Get Ganley!
Get Ganley! That's the word going out from Dublin and Brussels...
I sit in the office of a senior politician, a serious man who is taking a conspiracy theory seriously, a man who has taken time to get the measure of the man in his cross-hairs... a man who feels his enemy is acting on behalf of an alien, foreign ideology.
No sniper from the Irish secret service, if there is one, is carefully packing away infra-red sights, no hit man from the European Parliament's non-existent military wing is spending time with mercury tilt switches.
But Declan Ganley, the millionaire businessman who bankrolled and masterminded the successful "No" campaign in the Irish referendum, is a target all the same. Many in the European establishment would like to see Mr Ganley come a cropper, see his campaigning days terminated and his nascent political career liquidated before he can do any more damage.
The mysterious Mr Ganley is now talking about turning his think-tank Libertas into an EU-wide political party. He's been touring Europe looking for support for his campaign to turn next year's elections to the European Parliament into another referendum: on what he calls the anti-democratic Europe of the Lisbon Treaty. You remember - that's the one that so many say is just like the constitution the Dutch and French threw out.
But the European Parliament has instructed the Irish authorities to investigate his funding and motives: many believe that the mysterious Mr Ganley is a stooge of the American military industrial complex, doing the bidding of the right-wing neo-cons in the CIA and Pentagon, hell-bent on smashing the rise of a political Europe.
I write "mysterious" because I think it must be obligatory under international journalistic law. Every article does it. Several times. In fact, he's not mysterious, but open and accessible. What they mean is he's exotic, like a character from a mystery movie. An Irishman who speaks with not a lilt but a London accent, who lives in singer Donovan's old mansion, who travels around by helicopter or Mercedes or Rolls Royce, who went to the former Soviet Union and made millions out of timber and telecoms, as capitalism emerged blinking and unfolding from the wreckage of the old system. He holds the Louisiana Distinguished Service Medal. That medal says a lot to his foes. He received it for getting emergency communications up and running after Hurricane Katrina - he's chairman and chief exec of a company that specialises in secure emergency communications networks and has a $200m contract with the American military. That is what raises both hackles and suspicions.
The senior politician sitting in front of me has clearly been giving it a lot of thought: he traces a lot of Mr Ganley's ideas to a particular individual at a particular right-wing Washington think-tank.
I express some scepticism. But he enthusiastically tells me: "You can do a lot with textual analysis - he says 'European elites' a lot. It's not an expression that springs to the lips of a boy from an Irish village - it's neo-con language".
I am impressed, but when I put the term into Google the top hits are articles from The New Statesman and The Guardian - not usually thought of as CIA tools.
Mr Ganley shrugs off the accusations when I ring him. I'm trying to arrange an interview, but he's in an airport about to get on a plane to the States. "Off to see my controllers," he says cheerfully. Later, as I try to pin him down, he fires off a characteristically colourful rebuttal. "Madder than a box of monkeys... patronising to the Irish people to suggest that someone put something in their cornflakes that morning to get mind control and influence their vote." But is he close to the neo-cons?
"Ridiculous and untrue... it is utterly baseless," he says. "These people in Brussels would rather talk about anything than the subject. I want the EU to be prosperous, respected and stand tall in the world, and that's only going to happen if we bring democracy to the heart of it."
Mr Ganley's views are a little curious. He always paints himself as in favour of the European Union, but says he wants a different sort of EU, one with an elected president. That would horrify many British Eurosceptics as well as his supposed mentor in that Washington think-tank. Then the unelected European commissioners would be reporting directly to an elected politician, rather as the unelected Condoleezza Rice or Hank Paulson report to George W. So perhaps there is something of an American model in his thinking.
I am not quite sure if the American defence establishment, rather than some intellectuals, are particularly bothered about the Lisbon Treaty. Most Washington right-wingers are happy enough to sneer at Europe in general, and do worry that the EU could undermine Nato. But a significant number would love the EU to do more foreign policy and spend more on bombs and bullets and take care of its own borders, particularly as those currently in power in Paris and Berlin are pretty keen on the transatlantic alliance.
As I leave the politician's office he hands me photocopies of a book called Blood Money, about American business deals in Iraq. There are underscorings, annotations, scribbled questions in the margins: "nb who his partners?" All because it mentions a "mysterious Irish entrepreneur Declan Ganley". Will they succeed and get Ganley? It's a mystery to me.
I’m Mark Mardell, the BBC's North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~04~RS~)
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The interesting thing about Mr. Ganley (and also Dana when she ran for the Irish Presidency) is that on the front they are very open about what they are doing.
Ask to see the finances for their political parties / campaigns though (as they are required to do) and suddenly there's evasion and obfuscation.
When Mr. Ganley can happily demonstrate to both the Irish and European auditors where all of the financial backing for his party came from, then certainly allow him to take part in the democratic process.
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The problem with mr. Ganley and the Libertas is that they haven't revealed their accounts. If they, as mr. Ganley has expressed, are 100% Irish with no influence from foreign sources, then they would have a hay day by revealing their spotless accounts and showing their opponents wrong: a political victory that would put mr. Ganley and Libertas in a strong position. Now this hasn't happened even with a clear motivation to do so, so the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the accounts are not clean. What the Irish government should do is to start a criminal investigation and confiscate their book keeping. This is not anymore about the Lisbon Treaty, this is about a possible perverting and corruption of the Irish democracy.
I would also like to add that US has for long been trying to undermine European economical and political integration. Cases to note in recent years: open skies agreement that US tried at first to negotiate bi-lateral treaties with each member country instead of EU Commission (divide and conquer), rhetoric of old Europe against new Europe in the awake of Iraq war (divide and conquer), resisting EU to have its own satellite navigation system (just keeping us down), insisting bilateral approach with visa -treaties (current affair)... We should also note the efforts of Rupert Murdoch to make Britain a vassal state of US: continuous propaganda campaigns against the EU and campaigns defending and supporting US lead efforts.
The US has positioned itself as an leading super power and it opposes to any efforts to form entities that could challenge it. In some arenas like in military power, US has clearly stated that it will not tolerate any power to form a force that could challenge its power. I don't blame the US to has this view, after all the main interest of USA is USA, national interest trumps fair play. What we in Europe should do is to acknowledge that US does posses this power and is willing to use it and to take appropriate counter measures so that our own interests are not sacrificed and our own democracies are not corrupted nor perverted by US influence.
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I agree with Ganley, ie don't worry about Ganley, deal with the issues! If he thinks that he can uncover more deficits in the EU's miserable democratic credentials, and he does it by democratic means, more power to his elbow is what I say!
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Wow, I thought he was just got infected by the British Europhobia but instead he has a clear idea of a democratic and strong EU. I must say I am impressed but then again, he seems as though he doesn't understand that every couple of years a new treaty will progressively change the EU and that an elected president will eventually be part of such a treaty. Rome wasn't build in a day.
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"When Mr. Ganley can happily demonstrate to both the Irish and European auditors where all of the financial backing for his party came from, then certainly allow him to take part in the democratic process."
I would have thought he would fit right in on that basis - isn't the EU infamous for not having it's financial records signed off?
"But the European Parliament has instructed the Irish authorities to investigate his funding and motives"
I wonder if that was meant so sound as sinister as it does? It comes across as the EU saying "this guy challenges us - find out something to destroy him"
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Who in America would be afraid of Europe? Aside from Britain (a country I would never insult by grouping with it Europe), Europe grew fat and lazy under American protection during the Cold War. Today they kowtow to terrorists, turned their back on Iraq, make a pathetic token show of force in Afghanistan, and aren't even willing to stand up to Neo-Soviet Russia.
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wow, someone talking sense at last. i didn't even know this movement existed. i will definitely get involved..
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The difference between Ganley and the politicians in europe is that we are unsure of ganley's motives whereas we know the politicians motives are purely selfish - the ratification of the lisbon treaty across europe proved that.
Could this be a man of the people? All i know is that he is the only person standing up for what's right and good for the ordinary person and the EU as a whole.
His motives are in question, a first for a potential european political candidate and a step in the right direction.
Long live Ganley savior of Ireland, the EU and democracy!
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@Neopoliticus
Why don't you do us a favour and leave this blog for the people its made for: Europeans. I can't stand American babble about issues they have no clue about.
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Whatever money Ganley has is dwarfed by the EU’s 200 million euro 'communications' (propaganda) budget and the army of taxpayer-funded EUrocrats and politicians seeking to engorge their own power and protect their apparatchik salaries. If the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty could be decided by money then it would be no-contest, but when the Federalist have lost the battle for ideas then no amount of money, no number of attacks against the man, no volume of insults can save them.
Federalists remind me of the apes at the beginning of the film "2001: A Space Odyssey" throwing bones at a spaceship, unable to comprehend how puny their weapons are compared to their opponents.
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"Who in America would be afraid of Europe?" another fine example of poorly educated americans brainwashed into believing they have the best country in the world? Whats it like living in the third world? With your sub standard education, medical care and social welfare? you don't even own your own currency.
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Libertas - where can I sign up?
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Your blog highlights (although you seem to completely miss) the main problem here.
'Get Ganley' - is about silencing a messenger.
Do the 'European Elites' really beleive that it is impossible for an citizen of an EU country to hold the views they attack?
If some of these views coincide with views expressed by the 'neo-cons' (whatever they happen to be) how does that automatically mean that they originated there?
The stupidity of the 'European Elites' as compared to the the true geniuses of Europe (its working, wealth generating, knowlege generating people) is almost beyond belief.
Illegal funding (if there is any) is a legal administrative matter -- the message is the message however it is finance.
The EU is a cancer growing on the amazing abilities of its 'host' people - is should be cut out and disposed of. Allowing the host to recover and go on to even greater things.
The worry that the Eurocrats have is that the work of their slave work force (us) may benefit someone other than themselves -- meanwhile it is a matter of complete indifference to the slaves as to who happens to own them -- they just want their freedom.
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6. At 09:34am on 10 Oct 2008, NeoPoliticus wrote:
"Aside from Britain (a country I would never insult by grouping with it Europe)"
Well, sorry to disappoint you. Come to Britain through any international airport. There are two lines for passport control: one fast-track for UK/EU nationals, and, a second one for "others".
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If the EU are so afraid of this one man it begs the question - WHAT ARE THEY AFRAID OF?
We all know the EU is a corrupt organisation by the fact that auditors have refused to sign off their accounts for many, many years.
So, before doing the dirty on others they should get their own house in order. THEN they will have nothing to fear from anybody.
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Does Ireland have a secret service?
"Secret Service" is a vague term, and can mean espionage, intelligence or security services. For example, the American Secret Service conducts no espionage and focuses entirely on the security of the president and anti-counterfeiting (they were historically a division of the US Treasury.)
Ireland's intelligence agency is G2, a division of the Irish Army.
You've never heard of them?
That's how good they are...
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The go-to place for this sort of thing is Sourcewatch, and a search on Ganley turns up a null result.
So either he's so shadowy and exotic (why, he drives a Mercedes!) that he's crept in under their radar, or it's all nonsense.
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@ OhNeverMind
Here ... http://www.libertas.org/
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Mark,
I notice with interest that your 'senior politician' does not have a name or an identity. Declan Ganley, on the other hand appears to be an open book. I instinctively distrust people who promulgate conspiracy theorists who hide behind anonymity. If your politician seriously believes that Ganley is a tool of some right wing American neocon outfit, let him come upfront, identify himself and show us his evidence. Until he does, I will not take him seriously.
On the other hand, Ganley appears to offer an opportunity. As a euroenthusiast, I am constantly having to qualify my posts with remarks like '. . while acknowledging that there is a democratic deficit'. When push comes to shove, I am forced to acknowledge that this, more than any other factor is the one which gives force to the eurosceptic arguement. Indeed, if you take that element out of the equation, most of the credible objections (as opposed to the sentimental and naive ones about splendid isolation) tend to slip away.
So yes, if Ganley has an alternative vision which addresses the issue head on, let's here from him now. If he can be the catalyst that blows away the infighting once and for all and enables Europe to move forward, bring it on. There is a right and proper place for 'your politician' to make his allegations. In the spotlight, on the hustings and with a name to go with the image.
If he (she?) is not willing to do this, they are the shadow boxers, not Mr. Ganley.
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#18 - vagueofgodalming
Just Goggle Declan Ganley - the 50,500 entries should keep you busy for a while.
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16. pwatkin :
"We all know the EU is a corrupt organisation by the fact that auditors have refused to sign off their accounts for many, many years."
Not this Daily Mail lie AGAIN !
QUOTE
" In broad terms, the Court has concluded every year since 1994 that:
# The accounts are reliable
# Underlying transactions concerning revenue and commitments and administrative expenditure are legal and regular
# The level of errors and irregularities concerning payments is too high
The first two are the responsibility of the commission, but more than 80% of the third, payments, are done at member state level."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7091043.stm
So, most of the problems lie with the Member States failing to do their job properly rather than with the eurocrats.
Oh my word, that doesn't sit well with your prejudices, does it?
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11. Freeborn-John:
You know so much about the EU and have your prize for drafting an alternative Constitution.
Come clean. Have you ever applied for a job with an EU institution and not been accepted?
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Were they legitimate photocopies?
Can this "senior politician" be dismissed for breach of copyright and (by giving it to a member of the press) illegal publication?
Be careful where you dispose of such material!
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The problem with Ganley is that he is not a eurosceptic as he pretends, he is a federalist.
Thats ok - I don't agree - but its a fair point of view.
The problem is, all during the campaign, he presented himself as a eurosceptic. "Don't hand more power to Brussels" he said.
Actually, his real objection to Lisbon was it didn't hand enough power to Brussels.
Ganley wants a United States of Europe - but he knows that won't sell - so he cloaks his campaign in eurosceptic colours.
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Libertas... sounds rather like Orange Kilroy-Silks attempt at a anti-EU party...
Conspiracy!!
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Mr Mardel, when are you going to report on Dick Cheney being the evil mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks? I mean if you are now supporting wild conspiracy theories, then at least start on the real biggie!
Ironically there is more evidence of Cheney being behind the 9/11 attacks than there is of the CIA being behind Liberatas.
Really though, when are you going to start distributing aluminium tin-foil hats to readers of your blog?
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Hilarious! After all the gloom mongering going on in all the rest of the news, some light hearted articles are a welcome tonic. Keep up the good work.
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This is another case of some one who is a good honest person who's business does a good thing being hounded out by the corrupt politician's we have both at national and E.U level.
It seems to me Mr Ganley is the perfect person to shake up the E.U
At last someone who might embrace democratic reform inside the E.U
Mark well done for bringing his cause to our attention.
Shame on you for not naming and shaming your 'senior politician'
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Ganley is not the baddy here. In Ireland, the main political parties can't understand why we the electorate didn't support on the Lisbon Referendum. They are still smarting from the defeat.
We didn't because we don't trust them ! They couldn't sell us the Treaty in a convincing manner, like as if they weren't really convinced themselves.
Just because we voted the way as Ganley's Libertas, doesn't mean we agree with everything they stand for. Likewise for UKIP, John Marie Le Penn and Sinn Fein.
The politicians both Irish and EU were trying to pull some sort of fast one on us and they stopped. Thankfully as least one EU country had to have a referendum.
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How terrified are these EUrocrats getting at the harsh light of democracy - a concept that clearly terrifies them !!
The anarchists used to say that 'if voting changed anything, they'd abolish it'.
Well 'they' at the EU are getting very close to doing just that - and it is up to us to stop them.
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Thankyou Mr Mardell for making Europe interesting in your excellent blogs. the only reason people ever seen to want a USE (united states of Europe) is because they want to rival America. Well too late America already has a rival - it's China and it's here already.
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Re. #24 greypolyglot
Not this BBC/Guardian spin again!
The bottom line remains that whether the financial failings belong to the Member States or the Eurocrats it is still UNACCEPTABLE especially during a credit crunch!
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@ Gheryando #10
I checked the terms of service for this site and it does not contain a clause limiting posting to Europeans.
Despite your ridiculous comments I, for one, fully intend to participate in all matters Euorpean on this blog despite being an American.
I also subscribe to the Economist and keenly read the Europe section as well. I sure hope you are not opposed to that too.
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One interesting feature of both Declan Ganley and his fellow Irish business campaigner against the Lisbon Treaty, Ulick McEvaddy, is that they have obtained substantial contacts from the US Pentagon (or other agencies) - and that these contracts have often been awarded on a closed, non-competitive basis. Information on US government and other websites confirms this. The fascinating Alaskan eskimo contracting scam detailed in the T. Christian Miller book, Blood Money - to which Mark Mardell refers - is an example of how this process can work. Everyone knows that non-competitive contracts tend to generate excess profits.
The real question is not whether the CIA ever funded the Irish 'no' campaign: that is possible, but most unlikely. It is rather whether the US government is happy with the fact that excessive profits earned from its public purchasing in defence and homeland security may, directly or indirectly, have helped fund the Irish 'no' campaign. The US government claims to be in favour of closer European integration, yet could in effect have been cross-subsidising anti-EU campaigning, without even knowing it.
Now that Mr Ganley has chosen to become a public figure, he has to face the limelight on certain questionable business practices (like his closed contracts) and issues about some of his associates in countries like Albania (where the AEY scandal is being investigated by the US Congress).
Indeed, until Mr Ganley can confirm that all the funding of Libertas was as he initially claimed - that is, from individual small donors below the 6000 euro declaration threshold - there will inevitably be doubt about what exactly has been going on. Mr Ganley's admission, under pressure, to Irish radio that he actually gave 200,000 euros of his own money in a loan to Libertas - which the Irish SIPO Commission is apparently now investigating - suggests everything might not be quite as it first seemed...
So far, apart from one investigative reporter on the Irish Times, no journalist has really started to look into all this in a serious way.
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Sure he is a US secret agent and member of the US industrial complex. Any doubts left?
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Britain joins the European Economic Community at the third attempt, after rejections in 1963 and 1967
I never realised it took three goes to get us in no wonder we never got a referedum on the E.U treaty
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#36 - CarlosSanchezGuerra
#10 - Gheryando
I am astonished by Gheryando's rebuff and assure you that many of us welcome input from our American friend just as most of them our happy to hear European perspectives on their blogs. Keep posting Carlos - you are welcome here.
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#37 - politicalobserver
Interesting and valid points. However, closed tenders and even non-competitive contracting are not unusual in the defence procurement industry, especially when security issue have to take priority over competitive transparency. It may be that the Americans have an oversight issue on this but providing Mr.Ganley's business interests are legal, I would not be especially concerned.
There is nothing particularly new about American organisations funding political campaigns in Europe either. You need look no further than Noraid for an example of that. If there is a hidden agenda within government or the security services that is a different matter but I cannot imagine what interest the Americans would have in scuppering the EU project.
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Although I support the avowed ideas of Libertas it is very much an Irish version of Open Europe and both organisations arguably seek the same sort of EU-sceptics goal of a reformed Eupropean Union with more democratic accountablity.
On the other hand I can see that Declan Ganley may not be being as frank with the world (or Mark) as he might be.
The Wikpedia entry for Declan Ganley makes interesting reading.
First of all he is British-born not Irish-born and Libertas membership and volunteers are restricted to addresses in the Irish Republic (although anyone can donate to the cause of Libertas).
Secondly, Ganley has written papers for the The Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) which is an American think tank based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is "devoted to bringing the insights of scholarship to bear on the development of policies that advance U.S. national interests."
The particular papers were published as "Europe’s Constitutional Treaty: A Threat to Democracy and How to Avoid It, Ganley, Declan (December 2003)."
Mark's anonymous source may be defending the EU with a status quo that is unacceptable to many European citizens but Ganley's EU detractors may have a point that Ganley agenda is not entirely that of being an EU Citizen keen to solely achieve a reform of the EU to meet only the interests of Europeans.
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Neopopoliticus (#6) has been taken to task by some here for stating that " Europe grew fat and lazy under American protection during the Cold War. Today they kowtow to terrorists, turned their back on Iraq, make a pathetic token show of force in Afghanistan, and aren't even willing to stand up to Neo-Soviet Russia."
Could those critics then point to any Europe's actions which could prove the contrary?
BTW. If Mr. Ganley was a "secret US agent" you'd have never heard about him. US intelligence community has much more intelligence that EU "intelligentia" would like to believe it does.
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I am grateful for Declan Ganley’s role in the recent Irish No Vote. But I think that his long term goal to inject some genuine democracy into EU institutions is likely to fail.
However, having spent a lot of time on the island of Crete I have been much encouraged to learn how a strong people emerged from centuries of occupation with their culture and identity intact.
I therefore live in hope that when the EU has done its worst - that both Britain and Ireland’s traditional identities can be re-established.
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Greypolyglot (25): I work for a private-sector company that regularly appears on the list of ‘best places to work in Britain’ and would never contemplate a job at the EU. The only thing I ever applied for from the public sector is a place at University and a passport. It is enough.
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The comments about the failure to gain auditor approval apportioning blame to either Brussels or member govts completely miss the point
The reasons it happens is down to the system itself.
As a net contributor, the British govt raises the money from us, transfers the money to Brussels,who then transfer it on again.
Therefore the people who spend it are completely divorced from the people who provide it,giving no incentive to spend it wisely, if they waste it, they know more will come along later.
At the other end we have to pay into the system, no matter what happens to the money we send to Brussels
Constant supply of money, and no incentive to be prudent.
Until net payers can withhold money from the system, until auditors approve the budget, nothing will change
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#42 - Menedemus
Exactly right but Ganley could provide the catalyst needed to ignite the debate and non-attributable comments from anonymous EU pollies, however senior, do not a debate make.
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Menedemus
If you had a choice between no Democratic reform and reform thats is democratic but meets Americas needs as well as those the we have professed so often, which would you choose?
I know which camp i would be in.
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Neopopoliticus & powermeerkat
Not me generally I agree most European nations are lame ducks when it come's to military action.
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I'm still trying to understand what specifically they said "no" to in the Treaty.
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35. BackintheEUssr:
"Re. #24 greypolyglot
Not this BBC/Guardian spin again!
The bottom line remains that whether the financial failings belong to the Member States or the Eurocrats it is still UNACCEPTABLE especially during a credit crunch!"
I couldn't agree with you more. I just prefer to see people get their facts right.
So ....
Most of the spending is done by national governments. It's their fault for not keeping proper accounts
The accounting procedure is very tight, and under these rules many big institutions would not pass - the former head of the National Audit Office, Sir John Bourn, suggested that if he was operating under similar rules, the UK’s accounts might have failed
Most of the errors are technical rather than fraudulent, and could be due to paperwork that’s lost five years after the end of a project, or academics carrying out EU-funded research failing to fill in proper hour-by-hour time-sheets
And no, I'm not so daft as to think that there's no fiddling at all going on - after all we've see, politicians, policemen, doctors, priests, soldiers, etc. doing wrong. I just find it difficult to swallow the idea that every last one of 'em in Brussels is as bent as a corkscrew.
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"When Mr. Ganley can happily demonstrate to both the Irish and European auditors".
This is brilliant! Why should Mr Ganley have to do it when the EC can't satisfy the auditors. Or would he be dismissed like the whistle-blower(s) ?
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Hiddenranbir wrote:
I'm still trying to understand what specifically they said "no" to in the Treaty.
Most of it, the formation of a constitution for all intensive purposes, with almost no democratic legitamacy
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43. powermeerkat:
" If Mr. Ganley was a "secret US agent" you'd have never heard about him."
Valerie Plame used to believe that too.
" US intelligence community has much more intelligence that EU "intelligentia" would like to believe it does."
Hm. Maybe. But what about the press ? The Chicago Tribune claimed to have compiled a list of 2,653 CIA employees from publicly available sources.
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Oh, Mark,
"European Parliament has instructed the Irish authorities to investigate his funding and motives"
Shame on you! That's not very accurate reporting is it?
Please read carefully the following on "Questions over the funding of the No campaign in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty referendum":-
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/briefing_page/37873-266-09-39-20080923BRI37872-22-09-2008-2008/default_p001c001_en.htm
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WhiteEnglishProud @ #48
I think you know that I would be in the same camp seeking democratic reform of the EU.
But, there is a weakness in Ganley's history which has been seized upon by the anonymous EU source that Amrk is in contact with and others in the EU will no doubt use that weakness to undermine Ganley, Libertas and ultimately the will of the Irish People to vote "No" again in the second referendum that I think will be run past the Irish voters in 2009.
It is my guess that this attack upon Ganley by unnamed sources in the EU is merely posturing to undermine the credibility of the first Irish Constitutional Amendment Referendum with a view to pushing the Irish Government into holding a second referendum.
All very underhand and sneaky but it is what one expects from anonymous sources within the EU who have a secret agenda that is (a) undemocratic, (b) treats the people of Europe as numbskulls who should not have any democratic choices in how the EU develops and (c) if they do exercise their democratic choice desperately tries to make that choice unacceptable.
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#50 - Hiddenranbir
Nobody does and that's the whole point. The questions did not have to be put one by one. In effect the Irish government said 'here's the treaty - take it or leave it'.
Some will have objected to the loss of a commissioner, others to matters relating to qmv, others to changes is the balance between the commission and parliament. Add to that all sorts of spurious objections arising from disinformation (Google the Irish press for details) and you get the picture. If there is anything about the treaty you don't ike, vote No.
I have no problem with Irish constitutional arrangements -I am not Irish for one thing. But there is an issue in the sense that if you do not know what the problem is, how do you fix it?
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#50. Hiddenranbir
"I'm still trying to understand what specifically they said "no" to in the Treatty."
There were various media reported reasons for the "no" - military neautrality, abortion, free trade, immigration, loss of independence. Some of these were wildly exaggerated by the Irish media (who really were fairly biased during the campaign and shocked by the result - notably a certain national broadcaster and a broadsheet newspaper).
The Yes camp are still puzzled by the no result and want to know what could be changed to get a Yes in a referendum rerun. Anybody who voted no knows why they voted in that way.
Personally, I voted no as I couldn't see any real benefits for the ordinary people of the EU in letting the Lisbon Treaty get through. One of it's greatest weaknesses was that it was self-perpetuating (having the power to renew or perpetuate itself for an indefinite length of time). This effectively would mean that the EU bureaucrats would never need to ask the people's opinion again and roll on with their US of E power game.
I am sure other voters would have their own views. Let's hear from any out there?
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Hiddenranbir @ #50
The Irish Constitutional Amendment Referendum was a straightforward question as to whether the voter agreed to the Irish Constitution being amended or not by the Twenty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland Bill, 2008.
It is a simple fact that the majority of the Irish who voted, voted "No" to amending the Irish Constitution.
"Why" they did so is irrelevant and is only a question asked by the pro-Lisbon Treaty Camp because the Irish majority vote WAS "No".
I am sure you would agree that there would be no post mortem of why the Irish voted "Yes" to the Contitution Change HAD the Irish voted by majority to say "Yes" to amending the Irish Constitution!
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He looks like a mauverick ? right?
If yes it depends to which ends he can be used to / or opts to apply his talents.
Like threnodio wrote - can serve as a catalyst, for the needed discussions.
Re his background - depends on the angle you look at it from. All is, how to say, relative !
For ex. until today never heard a bad word here in Russia ab ex-Finnish president Ahtisaari. Until he got the Nobel prize.
So the whole day today my TV shows me a movie ab "life and work" of Ahtisaari of the telling title "Award for the peaceful collapse of the country." The angle is "attempt to legitimise backwards and add weight to the wrong political decision, that didn't solve the problem." I've heard so far, of Ahtisaari's early beginnings in the Christian Youth organisation, at the age of 19, and how unusual other men in his group were, listened to the memoirs of the first Namibia president, got acquainted with the whole Antisaary's family and was informed I think of every euro donated to Ahtisaari's funds and organisations he chairs and what the sources were. Incl. the German intelligence report. By all looks the next step will be he is elected the honorary Albanian and all.
To quote just one phrase "by 2000 Ahtisaari returned to the peace-keeping activities, supported the bombing of Jugoslavia."
So all is relative, and when one starts to excavate financial papers, results can indeed be stunning, but if it is "your man" - nobody cares, only when somone goes against your interests - that's when all starts.
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To Freeborn-John (11):
To BBC moderators: This is the original comment #20 that was posted and deemed potentially defamatory after an complaint. The opening line has been removed from this comment.
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What you and others in here are doing is to turn a blind eye on the accusations on mr. Ganley and the Libertas on being funded illegally. You turn the blind eye on the fact that the Libertas haven't opened their accounts. If they have nothing to hide, why haven't they opened their books?
I'm sorry, but as I said in my previous comment, that somebody has deemed worthy to be complained to moderator: this is not about the Lisbon Treaty, this is about democracy in Ireland. If you have strong accusations and doubts against a campaign and against a political lobby group, you have to take them seriously. If there is any doubt that illegal money from mr. Ganley or money from dubious sources, like the CIA, intervened the vote on the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland, it makes the whole No -vote dubious. Until mr. Ganley and the Libertas open their books, the whole No -vote will be shadowed by this.
I would also like respond to your accusations against EU. EU did stay away from the Irish vote. They didn't give money to any campaign. They didn't give any money to any party. Why? Well because EU works for its member states, the members states are the parents of EU not the other way around. Yes, the EU has a communication budget, and yes it uses it to communicate, but guess what, when EU does inform about itself, it informs that its doing informing. In the Libertas case, its not without doubt that the informer is the Libertas, but a third party, an foreign intelligence service in example.
Please, lets not mess the EU and the Lisbon Treaty on this. This is not about Yes or No -vote to it, this is about the democracy of Ireland and its functioning. Its more important that the Irish democracy works and is not corrupted by outside interference than any EU vote. We can't accept foreign interference on our elections, if we do so, we are effectively throwing our democracies down the drain.
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Jukka_Rohila @ #61
I agree with you in the main BUT, to be fair there were a a whole host of European Heads of State and EU digniatries visiting Ireland during the run up to the Irish Referendum so you cannot have it both ways. If someone like Declan Ganley, for whatever reason, is to be prevented from "influencing" the Irish electorate then it would only be right and proper for the other European Heads of State from conveniently visiting the Irish Republic durign the run up to the Referendum and certainly Barroso and other EU dignitaries should be banned as well.
As it happens, the Daily Telegraph is reporting tonight that anonymous EU officials (and there seems to be a lot of these anonymomus EU spokespersons about!) are definitely pushing for a second Irish Referendum and I think it is no coincidence that at the same time there is a concerted effort to blacken the character of the leader of the main protagonist behind the Irish "No" vote.
Personally, I think it is an insult to the Irish people to demand they hold a second referendum because what is being suggested is that they were hoodwinked by Libertas without the chance for anyone to suggest that ALL Europeans are all being hoodwinked by the EU Project!
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Mark reported:
"many believe that the mysterious Mr Ganley is a stooge of the American military industrial complex, doing the bidding of the right-wing neo-cons in the CIA and Pentagon, hell-bent on smashing the rise of a political Europe."
I have no idea whether he is or he isn't but I'd be inclined to suspect that either way the CIA was none too happy about the European Parliament looking into their alleged (and now it seems proven) "rendition" flights through EU countries and use of "black" detention centres in them.
And if remember correctly the CIA has a bit of a history of intervening in the internal affairs of other countries?
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"When Mr. Ganley can happily demonstrate to both the Irish and European auditors where all of the financial backing for his party came from, then certainly allow him to take part in the democratic process."
It is now, I think, 14 years since the EU accounts were certified. Any investigations into them meet with a solid wall of obfuscation.
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64. JeremyP:
"It is now, I think, 14 years since the EU accounts were certified. Any investigations into them meet with a solid wall of obfuscation."
Please go back and read 24 and 51
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powermeerkat:
" If Mr. Ganley was a "secret US agent" you'd have never heard about him."
Valerie Plame used to believe that too.
" US intelligence community has much more intelligence that EU "intelligentia" would like to believe it does."
Hm. Maybe. But what about the press ? The Chicago Tribune claimed to have compiled a list of 2,653 CIA employees from publicly available sources. [#54]
Sorry, but Valerie was not a SECRET agent, but a legally employed expert in CIA's analytical branch some claims to the contrary notwithstanding.
As for Chicago Tribune's "list", there are thousands of CIA employees whose names (and not only names) can be established without much difficulty because they work in the Analysis Department, which is not a secret branch.
I wish good luck, though, to those who'd like
to identify operatives of CIA's Clandestine Service. Same, incidentally, goes for its equivalents in MI-6, Surete, BND, etc.
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There are quite a few posters here who claim/assume that it is United States' interest to divide and weaken EU.
In fact the opposite is true. As far back as early 70s the then Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger complained that "there is not a single telehone number one could call in Europe" to find out what the European community's
policy and intentions are on specific issues.
Since then many US leaders and policy makers have encouraged faster integration of Europe. Quite a few supported plans of creation by EU of its own military forces capable of actual combat if only to decrease US's burden created by a necessity to defend Europe.
In view of the Russian agression on Georgia and Europe's timid reaction to it caused by a serious disagreement between EU members there were many in the US who have pointed out that Kremlin's strong-arm actions vis-a-vis its neighhbours (including EU members) would most likely not occur if Europe was indeed united and had clear unified strong foreign and defense policy, let alone common energy policy based on diversification principle, which would make European countries much less vulnerable to any future Russian attempts to split and blackmail them.
So however some of you may dislike the result of the Irish referendum (and would like to have it repeated until it brings a different outcome) don't attribute it to some American nefarious schemes.
It's simply silly.
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The promulgation of conspiracy theories as explanations for a whole range of events is getting very tiresome. I completely agree with powermeerkat at #67. The very last people who would be interested in derailing the European project are the Americans.
How about this one. The EU put together the Treaty of Lisbon, the Irish government gave the people a referendum, the people said 'No'. Conspiratorial enough for you?
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# 66.powermeerkat:
"Sorry, but Valerie was not a SECRET agent, but a legally employed expert in CIA's analytical branch some claims to the contrary notwithstanding."
Sorry, but, just to keep the record straight - she WAS a secret agent.
See Exhibit A - "Unclassified summary of Valeie Wilson's CIA employment and Cover History" in sentencing memorandum exhibits: United States v Libby.
She was a covert CIA employee: an 'operations officer' in the Directorate of Operations and she traveled overseas undercover on official business during wartime
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Let's face it, the euro "elite" despise dissent of any form.
Odd how no one in the euro "parliament" is clamoring for an investigation into the funding of any "pro" EU Constitution (simply relabeled "Lisbon Treaty") groups, only those with which are anti-Lisbon Treaty and successful. Funny, that.
What is pathetic is that a few people are actually chiming in and agreeing with the totalitarian tendency of Brussels we are witnessing, as it rears its ugly head-yet again.
Declan is actually pro the EU Experiment, but those two-bit despots/ clowns on the continent are too blind to even want to try and see that. Better to try and slander Declan you see...
That we are witnessing the EU's only democratic body, the EU Parliament (which is popularly elected), attempting to smear Declan should set alarm bells off to anyone who finds the Lisbon Treaty of interest.
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#51 urges us to get our facts right on EU accounting:
Rules are so tight member states "might have failed..."
"Most of the errors are technical rather than fraudulent...", and "could be due to..."
Might have..most of...could be..
Facts, eh?
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Mardell questions the existence of an Irish Secret Service. We do exist and our main objective is to investigate the oxymoron known as British Intelligence . Perhaps Mardell could help in this quest. We pay in Euros.
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Re: #69...
Sorry, but Valerie was never a "CIA agent"
although she was its officer (it seems you don't understand the difference). She did not work in Operations any more at the time her identity was revealed: you better check with Personnel at Langley rather than quote findings of the highly politicized legal proceedings. It's easier to verify than audit EU accounts.
BTW Directorate of Operations ceased to exist several years ago. If you want to know what has it been replaced with ask scribes at Chicago Tribune: they seem to know a lot about the Company and its employees.
[ And if you believe it I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd love to sell ya]
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To #65, greypolyglot,
It's very convenient to blame the member states but the rules that are being bent, ignored and used were created by the EU and its commission. The first basis of any law should be whether it can be workable, and in this the EU has been a total failure. It's only a few years since the farming set aside rule was 'set aside', that took years to happen even though it was a constant source of corruption throughout it's existence. In fact when one considers the proportion that the CAP was in the accounting years that were not signed off it's only fair to assume that the CAP was largely to blame. Declaring more acreage than existed, saying field were 'set aside' when they were used etc etc were abject corruption which was known about by most, yet the EU took ages and probably billions to correct that corruption, that's what needs answering. The incorrect accounts are the tip of the iceberg and not just a technicality, as saying that is akin to saying a fraudster theft is just a mild technicality of accidental errors in their accounting.
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Re Ganley,
I must say I somewhat have hopes for this guy, and with the EU elections coming up next June I hope he gets to be in the voting lists. However knowing how the parties on these lists are controlled to ensure that only 'agreed' parties can stand, I foresee plenty of dirty tricks. from our democratic parties. After all it's unthinkable that we should actually have the chance to vote for somebody that says what we mostly think.
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74. Buzet23 :
"It's very convenient to blame the member states but the rules that are being bent, ignored and used were created by the EU and its commission. "
The reality is that it's very convenient to blame the European Commission. That's why everyone does it. And the EU, as a body, doesn't exist. It's either a concept or it's shorthand for ALL of the institutions.
The rules in question are: COUNCIL REGULATION (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002.
Unsurprisingly, it's the Council of Ministers i.e. Heads of Government or, as substitutes, their ministers that create Council Regulations. OK, the initial drafting may be done by Commission staff (in this particular case I'd expect some pretty extensive input from the Court of Auditors - a separate body) but the ultimate responsibility lies with the Member States. No one held a gun to their heads to force them to sign it into effect.
You'll like this one. Heads of Government are, of course, HoGs.
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73. powermeerkat:
"Valerie was never a "CIA agent" although she was its officer (it seems you don't understand the difference)."
Unless you're in the military the terms are equivalent.
"She did not work in Operations any more at the time her identity was revealed:"
Irrelevant. It is sufficient that she had done so.
"you better check with Personnel at Langley rather than quote findings of the highly politicized legal proceedings."
No need. I was quoting a CIA document produced in evidence to the court. And your courts aren't "highly politicized" are they?
"BTW Directorate of Operations ceased to exist several years ago."
I know. It's now the National Clandestine Service.
As far as bridges are concerned, need I remind you that one of yours bought a certain London bridge, now gracing Lake Havasu, believing it to be Tower Bridge.
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#76 greypolyglot,
You mention "The reality is that it's very convenient to blame the European Commission. That's why everyone does it. And the EU, as a body, doesn't exist. It's either a concept or it's shorthand for ALL of the institutions.", in reply to my comment in 74 and I think both of our comments are equally valid. As you rightly point out the council of ministers, commission and also the parliament create these rules and once created the governments are supposed to enact them in their entirety unless there has been some sort of dispensation granted i.e. opt out.
What has always annoyed me about the long running scandal about the official EU accounts never getting signed off is that it is proof that most, if not all, countries are simply using the funds of the EU for selfish purposes, and whether we blame the EU as the 'whole' or the individual member states, they are in effect the same as they are interlinked. It is the system that stinks and is rotten and thankfully the corruption in the accounting is one very visible and publicised expression of that malaise, otherwise all the spin would be hiding it.
It is also proof of the double standards of the EU as the 'whole', if the accounts of a company are not signed off by the auditors then the company will be investigated, either by the tax office and/or police as the implication will be that criminal fraud has occurred. In the case of the EU everyone just shrugs their shoulders, says "Ah well, that's the EU for you", and carries on fiddling the books.
What the solution is I've no idea but it's clear that the concept of the EU allocating the funding and the member governments controlling it's local application is terminally flawed, as the politicians can't be trusted to be honest. I wonder what this guy Ganley would or maybe will suggest as an alternative approach?
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powermeerkat:
"Valerie was never a "CIA agent" although she was its officer (it seems you don't understand the difference)."
Unless you're in the military the terms are equivalent. [#73]
No, they aren't. There's a huge diference between officers (who are employees of CIA ) and agents (who are not, and usually aren't even US citizens).
But I'll not elaborate on it here, because, what's much more relevant, it is patently clear that some people/circles come up with laughable conspiracy theories about US having influenced the outcome of the Irish referendum because they refuse to accept that somebody might simply don't like Brussels pet project, Lisbon Treaty, which, incidentally, is almost identical with its previous scheme already soundly rejected by the French and the Dutch without any American input.
Personally, I'm willing to bet that if attempts to force Irish people to vote again and differently fail, the same EU constitution will be reintroduced for the third time under different name:Madrid Agreement, BerlinUnderstanding, etc., although probably not - Warsaw Pact.
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Just a thought, the topic of this current blog thread is "Get Ganley", and this reminded me after my previous post #78 of a certain ex-Labour leader who having been placed in charge of the anti-corruption office of the EU commission fired a whistle blower within his own department who dared comment on how ineffective it was. It seems there is a long history within the EU of "Getting" anyone who dares step across the politically correct line and criticise the establishment. I've also often wondered if they employ ex-KGB officers as consultants when you consider their tactics and the misinformation/spin they put out.
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79. powermeerkat:
"There's a huge difference between officers (who are employees of CIA ) and agents (who are not, and usually aren't even US citizens)."
OK. I see another difference between British and American English: lift=elevator; elevator=grain silo; car=automobile; carriage=railcar, etc. Although fictional, James Bond is usually referred to as a "secret agent" which he clearly isn't in your terminology.
And if we go to the beginning of this you said she wasn't a secret agent, I disagreed saying that she was. Can we agree that she was at one time a "covert operations officer"? ;-)
That's something which Ganley cannot be because he's not a US citizen. Whether he is or is not an "agent" is unknown to either of us and likely to remain so.
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78. Buzet23:
"What has always annoyed me about the long running scandal about the official EU accounts never getting signed off is that it is proof that most, if not all, countries are simply using the funds of the EU for selfish purposes, and whether we blame the EU as the 'whole' or the individual member states, they are in effect the same as they are interlinked. It is the system that stinks and is rotten and thankfully the corruption in the accounting is one very visible and publicised expression of that malaise, otherwise all the spin would be hiding it."
What has always annoyed me is that the likes of the Daily mail repeat the lie that because the Court of Auditors (itself an EU body) can't sign off accounts which are largely in the hands of the Member States therefore ALL civil servants working for EU bodies are corrupt. I said before, SOME may be (as in ANY organisation). But ALL !!??
Part of the problem is that the accounting is SO tight that if the UK's National Audit Office operated under similar rules the UK's own accounts might fail to pass muster.
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Betuli wrote: “Come to Britain through any international airport. There are two lines for passport control: one fast-track for UK/EU nationals, and, a second one for others.”
I am British and I can confirm betuli’s claim. Unlike betuli though, I don’t welcome it. In fact I deeply resent it. Every time I return from foreign parts I take great offense at seeing EU flags where Union Jacks ought to fly. Assuming betuli is British we can have a healthy and peaceful disagreement about this and in a democracy we would both be free to lobby politicians, write letters to newspapers, print leaflets etc. One view would prevail and there’s no guarantee it would mine. Such is the give and take of sharing an island and respecting the views of others.
The problem isn’t that betuli holds views to which I take great exception. The problem is that the democratic process has broken down. I never voted to give EU technocrats control over my country’s airports. My parents and grandparents voted Yes for Britain to remain part of the European Economic Community (scandalously, the government had already taken the liberty of signing us up) since when the community has morphed into a Super State. No vote has ever been held on the dramatic continual shift of powers that occurred since the 1970’s. And no democratic process exists within the EU for individuals like me to make any impact on decisions that I think are important. All legislation is initiated by the Commission and rubber-stamped by the farcical European Parliament, which reads countless bills sometimes at a rate of several per minute and often without any reasonable time for discussion.
The likes of betuli may celebrate my distaste at the EU and doubtless I’ll be dismissed as a “Daily Mail reader” or, like Ganley, a dupe of the neo-cons/Murdoch press etc. But if you study the arguments of the EU-philes all you’ll actually find are either:
(1) vague notions about prosperity (but the EU’s own figures contradict this notion, showing UK’s net contributions are greater than the EU's own inflated claims about the economic benefits of membership) and peace after WW2 (utterly bogus since broken France, split Germany, financially-spent Britain etc. were all exhausted after the war and in the shadow of the USSR)
(2) attempts to undermine and discredit those of us who favour national democracy (Ganley being a case in point)
Basically, like many - I suspect most - Brits, I want the UK to leave the EU asap. I have no doubt that those in love with the EU will view this as dangerous heretical talk. But Switzerland manages to prosper outside the EU and one of the cast iron certainties of living in a democracy is that you must tolerate certain laws and decisions that you find offensive. This includes EU flags at British airports and UK membership of a corrupt, unaccountable, undemocratic Super State.
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Whether he [Ganley] is or is not an "agent" [of CIA] is unknown to either of us and likely to remain so.[#81]
If you still want to believe it despite irrefutable facts about US's long held views re EU's strengthening and further integration processes I've mentioned in post #67 - that's fine with me.
But please, answer just one question: QUI PRODEST?
For it is clear to me and many others on the other side of the pond, including US foreign policy makers, that United States would not benefit from EU being weak and divided.
And, besides, US intelligence community, including CIA, has many global problems to deal with which are much more important that an outcome of an Irish or any other referendum re EU Constitution or whatchamacallit.
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So the anti-democracy-ists are going after a wonderful man, mr Ganley, who stopped the anti-democratic EU from getting its even more anti-democratic Lisbon 'enabling act' Treaty?
Why isn't the 'yes' vote being analyzed? Most people who vote yes either don't know anything about how the EU works (anyone who does would be against it) or are opposed to the concept of parliamentary democracy (one cannot be for the EU and at the same time being for parliamentary democracy, the concepts are mutually exclusive).
The main reason one should be against the EU and its 'enabling act' treaties, is because the system is so utterly anti-democratic. Legislative powers and some executive powers have been moved from ELECTED national governments and parliaments and move towards UNELECTED kommissars (EU commission). The EU politburo and council combined can overrule any national parliament, and there's no parliamentary control on this process.
Mark should really explain why he supports centralizing powers in Brussels in the hands of the unelected crowd, because I just don't understand how anyone could support that?
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Switzerland manages to prosper outside the EU [#83]
Not only Switzerland. Norway is another good example.
[Been there seen that.]
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greypolyglot wrote: “The reality is that it's very convenient to blame the European Commission. That's why everyone does it.”
This is indeed one aspect of the problem. In a national democracy sovereignty is clearly defined and therefore clearly understood and individual citizens can collectively hold the government to account. One of the problems of shared (or to use the jargon “pooled”) sovereignty is precisely that you blur the lines of responsibility making it increasingly difficult for us oiks to know whom to blame. Sorry for being a little cynical at this point, but I reckon there may be even be some people who think it’s better if the likes of you and me can’t get a good handle on what our political masters are up to. And even if my suspicions are misplaced it is nevertheless obvious that any potential for politicians to evade scrutiny is against the interests of the vast majority.
Under the current arrangements the UK government blames Brussels like the proverbial traffic warden “Sorry mate, I don’t make the rules”. Meanwhile the EU and its supporters blame the British government for “gold plating” legislation (i.e. adding to it rendering it useless and then blaming Brussels). As with the funding example already discussed, voters are in no man’s land unable to vent their complaints legitimately at Westminster but also unable to blame Brussels.
We should apply Occam’s Razor. The EU is unnecessary and merely serves to complicate government finance and the legislative process and lessen political accountability. The sooner the UK leaves the EU the better.
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The attacks on Ganley are no surprise.
For years the EU elites have tried to make it illegal to criticize the EU, or let anyone question the very existance of the EU.
Ganley and the Irish no voters hold the majority position. The majority of peoples are opposed to more political integration and opposed to the anti-democratic Lisbon Treaty. This can be easily proved in referendums, which is why Barroso, Merkel and Wallström ordered Netherlands, France and Portugal to cancel promised referendums.
@Jukka_Rohila (2)
The majority of 'Europeans' are against political integration, so why do you think it should continue anyway?
@Mark Mardell
how can you and your employers BBC support such a completely anti-democratic layer of government such as the EU without ever questioning any of the fundamentals?
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@blingmun(87)
the politicians deliberately designed the EU with two things in mind: 1) blur the lines of responsibility and accountability and 2) remove direct voter influence from the legislative process
The central idea was to move legislative and executive powers away from elected towards unelected politicians, whilst at the same time keeping the now more or less powerless national parliaments and governments exist (with the express intent of fooling the people into thinking democracy still existed).
They have succeeded. Parliamentary democracy in 27 countries is dead and the likes of the BBC seem to be very happy about that. We now have an unelected anti-democratic elite of zero-% income tax rate paying politicians and bureaucrats who make the laws, without any elected parliament or government being able to do something about it.
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84. powermeerkat:
"If you still want to believe it despite irrefutable facts about US's long held views re EU's strengthening and further integration processes I've mentioned in post #67 - that's fine with me."
You must be confusing me with another. I haven't suggested it and have no particular reason to believe it. I said 'Whether he [Ganley] is or is not an "agent" [of CIA] is unknown to either of us and likely to remain so.
"But please, answer just one question: QUI PRODEST?"
Well, a cynic might think that the US does indeed want a strong and united EU - just not TOO strong or TOO united.
By the way if you are going to use Latin tags then please get them right. It's "CUI PRODEST?" (whom does it benefit?). Remember my pseudonym?
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89. mcdv-1975:
"We now have an unelected anti-democratic elite of zero-% income tax rate paying politicians and bureaucrats who make the laws, without any elected parliament or government being able to do something about it."
Where are bureaucrats ELECTED?
London, Birmingham, Eastbourne? No.
Bureaucrats don't MAKE laws - they DRAFT them. Politicians have the power to change them, approve them or NOT approve them.
0% income tax? I think not.
True, a European civil servant's salary is not subject to national income tax. However, salaries paid to them are subject to tax within the body for which they work. This tax is levied progressively at a rate of between 8% and 45% of the taxable part of salary.
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Greypolyglot, you are skating on very thin ice as you wander into the remuneration arena!
As an early UK example of gross overpayment, it has been alleged that Neil Kinnock, the Commissioner, whose duties included the prevention of fraud, received £259K to tide him over until he qualified for his £60K pa pension. (If this is false please correct me!)
I wonder if that was his reward for sacking Marta Andreason, the whistleblowing accountant, who upset him and the Commission with her accounting ethics?
A 100% tax rate would be more appropriate for Kinnock and his fellow travellers in the House of Lords.
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92. BackintheEUssr:
"Greypolyglot, you are skating on very thin ice as you wander into the remuneration arena!
As an early UK example of gross overpayment, it has been alleged that Neil Kinnock, the Commissioner, whose duties included the prevention of fraud, received ?259K to tide him over until he qualified for his ?60K pa pension. (If this is false please correct me!)"
Thank you for the warning :-).
I'm pleased to see that you're gracious enough to say "alleged". I don't know whether Kinnock did or didn't receive that amount (GBP or EUR ?) and I don't see any way to find out. I'm fairly sure that any request for personal information like that would be refused just as you'd expect your employer to protect your personal information.
General salary scales, allowances, etc. of civil servants are a matter of public record.
He might have got a severance payment like most senior executives but I can't see a way for a payment to be made "to tide him over" and I'm pretty sure the staff would have been up in arms over it considering the damage that he did to their pay and conditions.
Who made the allegation and did they produce any evidence to back it up?
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blingmun 83,
Although I fully respect your position and appreciate the kind language you use, there are some mistakes in your analysis.
But I just want to pick one out, probably the most relevant mistake. You said:
"Basically, like many - I suspect most - Brits, I want the UK to leave the EU asap".
Wrong, amigo. None of the three major parties, which represent the Bristish people, don't they?, postulates your wish.
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Betuli wrote (94) "Wrong, amigo. None of the three major parties, which represent the British people, don't they?, postulates your wish"
You cannot be serious! The complaint against the EU is that it has poisoned the democratic process in stable non-corrupt states like the UK. Your response is to point to British political parties as evidence of implicit support for the support. But of course British political parties are part of the democratic process: The reasoning is completely circular.
In case we become too abstract in our debate, let’s take the EU Constitution as an example. The Labour manifesto at the last election stated very clearly that there would be a referendum on the Constitution in the event that Blair and his colleagues were elected and that they would campaign for a Yes vote in that referendum. Even the most EU-phile observer must admit that the Lisbon Treaty is fundamentally the same thing as the Constitution. In fact the most EU-phile people around DO admit that, everyone from Merkel through to d’Estaing have publicly admitted it’s somewhere between 85-99 per cent the same.
So why no referendum on the Lisbon Treaty? Because the British democratic process has been poisoned by the EU. Politicians in Brussels feel sufficiently removed from the cut and thrust of British politics to attempt such audacious lies. Meanwhile politicians in Westminster can abdicate responsibility and let the EU cop the blame. Meanwhile, except for a surprise reverse at the hands of the Irish, massive permanent power transfer would have been effected and with absolutely no democratic mandate in Britain and in blatant disregard of the election manifesto of the British Government. So please don’t point to the policies of British political parties as evidence of support for or legitimisation of the EU. It’s simply ridiculous.
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95. blingmun:
"Meanwhile politicians in Westminster can abdicate responsibility and let the EU cop the blame."
Thank you. A point that I keep trying to make.
If the EU was as corrupt, devious, underhanded and undemocratic as some claim there wouldn't have been an Irish vote on the Treaty (or Constitution if you will)! Or the previous Dutch and French referenda. Some sneaky way would have been found to avoid it.
As I keep trying to bang into people's heads the target of their ire and the ones who should take full blame for any perceived ills are the national politicians who DO vote on things in the European Council.
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greypolyglot:
"If the EU was as corrupt, devious, underhanded and undemocratic as some claim there wouldn't have been an Irish vote on the Treaty (or Constitution if you will)! Or the previous Dutch and French referenda. Some sneaky way would have been found to avoid it."
A sneaky way IS being found to avoid it. The Dutch and French referenda on the Constitution have been bypassed by calling it a 'Treaty'. The sneaky way around the Irish referendum - unavoidable constitutionally no matter how much contempt the EU may have for Irish democracy - is the subject of this blog. Ever since that result every attempt has been taken to "interpret" the Irish result (read: cast those who voted No as stupid or ignorant). Every attempt has been taken to undermine and discredit high profile opponents of the Treaty, as per the evidence above of EU-philes running an orchestrated campaign to destroy the credibility of Ganley.
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@greypolyglot (91)
oh great polyglot, do tell us, how exactly does an ELECTED national parliament reject an EU law which it considers to be bad for the country?
Awww... I'll answer myself: they cannot.
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97. blingmun:
"EU-philes running an orchestrated campaign to destroy the credibility of Ganley."
So, may I take it that you want him to succeed in what Mark reports?
"Mr Ganley ... paints himself as in favour of the European Union, but says he wants a different sort of EU, one with an elected president."
OK by me.
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greypolyglot: So, may I take it that you want Ganley to succeed in what Mark reports?
No, he wants an EU President, I don't. Ganley shouldn't be harassed and investigated just because his views are unpopular in Brussels. He would seem to agree with me that the EU is undemocratic (or has a 'democratic deficit' to use the ludicrous Euro double-speak). Aside from that he has his views and I have mine. I don't see what bearing a comparison of our respective views has on the discussion. Perhaps you could explain?
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100. blingmun:
"Ganley shouldn't be harassed and investigated just because his views are unpopular in Brussels. "
Have I missed reports of him being harassed? If so please give source (other than some blogger wildly alleging it).
As I understand it the IRISH authorities are concerned that foreign money might have been used to sway public opinion on a domestic vote. Wouldn't, shouldn't, any country investigate if they suspected that? I can't see the Garda accepting " his views are unpopular in Brussels" as a valid justification.
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Re post 102, the issue is he is a private individual that is being investigated. I strongly believe that if he had been campaigning for a yes vote there would be no investigation.
Re being concerned that foreign money is being used to sway public opinion in a domestic vote, I assume you would want all foreign owned media that also tried to sway public opinion, either way, should also be investigated? I am not aware of any such investigation, are you?
This smacks of big brother and the state apparatrus being used to quell any dissent. Who will want to raise their head above the paprapet if they know they could be similarly subject to intrusive state investigation of them. (of course would happen to those that opposed the Treaty.)
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#93 polyglot
I'll endeavour to find out the source of the allegation about Kinnock.
Two reactions to your response:
(1) I work for a company in the private sector, Kinnock is paid by the Commission which is funded by taxpayers' contributions. I would expect his salary/pension/goodbye payments to be published for public record - transparency like the MEP's expenses?
(2) Your comments remind me of the reaction from Euro Pensioners during the Lords EU Referendum debate - they got very touchy when it was suggested that they may be a tad biased!
Footnote: Mandelson must have enough for a reasonable mortgage now.
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In addition to my post 103, also I assume the various 'foreign' politicians (funded one assumes by their own 'foreign' Governments) who came to Ireland in support of the E.U. and the treaty should also be investigated.
Seems the Garda are going to be busy.
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greypolyglot: Have I missed reports of Ganley being harassed? If so please give source.
Sunday Times May 2008:
“As the referendum campaign heats up, the 39-year-old is becoming the centre of attention, his motivation and even sources of his wealth being questioned by the Yes side.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article4028006.ece
greypolyglot: As I understand it the IRISH authorities are concerned that foreign money might have been used to sway public opinion on a domestic vote.
The Irish Government has been under enormous pressure from the EU and other European leaders over its failure to win a Yes vote for the Lisbon Treaty (the idea that a Yes or a No is equally valid, since it expresses the will of the Irish people doesn’t seem to have occurred to them). Ganley is being investigated for the same reason that research was conducted following the referendum into what sort of people were voting No (less educated ones apparently), how little they knew about the Treaty and examples of silly misconceptions they had about it. It’s all a desperate attempt to discredit the result of the referendum and pave the way for a second one, in which Ganley may be distracted by investigations into his business affairs and even more EU resources thrown into the battle for hearts and minds.
The European Parliament and other EU officials have even raised questions and submitted a motion in Parliament for bloggers to be, er, regulated since it was obvious from the first campaign that it was individuals like us who determined the outcome, not straw men like Ganley. And of course the reason the blogging war was won hands-down by the No campaign is that the arguments for the EU are flawed and nothing sensible could be said in favour of the Lisbon Treaty, which was blatantly drafted for te benefit of European elites. In the past the mainstream media could be relied upon through cajoling and special favours to come down on the side of the European Project. Unfortunately blogs are transparent and diverse and very hard to bribe and bully to the same effect. Moreover as Ganley said, and as the blogging wars proved beyond all reasonable doubt, the arguments in favour of Lisbon were trivial, whereas the cautionary arguments against signing up to something -- drafted by technocrats and politicians who re-named it to circumvent French and Dutch constitutional requirements and drafted with calculated length, complexity, vagueness and susceptibility to legal interpretation -- were overwhelming.
They know – and you know – they’ve lost the battle of ideas. All they can do now, and all they’ve ever really shown the capability to do, is use sly underhand manipulation of events to slide their tentacles on to the handles of ever greater power, treating the electorate and their democratic constitutions with breathtaking contempt.
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103. jordanbasset:
"Re being concerned that foreign money is being used to sway public opinion in a domestic vote, I assume you would want all foreign owned media that also tried to sway public opinion, either way, should also be investigated? I am not aware of any such investigation, are you?"
It's not for me to want it or not want it. Wouldn't that be a matter for the Irish authorities?
And, no, I'm not aware of any such investigation.
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re #82 greypolyglot,
You seem to have viewed my earlier comment as an attack on the EU civil servants as being corrupt, strange since I simply mentioned that it was the member states governments that are rotten in their application of EU funding. Maybe you know something I don't as I tend to blame the politicians of all member governments for allowing the rampant corruption and/or bad accounting that has caused the accounts to be effectively rejected for more years than I can remember. I also have to say that the sources I use for my views are not the Daily Mail or The Sun, they are the Beeb (probably more biased that the Mail) and other news agencies as well as the EU's own sites that are available on the internet.
As I said before "It is the system that stinks and is rotten and thankfully the corruption in the accounting is one very visible and publicised expression of that malaise, otherwise all the spin would be hiding it." Whether it's the accounting or the CAP or the lacking of democracy and accountability it is the system that is at fault and that is the fault of those politicians who have the power, whether in the EU or the member governments.
I'm also still wondering if anyone has analysed the rejected accounts to see what proportion of the disputed figures is within the CAP. If it is greater than 47% then it's once more proof that the CAP needs to be abandoned, no matter what the French say.
With regard to the Irish situation and the funding of the no vote and Ganley, then these investigations and accusations are just more evidence of the dictatorship that the EU political elite would like to install. The silence about a similar look into the funding of the yes vote and it's foreign supporters is the confirmation of that.
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Hiddenranbir @50 wrote:
"I'm still trying to understand what specifically they said "no" to in the Treaty."
For starters: a document that was drafted specifically to be 'unreadable' (according to the former Italian prime minister, Giuliano Amato).
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Re post 50, Hiddenrnbir, do you have a similar problem of trying to understand specifically why the minority voted yes for in the treaty. Like the no vote, undoubtedly the yes vote was for many different reasons.
At the end of a day in a democracy we should just accept the decision. The Irish people voted no, the Lisbon treaty is dead, people need to move on. Spending Irish tax payers money on the no vote survey, like spending money on the Ganley investigation is a clear waste and partisan use of money.
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@hiddenranbir (50)
since the NO voters were clearly better informed than the YES voters (as they were in 2005 France/Netherlands), the NO voters at least are (un)conciously aware as to how undemocratic the EU is and how it benefits politicians and not anyone else.
Where is the democracy in the EU? How is it a good thing to centralize legislative powers in the hands of unelected politicians? How is it a good think to enable government ministers (through the council) to bypass their national parliaments?
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106. blingmun:
You give the following as evidence of Ganley being harassed. It's dated BEFORE the referendum but even so I read it very carefully three times. It contains no report of harassment..
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article4028006.ece
(Sunday Times May 2008)
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106. blingmun:
"The European Parliament and other EU officials have even raised questions and submitted a motion in Parliament for bloggers to be, er, regulated "
May I invite you to read this.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/public/story_page/039-38391-338-12-49-906-20080929STO38338-2008-03-12-2008/default_en.htm
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This comment has been referred to the moderators. Explain.
One of the most vocal of pro-EU commentators on this blog and that of Dan Hannan MEP turned out to be an Irish permanent ambassador to the EU. Do the pro-EU commentators on this blog objecting to Declan Ganley opposing Lisbon with his own money think it is OK for a permanent ambassador to the EU (paid at taxpayer expense to represent the views of the Irish in Brussels) to seek to overturn the Irish referendum result?
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116. Freeborn-John:
"One of the most vocal of pro-EU commentators on this blog and that of Dan Hannan MEP turned out to be an Irish permanent ambassador to the EU."
Now I'm REALLY curious. How on earth do you know this? I thought the BBC's house rules forbade disclosure of identity?
Blingmun take note. House rules are in effect "regulations" so some blogs are already regulated ;-)
I'd actually go for some measure of regulation to stop things getting out of hand. This blog's like a gentleman's club compared to some I've seen that allow foul language, racist and sexist abuse, etc.
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greypolyglot: He used his real name on this blog and a psuedonym on Dan Hannan's blog where he posted info that made clear he was an EU insider. However the arguments he posted here and on Dan Hannan's blog were very often word-for-word identical so i concluded they were the same person. And when I searched for the real name he posted under here Google immediately found that there is a former permanent ambassador of Ireland to the EU with that name. Not hard proof perhaps but quite a coincidence and he did not deny it on Dan Hannan's blog.
This person no longer posts here or on Dan Hannan's blog, but it should be pretty easy to spot him if he returns even using a different name. As a clue for those of you who have been posting here for some time and might remember him, the old name he used here rhymes with demiworldweary...
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116 & 118 Freeborn-John:
OK, I see who you mean now. But your post 116 referred to "a permanent ambassador to the EU paid at taxpayer expense ..." which isn't really accurate because that seems to have been his function during the mid-1990s. Only in 118 did you correctly refer to him as "former".
I must admit that I don't know if he holds any position today that is paid for by the taxpayer (of any country) but I'd guess that he's retired by now. If that's the case are you really suggesting that he has to hold his tongue until he dies? Or is he free to express his opinions like anyone else?
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greypolyglot wrote: "It's dated BEFORE the referendum...It contains no report of harassment."
I would have thought "his motivation and even sources of his wealth being questioned by the Yes side" amounts to harassment in the context of Yes campaigners being assumed innocent until proven guilty. Once again, the EU has no business deciding which side is correct, that is for the Irish people decide. And before you leap in and make yourself appear foolish once again, this is not the Irish authorities calling for an investigation, or as you had it the "IRISH" authorities. As the reports below make very clear, the source of the harassment is the European President:
"EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT president Hans-Gert Pottering has called on Libertas founder Declan Ganley to reveal where he got the funds to campaign against the Lisbon Treaty."
Irish Times 23 September 2008 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0923/1222105125507.html
"Hans-Gert Poettering, president of the European Parliament, is demanding a probe into Libertas, its founder Declan Ganley and ties to the American military. Mr Poettering said he and his colleagues have "huge concerns" about Libertas, its fund-raising and future plans"
http://www.economist.com/blogs/certainideasofeurope/2008/09/us_military_ties_to_the_lisbon.cfm
Both of these articles are from September AFTER the election (I can tell you like your CAPS and I do indulge you so). Would you like your motives to be questioned? Would you like it to be suggested that the reason you are posting on this blog is that you are a paid stooge serving the EU? I wouldn't dream of suggesting such a thing, not least since it has no bearing at all on the actual argument. If anything, if the EU is paying you, then their purpose is self-defeating since your effect is to draw the poison and only increase the will and determination of those of us determined to be rid of this foul cancer on our democratic nation. But already my attitude points to the difference between us. I am confident in the force of my argument and the moral basis for thinking what I do and advocating it passionately. EU-philes dwell in the darkness isolated from the real world which is why they spout lies and smears about political opponents who are only using democratic means to express their wishes but do so in opposition to group-think dogma in Brussels. If the EU and its proponents had any confidence in themselves or their arguments they wouldn't need to slag off Ganley and make up ludicrous groundless conspiracy theories about the CIA blowing up the twin towers in order to force the Irish to start a civil war with the rest of the EU. It's pathetic.
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118. Freeborn-John:
Just a thought. The blog poster to whom you refer might not actually have used his real name. Even if he had done he might not necessarily have been the person you suspect.
For a while I was convinced that were an academic in New Zealand. Google your name then read his cv and you'll see what I mean.
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greypolyglot wrote: May I invite you to read this." (no 114)
Duly read and laughed at (with all due fear and dread of course, after all besides being ridiculous and self-parodying these time wasters are also despicable and dangerous when it comes to human freedom). Let's go through the article shall we:
"The draft report included ideas on clarifying the legal status of blogs, such as disclosure of interests or voluntary labelling of weblogs, but the final resolution simply urges the start of an open discussion on the subject."
What is an open discussion on the subject? Answer: They will let it drop for the time being but they basically don't agree.
And what's this...
"Sometimes it might be a good idea to co-regulate."
So there we have it, they DO want to regulate blogs (but we're going use Orwellian double-speak and call it 'co-regulate' instead)
Care to come out the political closet Ms Mikko and just admit that you hate blogs because you're a rabid EU-phile and you know damn well that the vast majority of dialogue on a transparent open medium like the blogosphere is going to rip open your dank corner of obscurity and perversion of the democratic process??
"We couldn't do more, I would like to be a little bit more radical; however, I am happy that the weblogs are included."
Good girl! That wasn't so difficult was it! You want to be "radical", which in your strange language means autocratic and, yes, reactionary, forcing the process back to the good old days when only the likes of you and your chums in the mainstream (more easily manipulated) media got to debate matters of state. To anyone else throughout history, radical meant something very different. It meant granting rights to individuals and extending the franchise. However we don't need to argue about your eccentricity and poor ability to use words. Let's cut to the chase. You hate blogs because they deal in ideas, facts and arguments. Put 'em together and you have a ready-made damning indictment of the EU and the entire European political establishment. You know that blogs will be the death of you and your cronies unless you can kill them first. The majority of bloggers love the blogs for all the opposite reasons. Bring it on.
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Greypolyglot (119): I should have included 'former' in post 116. I did immediately contact the Moderator to have 116 removed for that reason but at least the point has been clarified now. I would be the first to say that anyone, including a former permanent ambassador of Ireland to the EU, has a right to express their opinion, but I do find it disturbing when that opinion is that the referendum result of the people he was paid to represent in Brussels should be overturned.
I also trust that he has nothing to do with the undiplomatic allegations in post 115 against Declan Ganley. Perhaps 'demiworldweary' could confirm that he has never been Irish ambassador to the EU?
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Free born John, you got there before me re your points about the harrassment of Ganley, you are absoluteley correct and I hope at least some of the reasonable europhiles can recognise it for what it is. An attempt to stifle legitimate debate and dissent that comes from within the E.U. establishment.
It is no good trying to shoot the messenger when the message is out there
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120. blingmun:
Here's a novel idea for you. Ask Hans-Gert Poettering what he has actually had to say about Declan Ganley. Go on, give it a try.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/staticDisplay.do?id=48&language=en
If you're not offensive I'm sure you'll get a reply.
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greypolyglot wrote: "Here's a novel idea for you. Ask Hans-Gert Poettering what he has actually had to say about Declan Ganley."
Hans-Gert Poettering's slurs on Declan Ganley have already been widely reported. I already gave you links to two reports, one in the Irish Times another in the Economist. These are generally considered to be fairly reliable publications. Are you suggesting they are both lying about what he said?
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@greypolyglot (127)
I've pointed out to mr Pöttering that his name contains almost all the same letters as 'Hermann Göring'. And since Pöttering has made several power grabs in the EU parliament (at the expense of the people in the Euroepan parliament who are against political integration), the comparison was quite apt indeed.
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128. blingmun:
"I already gave you links to two reports, one in the Irish Times another in the Economist. These are generally considered to be fairly reliable publications. Are you suggesting they are both lying about what he said?"
I do tend to doubt the accuracy of journalists. Remember the old adage "why let the truth get in the way of a good story"?
Anyway, the IT report also said "We are awaiting confirmation of reports in the media regarding funding of Libertas's campaign for a No vote to the Lisbon Treaty. If proved true, this would clearly show that there are forces in the US willing to pay people to destabilise a strong and autonomous Europe,"
Please note: "reports in the media".
And "Sinn Féin MEP Mary Lou McDonald also called on Libertas to explain its funding.". She said "I too favour transparency in funding. I also favour the respect for democratic outcomes and that this body should note that all of the campaigns that fought and won the argument for a No vote with the exception of one have published full and frank accounts,"
And "Fianna Fáil MEP Eoin Ryan said his party had been open and transparent about its funding, but Libertas had "told us one thing and now we discover it is very different"."
I have absolutely no idea what Mr Ganley has or has not been up to but I see calls from across the political spectrum for openness.
The Economist report is based on an Irish Independent report which also points out that "the maximum donation allowed is just over €6,000, meaning that if Ganley's loan is classed as a donation, he could be liable to prosecution." In which case I suppose the investigation of a possible lawbreaker is inevitable.
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129. mcdv-1975:
"I've pointed out to mr P?ttering that his name contains almost all the same letters as 'Hermann G?ring'. "
I am humbled by the quality of your debate.
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Greypolyglot: The bottom line is that this is a prelude to hobbling Declan Ganley in the 2nd referendum in Ireland that Federalists want announced at the December EU summit.
Frankly I cannot understand why even a Federalist would support these moves because they will just further de-legitimise the entire EU project, making more and more people realise the EU cannot be reformed and instead must be abandoned.
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132. Freeborn-John:
"The bottom line is that this is a prelude to hobbling Declan Ganley in the 2nd referendum in Ireland that Federalists want announced at the December EU summit."
Now you're just being silly. Would you be supporting him so staunchly if he had behaved in exactly the same way but argued the "Yes" case? Or would you be calling for his head? Even Sinn Fein are reported as saying in respect of the financing, "Libertas told us one thing and now we discover it is very different".
By the way, over at DT (how apt !), I see the hard time you've been giving Seasca over his identity. Maybe I should continue to suspect that you're really an academic in New Zealand.
Personally I'd doubt that any Ambassador would have the detailed knowledge demonstrated. Most people at that level just parrot off briefs prepared for them by expert staff.
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Polyglot: Who says i am supporting Ganley? It is interesting that you equate me supporting Declan Ganley’s right to argue his case with me supporting his case. I support the right of everyone to express their opinion, whatever side of the EU debate they are on because my aim is not simply to shut pro-EU folk up, but rather to show that their arguments are bogus, and for that I actually need them to articulate arguments worthy of rebuttal. I am confident that you could get not only a former permanent ambassador of Ireland to the EU on here, but the entire EU Commission and EU Parliament too and I would debunk every last one of them, because what they try to defend is the indefensible.
Nor should that be surprising because 50 years of 'integration by stealth' starting with Monnet himself have been predicated on the belief that the case for European political union cannot be won through open debate or the open democratic process. 50 years on and the weakness of the case remains the reason why supporters of the further EU integration that Lisbon entails want to hobble Ganley. These fantastical claims are about stopping him financing a 2nd referendum campaign that they wish to kick off with an announcement at the December EU summit and support with a taxpayer-funded 'information' (propaganda) campaign to scare Irish voters into giving up their right to self-goverance.
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134. Freeborn-John:
"I support the right of everyone to express their opinion, whatever side of the EU debate they are on because my aim is not simply to shut pro-EU folk up, but rather to show that their arguments are bogus, and for that I actually need them to articulate arguments worthy of rebuttal."
I too support free speech and open debate. It makes a pleasant change from the "I hate the EU" and "#^%* the EU" which is what usually passes for debate on the anti-EU side.
"I am confident that you could get not only a former permanent ambassador of Ireland to the EU on here, but the entire EU Commission and EU Parliament too and I would debunk every last one of them"
Well you're not short of self-confidence are you? Do please put your money where your mouth is and stand for parliament. Feeling the way you do it pretty well has to be your civic duty. Oh, I forgot. It's a long way from NZ.
By the way, their arguments are out there in the public domain so really it's for you to do the debunking and for them to offer rebuttals.
"These fantastical claims are about stopping him financing a 2nd referendum campaign that they wish to kick off with an announcement at the December EU summit and support with a taxpayer-funded 'information' (propaganda) campaign to scare Irish voters into giving up their right to self-governance."
As opposed to your desire to support a (let us hope) privately funded information (propaganda) campaign to scare Irish voters into giving up their right to reform the existing way the EU operates?
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Unified Europe is a terror for the US.
they are trying to use several cards -including new EU members and such people as Ganley. Old story - divide et impera-
hopefully the latest crisis will help the US
find the proper place in the world - in conformity to their resources
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Greypolyglot: It's pretty hard to find any morsel worth replying to in your last post, but on what grounds can you say that Irish voters (or those of any other country) have a 'right to reform the existing way the EU operates'? From the beginning the EU 'community method' was designed to put decision-making powers beyond the reach of the people we elect. The Lisbon treaty aims to extend the use of the community method to almost all policy areas (even those of a politically sensitive nature of the type that used to decide general elections) and to reduce blocking thresholds in qualified majority votes to make it easier to overrule the policy preferences of national electorates. The response of EU elites to the rejection of these changes by the peoples of France, the Netherlands and Ireland has simply been to ram the changes through anyway. Therefore your claim that we have a right to reform the way the EU works seems every much a work of fiction as your claim that I am a New Zealand academic.
--------------------
"If it's a Yes, we will say 'on we go', and if it's a No we will say 'we continue'." J.C. Juncker (Prime Minister of Luxembourg) speaking on the eve of the French referendum in 2005.
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137. Freeborn-John:
"It's pretty hard to find any morsel worth replying to in your last post"
I felt much the same about yours but I kept trying.
You make these fantastical claims such as "From the beginning the EU 'community method' was designed to put decision-making powers beyond the reach of the people we elect," etc. but offer no proof.
"The Lisbon treaty aims .... to make it easier to overrule the policy preferences of national electorates." You know perfectly well that the aim is to improve working methods and that the numbers involved in QMV offer sufficient safeguards.
"your claim that we have a right to reform the way the EU works seems every much a work of fiction as your claim that I am a New Zealand academic."
I really can't help it if you don't believe the truth when it's front of your blinkered eyes. I see that you're not above lying to try to make a point - nowhere have I claimed that you're a NZ academic, only that I suspected you to be such.
Fiction seems rather to be your strong point as in your "Anglosphere Constitution" over at DT. I now have to agree with someone there who commented "Freeborn John, you're the most delusional guy I've ever met. "
Reply or not, as you wish, I now give up on you and shall look elsewhere for someone with whom it is actually possible to debate in an intelligent manner.
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Greypolyglot: All talk of the Lisbon treaty "improving working methods" or "streamlining decisions" is the thinnest of disguises for changes highly detrimental to democracy. Lisbon would (a) increase the blocking threshold in Council of Ministers votes from ~28% to ~35% and (b) increase the voting weight of the Franco-German block from around 18% to 30% at the expense of many smaller countries including Ireland. The purpose of these changes is to make it easier to overrule the policy preferences of national electorates while simultaneously preserving the ability of the Franco-German alliance to block the measures they dislike. Lisbon would therefore make the EU’s crisis of democratic legitimacy even worse. It would mean many more voting permutations whereby entire nations would be outvoted and then required to live for ever more under superior EU law they never wanted in the first place but can never change in future through the ballot box. It would also extend this inherently undemocratic practice (which was originally designed for common market regulations thought too insignificant to require democratic legitimacy) into more and more politically sensitive policy areas that certainly do require democratic legitimacy and which we are used to deciding in our general elections.
The simple truth is that Lisbon is bad for democracy. That is why real voters reject it at every opportunity but politicians keen to exercise power without democratic accountability are so insistent on pushing it through anyway. For the good of democracy in Europe and the world, the EU Constitutional project must be defeated.
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greypolyglot wrote: "I now give up on you and shall look elsewhere for someone with whom it is actually possible to debate in an intelligent manner."
Well I guess that rules me out too, along with the millions of Brits who feel the same way as Freeborn and me. And it sums up the problem with the EU. The institutions and the buildings are all fine, it's the European electorates who are the problem. We'd learn to love the EU but we're just too stupid to understand it. Jean Monnet's words spring to mind:
"Europe's nations should be guided towards a super state without their people understanding what is happening".
On that note, let's leave greypolyglot to debate the EU with intelligent people (i.e. EU-philes). The Ivory Tower is precarious when you can no longer hear the voices of people on the ground.
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140. blingmun:
"Jean Monnet's words spring to mind:
Europe's nations should be guided towards a super state without their people understanding what is happening."
This quote is in fact a paraphrase of British Conservative Adrian Hilton's characterization of Monnet's intentions.
Repeat a lie often enough and you'll get to believe it.
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#138 greypolyglot,
You mentioned the QMV of the Lisbon treaty having safeguards, the need to have four members to block a proposal is not just a safeguard, it also ensures the continuity of the current status quo. It means France and Germany when combined with their supporters Belgium, Luxembourg and usually Italy will have a permanent block on changes. At least under the current system it is based on percentages i.e. Majority of countries (50% or 67%) and votes (74%) and population (62%).
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Reading greypolyglot's last post I am reminded of the central point of my 1st post in this thread, i.e. that no number of attacks against the man or volume of insults can save the Federalist cause when they have lost the battle of ideas.
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I am sorry for unqualified interferance, into European internal affairs.
As an outsider. sometimes it helps to have a fresh view, not involved.
You seem to be doing a new thing, that no one did before, therefore all the pioneering troubles. It's a grand project, idee fix, to have heaps of small and different countries united, in one way or the other.
Normally in history what all do is get divorced, many more examples.
And you have set this ambitious goal to get united, and get benefits from it, and carry no losses, and on tops do it all on good will.
(I mean normal get-togethers of countries are empires, one strong makes others to join in, no free will).
About carrying no loss.
Two fresh examples come to mind, USSR (republics get-together) and USA (states get together).
USSR was based on Moscow will, strong central power, step left, step right - you are shot up.
Taking such a model on board - EUSSR - that solves all quarrels btw republics by applying central authoritative decision - the loss in this model is the member republics have no real voice and are unable of independent moves.
Forget about EU countries sovereignity - if you take this approach on board. Theoretically - yes, all republics voted in the USSR and parttook in decision-making. Practically - it is the same as modern Russia - central power holds the skeleton, forms the spine, if you wish, otherwise left to own devices all will drift away or quarrel with each other mercilessly.
In this model it also helps to have a grand idee fix, something inspirational - what for you do it all, in the first place - like, find some kind of good quality utopia then "building a communism" (was ours) - which one is yours ? Don't see any strong common religion or utopia-s, how do you plan to pull out this trick, have 27 countries united - without a central key idea
EUSSR model seems presently not fitting.
a./ member countries don't desire to lose ?sovereignity, are not ready to pay this cost
b./ you don't have a good utopia in mind, haven't invented yet, may be
The USA model - member states, united on good will (minor exception civil war) - takes another toll. Umbrella unification, building one homegeneous nation. One culture.
Americans are very different by languages and origins but they get invariably cut under the same comb.
European countries seem not willing to lose identity stamps, get "one common culture".
May be I am mistaken, but I think anyone can at once tell an American. They are one thing. Are European countries ready to look as "one thing".
What I see here there are 2 losses you ought to be prepared to take going either EUSSR or USA way.
You don't like paying costs.
In this way you need an ingenious break-through, someone creative, to figure out a 3rd model, un-tried yet in history. There must be someone clever to invent.
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And even a war won't help you.
Wars unite people excellently, back in USSR republics teamed up against Hitler at once, even we and Georgians now have one thing in common only, recognised by both sides as "good old times" - when we fought together.
But wars pass.
Ideas are better. They exist in the thin air, are impossible to touch, but unite people better than any practical considerations. Humanity is still very unpractical, that is being easily caught up on this hook.
Long time ago USSR first got united on the idea "rob the fat cats", poor against the rich. Then Stalin worked at unification, by depositing into Siberian camps all those who still strangely were not convinced and didn't want to unite. Then war against Germany united all again, common trouble.
Then we teamed up in the Cold War against USA.
And when ran out of the options - communism a joke, USA doesn't attack and doesn't attack, Germany defeated, all are poor nobody to rob anymore - the thing simply collapsed.
There ought to be some idee fix, what for Europe unites? Not for the sake united for the sake of being united, this is boring.
Against terrorism? Against Russia? Against USA? Against the muslim world? all these look unconvincing.
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144 & 145. WebAliceinwonderland:
How sad that after such a short time in the West (in cyberspace) you have fallen for the lie of the anti-EU term "EUSSR". The EU is nothing like the USSR.
I always advise people "don't just take my word for it, go and find out for yourself" so, Alice, please do some reading of the websites of the various EU institutions and find out why the EU exists and how it functions. And perhaps ask the EU Delegation for Russian language literature.
See
http://www.delrus.ec.europa.eu/en/index.htm
I will say that "Against" is the wrong philosophy and that "For" is the right one.
To see if I am right is not something that you can do in one day, probably not in one week but I urge you to put aside the venom of the "anti" brigade for the time being.
I remember when the UK had its one and only referendum on membership of what was then the EEC. The most vociferous on the "anti" side were the fascists and the communists. The fascists said that the EEC was a communist conspiracy and the communists said it was a fascist conspiracy!
I tire of the anti-EU brigade trying to pretend that a bunch of continentals dreamed up the EEC (EU) as a way to subjugate the British who beat them all at war (except the Portuguese who are our oldest allies) and I suspect that most of them wish that we could bring back the British Empire and rule the world again.
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No, greypolyglot ! I am sorry if this sounded a shrewed analysis of the situation, I played more like a devil's ? how do you call it, advocate.
Should have warned.
Now, what is in your interest - I don't know. Indeed will have to read what you've recommended.
Not because I am sure it will help (me - to know what's best for you - hopeless), but because any knowledge is better than present zero.
We in Russia no know nil about EU organisation and processes in it.
Nobody discusses in blogs, like you do here, so all very interesting for me.
All we know is Schengen zone (a) - because we need visas to go any place, so all are very skilled in your Scheghen rules.
And euro (b) - because people make savings in it or open bank deposits. And by and by we are learning various pictures on various banknotes, which is from which country.
Full stop.
From the Russian point of view - I know what's best for us, that you get united.
Can't justify scientifically.
1. Russians tend to think a big country is better than a small one. How to say - overall - the more - the better!
2. We are simply tired of the bites of the small ones. Russia feels a bit like a bear surrounded by a pack of small terriers. When you kick a small one back - starts a scream that a big one offends a small one.
Baltic states one after another, Poland, now Georgia. When you get united - we'll be in the same weight category. And bigger countries tend to act with more dignity, and don't hide behind the backs of others, and overall - move slower and think before they do something. They know they are among equals (and what to expect).
So, from pure Russsian interests - please keep together.
Otherwise I'd of course read what you recommend.
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To WebAliceinwonderland (147):
I think you miss some points about EU and Russia.
1) EU countries unifying into a one super state doesn't create a power equal to Russia, it creates an power that dwarfs Russia. Even now, 500 million people in EU, and EU is still expanding, next stop Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey, Armenia, Moldova, Belarus, Azerbaijan... EU already, if it had unified into a true super state, would wield the same power and resources that the US. Reflect all this against current and future Russia, 150 million and counting down.
2) Unified Europe is not truly unified until Russia itself joins EU or at least until the borders that separate EU and Russia are more or less taken down, both physical and mental borders. Russia after all is an European country, even if sometimes is ambivalent about this.
Just ask, how would you react to being next to a super power greatly bigger than Russia, would that changes mentality? Or lets ask another question, would you be fine that important matters from size and shape of pickles to what is vodka and what is not is decided in Brussels?
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pickles and vodka? oj oj oj I didn't know it reaches such degrees
In this case you went too far already, even USSR had that at republics' decision.
Seriously, with what is fruit what is vegetable (we've heard some horror stories from the Baltics)( is it carrots that are fruit now? forgot) - it is simply because you Europeans are too organised and detailed.
This will lead to your self-caused ruin and destruction ! :-)
Jukka you really make me think Europe requires a good dose of Russian dis-organisation and healthy despise of the state-imposed rules, for the balance !
As the saying here goes: The cruelty and abundance of Russian laws is corrected by sheer un-obliging manner of their application!
won't you find dis-organised and careless folk among own rows? to hold several years? while Russia is pondering whether it is west or east ?
___________
With the super powers - we are not nervous. we got used to consider USA ready to strike any next moment and next door, just a walk on ice across over to Alaska. Now we have 2 next-doors, USA and China. Will be three, big deal.
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147. WebAliceinwonderland:
" I am sorry if this sounded a shrewed analysis of the situation, I played more like a devil's ? how do you call it, advocate.
Should have warned."
OK
"We in Russia no know nil about EU organisation and processes in it."
At the very simplest there are
1) Council - where Member States defend own interest and approve laws (always a compromise of wishes)
2) Parliament - where MPs elected in each Member State vote (often in multinational political blocks)
3) Commission - civil service that proposes law in wide range of subjects and monitors compliance (the idea being that common rules mean that people in place A known that what they buy from place B is OK and all work to similar safety rules, etc. so no one profits by cheating workers or buyers).
But, what is best done locally is left to national law.
Of course there is a lot more to it than that but I try to give the simplest explanation.
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Jukka we aren't European. We are Asians, who by some fancy opted to adopt European culture. The core, the base, under the skin - Asian society.
As the proverb - scratch any Russian - you'll find a tatar.
That's why you can't figure us out, one of the kind.
( If this consoles you in any way - we can't decide which side prevails ourselves.)
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And with borders - it's not Russian fault.
With borders we are ready to take down, any minute.
Are you aware it's you who object?
Do you know why?
Because Russia has no borders with most of those wonderful future-to-be-EU countries, our USSR-ex.
We are in so nasty relations with our ex, as you have heard a million times, that we don't even control the traffic. They come to Russia without visas and work as they please.
So if Europe opens borders to Russia - it simultaneously open borders to all Russian ex.
Which is more than Europe thinks it can survive. 140 million Russians - bad - but tolerable. Especially that there is a good chance 90% will stay at home. They have this pathetic love for own "Motherland."
Europe said several times (approx.)
Russia! Come on! Close your own borderlines - and then we'll allow you in. The way your borderlines are - it's a net with multi-mile holes and nobody minds and hell knows what.
More than this. Our ex, since USSR collapse, guard their own external borders themselves. No Russian frontier-guards lines there anymore. In effect they guard, how to say. Some well. Others - have relatives across the border, in other Southern countries. In effect those countries come to our ex, our ex come to Russia, and we don't know ourselves who is around here.
To put it simply - if Europe opens borders to Russia - it opens borders to anyone but Russia, but half of another unknown world.
I think I quoted the words of Rus. minister of agriculture Gordeev, in one of the blogs here. He said - " the moment Russia joins WTO - it will stop functioning properly. All organisations we join - collapse. Russia is part of the CIS (ex-USSR countries' commonwealth) - and it doesn't work.
See what happened to the UN. To say nothing of the Council of Europe.
I think we should as a priority join NATO. "
So be careful Jukka, in what you desire for. .
"Europe not complete without Russia."
With us you'll become so complete - own mama won't recognise you in a minute.
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To WebAliceinwonderland (150) and (151) and (152):
You do know that appealing to your so called 'Asian' nature is an poor excuse? ...You do know that Finnish are from the next bend of Ural after Russians? So its not about some ancient background. I can accept that Mongol invasion probably formed Russian culture and nation, but even then... Alice, look at the city around you, that is the master piece of tsar Peter, it is the manifestation of European Russia, a Russia that gazes and embraces exchange, trade and is open to the world. You may argue that the city is only a surface, but it really isn't, it was the first step to reform Russia and make it part of Europe, not make it substitute of Europe.
I do think that there is a strong possibility and chance that we see Russia in our life times, at least I hope, to turn to embrace European values to reform itself, to take democracy, to take rule of law, to take human rights and to take market economy part of it. Actually these aren't any more just European values, they are the very core of modern societies.
Now lets go to rules...
Taking down a border doesn't mean taking down the control. EU countries have taken down internal borders as they can control and secure their countries with other means. We still have external borders as you rightly put, the border controls of our neighbours are not sufficient to control and secure. That I have to confess is something I don't understand, if you have border, you mark it and you patrol it. What's the point of border otherwise?
And yes... EU regulations do dictate about pickles and vodka, but I might add that it is all for the good of citizens. Let me ask you a question, you buy a bottle of vodka, go home, look at the bottle and see that it is made of grapes, not wheat or potatoes, would you be furious that you have been betrayed? That is why we have rules and regulations, to make sure is everything is in order and in its place.
Rules and regulations are good and following them even better. Of course sometimes rules and regulations are formed badly or their logic isn't functioning, then they are bad. You really should try the EU way.
I also don't think that Russia can inherently ruin any organization that it joins. That is just nonsense and you know it.
In the end I should add that EU and internalization don't go against national culture, there are 27 countries and culture in EU and they have managed to safe guard the very essence of their cultures...
One thing of course that I should add is that by joining EU you may worsen your ties with UK. I can just imagine the cry from EU sceptics when Russia joins the EU "Why are we the only ones who follow the rules! Those bloody Russians don't even know the word rule" and "Why are our tax money is used to build a road to some god forsaken place next to the Ural?!" and "What are these Russian plumbers doing in here!" ..you get the point, in one hand you get a motorway to some unknown place in Ural and in another hand you get to join internal pickering and feuds of EU.
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#153, Jukka_Rohila,
You mentioned And yes... EU regulations do dictate about pickles and vodka, but I might add that it is all for the good of citizens."
and
"Rules and regulations are good and following them even better. Of course sometimes rules and regulations are formed badly or their logic isn't functioning, then they are bad. You really should try the EU way."
I think Alice need to be explained that as in all things the theory is not the reality, and I would never tell someone from outside the EU to try it the EU way as that is to say 'repeat our mistakes and disasters'.
The rules you talk about are formed often foolishly and even when good are mostly never implemented in their entirety. True what we hear about is mostly the absurd eg banana shape, cucumber shape etc. What is also happening ever more frequently is that regional products are being protected e.g. champagne, parmesan, feta etc. It sounds just what you mentioned, you can buy exactly what you want and be sure it is that it is just that. However it has meant that many equally as good products now have to bear weird unknown names which is very confusing as without buying them you don't know if they are any good. Add to that the fact that known names are now more expensive and what do you have, protectionism, and it's not always benefiting us the consumer as it was supposed to do in Jukka's argument.
The other thing Alice should be aware of is that having no border controls means absolutely nothing. Unless you have a concrete wall or barbed wire along the length of a land border it will always be easy to pass. What an open border also needs is true social mobility so that you can live, work, retire in the country you now live in. This is where the EU has failed badly as there are many bad practices in place to stop social mobility. Even concerning pension rights it is still a lotto as to how your pension is calculated, what your rights are, how many years are accepted, and it depends largely on how honest the countries you've worked in were or are. Therefore Alice I'm not sure how much of an advantage you give with your open borders between Russia and it's ex colonies, if these workers are just living for today then it won't matter, but if they're also saving for the future then it will.
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Jukka_Rohila,
OK, I tried to scare you my best !
but if you positively refuse to get scared by prospects of Russia joining EU... and, as MAII usually puts it - head towards the cliff with a black scarf on your eyes...
I will have to think on your behalf as well.
"...to be continued"
meanwhile, re St. Pete, Finland, Swedes, and tsar Pete.
Where lonely waters, struggling, sought
to reach the sea, he paused, in thought
immersed, and gazed ahead. The river swept grandly past. tra-la
And here and there, on moss-grown, boggy shores a rare, rumshackle hut loomed dark, the dwelling of humble Finn. tra -la
Thought he: the haughty Swede
here we'll curb and hold at bay
And here, to gall him, found a city. tra la
As nature bids so must we do:
A window will we cut here through
On Europe.
_____________
So, as muscovites joke about St. Petersburg,
- Did tsar Peter make you a window to Europe?
(Yes he did)
- And a door, did he cut you through a door as well?
(well. not exactly...)
- So, you still climb back and forward to Europe through the window?
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To WebAliceinwonderland (155):
Alice, do you know the secret of flying? Let me quote one of my favourite book series, Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
"There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. [...] Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties."
Heading towards the cliff with a black scarf on your eyes, that's not a problem. The EU has lots of experience on getting things working by accident or by shear luck. Everybody has great plans and in the end what we get is watered compromise that nobody likes and still somehow works, that's EU, and if it works now, it must work with Russia included in it.
By the way... We talked before about St. Petersburg... My opinion... Muscovites... They are just jealous bunch. They can't stand that St. Petersburg is just better city and it will become more once again a city with more life and more international than Moscow. Why? It's better situated towards Europe.
Just to make note on what is happening. The Finnish government has made a commitment to build motorway from Helsinki to Russian border in 2015. The EU is planning currently high speed rail link from Berlin to Tallinn/Helsinki. The problem now is should they build the track using western European standard gage or use the eastern standard. It's been planned that in Helsinki people going to St. Petersburg swap trains. I personally think it would be better to make the link between Tallinn and St. Petersburg.
Now off to celebrate weekend...
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a century passed, and there it stood,
Of Northern lands the pride and beaty,
A young, resplendend, gracious city,
Sprung out the dark of mire and wood.
Where Finnish fisherman, forlorn
(see, Jukka? we can't have history without every second line something Finnish)
Stepchild of fortune, came, intruding
Upon the calm, to cast his worn
Much mended net (all are supposed to weep at this point)
into the brooding,
Mysterious waters, now there rise
Great palaces and towers; a maze
Of sails and masterheads crowds the harbour;
Ships of all ports moor here beside
These rich and peopled shores
tra la
Old Moscow fades beside her rival !
A dowager, she is outshone,
O'ershadowed by the new arival
Who, robbed in purple, mounts the throne.
_________
Dear Jukka, you are so optimistic. I hope you read this after the weekend.
What speed train Tallinn-St.Petersburg.
Since they excavated Soviet soldier bones who liberated Tallinn from Germans (but Estonians didn't want to be liberated. they liked Germans. they always in their history preferred to be had by Germans rather than by Russians - for centuries. so we liberated them un-asked for) - anyway all we have left here now of Estonia is Estonian cheese.
The ordinary railway cut the ordinary train. it goes back and forward now empty.
who will travel in the high-speed one.
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PS In my view, Estonia really went wild about the matter. Not the fact, that they excavated, but the way they handled it.
They could have said: Russia, it is our capital, very city centre, cheerful touristic place. We don't want a gloomy war monument with the grave under to decorate it. We think the place for cemeteries is not down-town. We'll speak to the relatives buried there, agree a date, invite them over, just a handful of people after all, and re-locate the coffins to a cemetery, with the proper ceremony and all, allright?
Now, what their city mayor did instead?
Addressed Tallinners via a newspaper - "Let's throw out the hell the bones of russky drunkards and debauchers who came here un-invited."
Like, eh ?
Some small democracies are awful hard to stay friends with.
In the result there were wild crowds of anti -and for - memorial taken down, a night operation with bulldozers, where thousands clashed, police raged, 2500 people - mostly local Russians of course, I think, were detained in the empty port terminals, thrown on the cement floor with hands tight behind by plastic ribbons, and kept such for 2 days - without food, water and medical help. Exists only rare film evidence on mobile phones that were not smashed and trampled down.
One Russian killed, stabbed by knife in the back, by an Estonian. That night where lines with candles in hands guarded the monument, and police lines arrested them.
Clean and easy and friendly way to take a monument down. Charming memoirs for both sides.
I understand this was done in the revenge not so much for that we lost 2 million people fighting with the Hitler for the Baltic states, but that because we occupied them for 40 years after.
Other countries are not so hysterical about occupation, because of the 40 years we occupied - one can boldly minus first 20 - while we restored what we got, in the first place, so were, how to say, meaningfuly busy there.
Eastern Europe post war was one ruin and pebble. Without any Marshall's plans, at own expense - as if we haven't had all Russia in the same condition - had nothing else to do!
(don't ask me why we occupied in the first place - totally idiotic and sensless idea, and we won't be able to un-wash ourselves of the blame for centiries to come)
But the Baltics weren't so ruined by their friendly Germans - so they see zero gain of Soviet occupation - only loss.
And the very idea that we shouldn't have been liberating them. ! what was Red Army to do? clean out of Germans half-Europe, take Berlin, but leave a small oasis in the Baltic States, for future breeding?
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PPS
Like my grandfather was saying:
Liberated someone of a dictator - turn army round on the heels - and run home! otherwise you'd never be able to un-wash yourself.
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To WebAliceinwonderland (158):
I think your logic with history of Baltics and USSR isn't working very well. Let me recount what happened...
Estonia wanted to remain neutral. In 1939, after the fall of Poland USSR pressured them to make an pact with them and allow USSR to establish military bases and station 25000 troops on Estonia for the duration of European war. In 1940 USSR invaded Estonia and occupied it. After the occupation starts, Soviet terror starts extermination of the countries political, economical, academic and military elite and the whole destruction of cultural landmarks including statues.
So, USSR is the occupier and the enemy.
German attacks USSR. Stalin declares the scorched earth policy and Soviet destruction battalions start their work in Estonia. Northern Estonia is badly destroyed. The Germans come and liberate Estonia from USSR occupation. After USSR leaved and Germans arrived, Estonian set up a government again. Germans disbanded the new Estonian government transforming from liberators to occupiers.
So, Nazi Germany is the occupier and the enemy too. Remember, USSR still remains an enemy, as they were occupiers.
In 1944 Germans are forced to retreat and leave Estonia. After Germans left and Soviets arrived, Estonia declared itself once again independent. Soviets come and once again disband the newly formed government.
So Nazi Germany is not anymore occupying but USSR remains occupier.
So who liberated? Answer, nobody as everybody who liberated Estonians became their occupiers, first Nazi Germany liberated and occupied, then Soviet Union liberated and occupied.
So what problems Estonians have now with USSR and Russians.
1) Well, they gave up to demands of USSR but still got the shortest stick, compared to Finland which didn't give up to demands of USSR, that did ally with Nazi Germany in 1941 and which remained independent in the end of it. Now the current Russian government as did previous governments had friendly relationship with Finland and now accusations of being Nazi collaborators were ever levelled. Now compare this to Estonians who are presented in Russian media as fascists and friends of Nazis.
2) The current Russia has amnesia about Estonia and USSR. The Russian government doesn't recognize that USSR was the aggressor, oppressor and Estonia was occupied, annexed to USSR and colonized with Russians. The very same monuments that the Soviets build to declare their victory over Nazis declare at the same time the victory of oppressor and occupier. For Estonians the statue of Bronze Soldier is the statue of the occupier.
3) Russian government engages routinely to propaganda against Estonia. When Estonian decided to relocate the statue to a military cemetery, excavate the bodies of the dead soldiers and relocate them to the military cemetery where their remains belong, not under a bus stop, what the Russian government and media does is to spread lies about the whole deal ranging from misrepresenting the case to a manipulated photo which showed that the head of the soldier had been severed. Now add to this threats from Russian ministers to punish Estonia, an organized DDoS attack against Estonian Internet sites, hacking of homepages of government and companies, infiltration of Nasi youths to Estonia to agitate Russian minority in Estonia to riot and etc.. Do you now start to see my point about extreme nationalism and xenophobia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia_in_World_War_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Estonian_unrest
I should also add to this Russians in this matter are hypocrite. Estonians were accused on desecration of Soviet soldiers when in Russia itself many military cemeteries have been deserted and some are being over ran and destroyed in re-developing the land to commercial use. So why isn't this desecration of Soviet war hero's a national shame and where has been out cry of this?
I should also that people in Eastern-Central Europe are as bitter against USSR and Russians as Baltics. The major thing is that these countries are bigger and they can counteract Russian government better. Just ever ask a Polish person what he or she thinks about the Russian government or Soviet Union and you can get a very bitter answers. The thing is that Russian government and media are hiding these things the best that they can.
Now in the end something about economics. Did you know that 70-80% of German industrial capacity and infrastructure was intact and ready for use after the WW2? The German economic miracle didn't happen because Marshall plan, it happened because Germany in reality wasn't as badly damaged that the later propaganda painted it to be. The same is true in other parts of Europe. What the USSR actually did to those countries that it occupied was to destroy the working industries and replace them with Soviet like design. After USSR collapsed all those countries that before WW2 were rich and prosperous have had to start from the bottom and even after almost 20 years of development, even the most advanced countries like Estonia are still way behind, Estonia's GDP per capita is only 1/3 of the per capita of Finland.
There are many things that many ex-Soviet and Warsaw pact nations could be bitter about USSR and Russia. The thing is that most people just want to get over this whole thing and concentrate on developing their countries. This however is sometimes and with some countries constantly interfered by the current Russian government that soughs to create conflict in order to gain points from the Russian people. As I said before, current Russian government is engaged on petty nationalistic policies instead of rebuilding the country and advancing the treatment of its citizens, that's the real shame.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
To all those convinced that the EU is corrupt and cannot justify its spending...you've been duped by the 'propoganda' yourselves. More than 90% of EU money is spent by NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS (including Britain's) not by the European Commission. The EC's accounts are open and transparent - it is national politicians (including Britain's) who do not want anyone looking too closely at where they are spending the money. The 'corrupt EU' argument is trotted out by the xenophobes who are so rapidly opposed to European integration, fuelled by the press that is complicit in selecting only the headlines that it thinks people want to hear. Its quite right for Declan Ganley to want a strong EU - and I personally think it will be better with the Lisbon Treaty than without - but that does not mean Brussels cleaning up its act - it means Dublin, London, Paris, Berlin and all the others doing so as well.
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#160 Jukka_Rohila
What would have happened if SU didn't occupy Eastern Europe for 40 years? I don't know. May be they'd have reached enormous heights in development.
Before the war - looked more like backwoods. But then - war crosses out a lot, hard to see now, and i'm not objective.
And of course we have criminally delayed the success of Polish plumbers.
I’d sum Eastern Europe attitude to Russia as this:
When they are in the bad mood - they call us, how to put it printable, say “Russian pigs.”
And when they are in the good mood - they vote for us in Eurovision.
Each that country numbers a 1000 years history. I rather hope our occupation didn't ruin them forever. Mind it – in the Russian yoke – funny, but must be we were so disgusting to them, that their national identities not simply survived, but gained momentum.
Wish them luck in the EU harbour.
Re Poland in particular - i bet you've never heard of a thing called Polish Honour.
Just wait. I have enormous trust in the Polish folks in this.
I think Eastern European matters are better discussed, by cooler heads than mine, and by people on the ground - in the end of Taking on the cowboys.
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162, maisondesmots,
It's a shame your words are somewhat fantasy but then they could be from the house of words, i.e. an EU institution as your id seems to suggest.
"The EC's accounts are open and transparent"
You've got to be joking, open your eyes and look at what is actually published. It's only recently that even the monies paid in and out by member states is published. There are still many figures published that are only a total so that we, the public, don't know the reality. the only thing that is transparent is that the accounts are not signed off for many years, and that's not because of sceptics etc. It's because the same unelected politicians running the EU are or rather were 'promoted' by their governments to continue the gravy train. Whether you blame the EU or the member governments the stink is the same, they're both in the trough!
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Buzet23
(re No 154) "parmesan, feta" and "if these workers just work for today".
Yes you are right, I think cross-pension schemes we have so far only with "White Russia" (where all the Russian blonds live), and "On the edge" (living people).
Belarus and Ukraine.
May be with Kazakhstan as well, need to look up. And a full cross-set, health service incl. - Belarus definitely.
With the ex here there seem to be 2 conditions. One is gastarbeiting, sending money home from the post-office. Two - taking Russian passport and thus having 2 citizenships, and living "on two homes".
The degrees vary from country to country, depending how hard the USSR collapse hurt national economies. (one must realise that suppliers/buyers chains got broken. An industry would have overnight customers staying abroad, spare parts and various ingredients for the production - also abroad.
And not all survived 10 years while the links were being built back. By which time anyway all technology without investment became out-dated, and there was simply no sense to start all over again)
Gasterbeiting sector - nobody counts - good that it is, like be happy people come to our depopulated quarters and do something at all. The more documented level reaches quite some degrees. Of Georgia, not to be mentioned "for the night!" (when it gets dark anyway and one better not mention scary things) from? 4.5 mln - 1 mln is in Russia permanently.
But this is peanuts compared to some others. Of Armenia - 3.5 million people.
2.5 million - in Russia permanently (the amount voiced yest. by their president).
One kind of wonders what was the point of divorce, but then it is history.
We also get very very rare newcomers from other quarters. I am aware of 3 Englishmen - as they are often on TV - interested how the survival experiment goes. (all in Siberian villages). One Italian - the pride of the Rus. agriculture minister.
He built a cheese farm - himself - no help from anybody, and came quite elderly and with small personal money. Mentioned on TV exactly something ab feta and parmesan. Says he knows how to make cheese, all his family knew, for centuries, and he is happy it is enough here. Nobody is interested what he puts there and how he calls it. Supplies with cheese all restaurants of Moscow, who stand in cueues their lorries, by his gates in the village nearby Moscow.
And then there is a successful sample of Indian relocation. 4 Indians (cousins and brothers) run a pig farm, 5000 pigs, employing local Russians. Themselves they don't eat pigs, religion somehow not allowing. But locals prey on their India bosses, as their collective farm collapsed and they stayed in the open with their land plots, not knowing what to do with land - or is it time to run to the city? India men had clearer (un-drinking) heads, rented land cheaply from locals, and started successful business, practically saving the 3 villages.
We can only prey there are more of such folk coming, whatever nationality, and colours - dark, yellow, white, striped or in polka-dot!
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There's a danger here that Mr Ganley is being elevated to some sort of Eurosceptic folk-hero status when in fact he wants to follow the USA Federal model, which would be totally inappropriate for Europe with its far more diverse cultural identity. The role of the 'President' envisaged by the Lisbon treaty would basically be to chair meetings between Member States for two and a half years, very different to the 'President' envisaged by Mr Ganley.
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Iantownhill @ #166
So 27 Parliamentary leaders agree that someone should be elected to "chair meetings between Member States for two and half years", ram it past their Parliaments without any democratic mandate to do so except that they come undone when the Irish admit that it IS a constitutional change and have to hold a referendum that kicks The Lisbon Treaty into the long grass . . . .
and then you suggest that Ganley's idea (equally as undemocratic!) is unfit for purpose because it would "be unappropiate to Europe with it's far more diverse cultural identity."
Firstly:
America is such a hotch-potch of ethnic origins that it is actually more patchwork than any quilt you might care to take from Europe. I dare say every tribe and ethnic origin form around the world is resident in the US together with immigrant from before Europe discovered the Americas.
Secondly:
The Lisbon creates an elected President who will have more democratic mandate than simply "chair meetings" and inevitably will seek more and more powers directly from the European Parliament - which will no doubt be granted by that elected body who also ratify him (under their increased powers granted by authority of the Lisbon Treaty) en poste - thus the EU will eventually and inevitably have conflict of interests between the powerbases of the Council of Ministers (with whom the power to change the EU currently resides) and a future Elected President and Parliament of the EU who will inevitably decide that THEY should have and do have more democratic authority then the leaders of the member nations to further remove control of the EU from the Council of Ministers.
I do not think that Ganley is the problem.
He is symptomatic of scepticism of the EU that is deserved. The problem is that the EU does not react well to criticism or critics - any organisation that sees itself as to good to change is corrupt by being a supremacy.
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Re 166, Ian, myself and Mr Ganley do not agree on a number of issues, one of which you highlight. However I feel a natural sense of injustice and comradeship in the way the powers that be try to stifle any dissent re the 'E.U. project'.
In that he is a kindred spirit. All lovers of freedom, whether pro or anti E.U. would surely support such freedom of dissent and speech.
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The USA is very different from Europe. You only have to look at the history over the last 100 years, the languages, the politics and the geography (many of the US boundaries are straight lines which in itself suggests a degree of artificiality in the way that the states are defined). Within Europe it's natural, bearing in mind 20th century history and strong national feelings, that individual EU Member States are cautious about ceding too much power to the centre, so I can't see them accepting the American model. Regarding the role of any future 'European' president I can only quote from Wikipedia:
'At present, the President-in-Office of the European Council is the member of the European Council belonging to the state which currently holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which rotates every six months. The position has no executive powers, the President just chairs the Council and represents it, and the EU, abroad (attending G8 summits for example). Under the Treaty of Lisbon, the position would become a fixed, two-and-a-half year post held by someone appointed by the European Council members, to whom the President is accountable. It would gain no new executive powers however and would be primarily administrative. It would have defined foreign policy roles.'
I have no problem with Mr. Ganley's right to express an opinion. I'm just pointing out that his vision of Europe probably differs considerably from the vision of those who followed his voting advice.
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Iantownhill @ 169
Your quote from the Wikpedia will become out of date as soon as Lisbon is ratified and implemented.
Your quote begins "At present".
The President of the Commission attends the Council of Ministers and is directed (currently) by them as to matters of policy for the Commission which is the excutive arm.
As soon as the President of the EU (a new Post) is created and becomes an elected position (which it will) then I immediately see that there will be mandated authority granted to that individual to give directions to the Presidento fthe Commission.
On top of this, Lisbon changes the role of President of the Commission to being an elected role - as soon as that happens - then by virtue of election mandate that individual can, arguably, state that his position is such that he can argue against the policy directives of the Council of Ministers AND could even countermand any mandated directives issued by the President of the EU.
History has always shown that, as soon as you make a non-political/unelected role politically empowered by making the role electable, it is amazing the alacrity with which the holder will use that democratic authority to make political decisions that would otherwise previously been unthinkable.
Barroso, as President of the EU Commission is often criticised for being "too presidential" in his behaviour and bearance - imagine how unsufferable he would be if he had been elected to the role!
Imagine Tony Blair as President of the EU!
Can you imagine EU President Blair NOT seeking to take on further powers through the EU Parliament (who will have the power to annoint him under Lisbon AND grant him additional powers!) without so much as a by-your-leave from the Council of Ministers.
Heaven forbid.
And we have not yet even discussed the powers of the EU Foreign Minister (which is also an elected role) with the authority to create, manage and direct a whole new diplomatic establishment to represent the EU with Ambassadors throughout the Globe.
I suspect that we might be very grateful for the likes of Mr Ganley and the Irish voters when we look at how close Europe came to becoming a Socialist Bloc with self-inflicted Dictatorial Leadership.
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Jukka_Rohila and WebAliceinwonderland -
I'm p...ing myself laughing at your dry commentary. Keep it going, excellent!
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Menedemus @ 170.
I suspect the difference between you and me is that I have a certain faith that a mature democracy (or a club of mature democracies) is perfectly capable of avoiding a slide into self-inflicted Dictatorial Leadership, unless that's what it really wants.
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'they got together:
stream and rocks,
verse and prose,
ice and flame"
kuhmassy, what are we to you? an entertainment? (in this case you've def. missed Russo-American, eh, ? sorting out of relations, at Mark Mardell's).
we are discussing serios business!
Vodka. Connecting people.
Jukka, don't listen to kuhmassy!
and don't be angry with me, I know I offended you. let's simply agree that we disagree, like diplomatic Englismen put it and all.
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I wonder if the majority of Germans in the spring of 1933, living in the Weimar Republic, a manufactured Democracy of very similar ilk to the EU "Democracy", thought that a German Dictatorship was impossible.
On 23rd March 1933, they were very rudely awakened that the slide from democracy to another form of government is incredibly easy - Hitler simply used existing legislation to manipulate the changes that he needed to assume absolute power.
I think it is naive to think that this is not possible with the EU - especially so that the Lisbon Treaty produces the feature known as QMV which negates the national vetos and allows for a majority of national leaders to make political changes to the EU without universal concensus . . . . in my view, a dangerous move for democracy.
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Alice @ 173
And don't forget we have sorted out the Russia-British relationship for years to come . . . . . Orchestral Music and holidays in Georgia being the key to harmony!
And all via Mark Mardell's Blog too! ;)
Who needs Foreign Ministers!
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Menedemus, "your wisdom is exceeding even your beaty". an excellent meeting place what to say. Mark can now confidently introduce himself in St. Petersburg as:
My name is Mardell. Mark Mardell.
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Menedemus @174, a less happier thought I had; the previous recession of 1930s gave world two dictators, Hitler and Stalin.
We all better kind of prick up ears now and watch round.
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An experiment, technical
experiment will that look bold, or will this site col -lapse as "all the organisations" etc.
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Way to go Alice!
Replace the "strong" with "i" and you will have italic text
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Doh! Of course you DID in #178!
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Menedemus. Thank you for taking care of me of course. but this minor discovery is pea-nuts. compared to what I just read in a message ! Alice, at the top of each post, where it shows the time, date, and poster, note that the poster's name is in blue: it's blue because it's a link!
!!!
No! I mean, this effectively means, that all the silly stuff I wrote - and I can't look at a yesterday's post once without regretting I ever wrote it at all - happy chirruping, stand-up-comedian history lecturing, and incessant flirting (for the sake of protecting dear old Motherland reputation that is kind of lame in the left leg post war - oh - of course! only!) - this all is documented history now??? does not vanish in the thin air, as good normal human talk does??
Now, this is unfair.
Solemny and in the presence of witnesses, declare:
I denounce absolutely all I ever said. This is because I've forgotten to pre-practise a bit, before joing the discussions, in the theory of non-linear equations in the curved space.
My BP constantly oscillates within the same limits: 1230-1240 km2/sec.
Pulse: 3 - 3.5 mega hertz/ round.
Complaints have not.
In line with the above-mentioned the aforesaid foregoing statement I consider myself finally healthy and absolutely, do you hear me! - absolutely normal. Please let me go out on bail of my household (checked out by you yesterday from the same hospital) and dearly loved my me, I hope, mutually.
My friends will bear witness to my good character.
32 May 2008, Alice
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I have never worked out the advantages or disadvantages of that BBC public retention?
Sometimes we write comments in haste and repent immediately. I know I have written things that I immediately regretted posting but, alas, to err is human!
It does seem unfair that our comments are kept to remind us (and anyone else for that matter) of our moments of weakness!
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Menedemus: There is a paper written (in English) by a pair of Polish academics that discusses an interesting alternative to the Lisbon QMV system, which they call the 'Jagiellonian Compromise'. It is available on the Web as a PDF document, but I don't know whether a PDF link can be posted here. If you'd like to read it and the document is not readily found in your favourite search engine, let me know and we'll figure something out.
An advantage of the public retention is that when someone asks a question that has been previously answered, one need only post a local link to the first answer.
WebAliceinwonderland: Denouncing happy chirruping, humourous historical lectures, and incessant, er, defence of the reputation of one's Parentland ? In the presence of this lot of witnesses !? Now that's silly stuff !
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[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]To Jan_Keeskop (183):
PDF-link can be, if I understood right can be sent as long as it follows House rules at normal: think about the PDF as an Web page in another form.
Jagiellonian Compromise:
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
Jagiellon Compromise is an interesting proposition, but it has one big problem: its not simple enough. The problem in voting systems is that them to be accepted by the electorate, in this case citizens of EU, they have to understand and accept it. Jagellian Compromise may make voting more fair and balanced, but its major problem is that it just isn't clear to voters. What voters want is just a simple system where they can see what their voting power is and in what conditions there must be for the vote to past. In this case the Lisbon Treaty rules on voting where double majority is required, 55% of countries and 65% of populations. The procedure is very simple to explain and its very simple to explain where the voting power of each country comes of. The double majority might not be elegant or optimal enough, but it works and it can be understood easily, the Jagellian Compromise is an academic solution to a non academic problem.
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Jan_Keesop,
Yes please to your offer!
I think you can create a link to a web-based PDF but just post the URL and I'll figure it out.
As long as the PDF is not in Polish, otherwise I might need you to translate! ;=)
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This comment has been referred to the moderators. (184)
To who-ever-complained-about my post...
Please, why did you complain about the post and why did you think that it broke House Rules?
The only thing I can think is that I posted two links to academic papers hosted in servers of two universities, did this cause you to shout "INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY INFRINGEMENT!!!"?
If this is the case, then I disagree with you...
1) they are academic papers, they are meant to be shared
2) they are freely distributed via their respected universities web pages without need to register or pay for them
3) they can be found with Google search, like I did too, meaning that the universities didn't restrict searching, indexing and linking of those two documents as they could have restricted search robots by using robots.txt file.
The most irritating thing about people making complaints about messages is that it takes ages before complained messages are re-moderated, probably because a senior moderators judgment is required to make decision concerning the message. This really kills the conversation as by the time the message has been re-moderated, the conversation probably has moved onto another subject. Also its futile for me to re-send my message because I don't know the reason why my message was complained and I don't know the final judgment of moderators.
All in all, my opinion is that if an message has been approved by the BBC moderators in a first place, then people should really use time to judge whether they should complain about the post or not. Of course this is an economic problem too, there is no costs or risks associated on complaining about posts, so making a complaint has threshold.
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Mededemus, just an observation, Jan_Keeskop is far from being Polish.
(One can always tell a Pole! :-) )
Anyway, "Jagellonian Compromise" sounds "Danish Gold" to me.
But of course from theoretical point of view, must be an enchanting read and
does anyone know of more smiley signs than this :-)
I seem to require more these days.
An apologising smile version, or something ?
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Jan_Keeskop, @183, so you think it may be worth taking the risk.
There was a Polish perfume popular, in the Soviet times in St. Petersburg, called: May be...
Now, an experiment, a technical May be experiment; how much of this gentlemen club audience was attracted to the post within 24hrs, that mentions the word - "defence of reputation of one's homeland". Let's see - Menedemus, Jan_Keeskop, Jukka_Rohila :-)
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Don't know who said if you can't convince them, confuse them
but it's along with diamonds, girl's best friends.
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Alice,
I was attracted to the comment but I am not very protective of my nation's reputation - I am highly critical of the way the "United Kingdom" has evolved, is run and has been ruined by politicians and liberal do-gooders meddling with the fabric of my nation's society.
Have a look at the right-hand column under "Being Discussed Now": when I post this comment this topic will go to the top of the list . . . . . that makes people look. ;o)
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To WebAliceinwonderland (188):
My dear Alice, I shouldn't have to remind you, as an academic you very well know, that correlation doesn't imply causality. I won't believe on your hypothesis before more tests are conducted and an controlled experiment has been done!
My counter hypothesis is that its Sunday. For example I, I only have to do some programming and accounting, leaving some time to more pleasant things.
To Menedemus (182):
The point for BBC to pre-moderate messages is that this blog as many other are more of social media than traditional one way media. Marks blog writings make only one part of the whole content and the rest of the content is being generated by us. As so much of the content is done outside BBC, if BBC wants to keep the whole content in some quality level, it has to do pre-moderation, which has two effects 1) low 'quality' message are removed and 2) we are encouraged to write better comments in fear of our comments being removed.
In regards of keeping all the messages here... Well... our errors and flaws make us not only human but interesting. If we would only have 'good' comments, we would look very boring and machine like beings. Now comments have more soul in them and all the comments in context provide more insight to us as beings. Great content for somebody doing a Ph.D. about 21th-century Europe in 22th-century.
To Jan_Keeskop (183):
As my original reply hasn't been re-moderated yet...
I read abstract on Jagiellonian Compromise and its major problem is that its an academic solution to an non academic problem. The method may give more fair and balanced voting results, but its downside is that it's too complicated for an common man to understand.
The problem that the double majority voting included in the Lisbon Treaty tries to solve is to make voting and voting power simple and understandable. Its very easy to communicate to a common man that in council of ministers 55% of countries and 65% of their citizens for the proposal for it succeed. Now compare this to Jagiellonian Compromise where you have weight allocation by square root of their population and calculating voting threshold 'where each country’s voting weight is approximately equal to its voting power'. I'm sorry, but that is just too complicated.
What EU and especially citizens needs is a system that is in the same time as fair as possible and as simple as possible. It doesn't have to an optimal solution, it just have to work. This is the problem with the current system, its not clear enough and people don't understand where the voting power comes thus for common people its almost impossible to have a rational discussion about EU politics and decision making. Jagiellonian Compromise may be good solution, but its a solution that isn't sell able.
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the mean, the median and the average...
Especially like Sunday!
Vs programming and accounting
_________
Menedemus, I'll memorise "has evolved, is run, and has been ruined!"
Now, that's hearty. I think I'll be able to use it in my own speech lavishly.
With the topic jumping up to the top of the list... Columbus and I - we have a lot in common.
Way up to go, as you put it.
Now I wonder, why is the word blog, close to Mark Mardell "Welcome" is also suspiciously coloured...
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Jukka, yest I came across a Finnish site that tells about a research or smth., done by a Finnish politician, or maybe a journalist, "political scientist Dr. Llmar Susiluoto, terror of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs". About Russian jokes.
Dr. concludes Russia can not be understood anyway, but by means of reading their jokes - quite possible.
Says it's good Russians traditionally don't forget to joke about Finns, because people who Russians don't like (or don't know - I would add) - they don't joke about. Reasonable. So here is the one he told:
A German, a Frenchman, a Russian and a Finn took part in a writing competition about elephants.
The German wrote a dissertation A Short Introduction to the Psysology of the Elephant. 1,500 pages plus appendices.
The Frenchman presented an essay The Love Life of the Elephant
The Russian came up with a novel Russia - Motherland of Elephants
The Finn wrote a work What do Elephants Think about Me
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#183 Jan_Keeskop and #191 Jukka-Rohlia,
The PDF document is shown up easily on Yahoo search and it's very interesting, one interesting point in it is
"The fact that the Constitutional Treaty makes use of only two criteria does not remedy another of its basic defects: the system is not transparent since an average citizen has no simple way of calculating the potential voting power held by each Member State under this system. This requires equally complex mathematical calculations as under the Nice system. Such calculations show that the basic democratic principle, that the vote of any citizen of any Member State is of equal worth, is violated in both systems."
Note the Violated bit at the end.
The explanation of voting power against voting weight is what has concerned me about the Lisbon treaty and I agree that their explanation is very academical or rather mathematical as it talks extensively about square root formulae. What was missing though is that the use of square roots is a way of reducing the inherent imbalance. Or to put it using their over complicated academic terminology
"The idea of dividing votes proportionally to the square root of population not only has
a special position in the mathematical theory of voting, but is in fact the simplest
mathematical implementation of the principle of degressive proportionality and lies exactly between two extremes: ‘one country-one vote’ (as if the European Union were a loose association of states) and votes proportional to population (as if the European Union were a single state). Note that a similar degressive system is also used in the German Bundesrat to assign the number of representatives to each Land."
I tend to think the semantics of every solution are over complicated and the enhanced hidden bias of Lisbon reflects that, but this Jagiellonian compromise solution does seem to be a much fairer allocation of equal voting power to all EU citizens i.e. us, as it lies between the two extremes.
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#194
Interesting. So if or when the Lisbon referendum is re-run, either in Ireland or any other Member State, perhaps the question should read as follows:
'Do you agree that decisions at the Council of Ministers should be taken on the basis of the Jagiellonian Compromise which allocates Member States voting weight by square root of their population, and do you agree that this is the simplest mathematical implementation of the principle of degressive proportionality? Yes ? No ?'
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To Iantownhill (195):
That will happen when the hell freezes. There won't be any big changes to the Lisbon Treaty and certainly not on voting of Council of Ministers. What is certainly going to happen is that there will be some cosmetic changes and some autonomy provisions given to Ireland, and if they vote yes, the show will continue, if not, the Lisbon Treaty will abandoned and what is likely going to happen is that continental EU countries are going to start the process on splitting the EU to two phase setup, countries advancing to a Federal Europe and to countries that will trade with EEC+ setup.
To Buzet23 (194):
There is no optimal way to balance voting, Jagiellonian compromise may give you more balance but in the end it will still violate the principle 'that the vote of any citizen of any Member State is of equal worth'. In any country, in any system, some citizens are more equal than others, the only questions are, is the situation acceptable and does the system work.
We should also remember that voting on Council of Ministers is only a one part of EU decision making process, the other part is the European Parliament. What we have to ask is how does different solutions work in overall system. In European Parliament small countries have relatively more representatives than bigger countries. So if EP is stacked in favor of small countries, should that affect voting in Council of Ministers and if yes, then how should it affect it? The Jagiellonian Compromise only addresses the Council of Ministers and not on what systematic effects it would have in the overall working of the EU when included European Parliament in the picture.
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#196, Jukka_Rohila,
I agree with what you say about the Jagiellonian Compromise only addressing the Council of Ministers voting but that is understandable.
The question of how EU parliamentary constituencies are created is a wholly different argument and mostly unrelated. Within member states constituency boundaries are often arbitrarily decided on party political lines as each party disputes or changes the boundaries to ensure it can gain more seats.
The overall total number of parliamentary seats per member state is currently decided by the population size of the state against the total EU population, which means at the time of the last election there were 732 seats. The Lisbon treaty proposed certain changes in the current method whereby the seats are to be distributed according to "degressive proportionality", meaning that the larger the state, the more citizens that are represented per MEP, or in other words something similar to the Jagiellonian compromise use of "degressive proportionality" in order to attain a middle ground between two extremes.
Therefore you are right to say there is no perfect way to balance voting, all that can be achieved in both the council of ministers and the parliament is to make it as fair and transparent as possible and as close to the 'that the vote of any citizen of any Member State is of equal worth' principal as can be achieved.
What is the greatest lacking is that the council of ministers is not also directly elected at the same time as the parliament elections, that would be far more democratic and would also maybe show up some interesting results as maybe the representative(s) chosen would not be from the political party with the most seats. In the UK there are many that vote Liberal for local council elections and Tory for national elections, maybe a different party's candidate would be seen as being the best choice for the EU.
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#197
Regarding a directly elected Council of Ministers, I'm not sure how that would work in practice. Currently, there is not just one Council of Ministers, but several. For example, there's the agricultural council which is attended by ministers of agriculture, the transport council which is attended by ministers of transport, and the environment council etc, etc,. Would you be directly electing a separate Council member for each portfolio? . Also, I think Eurosceptics would be alarmed at the idea of a directly elected Council not subject to the national parliament scrutiny. Under the current system, (from the UK perspective) any EU proposal which is due to come before Council is subject to Commons and Lords scrutiny. In reality, the scrutiny committees will only debate the measures that they deem to be 'politically important' (so, a proposal on, say, anti-dumping duty on imports of sulphanilic acid from India will probably not get a look in) but the convention is that ministers will not vote at Council until the scrutiny reserve has been lifted. Would a directly elected Councillor still be subject to national parliamentary scrutiny? If no, then this would be seen as moving power away from national government towards the 'centre'. If yes, then what would be the point of voting directly for a supposedly independent Council Member if he/she were still subject to the opinions of the national parliaments?
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Buzet23 @ #197
I agree with Iantownhill - separately elected Councils of Ministers for Leadership/Policy or Finance or Agriculture or Defence or whatever would be not only unworkable but could actually be detrimental as electoral mandate provides supranational power and supranational power corrupts.
Power to change the EU though parliament and separate/additional power through elected Councils of Ministers could put power in too many hands which would lead to a scenario of too "many chefs in the kitchen . . . and the broth being spoilt."
A better suggestion would be specific Party Manifestos committing UK Political Parties to achievable EU commitments and those Parties keeping to their manifesto commitments. UK Political Parties must never again use parliamentary weasle words to evade their commitments as the Labour Party did over the EU Constitution Referendum and the supplanted Lisbon Treaty which still IS a constitutional treaty as even the Irish had to hold a referendum BECAUSE it requires changes to their constitution!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Post Script: We're nearly at 200 comments - I think that is a new record for Mark's Blog . . . . . and all because of some guy called Declan Ganley.
I would say that is Blooming Markvelous! ;o)
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I think it'll be then nice and proper to say at @200 good things about Ireland, that gave the EU Declan Ganley that gave the idea to Mark Mardell to start this blog that brought us to @200. (...the house that Jack built.)
I apologise I know little. In my view the key things are:
1. Best (women's) "office" clothes are in Grafton Street.
2. Friendliest embassy in Moscow.
3. Long time ago I won St. Patrick's Day Parade. (floats competition) (in Moscow)(not me. the company I worked for.)
There is smth very convincing in the Irish people. I mean they can convince. We had 1 (one) Irishman, in the company of about? 350 people? Which was enough for us all to take part in the parade. how did it happen - nobody can tell. But the idea infiltrated seemingly by itself, to the degrees that a typical Russian year (in the minds of the company employees) began to look like this:
"First we have foreign Christmas, then - Int'l New Year, then - Russian Christmas, then - Old New Year, then is our St. Patrick's, then Victory Day.." etc.
(I part-took as mrkt.; so additional visibility of the company a matter of my direct concern).
All those floats order discussions in the embassy! sales spying on the competition!
innumerous committee meetings held at Shamrock's (in order to expedite creative thinking with Guinness and Irish coffee)
If you think it is easy to win a St.Patrick's in Moscow... it is not. Only first one had I think a trifle of 20 floats, then the thing grew exponentially. with Novy Arbat street closed by city mayor for the festive processions, etc.
Intrigueing and catching gossip re who the judges be... Fondest memoirs, in short.
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Re
"The European Commission is stepping up efforts to get its message across to Irish voters and other EU citizens ahead of European elections next June.
The commission, stung by the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, plans to form a partnership with the Republic of Ireland to raise public awareness.
The "management partnership" involves explaining EU goals and policies in plain language to ordinary citizens. "
I hope there is going to be an investigation as to where the money is coming from to fund this. Will the money come from 'foreign countries' or Ireland itself. Will there be a parade of 'foreign' politicians coercing the Irish. Or because this is on behalf of the yes vote does it not matter, It appears to only be a problem when 'foreign' money is alleged to be used to support the no campain. The Irish voted no, when will the powers that be hear the message and stop throwing gopod money after bad. Thank you to the people of Ireland for standing up to this deaf organisation.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Jukka you wrote -
• At 07:49am on 10 Oct 2008, Jukka_Rohila wrote:
The problem with mr. Ganley and the Libertas is that they haven't revealed their accounts. If they, as mr. Ganley has expressed, are 100% Irish with no influence from foreign sources, then they would have a hay day by revealing their spotless accounts and showing their opponents wrong: a political victory that would put mr. Ganley and Libertas in a strong position. Now this hasn't happened even with a clear motivation to do so, so the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the accounts are not clean. What the Irish government should do is to start a criminal investigation and confiscate their book keeping. This is not anymore about the Lisbon Treaty, this is about a possible perverting and corruption of the Irish democracy"
What you appear now to be saying is that you do not mind elections being 'perverted' by Foreign influence as long as such influence is declared. Is that right?
We do not know if foreign money was used to fund the Irish no vote campaign, Mr Ganley himself has said the accounts will be released for scrutiny within the legal time limit (I think it is by March 2009, but could be wrong). Let us wait until then and we will all know.
But we definitely know foreign money, via the E.U., is being used to fund a Yes campaign. Do you think, in your words, such a foreign funded yes campaign would would pervert and corrupt Irish democracy. Or again I ask the question can democracy only be perverted if it involves funding for the no campaign.
The yes campaign was supported by the might of the E.U. and the main Irish political parties. It still failed. Does that tell you something about the Irish peoples views of the Lisbon Treaty.
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To jordanbasset (203):
You have very fuzzy memory. In the Irish campaign EU kept hands of from the vote, it didn't comment, it didn't make public press releases and it didn't fund the Yes camp.
You always have foreign influence in elections. The important thing is to see the influence as it is, not dressed on something else.
In example...
"Vote no" by the Libertas
vs.
"Vote no" by CIA and Neo-cons of Republican party
In this case it is suspected to have been "Vote no" by Libertas (small print: sponsored by CIA and Neo-cons of Republican party).
If I would be Ganley, as soon as first accusation would have appeared, I would have opened by accounts and shown the world that I have nothing to hide. He has not done that. Does he have something to hide? I don't know, but what this whole ordeal has done has to cast as shadow over him, the Libertas and the whole No -campaign.
You also didn't answer my question about Newscorp. Is Newscorp owning British public acceptable cost on getting anti-EU press and pressuring the government to take anti-EU views and measures?
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#199, Menedemus,
You may be right that a directly elected member of one of the council portfolios could try to usurp the scrutiny of a national government. I think the theory of direct elections is sound but maybe the problem comes when the power of national governments becomes ever more eroded as would happen with Lisbon. As long as national governments have the power to ratify or reject a proposal then the fact that the council of ministers was directly elected is not too important. Its benefit as far as I'm concerned is that it would stop the current trend of cronyism and would allow the voters to decide who sat on each discipline. However maybe I'm being a bit too idealistic and it would be a bad idea, who knows for sure.
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Jukka, your ubnfounded claims re the secret funding by the CIA are just that, unfounded. (Also one of the most outlandish conspiracy theories I have heard of since the suggestion that the CIA blew up the twin towers, or do you belive that as well)
Ganley has recently put out the following
'Libertas Chairman Declan Ganley issued the following statement this evening in response to recent criticisms from those who led the unsuccessful "Yes to Lisbon" campaign in June of this year, and in response to continued deliberate attacks regarding the financial affairs of the Libertas organisation:
"At this moment in time, the Irish people are looking for political leadership on the issues that matter to them, - not a continued attempt to re-fight the battle over the Lisbon Treaty.
It is saddening to me that in these times, a section of our parliamentary class seems pathologically obsessed with a defeated and rejected document, and even more saddening that they appear to think so little of the electorate that they believe that the Irish people can be persuaded to change their minds if Libertas is somehow "discredited". This was their strategy for almost the entirety of the Lisbon campaign, and it was as unsuccessful then as it will be in the future.
This was a great achievement by and from the Irish people, and the result of the referendum has left the political leadership of this country without a monopoly on public opinion. That change threatens their very existence, and it explains repeated attacks made on me, my business, and the organisation that I lead.
Libertas has complied to the letter with all regulations governing political funding in this country. Our accounts for 2008 are at this moment obviously not complete, as the financial year has not ended, but those accounts, when they are published, will show this to be the case.
The €800,000, approximately, spent by us on the Lisbon campaign pales into insignificance when compared to the huge financial resources made available to the "yes" campaign by Brussels, squandering European taxpayers money to force through an anti-democratic deal that European taxpayers don't want. The "Yes" campaign was largely funded by public monies made available through political groupings in the European parliament. Our campaign was funded by private citizens of this country. That is a core difference between us.
Joe Costello, Dick Roche, Nicholas Sarkozy and the unaccountable elites in Brussels may not like this fact, but they cannot change it.'
I disagree with some of Ganley's ideas, but he is complying with the law and will publish the accounts in due course. Let us wait until then before you libel him further.
Re newscorp, certainly not a fan of Mr Murdoch, but the influence he has is outweighed by the fact all 3 major political partiesin the U.K., plus SNP and Plaid Cymru support the E.U. In addition you have the BBC and terestrial news outlets who give out a mixture of neutral and pro E.U. coverage. You then have papers such as the Guardian and Independent who follow a similar line. People have a choice as to what they read and listen to, unlike you I trust them to come to their own decision. Not sure if you are proposing limiting freedom of the press?
During the campaign I heard prominent
Europeans calling for a yes vote. This latest campaign by the E.U is to persuade people to vote yes in any further referendum. This all costs money, funded by people outside of Ireland. That is not in doubt, do you now stand up and say that for the E.U. to try and influence the Irish people prior to a new vote is wrong. If it is ok, which you seem to suggest it is, then get off Ganley's back. There is no evidence what so ever that he has done anything wrong and as he says he will open up the 2008 accounts to scrutiny. Far from having something to hide he has complied with the law and says he will continue to do so.
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To jordanbasset (206):
Ganley may say whatever he wants. There is reasonable doubt against him and he has done nothing to vindicate himself. We will see what happens and when will he open his accounts, to that day this whole ordeal shadows the whole issue. Normally if one is innocent, one would produce a financial statement and open accounts for audit, there is no technical reason why this couldn't be done now.
The influence of Newscorp is real and dangerous. Already because of continued propaganda from Newscorp media, you have population that is mostly alienated from the idea of common Europe. You do know that in many countries holdings of media companies and concentration of media holdings were restricted by laws to make sure that few individuals couldn't pressurize and dictate the politics of a country. Yes, you have the Independent, Guardian and the BBC, but look at their reporting and look at the reporting of the 26 other member countries media. Newscorp has already made an big impact on your whole national view even making your other media to have harder and more alienated view on EU. What I'm trying to remind you is that ownership of media and concentration of media into hands of few are dangerous to any democracy.
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