THE REAL FACE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION: PREVIEW OF A NORTH AMERICAN UNION?

Please take time to watch this video, which dates from around 2002.
Although aimed at an American audience, using the EU as an illustration, the narrative is every bit as relevant to us now, as it was when the film was made.
Contributors include Norris McWhirter and, of course, Nigel Farage.

Aelfred Wantage

BRACE YOURSELVES-THE EUROCRATS ARE ASSAULTING OUR BORDERS AGAIN!

Brussels are at it again! Faced with an impending influx of refugees from the Arab world, the EUrocrats are launching a fresh attack on our border controls.
The European Commission is intending to use human rights laws to remove border controls. We all know where these people will head for; Benefits Britain, the freeloader's Heaven.

David Cameron has pledged to fight plans to scrap the existing rule requiring that illegal immigrants and asylum seekers are sent back to the country where they first enter the EU. However, Cameron has a particularly poor track record when it comes to demonstrating his 'EUroscpetic' credentials and has shown little resolve when faced with demands from Emperor Barosso.

Emperor Barosso

Commission President and de facto Emperor. Jose Manuel Barroso, will use today's summit in Brussels to press for the changes. In what can only be seen as yet another power-grab, Barosso wants the rule suspended indefinitely, which will open the door to hundreds of thousands of immigrants heading for Britain to claim the most generous benefits in the EU.
British officials fear the inevitable, that suspending the rule will see countries on the edge of EUrope making little effort to police their borders knowing full well that those immigrants are likely to head straight for Britain.


The situation has been exacerbated by the fighting in Libya, which has seen thousands of refugees fleeing Gaddafi’s regime to seek asylum in the EU.
So far, more than one million people have fled Libya since the fighting began.
Frontex, the EU border agency, estimates that 48,000 have already arrived in the EU and Italy expects another 50,000 to double those numbers. This will inevitably be the tip of the iceberg.


Eurocrats are demanding the changes to the current rules (the ‘Dublin regulations’) after officials lost a legal case earlier this year.
In January the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Belgium and Greece had violated the rights of an asylum seeker by sending him back to Athens. Both countries had been abiding by EU rules by sending migrants back to the port where they first entered the EU in order to file their asylum claims.

The unidentified Afghan asylum seeker in this case claimed that Belgium and Greece had subjected him to degrading treatment in returning him to Athens, and that he had been denied an ‘effective remedy’ against expulsion. The ECHR, unsurprisingly, agreed.

Last night Cameron's official spokesman said: "The Commission is proposing that the regulations are suspended. We will be resisting that because we think it’s important to have proper border controls. We do care because what happens at the border of Europe can impact on the border of the UK. People who come into the EU through other countries can end up in the UK. We've got to have the right incentives in place so countries police their borders properly."

However, actions speak louder than words and, so far, those of Cameron's government have been signally half-hearted and ineffective.

The move is also opposed by the French are keen to block the move because of problems they have had with Libyan immigrants landing in Italy and then crossing the border into France.

The answer to the problem of people coming to Britain is very simple: Firstly we must make clear that those entering illegally (including those those failing to claim asylum upon landing) will be summarily deported to their country of origin and, secondly, we must reform our benefits system to make it unattractive to those wishing to  live of the backs of the British taxpayer.

Aelfred Wantage

LORDS ON THE EU PAYROLL BLOCK DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

Story form Daily Mail

A ‘shameful’ alliance of former Eurocrat peers who get EU pensions of up to £100,000 a year – which they have not disclosed in the UK Parliament – were criticised last night for sabotaging an attempt by the Coalition to curb the power of Brussels.
An all-party clique of ‘big beast’ politicians and diplomats, many of whom have held lucrative posts in Europe, inflicted a series of defeats on the Government’s EU Bill in the Lords in the past two weeks by just a handful of votes.
The defeats to the legislation, designed to guarantee British voters a referendum on any further loss of sovereignty, have been achieved by a small but powerful group of peers with lucrative Brussels pensions and retired mandarins paid large sums to work at the EU.

 

The Kinnocks' salary

 

They have been backed by pro-EU former Ministers including Michael Heseltine, who made a rare visit to the Lords last week to vote against the Conservative-led Coalition.
He was joined by ex-Tory Chancellor Lord Geoffrey Howe and ex-Tory Cabinet Minister John Gummer, now Lord Deben.
But the campaign has provoked an angry backlash from Conservative loyalists who say the ‘usual suspect’ Euro fat-cats in the Lords are biased because they receive big pensions from the EU.
Unlike other outside income, they can keep the payments secret and do not have to declare them in the Lords’ register of interests.
Moreover, under an ‘EU loyalty clause’, anyone who has worked for the institution who speaks out against Europe can be stripped of their pension.

They must abide by certain obligations ‘both during and after their term of office’ including maintaining ‘loyalty to the (EU) communities’.

If they break this obligation, they can be ‘deprived of their right to a pension or other benefits’.

 

Lord Mandelson and Lord Brittan's respective salaries

 

Lord Clinton-Davis and Lord Richard earn a tidy sum

 

Critics say it means that those in receipt of EU pensions have a vested interest in voting to defend the EU.
The Euro fat-cats with EU pensions who have helped to defeat the Government include Tory ex-EU Commissioner Leon Brittan, ex-Labour EU Commissioners Peter Mandelson, Stanley Clinton-Davis, Ivor Seward Richard and Neil Kinnock and ex-Labour Euro MP Glenys Kinnock.
But their bid to block future EU referendums prompted an outspoken attack by Tory peer and novelist Lord Michael Dobbs, who claimed the pro-Euro ‘big beasts’ were out of touch with voters.
‘There are some big beasts of the European jungle here, some very big beasts,’ he said in the debate.
‘I often feel as though I have dropped into that scene at the end of the film Casablanca, when the wicked deed has been done, the fog is swirling, the body is lying on the ground and the police captain instructs his men: “Round up the usual suspects”.

 

Reality check: Lord Michael Dobbs has claimed the pro-Euro 'big beasts' are out of touch with voters

 

‘To suggest there is nothing wrong with an institution that embraces accounting practices that would have any company director thrown in jail is hopeless and shameful.
‘It is the usual suspects who have not been listening. If they had listened more, we would not need this Bill.’
According to the Open Europe think-tank, which campaigns for EU reform, the Kinnocks earned nearly £8 million in salary and allowances from their EU roles and left with a combined pension – like all EU officials it is index-linked – of £164,693. Lord Mandelson, who totted up more than £1million in salary and allowances as EU Trade Commissioner, qualified for a handout of £311,000 when he stepped down and received an annual pension of £35,543.

In addition, Ivor Seward Richard’s salary was £80,000 in 1985 with an estimated pension of £10,800. Mr Clinton-Davis’s salary in 1989 was £85,000 and his estimated pension £12,150. He said: ‘I voted the way I did because it was a bad bill.’
The pro-EU Lords campaign is led by ex-diplomat Lord John Kerr, who was the UK envoy to the EU from 1990-1995. He famously hid under the table during the final talks on the Maastricht Treaty so he could tell nervous Prime Minister John Major what to say. He is backed by Lord David Hannay, the UK’s EU envoy from 1985-1990.
A spokesman for Open Europe said: ‘It is no surprise that many of the Lords most opposed to giving the British people a say on the future of the EU have close links to the EU institutions and in some cases get taxpayer-funded EU pensions. It is the EU elite, not the people, who got it wrong on the euro.’

Just how, exactly, can this be called democracy?

Aelfred

HOUSE OF LORDS' DEMANDS 40% TURNOUT TO MAKE EU REFERENDA VALID

Reported by BBC News 08/06/2011

Recently, the government was defeated in the Lords over part of its plans to offer the public a vote on major transfers of power to Brussels by insisting that referenda would only be binding if there was a turnout of at least 40%.

A "referendum lock" on new EU treaties was part of the coalition agreement and something that has yet to materialise.
The government was defeated by 221 votes to 216, including 5 Conservative rebels and 6 Lib Dems.
The coalition is likely to seek to overturn the defeat when the Europe Bill returns to the Commons.

Independent cross-bench peer Lord Williamson, a former secretary-general of the European Commission, moved the amendment arguing that it should be up to Parliament to settle any issue on which there was "a derisory turnout". In other words, giving the government a 'get out clause' should it be in disagreement with the results of a marginal referendum.
"This amendment would bring back a role for Parliament in those cases, and only those cases, where the British public had demonstrated its lack of interest by a very low turnout in a referendum," he said.

Of course, any 'lack of interest' by the electorate is likely to have been encouraged, if not manufactured, by EUrophile ministers who are probably now regretting promising 'referendum lock' in the first place.

The Lords twice tried to force the government to set a minimum 40% turnout for the AV referendum but, this was overturned by the Commons.

Tory peer Lord Forsyth said: "It is very, very dangerous indeed to get into a position where we have a constitutional innovation which is the concept of referenda which are drop-dead referenda - the moment the vote is cast it becomes enshrined in law and Parliament no longer has a further say on it." In other words, regardless of how the electorate vote, politicians should have the last say. This would only serve to bolster our 'democratic deficit.'

Lord Pearson, the former leader of UKIP also opposed the amendment, saying the public would only re-engage with politics if given a greater say. He added "Their decisions, even if only 15% of them turn out to vote, will be very much wiser than those of our failed political class," a sentiment with which most of us would probably identify.

However, the whole bill could be scuppered if pro-EUropean Tories, including Brittan and Heseltine, join with Lib Dem peers to defeat referendum lock .
Recently, in alliance with pro-EU Conservatives, Liberal Democrat peers helped introduce a sunset clause to the EUropean Union Bill to ensure that 'referendum lock' expired at the end of this parliament. This would defeat the whole point of the promised referendum lock, which was to ensure all future parliaments cannot make significant transfers powers to the EU without the consent of the British people. EUrosceptics had already questioned the usefulness of referendum lock and it now looks much more vulnerable.

The amendment was passed by just 209 to 203 votes. Among the 209 opposed to giving us the right to a say in the surrender of our sovereignty were Leon Brittan, Lord Debden (formerly John Gummer), Lord Heseltine, Baroness Howe, and Lord Jopling. They were joined, not surprisingly, by many Labour peers andalso Liberal Democrats including Lord Oakeshott, Baroness Williams, Lord Maclennan and Lord Steel.

Lord Risby (formerly Richard Spring MP) unsuccessfully opposed the amendment saying:
"The whole point about this Bill is that it is meant to provide an enduring framework or umbrella under which future important EU decisions can be made. It comes back to this fundamental question, which is one of trust. People need to feel that they have a longer term guarantee of that sense of ownership of these procedures if we are to give away powers to the European Union. That is simply at the heart of this Bill. A sunset clause would give a limited time frame—providing perhaps for a time when we do not expect a referendum, or taking that right away when there might be a treaty change. That is the possible danger. But I might use the analogy of saying to the noble Lord, “Here is £5, but you can spend it only between four o’clock and six o’clock in the afternoon, otherwise I am going to take it back”. That is the essence of what this is all about."

Tory peer, Lord Brittan used his intervention to oppose referenda, demonstrating his contempt of true democracy:
"My Lords, I support the amendment. I start by saying that I am an unashamed opponent of referenda and always have been. It is not therefore surprising that anything that limits the operation of referenda inherently attracts me, as the amendment does. It is entirely reasonable that this piece of legislation, if it is to be passed, should be regarded as being wholly exceptional—which it is constitutionally—because it extends the range of obligatory referenda on a massive scale and fundamentally alters the balance of the constitution in that important respect. The Bill should be regarded, if it has to be passed, as a provisional experiment. I would regard it as a rather dangerous experiment that is subversive of the normal principles of parliamentary government."
This is a view shared by Tory EUrophile Ken Clarke.

Aelfred

THE BOTTOMLESS PIT OF EU MISSPENDING

A big thank you to the Daily Telegraph for providing this information.

£3 billion: Amount of 'stealth taxes' to be levied on Britons under European Commission plans to generate one third of the EU budget by 2020 using direct taxation powers.

£682 million: The amount Brussels demanded British taxpayers stump up in extra contributions next year to meet a proposed £5.5 billion increase in spending.

£9.2 billion: Amount British taxpayers contributed to the EU in 2010.

£94billion: The nine tenths of the EU's budget in 2009 that was “materially affected” by irregularities, projects that included the spending of more than £350,000 “improving the lifestyle and living standard of dogs” in Hungary.

£2billion: The annual cost of paying pensions to Eurocrats by 2040, British taxpayers will end up paying £350million of the total.

£136million: The amount British taxpayers paid for EU pensions in 2010, giving the average retired Eurocrat an income of almost £60,000.

1,023: The number of unelected EU civil servants who pocket bigger salaries than David Cameron's annual income of £142,500.

!£328,000!: The annual pay and perks package for Baroness Ashton, the EU foreign minister and highest paid UNELECTED female politician in the world.

2,558: The number of senior EU officials, earning £185,000 a year, who were entitled to three months time off work on full pay last year.

£67million: The amount that the European Parliament’s 736 MEPs can collectively claim this year in “daily subsistence” and “general expenditure” expenses without having to provide any receipts or proof of expenditure.

£150million: The annual cost of moving the entire EU parliament hundreds of miles from Brussels to Strasbourg for a plenary sitting once a month as a symbol of Franco-German reconciliation.

£90million: The European House of History, to be built by 2014 by MEPs, despite a continuing argument over fundamental historical event, such as what happened during the Second World War.

£8million: The annual cost of EuroparlTV, a television channel, which highlights the work of MEPs, and has only 830 daily viewers, less than 10 per cent of the 9,000 people working in the parliament every day.

£410,000: Cash to train teenagers in Burkina Faso and Mali, two of the world's poorest countries, in “therapeutic dancing” because Africans find that “expression of feelings through the spoken word is often difficult and complicated”.

£162,000: The funding went to the London-based Flying Gorillas troupe, whose acts includes the “brilliant smelly foot dance”.

And what does all of this have in common? Yes, none of us have been given the opportunity to vote on whether or not we want to be party to this outrageous largesse, or, if we do, how much we would be prepared to pay for it.

Aelfred

Shifting Powers: What the EU’s financial supervisors will mean for the UK and the City of London

WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT THE NEW EU SUPERVISORS

Read the full Open Europe document here.
“This is just a first step [...] we will dispose of a framework in which the Commission will continue brick by brick, piece by piece, to propose elements.”
- EU Commissioner for Internal Market and Financial Services, Michel Barnier, 2 September 2010.1

“We have agreed a European system of supervision with binding powers. My conviction is that its scope will increase […] This is a point of departure. In the future there will be an evolution. Institutions end up doing more than foreseen.”
- French President Nicolas Sarkozy, 20 June 2009.2

“We can’t foresee the evolution in five or ten years’ time but we know that there are already global stakeholders calling for something more.”
- Salvatore Gnoni, Securities Markets Unit, Internal Market DG, European Commission, 12 July 2010.3

“The supervisory package currently under consideration and based on the conclusions of the de Larosière group constitutes an important step ahead. However, further steps will be needed for the future structure of EU supervision if we want to avoid crises in future.”
- Pervenche Berès MEP, member of the EP Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, 28 July 2010.4

"No actor, no product, no sector, no territory should no longer be able to escape sensible and intelligent regulation and supervision."
- EU Commissioner for Internal Market and Financial Services, Michel Barnier, 6 September 2010.5

The City of London is one of the UKs major wealth creators, contributing massively to our GDP.
This document, produced by the think tank "Open Europe" is an excellent analysis of how the EUropean Union intends to impact upon the City's operations, and how market regulation will be biased to favour financial institutions outside the UK.

Aelfred

NOW OUR BILL FOR EU BAILOUT HITS £12.5 BILLION!

From the Express:

BRITAIN’S liability for shoring up the collapsing euro soared to a colossal £12.5billion last night following a European Union rescue deal for Portugal.

Chancellor George Osborne yesterday agreed with other European finance ministers that the UK will pour £4.3billion into a £68billion international bailout package for the debt-laden Portuguese economy.

On top of cash already pledged to Ireland and Greece, the move raises Britain’s financial involvement in supporting the crisis-hit eurozone to £500 for every household in the country.

And fears were growing that the total liability figure could rocket to more than £15billion if Britain is forced to contribute to an expected second international bailout for the Greeks.

Last night critics savaged the Treasury’s decision to join another lavish EU rescue at a time of swingeing austerity measures in the UK.

Tory MP Douglas Carswell said: “This is a disastrous deal for Britain. At a time of public-spending cuts at home, millions of hard-working families around the country will be wondering how we got into this mess.
It is extraordinary in the week when it becomes apparent that lenders will not get the money back from the Greek bailout that we should be going ahead with throwing billions into a Portuguese bailout.”

Euro-MP Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, said: “Osborne must decide who he wishes to please, either the UK taxpayer or his fellow EU finance ministers? Who is he working for – us or them?”

Charlotte Linacre, campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “This news is disastrous. The Government is failing UK taxpayers by not resisting further EU bailouts. It’s utterly wrong that while we look for necessary spending cuts in the UK, any savings made are being squandered propping up a failing eurozone.”

Finance ministers from the 27 EU nations agreed the £68billion bailout for Portugal at a meeting in Brussels that went ahead in spite of the arrest of International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in New York on sex attack allegations.
The decision to help Portugal follows fears about a crippling sovereign debt crisis which threatens to bankrupt the Lisbon government.

Mr Osborne agreed that Britain will contribute £4.3billion but Treasury officials insisted the Chancellor was a “reluctant participant”, forced into joining the rescue because of a deal agreed by his Labour predecessor Alistair Darling last year.

They pointed out that the cash was a loan and not a handout, and claim that stringent conditions attached to the bailout would prevent the Portuguese government from defaulting on the credit.

But the contribution comes on top of £1.2billion that Britain plunged into an IMF aid package for Greece last year and a further £7billion in emergency loans to Ireland. It means the total British liability for euro bailouts so far has reached £12.5billion. Worryingly, the figure is around half the cash saved by the Government this year through austerity spending cuts.

Some experts warn that the British Government may be forced to contribute a further £2.6billion to increasing the EU and IMF support for Greece, increasing the UK’s liability to £15.1billion. That figure is equivalent to £604 for every household in the country, adding further weight to the Daily Express crusade to get Britain out of the EU.

Treasury sources were last night insisting that Britain will not be expected to join in a further EU financial package for Greece. A spokesman said: “We were not part of the original European bailout for Greece and there is no proposal to bring us into the next one.”

Officials also pointed out that yesterday’s Brussels meeting agreed a legal text that means Britain will not play a part in any EUrozone bailouts after 2013.

Read full "Express" article here.

..and from the Daily Mail:

Every family in Britain will contribute £500 to bail out the euro after George Osborne last night signed up to a rescue fund for Portugal.

The Chancellor and fellow finance ministers agreed a Europe-wide £68billion deal to prop up the single currency by rescuing Portugal, which will cost UK taxpayers £4.3billion.

The loan deal, which involves the EU and International Monetary Fund, brings the total liability for the UK to £12.5billion from the three financial rescue efforts so far – or £500 per family. It will be formally signed at a meeting in Brussels this morning.

The UK has already forked out £7billion to help the Irish Republic and a further £1.2billion through the IMF during the first bailout of Greece last year.

The one bit of good news for British taxpayers is that Mr Osborne last night got fellow EU governments to sign off an agreement that the UK will not have to contribute to any further bailouts after 2013. That could save taxpayers up to £57billion if the single currency continues to have problems.

But with the prospect of a second bailout for the bankrupt Greek economy looming taxpayers may not get immediate relief from saving the single currency.

Last year, in the dying days of the Labour government, then Chancellor Alistair Darling signed Britain up to an EU-wide bailout fund that does not expire until 2013.

Mr Osborne has insisted that he does not wish to get dragged into a bailout of Greece. But he may have no choice. There is £1.4billion of British money left in the EU bailout fund, which could be used to prevent the Greeks defaulting on last year’s debts. If the IMF also chipped in, that would bring UK liabilities to £2.6billion.

And it would bring the total forked out to £15.1billion, the equivalent of £604 for every family in the land.

A Treasury source: ‘The deal is done on Portugal. We do not want to get involved in a Greek bailout. Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, has said that she doesn’t think the EU-wide mechanism should be used either.

‘We have got the prospect of future EU bailouts off the books as quickly as possible.

‘After 2013 the Government has made sure that British taxpayers do not have further liabilities of up to £57billion.’

Read the full Daily Mail article here.

BARONARSE ASHTON, UNELECTED, UNACCOUNTABLE AND OUT OF CONTROL

Sunday Telegraph: Nick Meo in Brussels 07 May 2011

COSTS OF ASHTON'S FOREIGN SERVICE GO UP, AGAIN!

She took up her highly-paid post promising to be a powerful new voice in foreign affairs, part of a bold strategy to make Europe a global player on the world stage.

The EU foreign affairs representative Lady Catherine Ashton Photo: AFP

But to the private delight of her opponents, and the dismay of the federalist supporters who created her job, the lacklustre performance of Baroness Ashton of Upholland after more than a year in office has earned her the nickname "the invisible woman".

Now, despite coming under pressure even from her friends, and with questions being asked about how much longer she can survive as head of the new EU foreign service, she is reacting in a familiar Brussels fashion; asking for more money.

The Sunday Telegraph has learned that Baroness Ashton, who was pushed into the plum position during Gordon Brown's last few months in office, is formally requesting a 5.8 per cent budget increase next year – an extra €27 million - to pay the spiralling wage bill of the new European External Affairs Service, around 100 of whose diplomats earn more than the British foreign secretary.

Even other branches of the Brussels bureacracy, not known for their financial restraint, are shocked: the European Commission has already been reprimanded by the prime ministers of Britain, Germany and France for seeking a lesser rise in spending of 4.9 per cent next year.

A Commission official said: "There have been too many promotions, too many senior members – there are too many chiefs at the EEAS. Every promotion means salary and pension costs go up, and they have proved too keen to try to recruit top people. It has proved very expensive for them. Now they are asking for a bigger budget increase than any other EU institution."

Lady Ashton will be grilled by MEPs on Wednesday when she appears before the European Parliament to discuss the performance of the EEAS in the first six months since it was launched.

"This is obviously an inflation-busting and unreasonable demand," said Charles Tannock, the Conservative foreign affairs spokesman in the European Parliament.

"The EEAS under her leadership has looked lacklustre and slow during the crises in North Africa, and it is heading for a car crash if it doesn't show that it is providing better value."

Baroness Ashton's supporters argue that to run a truly effective foreign service – "Europe's State Department", as they like to call it – she needs a bigger budget; her detractors accuse her of committing too much money in an effort to woo high calibre staff with lavish perks and salaries.

Criticism of her performance as head of the EEAS has grown steadily since the new diplomatic service was formally launched. First she proved slow to provide a clear European voice for democracy in the early stages of uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt; then, her critics say, she looked powerless during the crisis in Libya, as David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy showed the leadership that many federalists had hoped Baroness Ashton would provide.

The result is growing and highly personal sniping from all quarters. Federalists who had hoped she would shape a bold new European foreign policy have been bitterly disappointed; French diplomats are said to have led a whispering campaign which has undermined her. Last week the Belgian foreign minister, Steven Vanackere, a former friend, made public his "impatience" in an attack which showed the depth of disappointment in her performance among politicians who were once her staunchest supporters.

Mr Vanackere said he accepted that Lady Ashton "cannot be everywhere at the same time" in response to the pace and pressure of world events, but questioned her track record. "We can accept that some react faster than Ashton, but with the condition that she can prove that she is working for the medium–term and long–term on very important issues like energy, for example. But I have not seen this either," he told Le Soir newspaper.

He lamented divisions that emerged within the 27–nation EU during the "great test presented by the Arab awakening".

"We have always wanted the External Action Service to be the central axis around which member states might organise," he said. "But in the absence of a central player that reacts, makes analyses and conclusions quickly, it is the Germans today, the French tomorrow or the English who take up this role. The result is centrifugal, not centripetal."

Now even Herman Van Rompuy, the previously unheard of Belgian who is the first president of the European Union, has got in on the act. After the announcement from Washington that Osama bin Laden had been killed, it was Mr Van Rompuy who gave the first EU reaction, welcoming the news - his press office beating her to it by several hours. Baroness Ashton was in New York at the time, probably asleep in bed, according to a waspish account on a respected EU news website.

As part of a quiet but vicious struggle for influence between them, supporters of Mr Van Rompey were soon briefing against Lady Ashton for being too slow to make her own announcement.

The EEAS was originally billed as "budget neutral", implying that it would put no extra burden on taxpayers. But last year it became clear that the bureacracy would cost an estimated €45 million more to set up than expected, at a time when the British Government was cutting back on diplomatic representation around the world.

The service, with 7,000 staff, was a product of the Lisbon Treaty, intended to massively strengthen the EU's international role. The EEAS controls a total budget of around €7 bn (£6.2 bn) including massive aid, peacekeeping and development budgets. It has aroused bitter opposition among British critics. Geoffrey Van Orden, a Conservative MEP, said: "The EEAS has huge appetite and ambition, and now it's turning into a hydra-headed monstrosity."

Lady Ashton, 55, a Labour peer appointed by Gordon Brown, is the world's highest paid female politician on a salary of £270,000. A former treasurer of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament who has never been elected to any public position, she had no foreign policy experience when she was appointed to her post promising to speak for 27 EU foreign ministers. Her supporters argued that she would bring a fresh approach to trouble spots such as Gaza and international problems like Iran's nuclear programme.

Critics say that after her first few months in office she has little to show for her efforts, despite gigantic upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa - Europe's back yard where the EU has critical interests, but where it has barely appeared to be playing a role.

The spending increase sought by the service at a time of austerity threatens to add to her troubles but her staff, at least, still defend her.

Michael Mann, Baroness Ashton's spokesman, said: "She has done an excellent job in the past year, which was mainly spent setting up the service. Now we are going to get down to business.

"So far we have provided political and financial support to Egypt and Tunisia, and humanitarian aid to Libya." He defended the proposed budget increase. "We started with an under-resourced budget in the first year and we have commitments to pay staff. We are not fully up to strength yet, we are still recruiting."

Staff costs have proved to be highly controversial for the new service, which pays top ambassadors €188,000 (£165,000). Around 100 officials earn more than the £134,565 salary paid to William Hague, the Foreign Secretary.

It is not the first time Baroness Ashton has been embarrassed over spending.

She was derided for "playing at James Bond" when it emerged that the EEAS would spend €32 million on bullet-proof limousines, and her public relations budget was seen as excessive even by the lavish standards of Brussels.

Her most dangerous enemies may not prove to be her British political opponents, who have always disliked the EEAS and who in many cases are delighted that she has proved ineffective in practice, but disappointed federalists. Instead of shaping opinion and leading from the front for the EU, they accuse her of meekly following the foreign ministers of member states.

"The federalists are not happy with her, and if goes on like this much longer it is likely to end up with a no confidence motion," said one MEP. "That could force her out."

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ASTHON is impervious to criticism from outside of the EU because, she can be. She was not elected by us and cannot be voted out of office by us. Baronarse Ashton was appointed by Gordon Brown, Britain's most disastrous Prime Minister, as one of his final acts of treachery. Let's face it, none of us would have voted for her because, none of us had ever heard of her!
She is the perfect example of the undemocratic and dictatorial nature of the EUropean Union. She sets the EU's foreign policy 'on our behalf' yet, we have no mechanism for holding her to account or for shaping those policies.
As long as we remain members of this Neo-Soviet monstrosity, our hard-earned cash will continue to be lavished on Ashton and her similarly unaccountable cronies.

Aelfred

How Much Does the EU Cost Britain?-Gerard Batten

How Much Does the EU Cost Britain?
The EU is a cost we simply cannot afford. EU membership is a collosal waste of money both in direct contributions to the EU budget and in the indirect costs to the economy from the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy and Over-Regulation on business.   My lastest study makes an overwhelming case for Britain's unconditional withdrawal from the European Union.    The main figures were published in the Daily Express on 31st March.

Link to full PDF document.

LIMITS ON THE MOVEMENT OF IMMIGRANT SPOUSES WITHIN THE EU

This is something that our domestic courts MUST take on board:

EU Press release
Court of Justice of the European Union
PRESS RELEASE No 43/11
Luxembourg, 5 May 2011
Press and Information
Judgment in Case C-434/09

Shirley McCarthy v Secretary of State for the Home Department

EU citizens who have never exercised their right of free movement cannot invoke Union citizenship to regularise the residence of their non-EU spouse.
Where such persons are not deprived of their right to move and reside within the territory of the Member States, their situation has no connection with European Union law.
European Union law allows the spouse of a national of a Member State residing legally in another Member State to remain with his spouse even if that spouse is not a national of an EU Member State.
Shirley McCarthy, a national of the United Kingdom, is also an Irish national. She was born in the United Kingdom and has always resided there, without ever having exercised her right to move and reside freely within the territory of other EU Member States.

Following her marriage to a Jamaican national, Mrs McCarthy applied for an Irish passport for the first time and obtained it. She then applied to the British authorities for a residence permit, as an Irish national wishing to reside in the United Kingdom under European Union law. Her husband applied for a residence document as the spouse of a Union citizen. Those applications were refused on the ground that Mrs McCarthy could not base her residence on European Union law and invoke that law to regularise the residence of her spouse, since she had never exercised her right to move and reside in Member States other than the United Kingdom.

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, before which the case was brought, asked the Court of Justice whether Mrs McCarthy can also invoke the rules of European Union law designed to facilitate the movement of persons within the territory of the Member States.

In its judgment today, the Court states, first, that the directive relating to freedom of movement for persons1 determines how and under what conditions European citizens can exercise their right to freedom of movement within the territory of the Member States. Accordingly, the directive concerns the travel or residence of a person in a Member State other than that of which he is a national.

In this regard, the Court recalls that under a principle of international law, reaffirmed in the European Convention on Human Rights, Union citizens residing in the Member State of which they are a national, such as Mrs McCarthy, enjoy an unconditional right of residence in that State. The Court therefore finds that the directive cannot apply to such persons.

Similarly, the Court notes that the fact that a Union citizen is a national of more than one Member State does not mean that he has made use of his right of freedom of movement. Thus, the Court finds that the directive is not applicable to Mrs McCarthy’s situation. With regard to Mrs McCarthy’s husband, the Court finds that as he is not the spouse of a national of a Member State who has exercised her right to freedom of movement, he also cannot benefit from the rights conferred by the directive.

The Court then recalls that a person – such as Mrs McCarthy – who is a national of at least one Member State enjoys the status of a Union citizen and may, therefore, rely on the rights pertaining to that status, including against her Member State of origin, in particular the right to move and reside within the territory of the Member States. However, the failure by the national authorities to take into account the Irish nationality of Mrs McCarthy for the purposes of granting her a right of residence in the United Kingdom in no way affects her right to remain in the United Kingdom or to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States. Likewise, the national decision does not have the effect of depriving Mrs McCarthy of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of the other rights associated with her status as a Union citizen.

Consequently, the Court rules that, in the absence of national measures that have the effect of depriving her of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of the rights arising by virtue of her status as a Union citizen or of impeding the exercise of her right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States, the situation of Mrs McCarthy has no connection with European Union law and is covered exclusively by national law. In these circumstances, Mrs McCarthy cannot base her residence in the United Kingdom on rights associated with European citizenship.

Aelfred

EU WANTS TO MERGE UK WITH FRANCE

FROM "THE EXPRESS":

EU WANTS TO MERGE UK WITH FRANCE

EU chiefs have been quietly pouring around £1billion a year of taxpayers’ money into the regions

FURY erupted last night after a European Union plot to “carve up Britain” by ­setting up a cross-Channel region was exposed.

 Senior Tories Senior condemned plans to merge southern England and northern France into a territory called “Arc ­Manche” complete with its own flag.
Brussels chiefs have already earmarked millions of pounds for lavish projects designed to give the zone its own “identity”.
Schemes include a £7.6million “cross-Channel” network of cycle paths, a £2million travelling ­exhibition of “contemporary” ­artworks and even a ­bizarre ­international tour by ­circus clowns costing £5.5million.
Tory Cabinet Minister Eric Pickles yesterday revealed details of the plan inherited by his Whitehall department from the previous Labour government.

The Communities Secretary said: “Labour ministers have been caught red-handed conspiring with European bureaucrats to wipe England off the map and replace our historic ­boroughs, counties and cities with transnational Euro-regions.

Labour ministers have been caught red-handed conspiring with European bureaucrats to wipe England off the map and replace our historic ­boroughs, counties and cities with transnational Euro-regions

Cabinet Minister Eric Pickles

“Massive amounts of taxpayers’ money are being wasted on vanity projects. I intend to fight these plans, stop this waste and protect England’s national and local identities from EU empire building.”

There are fears the outrageous plan could spread to affect other parts of Britain.

Meanwhile, the Daily Express crusade to get Britain out of the EU has won massive support. We delivered a petition of 373,000 signatures from readers demanding a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU to 10 Downing Street earlier this year.

Reacting to yesterday’s news, Tory backbencher Douglas Carswell, MP for Clacton, said: ­“This is quite simply an attempt to carve up Britain. As long as the country remains a member of the EU, we will never be free of this nonsense.”

UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said: “The Arc Manche is the perfect Euro project. Nobody wants it, nobody called for it and nobody knows what it’s for.

“Its proudest boast is a logo that wouldn’t have won a Blue Peter badge, and cross-Channel cycle routes.”

Charlotte Linacre, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, added: “This billion pound vanity project is a complete waste of taxpayers’ money. It’s madness that the EU keep dreaming up ways to spend, given the economic disasters some countries are facing and the UK is trying to avoid.”

Arc Manche was formally launched six years ago to forge closer links between local councils in southern English counties with their counterparts in northern France.

It is one of 12 cross-border regions set up under the EU’s “Interreg” initiative – criticised as an attempt to erode national identities.

The name “Manche” – meaning sleeve – was taken from the French name for the English Channel.

EU chiefs have been quietly pouring around £1billion a year of taxpayers’ money into the regions.

Now they want to significantly raise the profile of Arc Manche, which already has a ruling “assembly” of councillors and bureaucrats headed by a French Socialist Party “president”, Alain Le Vern. At a cost of thousands of pounds, EU officials have commissioned a new “transnational emblem” to be rolled out across southern England. Designers describe the emblem as a “series of concentric circles symbolising the flow of projects and stakeholders” and to “represent so many bridges between territories”.

However, one Whitehall aide yesterday ­rubbished the emblem as “a bid to subvert the St George’s flag and the Union Jack”.

Among the projects designed to promote the Arc Manche is a series of cycle routes seeking to link northern France and southern England.

Maps of the proposed routes show cycle lanes stopping at the Channel and re-starting at the French side. And in an even more surreal twist, a troupe of acrobatic circus clowns is due to spend up to a year touring the Arc Manche region in a ­“transnational street theatre”.

Details emerged just days after Eurocrats pleaded for more taxpayers’ cash for Brussels coffers. Under a proposed new EU budget, Britain’s annual contribution to Brussels will rise by £682million next year.

Read more: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/244206/EU-wants-to-merge-uk-with-franceEU-wants-to-merge-uk-with-france#ixzz1LCCn4jM2


This will not come as news to those of us who have been following this pernicious project very closely.
What is refreshing is to have it laid bare by the mainstream media, and for senior politicians, albeit reluctantly, to acknowledge the fact that the ultimate objective of the EU is the destruction of the nation state and the abolition of European democracy.
Whether or not those same politicians will put our money where their mouths are and give us a referendum on continued membership remains to be seen.
I for one will not be holding my breath.


Aelfred

France and Italy propose revising Schengen Treaty following immigration row

From "Open Europe"

Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi will meet today to discuss revising the Schengen Treaty in light of recent tensions over immigration. Italy's Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, has said that Italy will accept a review of Schengen, in return for extra EU funds to help it deal with migrants, reports the Telegraph. The revised agreement is expected to propose that border controls can be reinstated between EU member states in exceptional circumstances when external EU borders have been breached. Italian daily La Stampa reports that the joint proposal could also call for a burden sharing agreement with a redistribution of migrants.  

French Europe Minister Laurent Wauquiez is quoted in the Journal du Dimanche saying, "Europe is not the free movement of illegal immigrants". The Italian authorities are reportedly accused of buying train tickets for migrants issued with temporary visit permits and encouraging them to travel to France, reports the Telegraph. On his BBC blog, Europe Editor Gavin Hewitt notes, “The real tension here is that EU principles are increasingly seen as at odds with economic reality and the wishes of a majority of the people. Appeals to solidarity do not sit well with the voters. The dilemma is similar to that of the bail-outs. In order to keep the euro together Brussels is supporting policies that alienate many voters”.