APRIL2006

This is an issue of Eurofacts Bulletin, which is published for public information from time to time by the National Platform EU Research and
Information Centre
24 Crawford Ave.,Dublin 9, Ireland;
Secretary Anthony Coughlan;
Tel.:00-353-1-8305792




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THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK EVER ON THE EUROPEAN UNION
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Christopher Booker and Richard North, "THE GREAT DECEPTION: CAN THE
EUROPEAN UNION SURVIVE?"; revised paperback edition, 2005; Continuum
Publishers, London and New York;ISBN 0-8264-8014-4; Euros 14.60 or £10
sterling Web-site: www.continuumbooks.com; E-Mail:<info@continuumbooks.com>



Reviewed by Anthony Coughlan


This is the most important book ever to be written on the European  Union.
It is a detailed 600-page account of the European integration project from
the first mooting of the idea in the 1920s to the rejection of the proposed
EU Constitution by the voters of France and the Netherlands in summer 2005.
This paperback edition contains substantial revisions of the widely
acclaimed hardback, which sold 10,000 copies when it was first published
three years ago, as well as much new material on the EU Constitution debate.


Europhiles as well as EU-critics will find the book illuminating. Its
production by leading British political analyst Christopher Booker and
economist Richard North is likely to be seen in time as itself a
significant event in the history of the integration project, for no one who
reads it will ever be able to look in the same way at the European Union
again. The book is relevant to  the people of every European country.


Meticulously researched and packed with revealing quotations, "The Great
Deception" not only gives new insights into EC/EU history, but it analyses
the EU's administrative structures and such key policies as the monetary
union, the farm and fisheries policy and the EU's foreign and military
ambitions. It gives fact and instance on the corruption and scams of
Brussels.


The authors show that it was the US Government's insistence on German
rearmament in 1950 to meet the needs of the Cold War that precipitated the
European Coal and Steel Community, the foundation of European integration.
The pooling of coal and steel under a supranational High Authority, the
precursor of the Brussels Commission, was crucial in overcoming French
hostility to this step.  Jean Monnet, America's man in the affair, saw it
as a way of pursuing the project for a supranational Europe that he had
been nurturing since World War 1.


There followed the  scheme for a European Army and  Defence Community in
1952.  At the time Monnet and Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak
wanted the Coal and Steel Community and the proposed Defence Community to
be over-arched by a European Political Community and a European
Constitution. The rejection of the Defence Community scheme by France's
National Assembly in 1954 forced Monnet and the European Movement, still
well funded by CIA money, to change their tactics. Thereafter they dropped
their open espousal of federalism and an EU Government and concentrated on
economic integration by a series of gradual steps during the following
decades. Now that that has been achieved, the European Constitution has
been produced again as the political dome to top the economic edifice.


The "Great Deception" of the book's title has been the pretence to the
citizens of the European countries concerned that successive treaties
embodying economic integration were needed to give more jobs and economic
growth, when the real agenda throughout has remained political integration,
the construction of a Federal European Superstate under the joint hegemony
of France and Germany.  The promised extra jobs have proved a chimera also
for the larger EU countries.


The book shows that the fundamental reason why France's President De Gaulle
kept Britain out of the EEC during the 1960s was his concern to have the
financial arrangement for the Common Agricultural Policy established first,
whereby the EEC as a  whole  underwrote high subsidies for French farmers,
who in 1961 still accounted for a quarter of France's employment as against
only four percent in Britain.  Britain would never have agreed to the CAP
if she were already an EEC member. Once the CAP funding was settled,
British membership of the EEC became a matter of French interest, and De
Gaulle's veto was abandoned.  As a condition of her membership Britain cut
her imports of cheap food from around the world and replaced them with more
expensive French and continental products. At the same time the levies she
paid on what foodstuffs she imported from outside the EEC were
automatically transferred to Brussels to subsidise French and other EEC
farmers. The recent agreement on the EU budget up to 2013 shows that
continued subsidies by other countries for her farmers remain central to
France's EU policy.


Britain took on  this burden in the hope of preventing France and Germany
dominating the EC/EU together, or hopeful that they would co-opt Britain to
run it as a triumvirate. The book shows how these hopes turned to ashes.
The authors  describe sardonically  how successive British  governments and
the supposedly "Rolls Royce minds" of Britain's Foreign Office continually
deceived the British people, in the process often deceiving themselves, as
to what the  EU was really all about.


This reviewer would have liked more coverage of the role of the European
Round-table of Industrialists and UNICE,the EU Employers Confederation, in
being the first advocates of all new EU treaties since 1986; but even 600
pages cannot cover all aspects of this long and complex story. Hugo Young's
book, "This Blessed Plot", has been the best-known general history of the
EU/EC up to now. Booker and North expose some significant historical errors
in that work, which their own book undoubtedly supersedes.


The authors write: "Behind the lofty ideals of supranationalism in short,
evoking an image of Commissoners sitting like Plato's Guardians, guiding
the affairs of Europe on some rarefied plane far above the petty egotisms
and rivalries of mere nation states, the project Monnet had set on its way
was a vast, ramshackle, self-deluding monster:  partly suffocating in its
own bureaucracy; partly a corrupt racket, providing endless opportunities
for individuals and collectives to outwit and exploit their fellow men;
partly a mighty engine for promoting the national interests of those
countries who knew how to "work the system", among whom the Irish and the
Spanish had done better than most, but of whom France was the unrivalled
master.  The one thing above all the project could never be, because by
definition it had never been intended to be, was in the remotest sense
democratic."


The EU's fatal lack of democracy is why the project is historically doomed,
and why it will in time, the authors write, "leave a terrible devastation
behind it, a wasteland from which it would take many years for the peoples
of  Europe to emerge."


If ever there was an organisation that is trapped in its own history,it is
the EU. In order to understand it one must know its origins and
development. "The Great Deception" enables one to do this.

This is a powerful new weapon in the struggle for national democracy and
independence. Everyone who cherishes these democratic values and who is
opposed to the institutional monster that has grown up in Brussels should
spread news about this book, ask for it in their bookshops, write to
editors suggesting they review it, and try to get it translated into their
own languages if these are other than English.

A QUESTION TO PONDER ON THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1916 RISING


"We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible"

         -  1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic



QUESTION:  Is the right of the Irish people "to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies", proclaimed in 1916, compatible with having two-thirds of the laws we must obey enacted by the EU in Brussels, in making which the Irish people have a very minor say?


The German Federal Ministry for Justice has stated in answer to a parliamentary written question that between 1998 and 2004, 23,167 legal acts were adopted in Germany, of which 18,917, or 80%, were of EU origin(See the German and English texts of this question and answer below). Presumably Ireland, being a unitary rather than a Federal State like Germany, would have a higher proportion of domestic national laws enacted centrally; so it seems plausible to assume that the EU makes two-thirds or so of our laws rather than the 80% in Germany. The Taoiseach or Minister for Foreign Affairs might usefully be urged to give the public the exact figure for the Irish State, as the German Government has done.


Having to obey laws made mostly by others means being ruled by others. It is the opposite of a country being independent, sovereign and democratic. What role do the Irish State and Irish people have in making EU laws?  We have one member out of 25 on the EU Commission, the body of nominated, non-elected officials which has the legal monopoly of proposing all EU laws. That is 4% influence.  We also have one Minister out of 25 on the EU Council of Minsters, which makes EU laws on the basis of the Commission's proposals. That is again 4% influence there. In practice most EU laws are adopted nowadays by qualified majority vote on the Council of Ministers, where Ireland has 7 votes out of 345, that is 2% of a say, and in which it may be outvoted on most matters.


The European Parliament may propose amendments to draft laws of the EU Council of Ministers, but it cannot have these amendments adopted without the agreement of the Council and Commission, and it cannot itself initiate any EU law. The Irish State has 13 members out of 732 in the European Parliament, that is 2% of a say, and the North has 3 MEPs.


Yet when the whole of Ireland  was part of the United Kingdom between 1800 and 1921,it had 100 MPs out of 600 in the British Parliament, of which some 70 were Nationalists. That gave Nationalist Ireland 12% of a say at Westminster; yet the Irish  people were unhappy with majority rule from London then and aspired to a Parliament of their own in an independent Irish Republic.


As for "the right of the Irish people to the ownership of Ireland", how can Irish politicians pretend to exercise that right when under EU law it is illegal for an Irish Government to adopt any measure that would prevent the 450 million citizens of the other EU States from having the same rights of ownership and establishment in this country as Irish citizens, in relation to land-buying, fisheries, residence, employment or the conduct of any economic activity?


In addition to being subject to laws made overwhelmingly by non-Irish people in Brussels, the Irish Government is regularly fined for breaking EU laws by the EU Court of Justice - something no sovereign State anywhere in the world is subject to. How is that compatible with "the unfettered control of Irish destinies"?


As well, EU membership means that Member States lose their right to sign trade treaties with other States, as this is done by the Brussels Commission acting for the EU as a whole. It means that the Member States are legally obliged to work towards a common foreign and security policy and common rules in crime and justice matters. Last September a judgement of the EU Court of Justice laid down that the EU can adopt supranational criminal sanctions such as fines, imprisonment or confiscation of assets for breaches of EU law by means of majority vote. This means that Ireland and its citizens may be subjected in future to such criminal sanctions even if they had voted against them, and for matters they do not necessarily regard as crimes.


Before Ireland joined the EEC in 1973, Article 15 of the Irish Constitution stated that "the sole and exclusive power of making laws for the State is hereby vested in the Oireachtas: no other legislative authority has power to make laws for the State." The Irish State was constitutionally sovereign
then in a way that it clearly is no longer.


As a member of the Eurozone Dublin has no control of either the rate of interest or its currency exchange rate, which are classical economic tools of all independent governments that seek to advance their people's welfare. As regards interest rates and the exchange rate we have to abide by
policies decided by the EU Central Bank in Frankfort,Germany, whose priority necessarily must be the economic needs of the more populous EU countries.


All this is clearly incompatible with "the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies", proclaimed in the Declaration of the Republic in Easter 1916. Yet the Taoiseach and leaders of Fianna Fail who have put us under European Union rule and who desire to give the EU more power still by ratifying the proposed EU Constitution, proclaim themselves to belong to "The Republican Party".

On Easter Sunday next they will perpetrate the hypocrisy of professing to honour the men and women of 1916 against the background of these facts which make a mockery of their professions. And they will be supported in that by the leaders of the other major Dail Parties, who glory in their
servitude to EU rule and who equally support the discredited EU Constitution that was rejected by the peoples of France and the Netherlands in their referendums last summer.

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GERMAN VERSION OF QUESTION RE RATIO OF EU LAWS TO NATIONAL LAWS
_______

Abgeordneter: Johannes Singhammer (CDU/CSU)

Wie viele Rechtsvorschriften mit Wirkung für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland
wurden in den Jahren 1998 bis 2004 auf der europäischen Ebene und auf der
nationalen Ebene neu beschlossen?

Antwort des Parlamentarischen Staatssekretärs Alfred Hartenbach
Vom 29. April 2005

In den Jahren 1998 bis 2004 wurden insgesamt 18,167 EU-Verordnungen und 750
EU-Richtlinen (einschließlich Änderungsverordnungen bza.-richtlinien)
erlassen.

Im selben Zeitraum wurden auf Bundesebene insgesamt 1195 Gesetze (davon 889
im BGB1.Teil I und 306 im BGB1. Teil II) sowie 3055 Rechtsverordnungen
(einschließlich Änderungsgesetzen bzw.-verordnungen) verkündet.

________

ENGLISH SUMMARY OF QUESTION AND ANSWER
_______

To ask the Minister what proportion of the legal acts passed in Germany
between 1 May 1998 and 1 May 2004 had their origin in European Union
regulations or directives and how many were were solely national in origin.

On 29 April 2005, the German Federal Justice Ministry replied that between
1998 and 2004, 23,167 legal acts were adopted in Germany, of which 18,917,
or 80%, were of EU origin.



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EU BRIBES JOURNALISTS TO COVER EU PARLIAMENT
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EU FUNDING JOURNALISTS TO COVER EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

By Dan Bilefsky,  International Herald Tribune

Wednesday 5 April 2006



BRUSSELS:  The European Parliament is subsidizing journalists to cover its parliamentary sessions in Strasbourg, a move that legislators say aims to ensure that the EU's only democratically elected body is not ignored.
 
As part of a program dating to the 1980s, journalists from across the EU member states are receiving travel and entertainment subsidies from the Parliament to help defray the cost of covering the legislature when it shuttles once a month to Strasbourg, in Eastern France, from Brussels, journalists and legislators say.
 
The program is being criticized by some members of Parliament who have themselves recently come under pressure to give up generous perks.
 
The funding for journalists can include payment of a first-class round-trip train ticket or an economy-class plane ticket to Strasbourg from any of the 25 EU countries and a daily stipend of E100 to cover hotel, food and entertainment over two days.
 
About 60 journalists from across the bloc are invited to Strasbourg each month under the program, which is administered by parliamentary offices in EU member states. Media organs that have benefited from the subsidies in the past include RTBF of Belgium, RTE of Ireland, ERT of Greece and ORF of Austria, among dozens of others, EU sources said.
 
Attempts to contact these organizations for comment Tuesday were unsuccessful.
 
The Parliament also provides television journalists with unlimited use of free state-of-the-art television studios, free sound and camera equipment, and free two-person camera crews that can be borrowed for the day.
 
"The parliamentary sessions are stultifyingly dull, so the Parliament does whatever it can to make it easier for us to work here, including paying for our journeys and providing plush facilities," said a broadcaster who has benefited from the program and who requested anonymity. "I would never get
my Parliament reports on the air if the Parliament wasn't paying for it."
 
Hans Peter Martin, an independent member of Parliament from Austria and aformer journalist for the German magazine Der Spiegel, said the Parliament's funding of journalists showed that representatives of EU institutions had not understood the principles of free press and democracy.
Martin, who has been campaigning to rein in parliamentary perks, came to prominence in 2004 for surreptitiously filming fellow Parliament members leaving Brussels and Strasbourg after signing in for daily stipends.
 
"The funding of journalists creates the impression that the Parliament is paying for propaganda, and by doing so it harms the ideals of the EU more than any positive headlines they might get out of it," he said. He added that journalists could not hold the Parliament accountable if they themselves were benefiting from its funds.
 
Although it is generally viewed as unethical for journalists to accept funding from institutions they cover, analysts said that in countries that rely on public broadcasters, the notion of using available public money to fund journalists may be viewed as acceptable.
 
Jaime Duch, spokesman for the Parliament, said the funding was intended to encourage EU journalists who would not otherwise cover the Parliament to make the monthly pilgrimage to Strasbourg. He said the Parliament under no circumstances interfered with what was reported. "If we didn't help them, they wouldn't come because they have other priorities," Duch said. "And if
we stopped the funding, the journalists would protest."
 
One television journalist who regularly travels to Strasbourg using funding from the program said the daily stipend was sufficient to pay for a quality hotel and lunch at an upmarket brasserie, including a glass of Bordeaux wine and a dish of Strasbourg's celebrated sausages. The neo-classical Hotel Hannong in Strasbourg - popular with journalists - costs about E60 a night if booked on the Internet.
 
Another broadcaster, who like others interviewed for this article requested anonymity, said perks such as these had prompted journalists to refuse requests by editors to write stories on members' privileges and travel expenses at the Parliament, a topic of growing interest in Europe. "How can I expose such perks when I myself am benefiting from them?" the journalist asked.
 
Harald Jungreuthmayer, a correspondent for ORF, the Austrian broadcaster, defended the funding as necessary to generate coverage of an institution that is often maligned and even more often ignored. "It's part of the PR of the European Parliament," he said. "The Parliament's aim is not to put a spin on coverage, but to get any coverage at all."
 
He added that he had never observed any attempt by the Parliament to influence coverage.
 
Other institutions have drawn strong crtiticism for efforts to influence media coverage. The Bush administration came under fire in November when it came to light that the Pentagon had contracted with the Lincoln Group, an American public relations firm, to pay Iraqi news outlets to print positive
articles while hiding their source.
 
The Strasbourg payments are likely to fuel controversy at a time when European Parliment perks are under scrutiny. The Parliament, which spends E200 million a year shuttling between Brussels and Strasbourg, agreed last June to reform part of its generous system of members' allowances,
including perks that allow members to be reimbursed for the most expensive economy-class air tickets even if they fly a budget airline.
 
But perks for journalists have so far remained intact. In fact, legislators confided, some members of Parliament from smaller countries like Portugal and Greece have been lobbying to have the subsidies for journalists expanded in order to ensure that the members receive coverage back home.
 
The Parliament's efforts to raise its profile come as the EU is suffering an existential crisis caused by the rejection of an EU constitution by France and the Netherlands. The Parliament shapes legislation on everything from environmental regulations to warnings on cigarette pacts. However, it
still remains better known for its generous members' perks than for its public policy. In the last European elections in 2004, voter turnout fell to 45 percent from 50 percent.
 
Brussels's 1,550 journalists, one of the world's largest press corps outside Washington, benefit from a host of perks and privileges from EU institutions, including free meals and unlimited free phone calls during EU summit meetings and free television studios at the European Commission. At
the beginning of every six-month EU presidency, the presiding country invites journalists to a free junket in the capital. In February, Austria, the current holder of the EU's presidency, invited 62 Brussels-based journalists to Vienna, paying for their lodgings in a lavish Hilton hotel and hosting a complimentary dinner in an 18th-century baroque castle where a soprano sang Strauss operettas - all on the tab of the Austrian government. Media organs had the option of paying for the trip. Only eight opted to do so, according the Austrian representation to Brussels.
 
"It was a worthwhile investment," said Nicola Donig, spokesman for the Austrian presidency.

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Copyright © 2006 the International Herald Tribune All rights reserved
_________


This is an issue of Eurofacts Bulletin, which is published for public
information from time to time by the National Platform EU Research and
Information Centre,24 Crawford Ave.,Dublin 9, Ireland; Secretary Anthony
Coughlan; Tel.:00-353-1-8305792