Alfred the Ordinary’s blog

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Does your grocery bill seem high? May saw a 19.1 percent annual increase in the price of a basket of essentials, according to the Daily Mail Cost of Living Index with millions of families spending almost £1,000 a year extra on food. (See “Family budgets set to rise again as production costs climb at fastest pace for more than 20 years”)

Don’t worry though, the Westminster government has taken immediate action. According to the Guardian, the Chancellor, Alistair Darling has written a note to his bosses, in the EU, asking them to:

to extend the suspension of import tariffs on grains and re-think its biofuels policy to help ease soaring food prices in the 27-nation bloc.

and you thought we ran our fiscal policy? The Westminster government has very little real power left.

Alistair Darling then goes on to show a very slippery grasp of reality! According to Reuters:

He also called for an end to direct payments to EU farmers and the phasing out of all elements of the Common Agriculture Policy that are designed to keep agricultural prices in the region above world market levels.

Yes, and the EU is about to give us our fishing grounds back as well Alistair - you only have to ask nicely.

(Thanks to EURef for the ‘heads up’)

8a-fish

I’ve written before about the huge gulf between the rhetoric of the EU, and the EU in practice. Like many others, I have a feeling of despair about the destruction of many African fishing economies by the practice of the EU despite its caring rhetoric about African poverty, and also the media’s almost complete lack of interest in this discarding of human life. So it was heartening to see an article in The Grauniad (May 11^th) on just this subject. OK, it was really about a slightly crackpot scheme to preserve fish stocks, but note these lines.

Ninety years of industrial-scale overfishing has brought us to the brink of an ecological catastrophe and deprived millions of their livelihoods. ... when serious shortages in traditional stocks around Europe began to be commercially apparent 30 years ago, the trawler fleets began to move south. (remember the UK handed over 80% of the EU’s fishing grounds, previously supporting a large, well managed UK fishing industry, to European government control when the UK joined the ECC in 1972)

and now what the EU is really all about. It is a protectionist regime that is overly influenced by large industrial and other pressure groups.

The United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea, signed in 1979, extended national rights over fisheries to 200 miles from a country's coasts. But it included a provision that, if fish stocks in that zone were surplus to national needs, the country could sell its rights to outsiders. That convention allowed cash-strapped and sometimes corrupt countries in west Africa to raise funds by letting the industrial trawler fleets in. Since 1979 the EU has negotiated deals on fishing rights with a string of impoverished African countries. Despite the EU's own studies indicating massive and quite possibly irreversible damage to fish stocks off west Africa, these deals continue to be struck.

In 2002, the year an EU report revealed that the Senegalese fish biomass had declined 75 per cent in 15 years, Brussels bought rights for four years' fishing of tuna and bottom-dwelling fish on the Senegal coasts, for just $4m a year. In 2006, access for 43 giant EU factory fishing vessels to Mauritania's long coastline was bought for £24.3m a year.

the International Conspiracy to Catch All Tunas (ICCAT)

ICCAT, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, is an obscure - if you're not in the tuna business - Madrid-based organisation that spends some €2.3m (£1.8m) of EU taxpayers' money a year collating and commissioning scientific research, and holding meetings for the 45 nations with an interest in the tuna-type species in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. ... This is all in the cause of conserving tuna, of course. Which ICCAT, all observers agree, has utterly failed to do. In fact, the commission is a joke: known in the business as the International Conspiracy to Catch All Tunas. Sergi Tudela, the World Wildlife Fund's head of fisheries for the Mediterranean, doesn't find it funny.

and, applying the usual EU law of unexpected consequences:

It's estimated that these deals have put 400,000 west African fishermen out of work; some of them now take to the sea only as ferrymen for desperate would-be migrants to the Canary Islands and Europe. And among the millions of Africans who depend on fish as their main source of protein, consumption has declined from 9kg per year to 7kg.

So next time you hear about the wave of North African immigrants, fleeing to Europe in inadequate boats and being washed up on southern Mediterranean shores, and Italian mayors banning them from their towns, have pity on them. and we want this Brussels government to run our country? Why Oh why? Please tell me someone.

(Thanks to EURef for the Heads up)

Euro

At last, people are beginning to admit, publically, that the Euro was always a political invention, which has been blindingly obvious to any student of EU history.  Today, when the European Commission celebrates the 10th anniversary of the official decision to adopt the Euro, even the BBC's Mark Mardell, not known for his EU scepticism, is admitting the fact.

In the words of one insider, although the euro was a deeply political project, the eurozone is at the moment "an economic giant but a political dwarf".

and how to help it become an economic giant?

One [prescription] is that economic ministers should think more about their responsibilities to the bloc as a whole, and less of their national interest.

In a phrase almost designed to give a delicious shiver to eurosceptics, the commission promises to "better exploit all instruments provided by the Lisbon treaty to promote broader economic policy coordination."

Note also the slow, unremitting steady creep towards the European superstate, that we have been promised by our Westminster parliament, will never happen.

One idea is to exclude extraneous chatter from mere nation states at the world's top tables.

The commission will argue for a single seat in international financial bodies. I can't get any clarity but I presume they mean the IMF, the OECD, the World Bank and perhaps the G8.

"At the moment we take up too many seats, too much space," says one official.

One day the question will be asked. "How did we ever allow this take over to happen?" but then it will be too late.

Read Mark Mardell's report at Mark Mardell's Euroblog

Guardian

Great news? Er, actually, no. As with all things EU, you have to look deeper, as this smaller budget is, in fact, an increase. The Guardian (May 6th) says:

The European Union's executive arm proposed an austere 2009 budget for the bloc on Tuesday, outlining plans for a cut in spending for the first time in several years.

The European Commission's draft budget set spending at 116.7 billion euros ($180.7 billion), compared with 120.7 billion euros planned for 2008, focusing as usual on aid to the bloc's poorer regions and agricultural subsidies.

EU Budget Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite said the fall was due mainly to the bloc's budget planning cycle.

The clue is in the “ bloc's budget planning cycle”.

The budget actually increases commitments to €134.4 billion - a 4% percent increase, yes increase, but not all of those fall within the financial period. This is called a shift in "the centre of gravity of spending" with proportionally larger sums being spent on yet further integration.

Read the full analysis at EU Referendum.

I’ve found evidence that Gordon Brown was in the USA in April. He gave a long, rambling and I found embarrassing speech at the Kennedy Library on April 18th 2008. Quite what he meant by the following, I’m not sure:

National Systems of economic management and supervision will alone be inadequate to cope with the cross continental flows of capital in this interdependent world.

Does he mean a one world government? He mentioned ‘global’ such as in new global rules and global institutions, many times. I suppose that this is the EU vision of the world that he feels he must now portray.

I’m not sure that I would go as far as US columnist Phyllis Schafly, but she does make some interesting observations in her April 30^th Eagle Forum:

It's a good thing that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's U.S. visit was upstaged by the dramatic reception Americans gave Pope Benedict XVI. Brown might have been booed if he hadn't delivered what aides called his "signature" speech within the cloistered walls of Harvard's Kennedy Center.

Brown's tedious, hour-long speech impudently demanded that we issue a "Declaration of Interdependence" in order to submit to global governance. That's another way of calling on us to repeal our Declaration of Independence.

No thanks for the advice, Mr. Brown. Brave Americans rose up and rejected Britain's royalist rule in 1776, and we've gotten along mighty well without transatlantic interference in our government for more than two centuries. We certainly don't want to reinstate any foreign supervision today.

The redundancy of Brown's outrageous semantics was oppressive. His speech used the word global 69 times, globalization 7 times, and interdependence 13 times. He referred to Kennedy 19 times, lavishing fulsome praise on John F. ("his influence abides everywhere"), Robert (he sent forth "ripples of hope"), and Ted ("one of the greatest Senators in more than two centuries").

Brown rejected the traditional concept of national sovereignty, which means an independent nation not subservient to any outside control, telling us to replace it with "responsible sovereignty," which he defined as accepting what he calls our global "obligations." Hold on to your pocketbook.

Brown admitted that his "main argument" is that we must accept "new global rules," "new global institutions," and "global networks." Brown's global rules include massive U.S. cash handouts and opening U.S. borders to the world.

Brown's use of well-known American political phrases was tacky. He tried to morph FDR's New Deal into a "New Global Deal," and JFK's New Frontier into "the New Frontier is that there is no frontier." ...

Using the rhetorical device of inevitability, Brown warned us that his vision of the globalist future is "irreversible transformation." He wants to "transcend states" and "transcend borders" as he builds the "architecture of a global society."

Brown peddled the nonsense that the peoples of the world "subscribe to similar ideals." He tried to tell us that all religions (Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists) have "common values" and "similar ideals." No, they certainly do not.

Brown wants to increase the power of the United Nations to become the source of "an international stand-by capacity of trained civilian experts, ready to go anywhere at any time," and even be able to exercise "military force." Americans do not intend to cede such authority to the corrupt UN.

The silliest part of Brown's ponderous speech was his claim that "a global society" is "advancing democracy widely across the world." In fact, he doesn't even practice democracy in his own country.

Brown refused to allow the British people to vote on whether or not they want to accept the European Union (EU) constitution. He acquiesced in the plot of the constitution's author, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, to put the EU constitution into effect by calling it a treaty so it did not have to be voted on by the people.

Brown was chicken about the treaty subterfuge and did not permit a photographic record of his participation. He sent his Foreign Secretary to perform the official treaty signing in front of cameras.

The EU constitution, now called the Treaty of Lisbon, requires all signers to surrender their sovereignty and democracy to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels and judges in Strasbourg. The EU constitution takes away England's right to pass its own laws, forces England to surrender more than 60 UK vetoes of EU decisions, and gives the EU bureaucracy and tribunals total control over England's immigration policy.

Instead of a self-governing nation whose democratic system was developed over centuries, England is now ruled by what Margaret Thatcher called "the paper pushers in Brussels."

(Mrs. Schlafly's monthly newsletter called The Phyllis Schlafly Report is now in its 41st year. Her syndicated column appears in 100 newspapers. Mrs. Schlafly is a lawyer and served as a member of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, 1985-1991, appointed by President Reagan. )

Edit: Massive production of biofuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices, a UN official said yesterday on German radio. Read The Peninsular, Qatar's Leading English Daily  EU defends biofuel goals amid food crisis for the whole report.

If+i+grow+up

Sometimes I read an article and am just stunned by disbelief. Such an article is in the Financial Times of April 27 2008 discussing the benefits of Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy. There is no mention that it is this very policy that has destroyed the livelihoods of many African farmers through the dumping of surplus food below African production costs, no mention of the fishing policy that has vacuumed fish off the West African coast destroying local fishing industries, no mention that much of the increase in world food prices is caused by EU Bio fuel directives, as well as the USA bio fuel requirements. No – this is all about posturing as we approach a renegotiation of the EU budget in 2013 – main recipient – France, main contributor – Britain. Read more at EUReferendum's The debate goes on without us

From the FT's article:

Africa and Latin America should adopt their own versions of Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy as a response to rising demand for food, according to Michel Barnier, France’s farm minister.

While critics of the CAP prepare to use surging food prices and threats of shortages to seek freer trade in agriculture, Mr Barnier told the Financial Times that, on the contrary, the developing world should draw inspiration from Europe and form self-sufficient regional agricultural blocs funded with a redirection of development aid.

Mr Barnier, a former French foreign minister, ex-EU commissioner and member of the governing centre-right UMP party, said he would not allow Europe’s system of subsidies and barriers to trade to take the blame for “disorder” surrounding the commodities spike in prices and associated unrest in some countries.

“What we are now witnessing in the world is the consequence of too much free-market liberalism,” he said. “We can’t leave feeding people to the mercy of the market. We need a public policy, a means of intervention and stabilisation.

Euagrobiogas

“I think [the CAP] is a good model. It is a policy that allows us to produce to feed ourselves. We pool our resources to support production. West Africa, East Africa, Latin America and the southern shore of the Mediterranean all need regional common agricultural policies.”

Cartoons from The Anglo Saxon Chronicle

At least the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations does appear to recognise that biofuels have a part to play in this crisis

The issue of food prices will be discussed on June 3-5 when world leaders meet in Rome at FAO’s invitation to attend a High Level Conference on World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy.

But for an in depth analysis EUReferendum's The real crisis has yet to come (Part 2) is essential reading.

OK, the debate in the House of Lords on the European Union (Amendment) Bill 2nd Reading has not gripped the country, yet ( April 1st, 2008). However, their lordships have given a great deal of consideration to the matter and, over almost 12 hours of debate, all the main points were made in some excellent speeches.

8a-wheelbarrow2

I thought that I had better find out about the Bill, so I went to the Printed Paper Office and obtained a copy of the European Union (Amendment) Bill, which consists of a modest four pages and schedules. I read it; I did not understand a word of it. But then I do not have the advantage of being a lawyer. I then asked whether I could have a copy of the treaty of Lisbon.

I was given The Treaty of Lisbon: An Impact Assessment, Volume I. It was an inch thick; it weighed two pounds, four ounces and consisted of 300 pages. Then I was given The Treaty of Lisbon, Volume II. That was seven-eighths of an inch thick. It weighed two pounds, four ounces and consisted of 479 pages. I was then given The Treaty of Lisbon, amending the Treaty establishing the European Union and the treaty establishing the European Community, Command Paper 7294. That was three-quarters of an inch thick, weighing two pounds, seven ounces, and consisting of 294 pages. I was also given the Consolidated Texts of the European Union Treaties as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon, Command Paper 7310. That was seven-eighths of an inch thick, and it weighed three pounds, eight ounces and consisted of 328 pages. In all, those books were four and a half inches thick; they weighed 10 pounds, seven ounces; they consisted of 1,401 pages. The total cost if they had been bought by a member of the public would have been £112.55. This is wheelbarrow stuff. It is alarming. I thought, “Well, what does it all mean?” and had a look. It was enough to flatten anyone’s curiosity, but, oddly enough, not mine.

And today's snippet from our new masters is .... (as reported by the BBC, so deeply hidden on its web site, that you might think that the BBC is ashamed of an article that is critical of the E.U. Photos from BBC links). However all is not as it seems - see an earlier article on the BBC dated 22 November 2007

Bus passengers in EU law 'farce'

Some passengers are having to get off buses twice

Passengers across the UK have been hit by EU rules on working hours meant to protect drivers, bus companies say.

Western Greyhound in south-west England has broken one route into three so that passengers have to change buses twice.

That our old masters, in Westminster are powerless to prevent this just goes to show how deep the Brussels government reaches into almost everything we do in the UK. Even if tachographs were fitted, which the BBC fails to mention in this March article, there is still a time problem. So next time you try to catch a rural bus, and have to get off and on again, twice, just remember that, as with all things EU, confusion reigns. As one commentator said recently, UK parliamentarians are becoming dimly aware of the new situation, about which they can do nothing. I don't think he intended the obvious pun.

The companies are forcing clients to get on and off again... we just want to be sure the average working time is nine hours a day

Michele Cercone
European Transport Commissioner's spokesman

The EU says that But, it [ Western Greyhound] argues, for smaller companies often with two or three drivers, longer routes have become impossible to operate.

While this might seem trivial that passengers have to get off at St Columb Major and Liskeard, then board again, the real issue is the way this has come about.In fact there is even some deception in the piece. The reason that the buses have to stop, is that they haven't had tachographs fitted, and not because of driver safety. For the usual thorough research of the issue see eureferendum's 'shoddy Goods', but back to the story.

The EU insists the rules on driver safety were introduced in consultation with transport groups, and accuses firms of breaking up longer routes into shorter ones so they can ask staff to work for longer.

The Commission relies heavily on advisory or pressure groups, not democratically elected representatives, to frame much of its legislation. As The transparency group Alter-EU, reported on 25th Mar 2008. (see EU Observer)

An alliance of environment groups, trade unions and academics has accused the European Commission of relying too heavily on business and industry lobbyists when drawing up EU legislation.

When the European Commission comes up with a proposal, it turns to NGOs and corporate affairs people on both sides. So, yes, you get the pharma lobby and the oil lobby and the independent healthcare lobby and the rest. But you also get the greenies and the women’s groups and the assorted busybodies who claim to speak for “civil society”. What you don’t get is any direct input from voters. Public opinion is intermediated by quangoes.

What people don’t realise is that these various NGOs — the European Union of Journalists, the European Women’s Lobby, the European Trade Union Congress and so on — are themselves often creatures of the Commission, wholly dependent on the EU for their funding. In other words, the European Commission pays a body to lobby it, that body duly expresses the view that the EU should have more power, and the Commission then turns around and claims to have consulted the public.

And you wonder why the EU 'one size fits all' legislation has unexpected consequences. You cannot complain though, because you have been consulted.

As Zeira Zaidi has commented, there might be a referendum in Poland. At last one country is beginning to wake up to the powers of this new EU government. Good for the Poles. I do hope they reject the Treaty, but I expect that they will either be leaned upon very very heavily to approve it or their 'mouths will be stuffed with gold'. Those are the usual tactics.

And this Easter Sunday we can remember not only that great Good News of Christ's resurrection, but also the very black day, March 23rd, 75 years ago that elected parliamentarians, in another European country, voted a law through an elected parliament and transferred it's sovereignty to a dictatorship. (Thanks to Saxon Times for the reminder)