'

'In addition, Britain would become again a sovereign nation with more power over its domestic affairs.'

Robert Oulds, director of the Bruges Group, said: 'This poll not only adds to the growing body of evidence that a majority of the British people are realising that Britain would be better off out of the European Union but it also shows that there is a viable alternative to EU membership. The option of re-joining EFTA and becoming like Norway and Switzerland is very popular with the British people.'

Technical notes, for the analytical among you: the opinion poll was carried out by Survation on 3rd July 2013 with 1,085 respondents, with a 3 percent margin of error.

Though I'd say the margin of error by newspapers in not running this story is vastly beyond 3 percent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iceland vs EU bullying: the Viking shows what 'independent' really means

I wasn't going to run my column in the Irish Daily Mail last Monday, because I'd reckoned it was too much just on Irish affairs. But yesterday I was lucky enough to be at the press conference at the European Commission for the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson and the president of the commission, José Manuel Barroso.

What an impressive man Gunnlaugsson is.

He and Barroso had had a meeting, and for those who aren't keeping up with this, Iceland and its people have made it clear they do not intend to be railroaded into joining the EU. So I can imagine the meeting was a bit touchy, not least because the issue of mackerel fishing had come up again. The day before the commission had threatened it will impose sanctions on Iceland if it doesn't capitulate to EU demands to take less fish out of its own waters.

More, the vain Barroso -- the man has a film crew on stand-by 24 hours a day, ready for his close-up -- could not have liked standing at a podium next to Gunnlaugsson. The Icelandic p.m. was straight out of Viking central casting. He stood a head taller than the Portuguese Barroso, with slightly reddish dark blonde hair, pale eyes and cream-and-pink complexion -- and a build his suit couldn't hide: he looked genetically programmed to swing a broadsword.

But I digress. Here is the second half of my column. It will be clear after a few paragraphs how Iceland fits in. My topic was the appointment last Friday by the Irish prime minister of a new minister of state for European affairs, Paschal Donohue.

Ten hours after his appointment, Donohue was on one of the main current affairs programmes on the state-owned radio station. It was presented by Pat Kenny. I listed Donohue's limitations for the job, then went on to his lack of understanding of how international trade works.

...I present some of his discussion with Mr Kenny on whether the United Kingdom may vote to leave the EU.

Donohue: ‘What is the decision that the United Kingdom is going to make in terms of their membership of the European Union, will they decide to stay in, will they decide to stay out, will they actually pose the question to their people in the first place, and the mere posing –'

Kenny interrupts: ‘Bring back the border in that case.’

Donohue: ‘All of this.’

Kenny: ‘Border posts, customs posts.’

Donohue: ‘And even more broadly important in terms of access to the Common Market [note to Minister, the Common Market ceased to exist in 1993] you will be aware how important the UK is as a trading partner for us.’

Kenny: ‘We can still trade with them but the practicalities of it would change very dramatically.’

Donohue: ‘I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there. The way in which we would trade with them would come into question.’

The exchange was ludicrous. If the UK leaves the EU, it will trade with Ireland and other EU countries with even greater ease than rich independent Switzerland and even-richer independent Norway trade across the EU.

Neither Switzerland nor Norway has the negotiating clout of Britain. The UK is one of Germany’s biggest export markets, while German exports to eurozone countries look long-term grim. Germany is not going to allow any petulance from eurocrats over a British exit to mess up their access to UK markets.

As for the Donohue-Kenny outburst over British border posts, they already exist for all EU countries except Ireland and it makes no difference to European trade. It takes two seconds to put your passport through the system to get into the UK from Belgium, just as at Dublin Airport if you fly in from Rome you have your passport swiped. So what?

The fact is that if Britain leaves the EU it will have far more influence on international trading policies set by organisations such as UNECE than it does as a member of the EU. Britain will not be ‘isolated,’ it will be empowered, freed from memos from the Foreign Office reminding the British negotiating team of EU ‘positions.’

But of course not one in a thousand of you has heard of UNECE. The Brussels propaganda is that the trading regulations spring from EU decisions, so by being a member of the EU, countries have a seat at the top table.

Except they don’t: the EU is not the top table. Trading regulations spring from such organisations as the World Trade Organisation, regional bodies such as UNECE (the UN Economic Commission for Europe, which has 56 members including Russia and the US but not the EU) and global bodies such as OIE (the World Organisation for Animal Health, with 178 members but not the EU).

There are hundreds of such organisations: and, okay, if you want to explore the jungles of the CODEX Alimentarius Commission, created in 1963 by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Health Organisation to develop food standards, go right ahead. You will eventually find the EU in it, but lost in the crowd of 186 other members.

The negotiations on trade regulation go on in such intergovernmental organisations, then the new regulations are sent to the eurocrats in Brussels. We, most of us, only hear about them after the commission dresses up the new agreements as EU directives and regulations.

Britain being in or out of the EU will not change these intergovernmental agreements and how they are reached. If you want to read in-depth research on this -- and much, much else -- I recommend the blog written by the EU historian Dr Richard North: www.eureferendum.com

I will give you an example, drawn from research by Dr North, to show why Britain will not be isolated by breaking from the EU: ‘Interestingly, the EU does not get a look in when it comes to formulating these standards [at UNECE], but countries like Norway do. The EU is then used to write the specific legislation for Norway as a member of the EEA [European Economic Area, which allows countries to trade freely in the single market without being members of the EU]. So much for “fax-machine” law. The commission is simply acting as a service provider, making laws for states which have already agreed at a higher international level to implement them.’

He gives an example of the influence Norway has on international fishery standards at Codex. Norway hosts the fisheries committee. This gives them no specific advantage – although members of Codex such as Norway have a veto – but it does leave them up close to what policies are being developed.

Once the substantive issues on fisheries have been agreed at intergovernmental level, only then are they are passed to the EU to be implemented in the 28 member states: ‘At no stage, therefore, can it be said that Norway is simply the passive receiver of rules from Brussels.’

Norway is at the real top table, influencing policy in a way beyond the control of the EU. Watch and learn, Minister. Watch and learn.

That ran on Monday. On Tuesday morning I was at the press conference with the Icelandic prime minister. He was asked by a reporter how his country would cope with sanctions imposed by the EU. Here was his answer, very relaxed, but very precise:

'I think it must be unlikely that such sanctions would be put in place, particularly sanctions that would not be in accord with the WTO and the EEA agreements.'

The Viking knows the power to be had by staying sovereign.

Edward Snowden: a Jeffersonian hero. But Tories wouldn't know anything about that

Here is an edited version of my column in Monday's Irish Daily Mail --

This is why those of us who can be described, and not always by our friends, as anarcho-capitalist-libertarian-Tridentine-Rite-Jeffersonian-republicans so much resent being lumped under the title ‘conservatives.’

That is the word used in this part of the world for British Tories. And the fundamental thing a Jeffersonian republican knows about Tories is: we used to shoot them.

If you want to understand the difference between the two kinds of ‘conservatives,’ take a look at the debate over Edward Snowden, a contract employee at the US National Security Agency.

Mr Snowden is the tech expert who disclosed a vast secret programme of telephone and internet surveillanceof Americans by the US government. Mr Snowden is thought to be still in Moscow airport, trying to negotiate asylum somewhere, anywhere, outside the reach of the Obama administration, who want to skin and butcher his high-tech carcass.

Of course they do. Mr Snowden has exposed the kind of secret surveillance on American citizens which the US Constitution forbids. The man is a hero. The ones who ought to be facing prosecution in all this are the members of the administration who are running the illegal surveillance. The one who ought to be facing impeachment is President Obama for sanctioning the snooping, which is in contravention of the fourth amendment to the Constitution which he swore to uphold. Details on that in a moment.

Meanwhile, what do the British Conservatives, and their soul-mates in Ireland, make of Edward Snowden? Charles Moore, former editor of the Daily Telegraph, a Tory-supporting paper, wrote a piece for the Telegraph at the weekend which was run as well by the Irish Sunday Independent. Mr Moore claims that Mr Snowden has ‘betrayed his own state.’ He says he was ‘acting in the name of a morality which disdains allegiance to the rule of national law.’

That is so Tory. It reminds me exactly why Jeffersonian republicans used to shoot them.

Mr Moore and his Conservatives operate in a British state dominated by an over-mighty executive. The ability of a Government-whipped Commons to stretch the unwritten British constitution as they like and call it ‘law’ is exactly what drove the original Jeffersonian republicans to secede from the British empire.

It is precisely why the framers of the US Constitution made sure they limited with precision the powers of the new federal executive and legislature. Having been governed by men with ideas such as Mr Moore’s, the representatives of the 13 young states knew exactly what they did not want again.

So things are different under the US Constitution. The fourth amendment of the ten first amendments known as the Bill of Rights says: ‘The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probably cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.’

What this means is that there is a requirement for search warrants when any public authority wants to search individuals or their houses, or to seize any property in connection with an investigation. No law-makers have the right to over-ride this constitutional protection: the US Senate and House of Representatives are not the House of Commons.

It is not Edward Snowden who, in Charles Moore’s phrase, ‘disdains allegiance to the rule of national law.’ It is President Obama and his top security officials.

The only circumstances in which a warrant is not necessary is when a search is incidental to a lawful arrest. To get a warrant, a police officer must appear before a magistrate and declare under oath that he has good cause to believe a search should be made. The warrant must specify the place to be searched and the property to be seized.

This is important: the framers of the Constitution knew the dangers of the so-called general warrants used in England up until the mid-18th century. These allowed British government agents to search without specifics or probable cause, in short, to coerce and frighten political opponents by doing repeated total sweeps through their property and correspondence looking for whatever might turn up.

In other words, exactly what the NSA has been doing to millions of American citizens.

Mr Moore seems to think that the US government agents should act as though they have the power of general warrants. Yet the American states decided in 1791 they weren’t allowing it, and put the fourth amendment into the Constitution to make sure.

This prohibition is not something caught back in the time of the American revolution. Even in modern times, the protections of the fourth amendment have been extended to require warrants for the search and seizure of intangible property, such as conversations taken from recorded telephone calls. Warrants can be given in secret; but there must be warrants.

Yet now we find out, thanks to the courage of Mr Snowden, that the Obama administration has been ignoring this constitutional protection against what lawyers know as ‘unreasonable search and seizure.’

Top members of the administration have been under no illusion that what they were doing was legal. If they thought it was legal, they wouldn’t have been lying to Congress about it. Last March, James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, testified to a Senate committee that the National Security Agency does not collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.

I suspect Mr Snowden was watching that televised testimony. He knew different. Not long after, he packed his laptops – four of them, apparently—and fled to Hongkong.

He set up a clandestine meeting with a Guardian journalist who broke the story about the NSA programme of spying without warrants on law-abiding American citizens. NSA was spying on others abroad, too, but because of the fourth amendment the crime in all this is the unreasonable search and seizure by government agents of information legally held by Americans.

What Tories can’t understand is that even if such surveillance could be argued to be a good thing, no government agent – from a contract worker at the NSA to the president himself -- has the right to pursue surveillance outside the law. The Constitution would have to be changed first. And if neither the representatives gathered in the US Congress, nor the people of the states themselves, want to change the Constitution, then the spying on citizens has to end. Otherwise the government itself becomes the enemy.

Enough of that. To end on something else: next Saturday is the 220th anniversary
of the day Charlotte Corday went alone to the house of Jean-Paul Marat, one of the leaders of the French Revolutionary Terror, and plunged a six-inch blade into his heart. She then sat quietly and waited for the police, or the mob, to take her.

Standing before the Revolutionary Tribunal four days later, she explained: ‘I have killed one man to save 100,000.’ The tribunal sent her to the guillotine, as she knew they would.

This week I salute her courage.