The EU in context - 'Article 50 of Lisbon requires the EU to make a trade arrangement with any nation deciding to leave it.'

As the EU leaders meet to decide how to arrange the financial deckchairs on the Eurozone Titanic I thought some links to some EU related articles that I have been hoarding for a while.

1) Christopher Booker explains that:

'The EU's architects never meant it to be a democracy
The rise of a "technocracy" was always part of the plan for Europe.

...

The events of last week were by no means the first time that an elected prime minister has been toppled by the Euro-elite. The most dramatic example, as we also showed in our book, was in 1990, when Mrs Thatcher had emerged as the biggest obstacle to the next great leap forward in their slow-motion coup d’etat, the Maastricht Treaty, creating the European Union and the single currency. Following her ambushing at a European Council in October 1990, when she was outnumbered 11 to one, the trap was sprung. An alliance between the European elite, led by Jacques Delors, and our own Tory Europhiles, led by Geoffrey Howe and Michael Heseltine, brought her down within weeks.

They had disposed of the greatest political obstacle to the onward march of their project just as ruthlessly as they were later to brush aside all those referendums expressing the objections of the French, the Dutch and the Irish to their Constitution. The one thing for which there has never been any place in their grand design is democracy.'

2) Liebrich has a wonderful collection of EU and Europe related quotations, here's a few of my favourites - as ever just listen to what they say:

'"Monetary Union is the motor of European integration"
Jean-Luc Dehaene, Prime Minister of Belgium.


"The richest state in Asia is Singapore - a small island with almost no natural resources; the richest country in Europe is Switzerland, which is not even in the EU, never mind the Euro."
'In or out - the case against the Euro', Fabian Society Pamphlet by Janet Bush and Larry Elliott, Labour party policy wonks. 3 August 2002.


"On 1 January 1999 with the introduction of the Euro ... an important part of national sovereignty, to wit monetary sovereignty, was passed over to a European institution ... The introduction of a common currency is not primarily an economic, but rather a sovereign and thus eminently political act...political union must be our lodestar from now on: it is the logical follow-on from Economic and Monetary Union."
Joschka Fischer, German Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor since 1998. Former Communist firebrand and photographed beater-up of a policeman (ironically called Mr Marx). Speech to the European Parliament, January 1999.


"The finance of the country is ultimately associated with the liberties of the country. It is a powerful leverage by which the English liberty has been gradually acquired. If the House of Commons by any possibility loses the power of control of the grants of public money, depend upon it, your very liberty will be worth very little in comparison."
William Ewart Gladstone, British Liberal Prime Minister 1868-74, 1880-85, 1886, and 1892-94. Speech in the House of Commons, 1891.


"The single currency is the greatest abandonment of sovereignty since the foundation of the European Community ... it is a decision of an essentially political nature. We need this United Europe ... we must never forget that the Euro is an instrument for this project."
Felipe Gonzalez, Socialist Prime Minister of Spain from 1982 to 1996. May 1998.


"There is no example in history of a lasting monetary union that was not linked to one State."
Otmar Issuing, Chief Economist of the German Bundesbank Council,1991.



"A single currency is about the politics of Europe. It is about a Federal Europe by the back door."
John Major, British Conservative politician, Prime Minister 1991-1997, widely viewed as a failure and famous mainly for calling Eurosceptics bastards and shagging Edwina Currie. November 1996.


"The fusion of economic functions would compel nations to fuse their sovereignty into that of a single European State"
Jean Monnet, founder of the European Movement. Former Cognac salesman and bureaucrat at the League of Nations. 3rd April 1952


"We have started a new chapter in the structure of Europe. The Euro was not just a bankers' decision or a technical decision. It was a decision that completely changed the nature of the nation states."

"The pillars of the nation state are the sword and the currency, and we changed that."

"[My] real goal [is to draw on] the consequences of the single currency and create a political Europe."
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President. Interview in the Financial Times, April 1999.


"The Euro can only lead to closer and closer integration of countries' economic policies ... This demands that member states give up more sovereignty".
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President. Interview in Daily Telegraph, 7 April 1999.


"We must now face the difficult task of moving forward towards a single economy, a single political entity... For the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire we have the opportunity to unite Europe."
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President, speech to European Parliament, 13th October 1999.


"The single market was the theme of the Eighties. The single currency was the theme of the Nineties. We must now face the difficult task of moving towards a single economy, a single political unity."
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President, speech to European Parliament, 14 April 1999.


"I am sure the euro will oblige us to introduce a new set of economic policy instruments. It is politically impossible to propose that now. But some day there will be a crisis and new instruments will be created."
Romano Prodi

"I know very well that the Stability Pact [which fines Euro-zone countries if they persistently run budget deficits over 3%] is stupid, like all decisions which are rigid."
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President. Interview with le Monde, 17 Oct 2002. The Stability Pact immediately became known as the Stupidity Pact.


"[European Monetary Union is] a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe ... [if you are prepared to give up Sovereignty to the EU] you might just as well give it to Adolf Hitler, frankly."
Nicholas Ridley (1929 - 1993) Secretary of State for Trade and Industry under Margaret Thatcher, taking a career-ending dive into the swivel-eyed tendency, for which he was forced to resign. From an interview in Spectator magazine, July 1990.


"[What is needed is the] Europeanisation of everything to do with economic and financial policy. European Monetary Union has to be complemented with political union - that was always the presumption of Europeans."
Gerhard Schröder, German Chancellor from 1998 who does NOT dye his hair. Interview, 2002. Well that's pretty clear.


"Of course the risks will remain, especially if we don't follow up the bold step that led to a single currency with further bold steps towards political integration".
Gerhard Schröder, German Chancellor from 1998. Date uncertain.


"The introduction of the Euro is probably the most important integrating step since the beginning of the unification process. It is certain that the times of individual national efforts regarding employment policies, social and tax policies are definitely over. This will require to finally bury some erroneous ideas of national sovereignty... I am convinced our standing in the world regarding foreign trade and international finance policies will sooner or later force a Common Foreign and Security Policy worthy of its name... National sovereignty in foreign and security policy will soon prove itself to be a product of the imagination."
Gerhard Schroeder, German Chancellor from 1998. From 'New Foundations for European Integration', 19th January 1999.


"A European currency will lead to member-nations transferring their sovereignty over financial and wage policies as well as in monetary affairs... It is an illusion to think that States can hold on to their autonomy over taxation policies."
Hans Tietmeyer, Bundesbank President. Date uncertain.


"When exercising the powers and carrying out the tasks and duties conferred upon them ... neither the ECB, nor a national central bank, nor any member of their decision making bodies shall seek or take instructions from Community institutions or bodies, from any government of a Member State or from any other body. "
Treaty of Rome, 1957, Article 107. This doesn't explain why it was so important that the second head of the ECB be French, since he's not allowed by law to act in the interest of any one country.


"The process of monetary union goes hand in hand, must go hand in hand, with political integration and ultimately political union. EMU is, and always was meant to be, a stepping stone on the way to a united Europe."
Wim Duisenburg, President of the European Central Bank. Date uncertain. Note the choice of words "was always meant to be", which communicates a false inevitability.'

I'll repeat one of those for emphasis:
'"I am sure the euro will oblige us to introduce a new set of economic policy instruments. It is politically impossible to propose that now. But some day there will be a crisis and new instruments will be created."'
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President. Financial Times, 4 December 2001. Amazing, the front on these guys. So a future crisis is not seen as an indictment of the current system but an opportunity to extend it.


3) M E Synon in The Mail takes the EU to task for peddling the lie that: 'We (the EU) secured the last 50 years of peace'

'The word around Brussels is that the euro-elite thought the EU was in line to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Yes, I know: all one can say is, 'Huh?'

Yet it seems that José Manuel Barroso, Herman Van Rompuy and the rest fancied the EU deserved the prize for keeping Europe at peace for 50 years.

At which point 'Huh?' becomes disgust. This 'the EU kept the peace for 50 years' lie is being used by euro-ideologues in their efforts to re-write history. (If you have school-age children, better check their school books to see just how far this lie has seeped into their curriculum.)'

4) The Telegraph reports that:

'Britain will be better off in five years’ time if the eurozone breaks up than if the single currency survives the debt crisis, research suggests today. '

According to The Telegraph the report that I have not heard the BBC mention suggests that:

'The disorderly break-up of the euro would mean a short, sharp economic shock and probably a recession, but would be followed by a quicker return to strong economic growth, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

As European governments struggle to keep the eurozone together, Greek political leaders last night sealed a pact to form a national unity government after George Papandreou, the prime minister, announced his imminent resignation under pressure from a European ultimatum.

David Cameron will today tell MPs that the failure of eurozone leaders to resolve the debt crisis is harming the economy, and will warn that the break-up of the single currency would be even more damaging.

However, CEBR economists suggest that the demise of the euro would “not be anything like the disaster that has been argued”.

Freed from the constraints of the single currency, strong countries such as Germany would see their currencies gain in price in relation to the pound, boosting British exports.

The economists also predict that break-up would free many eurozone members from the deficit-cutting austerity policies that threaten to subdue their growth for years.

“If it breaks up the immediate pain is much more intense, but then there is a more stable basis and we would expect that within about 30 months growth will actually be faster than if the eurozone survives in its current form,” CEBR said.

After five years, Britain would be “at least as well off if the euro breaks up as it would be under the alternative scenario of holding it together”. '

This is not a majority view but it is a view that deserves discussion not ignoring.


5) Finally Simon Heffer in The Mail nails the lie propagated by the BBC and other Europhiles that 'leaving the EU would destroy Britain;. Here's an extract:

'a pamphlet published this week by David Campbell Bannerman, a Tory MEP, seeks to argue (against party policy) the contrary. Its title says it all: ‘The Ultimate Plan B: A Positive Vision Of An Independent Britain Outside The European Union.’

Coinciding as it does with the ICM poll findings, his thesis deserves to be studied carefully. Firstly we need to break out of the mindset that anyone who tries to make the case for Britain leaving the EU is mad — or, to judge from the contempt in which such a view is treated on certain BBC programmes, downright evil.

Mr Campbell Bannerman’s strongest argument is that there would be no economic downside to our departure. As the EU sells more to us than we do to it, it would be very much in its interests to enact a free trade agreement with us were we to leave. In 2009, our trade deficit — the excess of what we bought over what we sold — in manufactured goods with the EU was a shade under £35 billion.

Better than that — and here, at last, there is something to be said for the 2007 Lisbon Treaty — such a free trade agreement would not be a matter of conjecture. Article 50 of Lisbon requires the EU to make a trade arrangement with any nation deciding to leave it.

So the claim that there would be inevitable and large job losses is cast into doubt. He also argues that — with the ascent of China, India and Brazil — Britain would do well to leave a trading bloc whose share of world GDP is forecast to fall to 15 per cent in 2020, down from 36 per cent in 1980.

Just as the EU took no account of its role in a post-Soviet world, it seems incapable of understanding how to remain competitive in relation to rising powers such as China.

Britain also enjoys trading relationships elsewhere in the world that are not shared by other EU countries. We send 18 per cent of our exports to the U.S.: Germany sends only 7 per cent. And the biggest external investor in Britain is America.

Mr Campbell Bannerman rests much of his case for leaving the EU on the liberation it would bring from over-regulation of every aspect of our lives — one of the reasons for the EU’s poor competitiveness. He says that more than 100,000 regulations and directives have been imposed upon us since we joined the EU in 1973.

For example, the working-time directive — designed to limit the number of hours we can work, and which is estimated to cost £11.9 billion a year in lost productivity — would go if we left the EU. So, too, would a host of environmental orders such as the EU renewables directive, which insists we derive 20 per cent of our energy from renewables such as wind power, at an estimated £22 billion a year.

The Open Europe think tank reported last year that EU regulations had cost Britain £124 billion since 1998. This figure is not a partisan invention, but based on the Government’s assessments.

But the truth is the ‘bonfire of regulations’ that ministers talk about would be possible only if we left the EU or had a successful renegotiation to repatriate such powers.'

There is a lot more in the article, do read it all and remember the fact that 'Article 50 of Lisbon requires the EU to make a trade arrangement with any nation deciding to leave it.'