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Europe is getting old
It’s all about cause and effect and as yea sow so shall yea reap. Europe’s post-war social model has always been a euphamism for high taxes, a bloated public sector and rigid, protectionist policies. The long-term effect is that children have been, quite literally, priced out of the average family budget
As a result, Europe’s elites are sitting on a volcano. The present levels of welfare and pensions are simply unsustainable and whilst there is much hot air about reforming the fact is that Europe’s politicians dare not break the promises they have made to their people. Change now will just be too painful. Yet, the only way to sustain the current systems would be by the influx of vast numbers of young immigrants. With national socialists already on the march throughout much of Europe, that’s going to be like throwing a match into a tinderbox
Yet there is not single purblind European politician who will not fall over themselves to declare their unswerving support for the social model. It is almost the equivalent of the US Pledge of Allegiance which is ironic given their hostility to the US and it’s dynamic, less-fettered capitalism that threatens to pull the plug on their collective life-support machine
Europe is swinging to the Right according to this article in the EU Observer.
In 1997 only three of the fifteen EU countries had Conservative governments. Now the figure is seven and the Portuguese are expected to elect a Conservative government this year.
However, expect no material changes. European ‘Conservatives’ (Christian Democrats) are not informed by classical liberal values and therefore tend to be, at best, centrist and, at worst, indistinguishable from the Social Democrats they replace.
How appropriate that, with the end of January almost upon us, and so many are struggling to complete their tax returns, we get a little lift from the EU Commission who have hinted that they may relieve of this onerous duty. Instead, it is suggested that, in future, we simply remit our hard-earned direct to Brussels
What I like is the assertion that this new idea appears in a confidential letter sent by EU Commissioner, Michaele Schreyer, to her fellow EU Commissioners. Yes, the letter was so confidential that it has been splashed all over the front page of the EU Observer. As if we have been treated to a tantalising glimpse of the goings-on behind the Chocolate Curtain
Nothing of the sort. This is an administrative trick. The decision by the EU to tax direct has already been made and this little pantomime is to test public and media response. The European equivalent of running it up the flagpole and seeing if anybody salutes (or balks)
But what matter really? Balk away. Its on the cards regardless
A Reuters article has claimed that eating over 400 Euro notes could prove toxic due to the ink… but what I want to know is how do they know that? I will not believe them until someone holds down Romano Prodi and forces 400 Euro notes down his throat (ideally using European Commissioner Chris Patten‘s head as a ramrod).
If Prodi croaks, I will freely admit that perhaps I should not always be such a sceptic.
Well if the USA can have the absurdly named Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), a conflation of things that cries out for parody (when they are not murdering Branch Davidians, that is), I suppose the E.R.A.S.M.U.S. cannot be far from being established (European Rapid Action Sauce Monitoring Uniformed Service). Such a police service is surely needed to protect us from unscrupulous vegetable merchants, as demonstrated by this Times article Brussels can like it or lump it on sauce.
Samizdata reader Scott Flatman has seen the future:
<sound of door crashing open>
<sounds of shotgun rounds being chambered>
“Sir, put down the sauce, step away from the stove!”
[Editor: We thought this reader’s letter from Lagwolf was worth published ‘as is’ and without comment]
When not holding off the spawn of the “Goat with a Thousand Young” this week (Natwest Bank), I have been contemplating a few things. Most obvious during the post-euphoric cigarette smoke and chat centreing around the Euro, is that of libertarianism and the EU.
Most specifically is it possible for someone who calls themselves a libertarian to be also pro-European Union. For the sake of giving the thoughts borders, let us assume that the EU is an organisation that wishes to end up as single European state called “Europe” and that Prodi was right in his recent musings on the subject. Let us ignore the domestic apologists for the EU who believe that is not heading that way and is merely a collection of like-minded states wishing to co-operate. The seems to be a particularly British disease, I have yet to meet, in all my dealings with continentals, one who does not believe the EU is heading that way. It does not matter whether they are pro or anti or none of the above.
I think it is impossible for someone to be pro-EU and be a libertarian if they in fact know anything about the EU at all. The entire apparatus is anti-freedom and highly statist. Do anyone who reads this honestly believe that they EU will ever keep its meddling hands out of any aspect of its citizens lives? What is most amusing of course is there attitude towards the transfer of labour. On one hand they promise all their citizens to move about and work where he or she wishes to do so, but on the other hand they are striving to make it unattractive to do so. What would be the point, baring love or taste, of someone moving to a fellow EU country if all aspects of financial and professional life are the same. The EU is its lowest common denominator approach wants to make it so no part of the EU is any more attractive to a worker than other part. This will of course please the bureaucrats because they absolutely hate people who do not stay in one place and preferably stay in the same job. Let’s face it, the bureaucrats want to know where you are and what you are doing at all times.
Further the musing on Euro-slavia (there was an alright published under that name a few years back ). You really do not have to look at Yugoslavia to see that there is a great possibility the EU will eventually fall into chaos and civil war. It may last 50 years or even 100 but its internal rifts are just too large to overcome. I have been pondering this for many a year and have written a trilogy of Eurosceptic cyberpunk novels that remain unpublished. I lost any hope of getting them published once I realised all the major players in the publishing game in the UK are owned one way or other by the Germans. At this point it is possible that a publisher of said books could be prosecuted for distributing an anti-EU publication. However, thanks to the glory of this wonderful thing called the internet, the books are available in edited manuscript form from my website (lupusandco.com)*1 in a few days once I re-launch it.
Of course it is quite possible that the recent laws limiting criticism of the EU will ultimately be its undoing. When enough people start getting banged up in gaol for merely criticising one aspect of the EU people, even in the UK might sit up and take notice. It would be a wonder to behold to see Amnesty launching a campaign to save some fisherman or farmers being held in some Belgium jail for burning the EU flag. Is the Euro-wide arrest warrant the first nail in the EU coffin?
Lagwolf
[Editor’s note: *1 = We will report when this site is up and running]
David Carr pointed out that Euro Leader and superstatist Romano Prodi insists that membership of the Eurozone is for ever and irreversible
The president of the European Commission Romano Prodi believes that membership in the Eurozone is a “definitive marriage” and thus he feels the need for a good economic policy across the Eurozone, to keep the marriage solid. “You cannot leave the Eurozone once you’re in”, Prodi said on Wednesday.
Which is, of course, exactly what Tito said about Yugoslavia.
Remember, children, joining the Eurozone is for life not just for Christmas
I, for one, would like to applaud Signor Prodi for his candour about the real nature of the Euro-project. Mind you, it would have been more useful had it come before 1st January 2002…oh, but I’m probably just quibbling. Let us all hope that the policy of Glasnost continues and that we shall be treated to yet more spine-tingling and amazing revelations from Europes First Citizen
Bernard Connolly launches a fierce broadside against the entire EU project in this article in the Irish Times
Connolly is a former senior official in the EU Commission so he knows whereof he speaks. His book The Rotten Heart of Europe caused uproar when it was published
Of particular resonance is the line:
“The euro is a part of the design to extinguish freedom in a European empire”. Spot on, Bernard
Ireland has, traditionally, been the most overtly enthusiastic supporter on the EU project but, conversely, upended the whole train last year by voting ‘No’ in a referendum on the Nice Treaty. Looks like Bernard is helping them to see the light. Go, Bernard.
So it looks like the heads of the other 14 families are looking to make a move against the Capo Di Tutti Cappi
If you ask me, Don Berlusconi and his, erm, ‘associates’ should whack out a few of those rat motherf***ers. Give ’em two each behind the ear. Bada boom, bada bing. Capiche?
When Jorg Heider’s Nationalist anti-EU party gained a small role in the Austrian government a while ago, the EU was so shocked that they actually imposed various diplomatic sanctions on Austria. Not surprisingly this caused an entirely understandable and entirely predictable upsurge in anti-EU sentiments in Austria from people resentful of crass interference in their own internal affairs.
But I have always though it ironic that this should have happened to Austria. In Bosnia- Herzegovina the EU has its own political gauleiter called the ‘High Representative’, namely Austrian Wolfgang Petritsch. Although his job is to implement the Dayton Peace Agreements, he has never really hidden his true objective. He has often said that Bosnia-Herzegovina must follow the same route as other countries in the region towards European Union membership. Similarly we are told how important the introduction of democratic institutions are for ‘stability’ in the region. Yet when the largest Croat political party in Bosnia, the HDZ-BiH, representing largest single bloc of Croat votes, dares to use its democratic mandate to oppose the will of both the EU and the socialists in Sarajevo, our Austrian ruler sends in NATO troops last April to seize Hercegovacka Banka, the bank used by the HDZ for its funds. Democratic politics is fine it seems, just so long as it does not actually do anything that displeases the EU. One does not have to be a supporter of the HDZ (and I am not) to be horrified.
So it is hardly surprising to me that various members of the EU elite across ‘unified’ Europe are expressing ‘concern’ and demands for ‘explanations’ why pro-superstatist Italian Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero has been forced to resign from Silvio Berlusconi‘s government in Rome. The Spanish President of the EU Josep Picqué and Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel are going to deliver a report on this ‘situation’ in Italy. It seems they genuinely feel they must have some say in who is and is not in the Italian government, just as they felt towards Austria. I have no doubt that if Italy was not one of the larger EU nations that people in Brussels would not be at least making contingency plans for ‘special action’ if the grip of the EU started to seriously deteriorate in Italy (a remote possibility at best, to be frank). It is only a matter of time before even the smallest twitch of independent thinking from the elected representatives of an EU ‘nation’ (province) produces increasingly severe responses from the stasis superstatists. I wonder what bank Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia Political party keeps its money in?
However if you want to see a glimpse of the true future of ‘democratic’ Europe, don’t look at Italy or Austria, look at post-war ‘democratic’ Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Well, well, well! It appears that all is not quite so rosy in the Garden of EUden after all. Seems that an attack of healthy self-preservation has broken out in Italy
Strangely enough though, the situation there appears to be the converse of the situation in the UK. In Italy support for the EU among the grassroots is high and it is the political elite that are growing uneasy.
Still, let’s keep our eyes and ears open on this one, people. It could get interesting
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