EU's ANTI-Schuman communication policy

On 9 May 2010 Europe held festivities for 65 years of peace brought about by the SCHUMAN DECLARATION on 9 May 1950. American, French troops and Welsh guards in their traditional red tunics and bearskin helmets paraded in Moscow. They marked the end of World War Two. Millions of Europeans died. Many more were mutilated by war. Children and populations were traumatized. Cities and livelihoods were destroyed. Nations learned to hate each other with a vengeance. In the years AFTER the war, many Germans died of starvation.

Five years after the most horrendous destruction of World War 2, people were expecting further war. The Soviet Union maintained its huge wartime army and seemed poised for further expansion. The West European nations had already disbanded their armies. Germany also was preparing for revenge. To stop this threat of world suicide, Robert Schuman announced a plan for building a supranational Community of Europe. It was based on the purest form of democracy yet conceived.

Europe today is living in the longest period of peace in the entire history of Western Europe.

Was this epoch-making event apparent in Brussels on 9 May 2010? No. All the offices of the EU were closed. The exception was the Council building which had an emergency meeting of the Economic and Finance Ministers. In the early hours of Monday morning they put together an agreement to be able to draw on some 750 billion euros (a trillion dollars) to help the governments (or rather the political parties) of Greece, Portugal and other countries who had been warned many times that they had been found out in corrupt practice, bloating the civil service to support THEIR voters, letting the rich get away by bribe rather than taxes and fiddling the books of the State's economy. (All this corrupt practice meant  that the citizens -- in particular the poor -- of other Member States who kept straight books would have to pay for continuous fraudulent practice of political parties.)

That sum is equivalent of 2000 dollars for every man, woman and child in the EU. Considering that many of the rich do not require more help, it would be a powerful help to the poor who do.

A small poster at the Council doorway announced that the previous day, 8 May, there had been an Open Day. Had the officials made a mistake about the date? Did they not check their calendars and their history books?

Was this Open Day celebrating peace? It did not say so. Did it explain why Schuman made the Declaration and what was his purpose? Did the posters announce that at last the European people had a model form of democracy? They wouldn't dare. After the fraudulent dismissal of referendums in France, the Netherlands, Ireland and the refusal to have referendums elsewhere, any use of the word DEMOCRACY would not be appropriate.

That is why the EU has hidden, and continues to hide, the key founding Europe Declaration of Inter-dependence. Europe's Founding Fathers say there that this is the foundational document of Europe, an organised supranational Community of peoples. It also says that the people must be FREE TO CHOOSE.

The poster cheekily wrote something about 'from the Schuman Declaration to the Lisbon Treaty' as if to say Schuman would have approved this monstrosity which is aimed at destroying representative democracy in the Commission, in Council, in the Parliament and for organised civil society in the Consultative Committees. Not one of these institutions has democratic representation as the founding fathers wrote that they should in the founding treaties of Paris and Rome!

How bizarre! Schuman day is reduced to an Open Day to Europeans who have the right to visit the offices every day. They pay for it. Schuman Day is NOT open office day. It is supposed to celebrate European Democracy -- but we unfortunately do not have it.

The EU planners attempted to have a sort of ANTI-Schuman day -- implying that democratic access to civil servants is a privilege granted at the haughty behest of the eurocrats themselves. The EU's Communication operators succeeded in making the central part of rue de la Loi look drab and unwelcoming. Did they put up any posters on the large facade of the Berlaymont building housing the Commission? No. This facade is usually used for announcing major, minor and obscure events gaining the approbation of the EU authorities. Instead an unattractive bare wall faced onto the Schuman Roundabout.

Was there an excuse for this insult to the founder of the EU from whom the eurocrats who owe their salaries? Were the workman unable to roll out a huge welcome sign indicating how European democracy works? Were they perturbed by the emergency European Council called for Friday 7 May? Not at all! They never even planned it.

On the Charlemagne building next door, are large advertisements for European Maritime Day. These have been up for some time. And for those who are unaware of the momentous day it is 20 May. So the planning part of the Communications services can think ahead a few days. The snub is deliberate because the key advertising space remained void and empty.

This then is proof that in the eyes of the Communications people at the European Commission the idea of celebrating 65 years of peace and 60 years of the Schuman Declaration is a poor relation to the importance of this Maritime day whatever it means.

They gave further proof of their disdain. To underline this disapproval of anything about Schuman, on Monday morning 10 May the Commission showed just how well-planned was their affront. By lunchtime on Monday morning they had rolled down a huge banner from the headquarters building of the well-paid Eurocrats -- who have similar pay-grades to that of the President of the United States of America!

What does the banner say?

STOP POVERTY NOW!