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singingprincealbert

Listed below are comments made by singingprincealbert between Wednesday, 17th December 2008 and Thursday, 5th March 2009.

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Send a message to Brussels 10:57am on 05 Mar 2009 It's typical of politicians to put forward such insane ideas instead of simply engaging people in a truly European public debate: by launching an EP electoral campaign on European issues, not on domestic ones!
Did the summit fail the East? 08:52am on 04 Mar 2009 Two comments from me:

1. As someone rightly noticed, the Cold War logic is till quite popular: 'the East', 'Eastern Europe', etc.

Where's Central Europe then? Where's the South? Where is the North? Is Finland 'western' despite the fact that Helsinki lies much more to the East than Prague?

2. As to the coverage given by the 'western' press to the recent summit, I also noticed some confusion. The so called 'rescue plan' was not really rejected since it had never been suggested by anyone (apart from the Hungarian prime minister, in a move targeted at gaining more domestic support).
Latvian hard times - getting harder? 2:26pm on 06 Feb 2009 And once again, so many comments blame the EU for all the evil in this world...It is getting boring.

Does the EU have the power to remedy this world-wide economic crisis? no

Would the UK be prepared to give it more powers in economic matters to tackle the situation (taxation, industry, common market - all areas of 'shared competence') ? no

When the EU has powers and acts - it's wrong (democratic deficit, bureaucracy, blabla). When it has insufficient powers to act - also wrong!

So please, try to balance you opinions.
Protests rock Latvia 09:09am on 04 Feb 2009 #60 - you say that 'denying people who were born in a place a passport because they fail a cultural test is outrageous'.

Well, this is what has been happening in Germany for many years and hundreds of thousands of Turks are affected. I don't recall anyone naming Germans 'human rights offenders'.

Your Welsh argument is actually well placed. If the Welsh gain independence, they will have the right to deny the Welsh citizenship to people who do not speak nor wish to learn Welsh.

Lastly, the ECJ has very limited competence in the field of human rights. It is not the right institution to blame.
Protests rock Latvia 08:55am on 04 Feb 2009 #21 - the issue of 'restoring Lithuania in its entirety' is tricky. The whole Kaliningrad region 'restored' would need to be annexed to Germany, I suppose.

And a 'restored' Vilnius would become some sort of Polish protectorate.

So let's leave history in peace.

And you're not completely right about the Lithuanian-Russian relations. As soon as the Mažeikiu refinery was bought by a Polish company, the pipeline from Russia stopped sending oil :)
European workers for European jobs? 3:44pm on 02 Feb 2009 That's an interesting point, raised many times in this blog and elsewhere: does the EU need its own 'demos', an EU-wide identity, in order to legitimise its institutions and laws?

I don't think anyone has a good answer. First of all, while many European states were founded on some common ethnic or religious group that eventually formed a 'nation', other countries have always remained multilingual and multiethnic (Spain, Switzerland, Finland). And some states deliberately formed its own nation (France).

Personally, I think this would be a wrong way to go. Ultimately, we would have to define the common denominator for all persons sufficiently 'European' and discriminate against those who don't match the description.

In the case of the UK - is the feeling of solidarity directed in equal share to all citizens - black and white, of English and Asian descent, speaking sophisticated English and speaking broken English?

Finally, would strikers in Lincolnshire accept the principle - Spain for Spaniards! or Italian for Italians! and spend their summer holidays in rainy Scottish hills?

Please, let's leave the ethnic and nation-state arguments aside. There should be other factors to take into account when we consider solidarity.
End of the British carrot? 2:58pm on 14 Jan 2009 #26:

The EU can only act within the limits of the competences conferred on it by the treaties.

The Commission is actually doing a lot on tobacco prevention (ban on tobacco advertising, etc.)

But on health issues, it cannot do much more (lack of legal basis).

If a ban on pesticides was introduced by the UK government, would you be equally sarcastic?
Norway shuns EU herd 09:38am on 09 Jan 2009 To sdnegel (15):

I totally agree with your comment.

To busby2 (18):

Contrary to your predictions, Norway was also hit hard by the crisis - the industry has been weakened, the 'sovereign wealth fund' lost a big share of the profits generated in the last decade and some northern municipalities went broke.

The farming system in Norway is not perfect. Norwegians can simply afford to heavily subsidise their farmers due to huge oil revenues. Is this a perfect system? Only as long as the oil keeps flowing.

By the way, I do not see the reason why Norway does not start producing its own cars (at 100.000€ each), mobile phones (at least 500€ a piece) and other overpriced goods.

Hey, as long as they can afford paying for it, it's a perfect system!
Norway shuns EU herd 08:58am on 09 Jan 2009 So, there you have it: If we want the following factors to remain unchanged:

1. (Relatively) Cheap agricultural products
2. European farmers keeping their jobs

then we have to agree that the CAP stays in place, subsidies are paid to farmers and tariffs kept on EU borders in order to prevent the cheap food from the third countries from entering the common market.

Otherwise, either we (the consumers) have to agree to pay much more for the food we buy or we'll have to say good bye to our centuries old farming tradition.
EU 'spirit of compromise' 2:36pm on 17 Dec 2008 15:

You are only recapitulating your own biased opinions there.

1. Contrary to what you say, the MEPs cannot introduce a dictatorship as they cannot (logically) change the Treaties by themselves.

2. You (UK) are not the most expensive 'place' in Europe.

3. The fact that the Commission was forced to resign only confirms that system of checks and balances functions well.

4. Council taxes have nothing to do with the EU.

5. The Commissioners are not chosen among themselves - the national governments designate them.

There are other obvious mistakes in your reasoning but I guess you wouldn't change your mind anyway, so I stop here.

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