The Bewilderness

Defrauding Italy is not praiseworthy

The European Union has a problem with fraud in most of its spending programes. Some countries have no fraud at all. Their farmers are completely honest. The Commission should make more of this good news!

But, does fraud become farce when certain countries with a problematic record on honesty in the public sphere are criticised for being "overzealous" in hunting down and reporting fraud. Come on down, Italy! The country will now be monitored for being too diligent.

Only in Europe!

 

The approaching Juncker moment

Cameron appointed Lord Hill as his Commissioner prospective, a pro-European Tory and a former special adviser to Kenneth Clarke. After the isolation, the Prime Minister may have viewed this appointment as an ameliorative measure. It cut no ice with the head of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz. Forgetting the limits of his constitutional power under the treaty, Schulz thundered that Hill would never become a Commissioner because he was a Eurosceptic Tory. Having only the power to vote down the entire set of Commissioners, Schulz soon sulked and backtracked muttering that gender balance was more important. Yet, for Britain, an important moment, reinforcing the Juncker moment. The visceral dislike and instant assumption of British Euroscepticism as an ideological taboo for EU positions means that negotiation for reform is unlikely to happen.

Now, Juncker is seeding the press with further comments on the British position and possibly preparing to render Lord Hill a non-entity. The choice of portfolio marks a clear sign of European perceptions in regard to the position of the UK in Europe. A minor portfolio suggests that Brexit is considered a positive option and there will be no compromise on a halfway house. A decent portfolio marks a negotiating concession. And if Britain doesn't leave, we are then sidelined as a walkover: this is known as the Miliband option and is the preferred future of the supine Liberal Democrats (the party without a backbone so they can U-turn as fast as possible).   

Not yet commissioned

Further word from the carve-up of spoils. The French have displayed no interest in the gender balance of the Commission batting away demands that at least half of the Commissioners should be women. "Non! Nothing to see here!" rumbles Hollande. They have their eyes on a prize. It isn't an inspiring or hopeful prize but when you belong to the European Union, you tend to get excited by such matters. To outsiders, it looks like your standard missionary position whereas if you are inside, orgasmic. 

I am, of course, speaking of no other portfolio than the Economic. After all, such paragons of growth as the French are enthusiastic about spreading the manure across the Continent.

In the event that Britain were to leave the EU, it would not be the French or Germans who would benefit but probably the Irish. Peter Casey makes a case for the island as a smuggler's paradise since no country would impose a border between Ulster and the Republic. They could try, but it would be unenforceable. 

If only the European Commission had the wisdon of Cnut.

The Committees are mine, my precious

The European federalists do not have the intelligence to understand that forcing their opponents to work within the system would have diluted their message. It would be much harder for Farage to claim that he opposes Europe if his MEPs were benefiting from its patronage. The federalist parties have helped the Eurosceptic cause. Undesirous of facing such unsanitary views as voting within the committee system, they have overridden the De Hondt system of allocation for committee places in order to exile the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD). This has been attacked as a "breach of protocol".

So they were so busy blocking democrats, they missed out the Neo-Nazi on the Civil Liberties Committee. Rather like having Saudi Arabia on the Human Rights Council at the UN, though Europarl has the decency to look embarrassed.

The centre holds for now

The hallmark of an incestuous political class that guards its influence like a Norfolk family protecting its genes. So, when we see four European Commissioners elected as MEPs under the auspices of their political family, we should not be surprised. They can join a new Parliament where the Europhile forces are less dominant and must resort to procedural chicanery to maintain the status quo. Still, the re-elected President, Martin Schulz, must be a brazen hypocrite for his actions:

In his acceptance speech, Schulz winked at those who did not vote for him and deplored the backroom deal. He vowed to be the president of those who have not supported him. “I hope to win the trust of those who did not put their trust on me today,” he said.  

Perhaps his resignation could go some way to restoring the trust of elected members in the Parliament. However, the pro-European coalition has less room for manoevre and will need to maintain a disciplined coalition that drowns out disaffected groups. A President who vouches for the democratic legitimacy of the European Parliament will work to silence the voice of MEPs who differ from ever closer union.

Yet, Herman Van Rompuy has acknowledged that the EU is seen as meddling and divisive, that there is a greater need for variable geometry and that a debate on the direction of Europe is required. Still, he remains wedded to the sacred nostrums of the political class and they are now pondering how to wed ever closer union with economic legitimacy. For, if they are unable to reignite growth in the EU and reverse its decline, that rump of Eurosceptic disaffection in the European Parliament will only increase.

Then, a Brexit would appear attractive: removal of a Eurosceptic tribe to preserve the core grand projet and the Presidency of Herr Schulz.

Time to brew the sweet smell of that Brexit coffee

Labour supported the Conservatives in opposing the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker to President of the European Commission. As a federalist, they were also unwilling to support further integration. Yet the headlines of "Britain isolated" brought some rich comments from Ed Balls on television this morning. As he stated, never had he seen such a "cack-handed" negotiation. (This seemed rather surprising, since there are so many examples from the previous Labour administration: General Practitioners, Treaty of Lisbon, etc etc).

Whilst the news from the continental press remains quiet in the aftermath of this repeat (Britain versus the rest), Labour's opportunistic spin falls on sterile ground, given the messenger (just as Cruddas bemoans his leader's leadership in the Sunday Times). The two initial conclusions from the appointment of Juncker is that there is no European constituency for the repatriation of powers and the appetite for real reform is retreating.

Given the choice between ever closer la la land and reality, the European Council chose a make-believe country called Europe and took the brakes off Brexit.   

Europe Juncked

A story that we have not seen for a long time: A British Prime Minister isolated in Europe with the spin of principle attempting to obscure the overwhelming defeat. And the battle chosen over the new European President was symbolic but a diversion.

When Cameron had the opportunity to retain powers, especially in the field of criminal justice, he signed them away. I reserve nothing but contempt for a government that upholds the European Arrest Warrant and puts our population at the mercy of laws which are not a criminal offence in this country. His whole performance is a tactical charade designed to appease his backbenchers.

Juncker, the 'leading candidate' of the Christian Democrats in the European Parliement, has interpreted the results of the European elections as a legitimation of the leading candidates. However, as more decisions of the Commission, undermine British national interests, the elite on these islands is becoming ever warier of Brussels.  

Some would argue that a Union which no longer takes the interests of one of its largest members into account (and has economically devastated most of its southern periphery) is beyond reform. The rejection of the populist protests in many countries is indicative of this. 

Cameron has been bruised by his encounters with Europe. It is not clear what his next steps will be, but a further dilution of Member State powers has taken place with the co-operation of EU leaders who have become further ciphers in a process where obscure non-entities are elected by a clownish Parliament who claim to represent a people that could not recognise them. 

I want to make my mark on the BreXit ballot

The Liberal Democrats promised, once upon a time, in their manifesto that the British electorate should hold an In-Out referendum on EU membership. Soon after, they reneged on this promise. Their reasons for this change have never held water. Their unprincipled nature is clear. Every policy adopted is clothed in sanctimonious and hypocritical language though it is designed for naked advantage. This extends from House of Lords reform to the proportional representation vote.

It is an unedifying sight to watch unelected Lords, put their through the patronage of their parties, conspire to remove the right of the British public to vote on the most important relationship in this polity. Their actions show that they do not trust us and that is reflected straight back at these apparatchiks. 

For an issue of such importance, and as an opportunity which Labour and the Liberal Democrats loathe, the Tory government should use the Parliament Act to force through this democratic measure. We deserve no less. 

Politicians: prepare to be grilled and pitchforked

Without using such volatile terms as "Endgame" (which will be a political rather than an economic play), are we nearing another phase transition, an acceleration of identified dangers? Ambrose Evans Pritchard charts the gradual tightening within the Eurozone as the European Central Bank does little to counter the reduction in inflation. 

If deflation is triggered through an exogenous shock then the political fractures may widen visibly and with rapid consequences. Polticians may be pitchforked in more than one Member State. 

 

A test of memory

Euractiv has an article on the proposed commemorations of the Great War within Europe. Noting that a shared history is one of the foundations for a demos, the European Commission's unwillingness to participate in these events proves a notable failure for the Project. However, it is politically astute.

The British commemorations will focus on memory and loss, the defining themes of the war for thirty years as the last of the few have passed away. If there is an ebbing tide of the 'just war' and the 'right thing to do', this will not ne questioned deeply under the current coalition. Euractive misdescribes this as a focus on victory. The French reaction is similar. For both countries, the conflict is bound up with notions of cultural identity and how communities were tested or split asunder.

For Germany, Austria and Italy, the war is almost forgotten. Some view the emphasis on the conflict in the West as a form of victors' justice. Others cannot focus on the start of their tragedy since the prologue proved a miserable commencement to greater disasters. And in Russia, the centenary is viewed as a path for resurrection and a chance to draw upon Tsarist, not Communist, antecedents:

Vladimir Putin's Russia, meanwhile, has seized on the chance to fan national pride, reviving the memory of a war it says was unjustly forgotten under the Soviet regime -- which today's Russian rulers accuse of bowing shamefully to Germany in 1917.

How we recall the war depends upon national experience and the final disposition of the war. Those countries that lost and suffered revolutionary upheaval displaced their grieving and forgot their dead. But where losses were borne by stable democracies and without political change, there was a groundswell of remembrance and the names of the dead can still be discerned in lichened village sculpture under cross or sword. 

For the only lesson from the Great War that we still observe for our citizen soldiers is recited in the Ode of Remembrance:  "We shall remember them!" "Lest we forget!"