Reply to Commission President von der Leyen on unpublished Democracy Treaty

In recent days the European Commission has initiated major changes to the European political architecture. The EU has renounced the need for budgetary independence ('balancing the budget') and is becoming willingly subservient to international financial debt markets for the foreseeable future. It is in the process of re-engineering the entire economy on  the basis of a 'Green Deal' that has enormous implications for every man, woman and child in Europe. 

Are citizens and industries in the deal and in agreement with it? Have they ever been able to discuss this in its integrality, in-depth or in detail? Will it hinder and hamstring Europe's economy while China powers ahead with its coal-fired industries? Why are Europeans paying twice the price for energy compared with the USA? 

The European Commission says it is open to criticism and improvement of these gigantic plans and changes. But is it? Can the people of Europe have any influence on these and other policies? The European Council sets guidelines and plans behind closed doors. Why? The Lisbon Treaty (TFEU art 15) says the councils should be as open to the public as the Parliament. The European Commission, more and more, acts as the secretariat for an oligarchy, off-limits to observation. 

Does the EU listen to the people? Does it listen to small and medium industries? Does it respond to requests to cut spending? 

Judge for yourself!

What is the record? The European Commission has refused for seventy years to publish the treaty on how democracy should work in the European system. The principles are outlined in a treaty that its founder, Robert Schuman, called the Charter of the Community (Pour l'Europe, p146). It was signed by the Founding Fathers, plenipotentiary ministers of the six founding States at Paris on 18 April 1951. The name reflects the Magna Carta that formed the basis for democracy not only in Britain but in the United States of America and elsewhere.

If the European Commission was listening to the people it would have long published this treaty both on its website and in the Official Journal.

It has refused.

In April I wrote to President Ursula von der Leyen about this. I received a reply from an official. I enclose my reply to this and the official's letter.

Feel free to publish these letters. I appreciate your support in the cause of press freedom and proper accountability for European institutions that are supposed to be democratic.

Following is the Commission's letter and my letter to President von der Leyen 

From: David Heilbron Price <davidheilbronprice@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jul 14, 2021 at 9:42 PM
Subject: My letter of 9 April on the Schuman Declaration and the Charter of the Community

Your ref: Ares (2021) 2498475

                                                                Schuman Project

                                                            David Heilbron Price, Editor   

President Ursula von der Leyen

European Commission

14 July 2021

Dear Madame President,

I am in receipt of the attached letter of 1 July from Dimitri Barua (Assistant to the Director General, Communications) in reply to my letter of 9 April, for which I thank you.  Unfortunately it did not resolve or even deal with the matters I raised: the official publication of the full Schuman Declaration text (not the Proposal) and, above all, the Charter of the Community.

 

These documents, one a governmental Declaration at the origin of European integration and the other a Treaty, are not of mere academic interest but involve the legal basis and in fact the constitutional foundation of Europe and its future. The non-publication of these legal instruments has already led to lost opportunities for prosperity and losses of European funds amounting to millions and, in the case of Brexit, billions of euros. It is not a matter of personal ‘passionate interest’ but acknowledging the legality of documents agreed to and signed by the Founding Governments.

 

I was glad to see the text of the Treaty of Paris on the Coal and Steel Community has been linked to the platform of the Conference on the Future of Europe. This Treaty was long published in the Official Journal and formed the basis for actions in the European Court. 

 

However, the ‘Schuman Declaration’ is mislabelled. The French Government of Georges Bidault decided on a Proposal after Cabinet discussions on 3 and 9 May 1950 (Pour l’Europe, p165).  This is called the Schuman Proposal. Then later on 9 May Foreign Minister Schuman made a Declaration to the public – the Schuman Declaration. This includes his one-page introduction, declaring that the proposal marks the birth of Europe and explaining its worldwide mission of peace.

 

The Schuman Declaration has legal authority and should be published in the Official Journal too. It describes the profound implications of the initiative on a

·      Historical basis (It would bring peace for the first time in several millennia),

·      Geographical: (it was open to all countries including those in the Soviet sphere),

·      Economical: it would bring prosperity as never seen before,

·      Strategic: it announced the creation of Europe as a new entity in world politics,

·      Geopolitical: including its mission to Africa and other trouble spots in need of peace.

 

As for this unpublished first page introduction, I am quite a little puzzled why the Commission made recourse to the 'Robert Schuman Foundation'. The Robert Schuman Foundation is not a depository organisation competent to find the full text of the Schuman Declaration. It makes the same mistake as the Commission. This text can be found at the Centre Robert Schuman at http://www.centre-robert-schuman.org/robert-schuman/la-declaration-du-9-mai-1950?langue=fr and elsewhere. The full text is reproduced in facsimile in the book of the Jean Monnet Foundation, ‘Un changement d’esperance’.

 

Two treaties were signed by Governments on 18 April 1951 in Paris, the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty and the Charter of the Community. The originals of these documents relating to the democratic foundation of Europe can only be found at the French Foreign Ministry, as I mentioned earlier, and as the Treaty of Paris declares in its article 100.

 

Even more importantly, the original of the other signed treaty, the Charter of the Community (Pour l’Europe, p146) is also archived at the French Foreign Ministry. I included html copies of this major, foundational stone of European democracy that I received from the French Minister for European Affairs, Bernard Cazeneuve. It has been on my website, schuman.info , for a number of years. 

Despite my bringing it to the attention of the European Commission a number of times and underlining its importance, it has still not been published by the European Commission on its website or published in the Official Journal.

 

I should inform you that a complaint (number 202101229) has now been introduced with the European Ombudsman about the reluctance of the Commission to publish these key legal documents that are vital for lawyers, politicians, the press and the general public.

 

Madame President, the European Commission as Guardian of the Treaties should have officially published these legal documents during the last seventy years. The course of European history would have greatly benefited. For whatever reason they haven’t. But that is no reason why they should not be published now when the need is great.

 

I look forward to hearing from the Commission about their immediate publication.

 

With my thanks,

 

Yours sincerely,

 

David H  Price

Schuman Project

Schuman.info

 

 

EHC1 Schuman's European Health Community would have saved Europe from Covid-19 Calamity

On 12 December 1952, before representatives of European States, French Foreign Minster Robert Schuman opened a conference on the proposed creation of a European Health Community.

If politicians had listened, Schuman’s Plan for a European Health Community would have solved today’s Covid-19 problems and much more besides.

How?

Robert Schuman, with Health Minister Paul Ribeyre on his right, opens the conference on the European Health Community.

This European Health Community would have given Europeans today a streamlined machine to deal with a broad range of problems.

It was not exclusively for the Europe of the Six. Those invited included Austria and Turkey to Portugal, UK and Iceland in the West.

Today’s Tumult

Today’s virus tumult has already cost untold billions in damage to the economy. It will cost untold billions more.

European top leaders met in an extraordinary five-day European Council in mid-June 2020 to work out a multi-trillion euro plan to rescue the European economy from mortal collapse. The world’s largest trading unit is in danger of falling down as the centre of its historic age of prosperity it had enjoyed since 1950. That’s when the first European Community set Europeans on a path to three-quarters of a century of peace and prosperity.

Today Europe is left with a ramshackle, uneven way for tackling the COVID-19 crisis. The Health Community, in contrast, aimed to provide a democratic and scientific way to reach consensus. It also had safeguards against global politics that today we see wrecking the western economy.

Would it have saved lives?

Yes.

Would the economy have avoided such a costly lockdown?

Yes.

Would it have replaced today’s secretive Councils that extract trillions of extra taxes without taxpayer representation?

Yes. It would have put all financial fiddling under the spotlight of open democratic control.

It would have also tackled the future problems that only some politicians will face Europe in the coming years when most people are closing their eyes.

The Community Thread

The European Community was a revolutionary idea of genius. Instead of war, it brought peace and prosperity. Instead of hatred, it brought trust among nations and cooperation between former foes.

Five short years after WW2, on 9 May 1950, the French Government had proposed a European Coal and Steel Community, ECSC.

What had the Health Community in common with Europe’s first Community?

A lot, it would seem.

Why did Schuman, the Father of Europe, consider that this further Community was required? What have medicine and pills in common with coal, steel, canons and battleships?

Schuman was not motivated by utopian ideas of a Federation of Europe (he denounced it as unrealistic) or by American theories of ‘functionalism‘. He was not interested in adding further bureaucracy, rather the reverse. He was not interested in creating a huge European budget. In contrast to many leaders today, he wished to reduce taxes and make individuals freer and more prosperous.

He worked for one goal.

Stopping War

Stopping the outbreak of a further war in Europe was the key concept behind the ECSC. It succeeded. By 2020 none of the Community’s Member States had had attacked another for three-quarters of a century. No period in Western European history has witnessed such an event.

How did it stop war? Schuman government in July 1948 proposed the formula: a democratic European Assembly — that saw light in Council of Europe and a customs union. The Assembly was instrumental in setting up Europe’s first Court of Justice, the Court that responded to governments’ abuse of power. All States who joined the Council of Europe had to sign up to the Convention of the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Citizens could take their grievances to the Court, not only to get redress but to stop governments slipping down the slope of autocratic powers against the citizens, like the Nazis and the Fascists.

Armed with this shield to defend democracy, Europeans then benefited from the Coal and Steel Community that outlawed industrial cartels. In the lead up to two world wars industrial cartels had manipulated governments by stoking an arms race. The great national champions of Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia had been working together with a common design to make the national governments procure more arms, build more ships and exploit their patents for profit.

The European Coal and Steel Community combined with the Council of Europe created three major advances for all Europeans. They

• reinforced Democracy,
• outlawed war between themselves,
• strengthened their common defence against aggressors.

The later European Communities, Euratom and the Economic Community did the same things.

• Euratom outlawed Atomic war between European States,
• The EEC or Common Market outlawed Trade War.

The Council of Europe ensured that citizens’ rights, such as freedom of thought, assembly and religion were respected. And the freedom to criticise their leaders.

That stalwart defence of democratic values and human rights is now clear to all who wish to study European history. But what was behind the European Health Community that Schuman proposed in 1952?

Its Purpose and Compass

French detractors called the Coal and Steel Community Schuman’s ‘Pool‘ as if the only function was to share the resources of coal and steel. The European Health Community was therefore dubbed ‘the White Pool‘ to contrast it with the black pool of coal.

Was the proposed Health Community merely going to share or pool white bandages, garments and pills?

Far more!

If that had been the motive then there was no need for the elaborate draft treaty that had been prepared. It tells the whole story. Disease is as devastating as war. Health is the way to prosperity.

Schuman’s supranational idea of a European Community was focused on two goals:

Primarily his motive was to create a means to stop war. Schuman wrote:

‘We must remove any motive for a war {between Europeans Member States} suppressing it so no one has the temptation to undertake one.’

Secondarily, the peace-enhancing Community would seek out all means to create benefits for all by drawing on a single market, shared contributions and strategic outcomes.

Paul Ribeyre, the Minister for Health who worked on the project with Schuman, declared that the health of citizens was the first consideration of the State, to which all other values must be subordinated. The first duty of the Statesman was to assure the health of citizens because the foundation of the State depended on it.

But there is far more.

The agreement in the Cabinet of the French Government on 24 September 1952 was merely a first step to broadening the domain of better health to a wider geographical boundary. It extended far beyond France, far beyond the Europe of the Six of the black pool of coal and steel.

On 16 September M. Ribeyre presented his plans to the French Cabinet who gave him approval to take it to members of the OEEC, Organisation of European Economic Cooperation. This was the body set up following the US Marshall Plan, now called the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Ribeyre invited Member States to join in this common effort of well-being. Besides the Six, it included Austria, Denmark, Greece, Iceland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Turkey. Ireland was the only State to decline.

The broad compass of States indicated the extent and importance of the plan.

EU continues its CAP scam that UK failed to reform

'UNACCEPTABLE!'
That's what David Sassoli, president of the European Parliament called the draft €1 Trillion budget for 2021-27, prepared by the Commission and the European Council. He was addressing a press conference at the European Council meeting of 20 February.

Why was it unacceptable? He earlier told the Council meeting that 'No one wants to burden our fellow citizens with new taxes.'

Was he defending the taxpayer against this extravagance? No. He wants more money, more taxes for spending on European projects.

Cutting the money on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) leaves citizens ‘undefended‘, he said. ‘The Parliament is vigilant,‘ he added. ‘We will defend the citizens of Europe. We will make sure that the Union’s programmes are financed in a way that is adequate for that purpose.‘

So what is adequate? How much money should be designated for agriculture?

The same message came from French President Emmanuel Macron. The European Council was called to deal with the European budget, 2021-2027, he said. The first priority that he mentioned as he entered the European Council building was the CAP.

'The CAP has allowed us to provide food for Europeans since the 1960s,' he said. 'It is a great success for France and Europe.'

Then he revealed that there were plans to increase the budget to give realisation to further plans.

Let’s stop at Agriculture, seeing this is the priority topic. The drafts of the budget from the Commission and the Council all foresee more than 30 per cent of the budget going on agriculture. Parliament would like to see an even bigger budget in general.

So how much does the Agriculture sector represent in the total economy of the EU? Thirty percent? Nowhere near! Not even close to twenty percent or even ten.

Agriculture represents a smidgen above ONE percent of the economy. European agriculture is efficient. It does not employ many people. So why does it need so much of the European tax-payers’ money? What about Technology and jobs for the future? What is the reaction of European tax-payers? Is it discussed inside the luxurious chamber where the heads of government meet?

The truth is we do not know. The sessions are secret. Doors are closed and governments divide the tax money according to how they wish to influence their most important people — their voters or rather their bosses.

Since the 1960s France has led the other States by the nose. It was the big nose of General de Gaulle. He decided to sabotage the democratic system of Robert Schuman. 

De Gaulle decided that the majority of the European Communities‘ budget should be spent on agriculture. His voters were men of the soil and it was the way he could show he was a patriot– getting the Germans to pay for French cheeses.

Money would go to the big landowners. Up till recently the list of who got the CAP money was SECRET! Is something smelling foul? -- and it's not cheese!

Far from a success story, the CAP really got out of hand. In 1985 70 per cent of the European budget was spent on agriculture. Brussels used the budget to keep buying French and other farm products as if there was no tomorrow. That is when all the agricultural products built up into huge unmanageable stockpiles and lakes. There were beef mountains, wine lakes, milk lakes. These meat products were shoved into more and more fridges, wine of all sorts was converted into alcohol or other products and milk into powder. All the alternative uses for these products was sought until Europeans were bloated and distended.

Europe was stuffed to the gunnels with farm products — all thanks to the CAP. Export markets were full too. So the Brussels people sold off what they could at knock down prices to the Soviet Union — the enemy of the Cold War! So the poor citizens paid high prices for their food while at the same time subsidising the Communist take-over of Europe!

The CAP was a corruption bomb that the UK was unable to defuse. When UK joined the European Communities in 1973, the British agricultural system was supported on an entirely different system, deficiency payments. UK did not have enough land to sustain its people entirely for their food needs. During the world war, Britons tried to grow as much as possible. Afterwards, the UK relied on the Commonwealth for imports, whether grain from Canada or lamb and butter from New Zealand. These countries were far more efficient than the Continent.

Couve de Murville receives instructions from President de Gaulle

The sly Gaullist Foreign Minister, Maurice Couve de Murville, told Britain during the negotiations that they would have to change their buying habits and buy from the Continent. He did not have to say that that meant France above all. Everyone knew it.

So the origins of the CAP are not exactly built on the best deal for the people. CAP meant more expensive food. it also meant votes for the Gaullists.

The British vowed that they would stop this crazy scheme before it got out of hand. The amount of the Community budget spent on the CAP reached SEVENTY PER CENT in 1985 before it started to decline a little. France and Italy and some other countries had choice land and had some of the most corrupt practices including wine made out of chemicals and olive plantations with no olive trees.

The British had within easy reach a possible success story for reforming the out-of-control CAP. It was the Treaty of Rome itself. All they had to do was to get the other ministers to follow the treaty articles that specify that the CAP must be under democratic control.

UK failed. Hence Brexit. 

The European Economic Community treaty signed in Rome in 1957 has a whole chapter on the Agricultural Community. It calls for full democratic control in a common organisation — an agricultural committee under the Economic and Social Committee — to supervise prices and supplies for the benefit of three categories:

• farmers,
• workers and
• consumers.

They were never implemented! Consumers have never had a voice! But they paid for the corrupt practice and high prices!

Thus the European Council is celebrating behind closed doors one of the greatest international fraud machines of all time. They are also celebrating the exit of their greatest, but in the end ineffectual, critic, the United Kingdom.

And today on 20 February 2020 they are preparing for seven more years of the same scam in the Multiannual Budget 2021-2027.

Budget 11: FAIR and SUPERVISED Economic Governance applies to everyone EXCEPT the EU, says the Commission.

The European Commission's new proposed Regulation 2011/0386 for monitoring draft budgetary plans of Member States applies to everyone in the Euro area but not the European Union. For the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the Parliament OPAQUE rules apply.

WHO MONITORS THE MONITORS?

"Strong public finances are best ensured at the planning stage and gross errors should be identified as early as possible,' the Commission's proposed Regulation tells Member States. What of the EU's own budget? That is secret. The Budget meetings of the Commission with the Parliament are secret. And of course the meetings with the Council are secret. The 'gross errors' as far as the public are concerned are also SECRET. The European Council is extremely secret. The Eurogroup -- an unofficial body -- is hyper-secret.

No journalist was allowed to enter the room of the Parliament as the Commission divulged its proposals for the Multiannual Financial Framework 2013-2020. Why? If the public could, it would point out at this early stage the 'gross errors' in the taxation system that it proposed. Not least is the undemocratic procedure attempting to tax European citizens without proper representation and openness. The Commission wants to change wholesale the method of raising the EU budget? Fine. BUT let it discuss the matter openly. Saying Yes and abstaining from a No to a fait accompli is NOT democracy.

The Commission has the sauce to write in the proposed Regulation Article 5 that 'Member States shall submit annually to the Commission and the Eurogroup a draft budgetary plan .. no later than 15 October. The draft budgetary plan should be made public at the same time.'

It continues: 'Where the Commission identifies particularly serious non-compliance with the budgetary policy obligations laid down in the Stability and Growth Pact, it shall, within two weeks .. request a revised draft budgetary plan from the Member State concerned.' And then it adds sauce to sauce by saying: 'This request will be made public.'

What about the public getting the first view of the European budget as the same time as the ultra-secretive Eurogroup? What about the public asking the Commission to redo the European Budget, conceived secretly in mischief against all principles of equity and democracy? If they do not come to their senses one fine day the European Court of Justice will give them a serious knock on the head: Taxation without proper consultation is illegal.

What right has the Commission to consider any type of taxation without a treaty justification and the full consent of the public? What is clear is that the whole Lisbon/ Constitutional Treaty operation got the resounding No of several countries until Member State politicians STOPPED allowing referendums.

'Members States should benefit not just from the setting of guiding principles and budgetary targets but also from a synchronised monitoring of their budgetary policies,' the Commission tells the Member States. Yet no one is allowed a synchronised look at the EU budget proposals BEFORE it has been politically massaged, manipulated and polished for public relations.

Above all, the Commission wants to stop the public having an opportunity to object and criticise the Commission's 'gross errors'. What if the Member States and taxpayers began to tell the Commission No Taxation without full Representation? They are presently already objecting that the Lisbon Treaty lacks any sort of democratic legitimacy. That is why popular support for the European institutions has sunk to the lowest ebb.

No citizens' groups are marching up and down the streets demanding more taxes. There is no legitimacy for raising new taxes that lack any discussion in the appropriate institutions, for example a fully elected Consultative Committee representing organised civil society.

In the proposed Regulation, the Commission tells Member States that there is 'strong evidence showing the effectiveness of rules-based fiscal frameworks in supporting sound and sustainable fiscal policies.' Fine. Why doesn't the Commission begin to respect the rules and in particular the rule of LAW? Why did it not insist that when it presented the 7-year budget plans it was AT FIRST presented to the public? What motivated the Commission to present it secretly ELSEWHERE? Why did the Commission -- a body composed entirely of political party cardholders -- desire above all to present its plans to its political cronies to get their comments (which where not divulged to the public or the press?) Making the Commission 'political' rather than independent of political parties is contrary to the letter and spirit of the treaties and common sense.

If the European Union has totally undemocratic budgetary methods how does the Commission expect the member State governments to respect the Commission? They will laugh in their face ( in the privacy of the next secret meeting of Member States and the Commission on the European Budget). They will say, 'Come off it comrade, or old pal,' as the case may be. 'You know perfectly well how we shut out the public on the Conciliation Committee on the Budget'. This so-called Conciliation Committee is actually the most important debate on the budget. It combines in a single discussion the political parties in Parliament, the politicians in the Commission and the politicians in the Council of Ministers -- all 27 member States -- have their representative there, sometimes the minister or prime minister. Why should the fireworks show be private?

The Commission will be told: 'We are all politicians together and mainly from the three big parties. Just a wink and a nod is all we need. That is how we always did it in the past.'

When the Commission tries to explain that the markets are making mincemeat out of the euro and its constituent crooked parts, they will have little credibility.

When the Commission quotes the Regulation saying, 'this gradually strengthened surveilance will further complement the existing provisions of the Stability and Growth Pact and strengthen the surveillance of the budgetary discipline in Member States' the other politicians will raise their own question or two.

For example today, we had the spectacle of two Commissioners preaching austerity, self-discipline and this firm economic governance (as they now call it). A few minutes later in the same Commission press room, at the same podium, we had another Commissioner announcing that the Commission was about to increase one programme by a whopping 70 per cent and another by 37 per cent. Wow! Some people thought the Commission was preaching budget restraint!

The European Commission needs to increase its credibility and at a faster rate than 70 per cent per annum.

How should it go about it?

1 It should insist that all its budgetary meetings are OPEN TO THE PUBLIC AND THE PRESS.

2. The Commission should STOP having secret, closed-door, meetings with the Parliament on the Budget.

3. It should INSIST that all other budget meetings including those with the Council and the European Council are OPEN.

4. If the Council refuses, the Commission should take the Council and the European Council to the European Court of Justice and ask for an interpretation of Article 15 of the Lisbon Treaty -- the politicians' treaty.

This states 15 para 1 The Union institutions, bodies, offices, and agencies shall conduct their work as openly as possible.

(para 2) The European Parliament shall meet in public, AS SHALL THE COUNCIL, when considering and voting on a draft legislative act.

The act of primary importance for the Community is the raising and the spending of money from the taxpayer. The Commission must ask the Court: does this mean that taxation by the institutions must be open and that there can be no taxation and spending of a budget without open discussion and consultation?

The right way to deal with budget is to use the FIVE democratic institutions.

The Commission needs to put its own house in order before its starts preaching at the other states, however ruinous their national budgets are and how crooked their politicians.

Budget9: Is the EU Budget Illegal? You and any tribunal can ask the European Court!

Can a Parliament and any other allegedly 'democratic institution' ban the public and journalists from their meetings? Do they have the legal right? Once they have shut the doors, can they then make a deal to IMPOSE a budget on taxpayers who are not present? Is its secretive procedure LEGAL? If it is not, is the budget illegal, void and invalid?

In October to December 2010, the  Council, Parliament and Commission held a series of meetings on the 2011 Budget. The public and journalists were banned from setting foot in any of the meetings. A guard was put on the door. Only people on a special list were allowed to enter. On the agenda was the means to collect and spend around about 130 Billion euros defined in their 2011 budget. At the meetings were the Belgian Prime Minister and others representing the Council. The meetings included the President of the European Parliament and a score of his MEP colleagues and the European Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski, responsible for the Budget.

What did they get up to? We know that the Commissioner accused the politicians of behaving like a 'kindergarten'.  It was not an edifying spectacle. Each side claimed the budget was their toy.  Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski characterised the whole affair as ‘self-centered and egoistical'.

Whose toys, or rather, whose money were they arguing over? It was the group that was refused entry to all the meetings -- the public.  The politicians did not only refuse to include them, they banned them outright. The political 'leaders' did not deign to have any REAL representative of the people from whom these 'democratic' leaders were about to extract their Billions! No member of the press was officially allowed to observe and report the politicians' infantile behaviour.  No outsider was invited who would criticize this dangerous clique's discrimination and predatory action against the citizen.

I call these political juveniles 'dangerous' because they follow the pattern of President de Gaulle and others who refused to have open Council meetings that Robert Schuman said was essential. In the secrecy of the Council of Ministers, they created a vast pattern of corruption for votes with their Wine Lakes, Meat Mountains, faudulent, regional infrastructure projects that never happened.

The next generation of politicians did not open the doors either. They paid huge amounts of European taxpayers' money to party comrades in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, winking at the money that disappeared into boltholds and their subsequent fraudulent statistics. Those monetary falsehoods are now being exposed as Europe falters on the edge of a euro collapse.

The politicians today are committing similar immoral acts against European citizens in their secret sessions. Their arrogant offences would not pass in most of their home parliaments where a national press has free comment. Don't they think that secret budget discussions in Brussels must be wrong? Or do they just think: 'If we can get away with it here, why not?' They now want economic governance, another term for cartel dictatorship of their parties, by their parties for their party cartel.

Then in June 2011, not content with this trivial amount of hundreds of billions of euros, the European Commission proposed that a TRILLION euros should be levied from the European public, industries and workers. It is to be a combined seven-year plan. The public need not worry their silly, little heads over watching this unsavoury performance every year. It would be done in one quick stroke!

The Commission said it would speak about it to the people's representatives, the European Parliament. And so, the European Parliament quickly closed the doors on the people and the press! What happened behind closed doors? How did the party leaders react to this further money grab from European citizens? Did they rub their hands with delight? Did they yell 'Sock it to the public! We will bleed them dry!' We do not know the facts because the press was thrown out!

Why? Why did these very privileged people -- all of them obviously considered themselves very privileged  -- feel it necessary to impose secrecy? Why did they ban the public? Why did they ban the press?

What is common with all these people?  What unites those who have the only say-so in the European budget? They are all card-carrying members of political parties. Isn't that normal? NO it is not. They will tell you it is. Don't believe them. The European Community had a much more balanced democractic system where non-political civil socity plays an important part.

These 'closed-door politicians' represent ... what and whom exactly? Those in Nazi Germany were told the true German party members were those who decided matters for them. In fact they were kleptocrats and gangsters, stealing from the people. Those in Communist-controlled East Germany, Czechoslavakia, Poland and Hungary were told: 'The Worker's party is in charge!' Those in Mao's Communist China said the Party must control not only the Budget but every aspect of life.

Some systems banned non-Aryans, others businessmen, or capitalist running dogs from entering their 'parliaments' when deliberating the budget. All these diverse systems had one thing in common. They did not like a free press.

Are Europeans free? Those in control in the EU all have party cards. They are a tiny minority. All party card-holders amount to about one in fifty of the entire population.  And the parties are increasingly unpopular. In the European elections more people who can vote refuse to vote for any of them. The majority in the EU is not the parties but an entity called 'None of the above' that should appear on the ballot.

At one stage in history party affiliation had some importance. Now they nearly all act together in a continuous coalition or a cartel of parties. It makes no difference who the electors vote for, they get the same result -- more expenditure and luxurious padding for the parties. When corruption is exposed, confidence in the parties plummets again. Public support has been declining for decades.

Yet this small but powerful cartel plans to extract more and more money from the other 98 percent of the population. They are all generally in favour of having more projects and subsidies which they feel will buy them support. These bribes are just tax money being returned diminished under new conditions set by the political parties. For themselves they want nothing but higher salaries, more assistants, help for friends in the same party wherever they are, expansion of agencies and dubious employment initiatives such as the 'External Action Service', overseas aid which corrupts and anything else that supports the ideologies of the parties.

Now consider if the European leaders were all identified with another small group. What if the Commission, Parliament and Council were composed entirely of  Freemasons? What if they were all Catholics or Jews or Shi'ite Muslims or Europeans of Chinese origin? What if they were all paid up members of the FBSS, the Fraudulent Bankers' Speculation Society? What would be the public's reaction if the controlling class in the European institutions all believed in Ju-Ju?

It is obvious that the secret and secretive control of the budget by any one tiny group raises questions of motive and propriety. When they close the doors the public would immediately presume that they are making some underhand contributions of tax money to the furtherance of Ju-Ju. No moral person would allow himself to get into  such an dubious situation and be enthusiastic to keep the ban on outsiders and the press. A well run parish or tennis club would ensure their meetings would always be open. Are the EU's leaders moral? They have no qualms about secret sessions on the budget. They insist on them.

The party cartel who seized control of the institutions have included those bodies which the treaties say should not be political. What should the citizen do if the public remain banned from budget meetings because they do not have a Ju-Ju membership card?

Should the citizens ask for a Ju-Ju card? Or would they ask: Is it legal? Is the Budget legal? Is the discrimination against the citizen legal? What can we do about it?

We can go to Court! But how?

The Founding Fathers, you will be happy to know, put adequate safeguards in the Treaties. If any institution feels that another is not acting democratically according to the treaty, there is a recourse. That institution can take the other to the European Court of Justice.

But what if all the main institutions are in cahoots? What if all the leaders of the main institutions are all members of Ju-Ju and they ban anyone who isn't?

Don't despair! The founding Fathers provided a powerful solution. They said that any citizen who feels that he or she is being discriminated against can go to the European Court. And it won't cost a cent more. If the European institutions bring in legislation -- such as the Budget -- and the citizen feels it is unjust or discriminatory, then he can go to any local court or tribunal in the land and have redress.

If it is a matter of paying taxes and the citizen refuses to pay European taxes, then the citizen can explain to the judge that the European tax is unjust because it was decided in secret without democratic control. As part of the case the judge is then allowed and encouraged to ask for an opinion of the European Court of Justice, to see whether it is so and whether it is legal. The citizen should cite article 267 of the Lisbon Treaty which reproduces the article from earlier treaties.

A few hundred million citizens can do this. So can all companies, trade unions and consumer groups of civil society.

Article 267 states:

The Court of Justice of the European Union shall have jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings concerning:
(a) the interpretation of the Treaties;
(b) the validity and interpretation of acts of the institutions, bodies, offices or agencies of the Union;
Where such a question is raised before any court or tribunal of a Member State, that court or tribunal may, if it considers that a decision on the question is necessary to enable it to give judgement, request the Court to give a ruling thereon.

The service of the European Court is open. If not today, then maybe tomorrow an individual or an association will bring a case complaining that raising taxes without the knowledge of citizens and in secret meetings is illegal.

The judges would be sure to check Article 15 of the Lisbon Treaty. It was added by civil society group specifically because of M. de Gaulle's bad habits. It states:

In order to promote good governance and ensure the participation of civil society, the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies shall conduct their work as openly as possible.

The next paragraph is especially relevant:

The European Parliament shall meet in public, as shall the Council when considering and voting on a draft legislative act.

There are few legislative acts as important as the Budget.

If the Court agreed that

   
• consultation with citizens is pre-requisite for any legislation to pass,
   
• a minority cannot oppress the majority,
   
• all legislation must be conducted in the open from the first consideration to the final vote,
   
• the press must be allowed access to report any political chicanery,

then the law in question could be annulled on any one of these grounds. The whole of the EU budget and all its programmes would be thrown into confusion until it could be sorted out.

That recourse to justice can happen at any time, by any citizen or association. For the cartel it is like a time bomb that will one day explode against them.

It would be far better for the Parliament and the Council to begin to act like democratic institutions TODAY.

Budget8: The underhand, one trillion euro budget -- Parliament breaks Lisbon Treaty law again!

The time has come to start re-aligning EU financing with the principles of autonomy, transparency and fairness and equipping the EU to reach its agreed policy objectives.' These are the words of European Commission's 'A Budget for 2020' -- its proposals for a multi-annual financial framework (MFF) 2013-2020.

The proposal was presented by Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso IN SECRET in the European Parliament on 29 June 2011. Again!

So much for TRANSPARENCY. So much for FAIRNESS for citizens. It is a strange idea of transparency for the press and the public to be firmly excluded from hearing exactly what goes on at a meeting of two democratic institutions. It is a bizarre idea of fairness to exclude taxpayers from a room full of people planning to seize their money.

The doors were shut and guarded to stop any ordinary taxpayer from entering the sixth floor chamber of the Paul-Henri Spaak building. In it were assembled, besides Commissioners Barroso and Lewandowski, all the presidents of the political party groups plus legal and other officials. What a sauce! A secret budget meeting would be a major scandal in any national parliament. Here it involves BIG money, European taxpayers' money.

The Commission has proposed that taxes for the EU should rise from around one percent of Gross National Income to 1.11 percent by 2020. Whichever way you slice it that represents a substantial increase in the taxes or levies that European citizens have to pay. The calculation has also shifted from GNP figures to GNI. GNI is the same thing as GNP but with indirect business taxes deducted. A trillion euros is involved in the budget plan under consideration.

I haven't seen the citizens massing on the streets demanding a 11 percent rise in money that should be taken from their pockets! I haven't seen them massing for the projects that the politicians have devised. What is the explanation?

Possibly what the Commission Budget Document meant was not Autonomy, that is free-spending of taxes by the parties machines. That includes setting their own salaries and perks. What they meant was AUTOCRACY of the political class (in the EU and governments) to raise taxes at will.

All the institutions of the Community that were created by the Founding Fathers to express NON-POLITICAL, Organized Civil Society have been suppressed or taken over by the new political class. That is why this autocracy should be referred to as a political CARTEL because it suppresses the free market of ideas and democratic accountability of the parties. It refuses to treat the citizen seriously, making politicians autocrats not servants. Politicians have just two demands of the people: money to run their party machines and acceptance of the policy they hand down to them without proper consultation.

The cartel has distorted the meaning of democratic representation, which involves free-speech and accountability, not party machinery running roughshod over the citizens.

The European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek is reported as saying: 'The Commission's proposal on the long-term budget for the EU is an intelligent starting point for negotiations. The next MFF will be one of the most important in the EU's history. It will set the direction for the Union at an exceptional time when the European project is under pressure from the sovereign debt crisis and from external instability.'

The sovereign debt crisis is largely a problem of the politicians, by the politicians about money for the politicians and party funding, involving soaring national debts and falsified statistics. The countries that kept their budget books straight and where the parties did not accept 'funding' from rich people and associations in return for a tax-free break, are not in a 'sovereign debt crisis'.

At the core of many of these 'sovereign debt' countries is the need for parties to get funds and they are willing to bend the rules to get them for the voters, the public and large corporations. When this dishonesty becomes exposed at the local, regional and national level, Europe seems to them the next level to be exploited. This is an old and growing scam that brought wine lakes, meat mountains in the Gaullist era and useless or non-existent infrastructure in southern Italy thanks to the corrupt regional policy. It was followed by massive infusions of cash to Greece in the 1980s, agreed by Europe's party politicians, much of which subsequently 'disappeared'

We now have political theatre without legitimacy or substance. The Commission has thrown off any veneer of independence. It is composed exclusively of national politicians. They are apparently in a debate with politicians of the same parties in the Council -- representing national governments. The Parliament is also composed of nationally elected politicians of exactly the same controlling parties. They refuse to hold Europe-wide elections as required by the treaties for sixty years.

This is not democracy because the most important element, individuals in civil society and organised civil society who ultimately have to pay are left out in the cold, because the doors are locked. The press is barred. The debate inside is about a fait accompli.

Mr Buzek continued: 'A system of real own resources would be fairer, more transparent, simpler and equitable. We should also see an end to rebates, exceptions and correction mechanisms that have accumulated within the current system.'

That gives the game away. It is transparent only for the politicians. The citizens -- including the non-political majority of the EU -- have not accepted or even had a say in the Commission/ Council budget and its assumptions. A democratic budget is supposed to relate to citizens' demands and citizens' needs -- expressed in fully functional Community institutions. It should not be fixed according to the whims of the political barons themselves. The present procedure -- which is inherited from the Gaullist autocratic system -- lacks any semblance of real democratic legitimacy. It has more in common to the so-called People's Democracies of the Soviet era.

The chairman of the EP's Budget Committee had something to say about secrecy. Not the Parliament's secret meeting but another institution. He said that 'a debate of such importance should not be held in the secrecy of ministerial meetings behind closed doors. This should become the subject of as wide a possible public debate, including a conference with full involvement of national parliaments. In the coming days we will make an effort toward realising this.'

A closed door Parliament is telling the closed-door Council of Ministers not to be secret! Herumph! The Commission's presentation in secret in the Parliament was illegal under the Lisbon Treaty. This bogus treaty was passed by politicians in spite of citizens voting in referendums that they did not like the system.

Article 15 of the Lisbon Treaty's TFEU deals with institutional consideration of financial legislation. It states: 'The European Parliament shall meet in public, as shall the Council when considering and voting on a draft legislative act.'

It also makes clear who should be in control of the budget: civil society, not the political class. The first paragraph of Article 15 states:
'In order to promote good governance and ensure the participation of civil society, the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies shall conduct their work as openly as possible.'

It is not difficult to open the door to one or two reporters or provide a video feed. Yet this was refused -- ILLEGALLY.

The Lisbon Treaty generation of politicians is now embarking on a vast misadventure of illegitimacy. They suppressed referendum results. They refused to accept those that took place until the voters were forced to vote again under threats. They have embarked on internal policies without the full participation of non-political civil society. They have established massive aid and development programmes based on political ideologies -- without the participation of civil society. And after some sixty years the European Parliament and the Civil Society institutions have still not had the electoral framework for free and open elections.

This dereliction of democracy is compounded by the false road-maps. What the Budget document called 'agreed policy objectives' are anti-democratic policies that the party cartel gave themselves. The participants in both the 2020 and 2030 reports were given strict instructions that they were not to deal with European democracy. The political class are afraid of more referendums. They will inevitably come!

The 'agreed policy' reports said nothing about the 'Arab Spring,' global financial piracy, the Japanese Tsunami, drought and religious strife in Africa and elsewhere and other world-changing events that they would not or could not foresee. When such surprises occur the only solution seems to be to throw money at them. Will that work with a nuclear-armed Iran and Pakistan? In many cases the cartel policy of naivety and their pacifistic answer to blackmail may just make matters worse more rapidly. Who is controlling European money going to the wrong forces in potentially violent societies?

The present policy objective of encouraging jihadi and anti-Semitic actors in the region is pure madness! When did the public agree to creating, intolerant Jew- and Christian-free states, giving control to groups that still proclaim terrorism as part of their 'party policies'??

Why do they omit to say that foreign policy should draw from the positive outcome of Europe's great democratic experiment that Schuman proclaimed in 1949, his declaration of 9 May 1950 and founding Fathers' Great Charter of 18 April 1951? Nothing!! It brought peace. The 'agreed policy objectives' applying the parties' wilfully ignorant ideologies WILL NOT!

No public mandate exists from the people for the EU budget. The politicians may want to try to fool themselves by this dishonest, underhand window-dressing. It does not fool the public who know that the system is unfair and not transparent for democracy. A system that refuses to discuss democracy and improve what they call democracy is not only suspect, it is obviously not democratic at all. Schuman said the test of a real democracy was the desire to improve itself.

In referendums several nations voted into oblivion a Constitutional treaty. A democratic Europe requires unanimity among free democratic States otherwise it is imperialism. Supranational democracy has to unite democracies not compel them by force. The people gave no mandate to the Lisbon Treaty. Proper referendums were refused.

The politicians disagreed with the people. The politicians in a totally disreputable move brought this rejected treaty back with a new name, the Reform or Lisbon Treaty. Who is trying to fool whom? Without democratic control the Lisbon Treaty is an uncontrollable money machine for the party politicians. It exploits the people who cannot yet escape from the main parties because they always act in coalition, a cartel. The EU budget provides money for their party cadres that they cannot get by honest means at the national level.

This self-deceit has serious effects on the politicians themselves. The underhandedness makes it seemingly impossible for European leaders to listen institutionally to taxpayers. They believe in their own 'smoke and mirrors' that gives them power to thumb their noses at public opinion and even their own script -- the Lisbon Treaty sham.

Supranational democracy could help resolve the euro crisis and set realistic goals for the budget. The politicians however are locked in a vicious downward spiral of declining public confidence, increasing financial black-holes, knowing full well that more democratic accountability will result in them losing control and maybe their political heads too.

In a supranational Community, greed for public money and power is a recipe for disaster.