Iceland and the EU: Fish, Finance and acquiring the real Acquis of Europe

'A moment of joy' said Belgian Foreign Minister Vanackere for the European Council of Ministers. 'A day of celebration,' said Icelandic Foreign Minister Össur Skarphéðinsson, With the meeting of the Accession Conference on 27 July 2010, Iceland has now embarked on the route to full membership of the European Union. This followed the decision of heads of government in the European Council on 17 June to open accessions.


High on the list of crucial topics for negotiations are Fish and Finance. For generations Icelanders have had a policy of high inflation, rivalling the South Americans, and then off-loading the problem with devaluations. Then they came up against the euro and a big crunch. It is clear both the Icelanders and other Europeans are being hurt by such irresponsibility. The euro is held together by a Stability and Growth Pact, which in theory at least, outlaws such abuse. The Icelanders were free of this self-imposed constraint. They inflated their financial sector to such an extent the debt of three banks amounted to more than six times the country's GDP.

In 1958 Robert Schuman wrote: 'It is an incontestable truth that a politically free Europe cannot prosper or even survive unless it succeeds in enlarging its base of activities, imposing a discipline that is acceptable to all and having a consciousness of the coherence and interplay of European interests.' (Notre Europe, p118.) Some of those threats may have changed or have disappeared but more and more Europe is faced with even graver global problems today.

Fish is another matter. The EU politicians are keen on fishing with little restraint. The politicians always overrule the scientific reports on the estimated fish stocks. On which side do they overrule the scientists, by being conservative or exploitative? Don't ask. Remember fish do not have votes. The Icelanders do not want the EU to wipe out fish stocks in their waters. Their future depends on it.

What is the answer? Should the EU make the rules, with its present agreements, known significantly by the French word as the Acquis? Or should the Icelanders expand their conservation system to the EU? The Icelanders admit that their system is not perfect but believe it is far superior to vacuuming the oceans of the last fish.

Who should rule? EU or Iceland? The answer as everyone knows in their heart is that the fish should rule. Europeans must be wise guardians of their fish. If we wipe out the fish no one will gain. We will all be left without a source of food. The first rule must be sustainability. What about the EU Acquis?

Why do politicians use a special term like Acquis? Why not translate it? And yes, it does sound like a selfish concept. It should be remembered that the Acquis is a Gaullist principle. It has nothing to do with a Community of democratic nations. The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) was implemented by Gaullists, such as Maurice Couve de Murville, (earlier de Gaulle's foreign minister and prime minister) just before three maritime nations joined: Denmark, United Kingdom and Ireland. Its basic feature was to stitch up the policy before enlargement. Negotiations were then dominated by Couve who tried to squeeze the most concessions out of the three candidates -- or stop them joining at all.

My pocket dictionary says Acquis means attainment. That English word is avoided. Why? The question would come up as to what is to be attained. What did the Gaullists and selfish nationalists want to attain or rather retain? They did not want to attain a higher form of democracy. They wanted to attain their special advantages that de Gaulle had attained by blackmail. Examples of this are many but we could point to the Wine Lakes, the Meat Mountains and the Common Fisheries Policy. For de Gaulle, the Acquis of having other Europeans subsidize his voters through the CAP was a good deal. This Acquis is a childish attitude to a Community policy: 'I want to keep my toys. And I want some of yours too!' It is the opposite of what a real Community is about -- a means to help all members flourish and attain their potential to contribute to the whole.

It was ‘a negotiation like other negotiations’, Couve said. Schuman said the Community should be based on revolutionary principles unlike any of the negotiations in history. He said this at the opening of the first intergovernmental conference.

Should the original Community of the Six, and France especially, have had the final say? Is it a matter of other States, like Denmark, Ireland and Britain, joining a club? That is a misunderstanding -- a deliberate misunderstanding by the Gaullists -- of what a Community is about. The Gaullist CAP is being revised — at last. There is no reason that the same should not be done for the CFP. A Community is not a selfish, inward-looking club but a free asociation trying to achieve the highest moral values of European civilisation. The aim is to serve each other as best they can, and in the world others who are not so privileged.

If Community principles are to be applied the Fisheries Council should be open to the public and the press. How can Europeans have a consciousness of each other's problems if Ministers debate behind closed doors and cut deals. Are they ashamed of what they say in private? The original treaties give the ministers no more privileges for such secrecy than they do to the European Parliament or the other institutions. They hold their debates in public.

The Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions should have their full part in the decisions. They represent organized Civil Society. Legislative consultation is required from those who are consumers of fish, those who work in the fish industry and those who are ecologists and conservationists. In other words those who worry about their children and our common future. Everyone who has an interest needs to have their say in a supranational democracy.

According to Robert Schuman, when a new Member State joined the whole policy should be reconsidered. He used the word 'reconstituted'. Why? Because all the aspects of the common assets and the common problems associated with them have changed. It was up to all the new Member States to create a policy that fitted the new situation. Anything else treats the new Member State as a second class entity. The whole idea of the Community was not to create an exclusive club where others had to beg to join. The idea of the Community was to create the means where all nations could unite under jointly agreed rules that had the highest moral content. That is why the founding principle of the Community Charter is that people and States should be 'free to choose'.

The idea of Gaullists and nationalists was that everybody should agree that Charles de Gaulle or some other nationalist knew best. Wisdom comes from the counsel of many.

Should the Icelanders insist on the real application of the Acquis? Yes. It is about attaining a purer, better form of democracy. They should insist on dropping the present CFP and CAP. The Icelanders with a long democratic tradition should insist on attaining the democracy that the Gaullists and many other nationalists refused to implement. For example, the Icelanders should insist that the elections to the European Parliament are, as the treaties insist, conducted under a single electoral statute and are held at one time across the whole of the Community. Otherwise they will have some Europeans in Iceland who have possibly TWELVE votes to the Icelanders' one.

The oligarchy of the main political party machines has had a crushing effect on European democracy with ever-declining voter support and lack of public trust. There are many other matters of democracy and fairness that the governments and politicians have refused to apply.

Iceland could take the EU further on the road to democracy. Will the EU now be extended geographically further to the West than ever before? The answer is No. I am not talking about the Portuguese Azores where the island of Florus is far to the west of Iceland. The EU already extends much further West.

The legal profile of the EU also extends to French Guyane to the north of Brazil. It lies within the boundaries of the EU because it is an internal Département of France. The EU as a supranational union has global boundaries. It also has a global vocation, worthy of the globalist Vikings

16 Council2 : Without impartial financial rules, all Europe could become PIGS.

The European Council, called on 11 February to deal with the Greek financial crisis that is undermining the euro, issued a statement. “All euro members must conduct sound national policies in line with the agreed rules,” it said. Fine. The original idea of a European Community in 1950 was to avoid ‘beggar my neighbour’ policies whether military, political, economic, cartel or monetary. That’s what the Schuman Declaration said on 9 May 1950. You can read it on www.schuman.info/9May1950.htm because the Council and the Commission has refused to publish it in its integral version for the last few decades.

But who makes the financial rules that the European Council commends? In the case of Greece, it was the Greek government. They made their own rules. Bad rules. Many commentators point out that successive Greek governments fiddled the books, and kept fiddling to the tune of about 53 billion euros. So to a varied extent did the other members of PIGS, Portugal, Ireland/ Italy and Spain. G is for Greece but the word is probably much longer. Maybe other Member States are mixed up in it too. We don’t know … YET. Governments want to keep such things SECRET.

Why can’t governments keep the books straight? Did they make an honest mistake? Did they spend less money or more than they declared. Need I ask? Of course they overspent. That shows it was deliberate. It wasn’t an honest mistake. Why did they do it? To bribe the electorate. To put it more frankly, they bought votes so they would stay in power. Both politicians and the electorate were silent partners in this corruption. In the past the government always devalued. This offloaded inflation and debts onto external trading partners. Governments and their electorates who benefit from this game export inflation and their costs.

Before the Community was created, governments got into long cycles of competitive devaluations. They tried one cycle of devaluation after another and round again to off-load all the disagreeable consequences of their bad practice on their neighbours. They did not want to balance the budget or cut inflation.

When Schuman was France’s Minister of Finance, he was the first to balance the books for generations. He cut inflation. He accomplished this under the most difficult circumstances with Communists and others in the government coalition. His sound monetary policy started the boom of France’s thirty glorious years after the WW2. Honest money makes sense.

Not all governments have the discipline to do this. They liked to print more money and control the printing presses. What power! Governments have traditionally used the coffers of the State for corrupt purposes. Further, for some while, a good deal of both Greek and European money seems to have stuck to fingers even before it got to the bank.

The Community system was based on Schuman’s principles, including his monetary success. It was designed to put an end to all this dubious practice by making all partners in the Community co-responsible. All sections of society, that is governments, associations and individuals, must have a voice in how money is collected and spent. In that way everybody looks at each other to see if they are cheating.

The real Community system is the way we can get back to sound money, sound ethics and sound politics. It is no use using the policy of ‘Beggar my neighbour’ because we are all each other’s neighbour.

So on 11 February 2010 what is the European Council’s remedy to cheating? The statement says: ‘The Commission will closely monitor the implementation of the recommendations ‘(put forward by Greece). That is fine … if the Commission were an impartial body. But is it any more? In the original Community system the Commission represented the whole of Europe’s citizenry involved in that particular single market. The major feature of this first supranational body was that it had to be independent of interests such as governments, interest groups, party politicians and cartels.

Today things are quite different. Somehow we have now a Commission that is composed EXCLUSIVELY of Government nominees (no elections, no public call for candidates!!), the biggest lobby groups in Europe, and party politicians in a cartel!!! All Commissioners are political buddies of three main groups! Instead of the Commission being composed of a cross-section of impartial Europeans, it is being run by a cartel of the guilty.

The Commission does not reflect the 98 per cent of the population who are NOT card-carrying members of a political party. The Commission is completely composed of members of a 2% minority of Europeans. It comprises the two offending groups: that is national governments and the main political parties. These are the main people who are motivated to fiddle the books. They have a major interest in doing so — if they can get away with it. If the rules are bent, (but appear straight at first glance) they can hoodwink the public to their own advantage.

Just recall. Who is it that got us into the euro crisis, by not observing the growth and stability rules? National governments and politicians. Who pays for their mistakes? The general public. And it is usually the poorer sections of the public. When the dirt comes out, it is certainly not the bankers and international financiers who foot the bill. They are already far away with their tax breaks. The poor then pay their bills for years to come.

We are here not talking about a piggy bank. We are talking about billions of euros that have been used for corrupt purposes. Billions of euros from all Europeans, provided to ‘modernize’ Greece when the country joined, have simply gone astray. ‘Gone astray’ that is to the people who provided the funds, not the people who washed it through their bank accounts.

So who should be the supervisors of the system to make sure that (a) politicians do not cheat by fiddling the budget and that (b) national governments’ budgets and book-keeping are correct?

Certainly NOT the nominees of governments, NOR the card-carrying members of the political parties who have an interest in fiddling the books.

Would it be better for the public, the tax-payers, who are the victims to have the supervisory function?

That is exactly how the original Community system worked. In the first Community, those who put money into the Community budget — that is the coal and steel enterprises who paid a European tax — also had a say in how it was spent. So also did the workers in the industries — who might have got short-changed and the consumers of these products, who also held a close eye on efficiency, low costs and competitive prices. These groups in the Consultative Council, one of the five supranational institutions of the Community, had a power equal and in some ways superior to the Council, because it was their money.

There was no need for multiple committees of bureaucrats. There was no need for a Court of Auditors, either. They all knew were their money came from, and where it was spent. They checked the accounts themselves. Money was only spent on what everyone agreed was a good idea. And it was spent correctly. De Gaulle did not like that. Which is why we have a very secretive Council today and umpteen thousand committees meeting in secret.

With the arrival of de Gaulle, and also the later breed of egotistical and nationalistic politicians, this fine, workable and honest system was put in cold storage. It is still there in the treaties, but politicians do not want to apply it. It would save millions of euros in cost, end graft, manipulation and dubious political practice.

Instead, for the moment, the political cartel are manning the Commission. They are the new servants of the parties. Those who have been found with their fingers in the cookie jar meet across the road at the Council. But greedy people will make pigs of themselves. Eventually, either by disgusted people in revolt or by the Court or some other way, the system will return to the moral centre of a supranational Community.

The markets, the people and the Courts will judge.