Election6: The Council's President of the European Parliament: the Speaker for EU's UNDEMOCRACY

The EU leaders are now repeating their mantra: the solution to the crisis is the Community method. The Community method involves open democracy. We haven't got it! We have the 'Council method' which involves a political cartel, a Politburo, ruling Europe behind closed doors. It is an oligarchy of political party chiefs. It is the cause of the financial crisis.

Take the recent happenings in Parliament.

Since the days of the three European Communities, the president of the European Parliament has descended to typify the great farce of Europe. It is also its great shame. The President or Speaker is supposed to speak for what should be the flagship democratic body of 27 democratic countries united in peace and justice. Instead it is the dishonour of Europe. It is the laughing stock of the world.

Don't just take it from me. Check what the MEPs say below on video about how the developing world calls the EU hyprocritical. See what is said abroad about EU's fake democracy, especially when it preaches democracy to Africa, Russia, Belarus and elsewhere.

The 'Council method' provides succour to all the world's dictators who want to have a model to control parliament. It shows how Europeans' counterfeit democracy works. The Council method stops any form of elections or controls the outcome regardless of the election results. It provides a curtain, a burqa, over all the power-broking deals that are made behind closed doors.

The president is not elected. He or she is chosen by fixers in the morally darkened corridors of the European Council. Who chooses him or her? Not the European electors. The cartel of politicians in the Council choose the name of the person who is supposed speak for European Democracy and its 500 million citizens. The Speaker speaks mainly for the Council oligarchy, not the public.

1. Let us start with the elections. In 2009 I was with a number of journalists at the European Council meeting BEFORE the last European Parliament elections. A spokesman of the Polish persuasion announced to us all that the tricky mix of negotiations had successfully been horse-traded. The Poles had gained what they wanted. The next president of the European Parliament would be Mr Buzek, a Pole.

Let me repeat, this was BEFORE the European elections had taken place. Notice the COUNCIL according to the Council Method decided

• the NATIONALITY ,
• the POLITICAL PARTY and
• even the NAME of the President of the European Parliament
• WITHOUT A SINGLE MEMBER OF THE PARLIAMENT BEING PRESENT!

This is Politburo politics. Schuman condemned these Soviet-style politics of the "People's Democracies" as counterfeit democracy.

Isn't it ironic that the peoples formerly subject to the Soviets are now full-time players in the corrupt Gaullist system? Why are they no longer the fearless defenders of democracy and people's solidarity? Power. Power tends to corrupt.

This remarkable announcement presumes that (a) the elections are a farce and do not play a role in what happens in Parliament. (b) that the Council oligarchs know exactly who will be elected because they control the EP candidates of the party; some of course are elected on a list system; and (c) the Council or government leaders control the MEPs when they enter Parliament and discuss the presidency. They know that no independent thinker will be allowed, or at best only a few to brighten the decor. The mass of MEPs will follow exactly what the politicians in the dark recesses of the European Council have decided.

This is an act of a political CARTEL. It decides who and what, how and where with no recourse to the consumer, in this case, the voter, representing 500 million citizens.

2. In order to get this EP presidential candidate through the EP system, a vote of two-thirds is necessary. Neither of the big parties has this proportion of the vote in the EP. But two such groups have -- the European People's Party, EPP, representing what they call rightwing parties. On the other side is the group of Socialists or Social Democrats. They agree to a collectivist solution that cuts any dissident voter or MEP out of the circuit.

These two groups hold more than two-thirds of the seats and have the potential, the possibility, and I might add the undemocratic temptation, to join forces and impose their will. That would not really be fair or just to minorities or even some majorities. But it is a big temptation.

And if there is a big temptation, you can bet your cotton socks that most politicians will seize it with both hands. The undemocratic solution is that the two big parties impose their will -- whatever the election results say. They split the five year term in two. Half goes to an EPP politician and remaining half to the Socialist choice. The European Council is the body that makes the choice of WHO -- without a TV camera or without the public being allowed to hear the arguments. The horse-trading would make great television. But such sordid dealings are hardly edifying for honest citizens in 27 democracies, especially in the small countries.

The MEPs vote in a most unusual way. They use paper votes. Normally an electronic voting system is used. It is quicker and efficient. But it also traces the names of voters. This 'secret vote' system was brought in during the Gaullist period because the open voting system then could subject the parliamentarians to unfair pressures. Nowadays it just makes sure that the public does not not how their MEP voted in the corrupt system. However some hundred or so MEPs probably voted for candidates contrary to their party's and the Council's insistence.

This is the system we have had for many years and many elections, the cartel system of the Council in Parliament. De Gaulle has passed away. Many little Napoleons support the system in Council because it suits them to have an oligarchy.

3. Smaller parties, even the Liberal group or the ecologists, not to mention the more vociferous democrats who denounce the system are cut out. They may have people who would show no favouritism and have the most neutrality in becoming the president of the Parliament but they do not have a snowball's chance of attaining the office.

What do they do? The EP has long arranged it that such candidates cannot even speak. The election takes place under 'procedure' that forbids it. So what happens? The week before we had the spectacle of private organisations including the European Voice, an Economist newspaper, organising a hustings. Thus a non-parliamentary private organisation held the only meeting of major importance to Europeans. The Parliament refused to do what democrats view as normal. The three 'candidates' were invited to attend. They did but few other MEPs came. They knew things were already cut and dried by their party chiefs.

It was rather like naughty schoolchildren having a debate when the prefects said they couldn't. One candidate said the role of parliament is to control the executive, by which I believe he meant the Council. (It isn't in a supranational democracy.)

How can the EP control the Council if the Council decides who will control Parliament BEFORE THERE IS AN ELECTION?

I sat next to an American and explained that this was how the largest trading power in the world, far greater than the USA, organized its democracy. It took a newspaper to get a meeting at all.

Mr Buzek is also reported to have congratulated 'President' Schulz several days BEFORE the election took place!

For those who want, they can check what Mr Nirj Deva and Ms Diana Wallis said about the deplorable anti-democratic Council system of Parliament.

The European Parliament has never in all its nearly sixty years ever held a proper Europe-wide election according the the requirements of the treaties of Rome and Paris.

The Council says NO. The Parliament can't even organise itself.

Budget12: Fiscal Union? No thanks! Open Letter on Openness to President van Rompuy and Parliament President Buzek

Some government leaders and commentators are advocating what they call a FEDERAL fiscal authority to tax everyone and spread this money to governments. Some call this a supranational authority. It is not. It involves reinforcing secretive, cartel-style politics.

But would a FEDERAL fiscal union and a new "authority" help at all? It would tax more money from the public to help those who are already convicted by the facts and public opinion to be

• untrustworthy,
• crooked,
• distorters of statistics,
• in collusion with each other in fraud,
• liable to criminal prosecution under the treaties.

Nearly all governments have shamelessly violated the treaties such as the Stability and Growth Pact to control budget overspending and inflation. (In a Community system overspending and inflation involves stealing from Member State partners as well as deceiving national citizens.)

A fiscal union without openness or proper democracy is a fraudulent fiscal compact or a cartel compact.

In the face of a European Court judgement a few years ago, they shamelessly thumbed their noses at it and said it was up to them to decide whether they -- France and Germany in this case -- would be punished for this violation or not.

The European Central Bank has shamelessly violated specific articles of the treaties -- and done the exact OPPOSITE of what it was supposed to do, because an unelected, technocratic President of the ECB decided -- without asking the public -- that it was necessary to deal with the long-term fraud committed by politicians over decades.

Will a 'normal' FEDERAL-style fiscal union stop fraud among European politicians involved in tax and statistics scams? No. The guardians are the politicians themselves! The Commission has been shorn of all independence. It is a politicians' club.

Will it open up the present secrets of what they discuss behind closed doors? No.

Will it stop the international cartel of political parties acting in their own interests? Hardly, it will only encourage it.

ALL THE LEVERS OF POWER WOULD REMAIN IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE PROVED THEIR UNRELIABILITY IN THE PAST! -- THE POLITICAL CARTEL OF MAJOR PARTIES, COLLUDING TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE CITIZEN! No checks and balances but reinforced cartel-power!

Supranational means international democracy. Robert Schuman defined supranationalism in terms of democracy and openness -- which is precisely what the Council and the European Council or the EuroGroup are NOT practicing. They want more secrecy now to hide the past and present scandals and political collusion.

What is proposed has nothing of democracy or light about it. If they wanted a supranational institution, it would be dead easy. A complementary supranational institution already exists that would instill HONESTY supervised by taxpayers. But it is in cold storage -- thanks to the Council.

A supranational Community system is a democracy of democracies. We have 27 member democracies at present. WHY should the governance system of European Union be typified by the hyper-secretive EuroGroup or the European Council whose main characteristic is that they do not let the public know what they are discussing, let voters listen to what is said, let companies, associations, trade unions hear what their reasonings are or how the so-called democrats propose to tax and spend the citizens' money?

In the case of the EuroGroup it is not even an official institution of the Community or the EU and it is the EuroGroup that is now ruling the roost. Its chairman says he has to lie for Europe. So the citizens cannot trust even his information about when it will meet. It makes secret treaties, sets up a shady company in Luxembourg that employs government ministers and tries to lever money as if they were a bunch of Wall Street derivative crooks. They lack the expertise. They are already far from the 1.4 Trillion that was boasted about after they set up this ramshackle operation. (That is more than TEN times the annual budget of the EU!)

They lack open confidence of saying whom they are acting for (their parties or their nationals in Europe?) and even their identity (democrats, ministers or perhaps pseudo-bankers, or even conspirators against the too powerful markets?). The dog's tail of the parties is wagging and shaking the nations. The Euro Zone Heads of Government now meet in an huddle or conference that is in NO WAY DEFINED OR REGULATED BY TREATIES. They are not sure whether to call themselves a European Summit, the European Council (which they are not! They exclude the ten non-Euro Member States) or a Council of Ministers (which they are NOT, even though they fraudulently use its letterhead paper to say they are all honest!)

How can Europe get honest finances again? Supranational democracy requires that the Consultative Committees -- the bodies for democratic associations in Europe like the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of Regions and the equivalent body in Euratom -- be elected based on (1) a reference list of relevant European associations (2) elections within the list of those properly registered associations for a smaller number of seats in the appropriate bodies. (This was part of the Founding Fathers' grand design for Europe and is still active in the body for NGOs in the Council of Europe but has been blocked by Council in the Communities.) The elected body would establish the rules for defining what is a democratic association and what is to be excluded as an unrepresentative lobby.

The Consultative Committee of the European Coal and Steel Community -- even though not properly elected on a European basis because European associations did not yet exist -- was able to control the finances and the budget of the pioneer Community and make sure that housing for miners etc paid out of the European tax did not involve corrupt practice and that the European tax of the Community was properly collected from all firms in the Community. Europe had a real European tax until 2002 -- but this was stopped by the politicians when they decided not to renew the Coal and Steel Community Treaty for another fifty years.

At the start of the first Community politicians delayed the implementation of the changes to make the Consultative Committee a truly European body. They preferred to choose the members themselves which was the interim agreement. Then de Gaulle tried to move the European government system of the Communities to French control inside the Council with its closed doors. De Gaulle is long gone but his undemocratic deformations remain. Can they be reversed? Yes. They will be when we have Europeans with moral courage and honesty. The process of justice and democracy is ineluctable.

We, the citizens, are still waiting for the present Consultative Committees to produce plans for THEIR European elections. Don't hold your breath. The European Parliament took decades to fulfill the minimum electoral requirements in the treaties and still has not once had a proper Europe-wide election under a single electoral statute as required by treaty law.

Such Consultative Committees -- if active -- would have prevented the decades of corrupt and fraudulent practice among Member States, the bad construction of the euro and the present mortgaging of the future planned behind the closed doors of the European Council and the EuroGroup. (See the budget series on http://democracy.blogactiv.eu and the commentaries at http://www.schuman.info/news.htm )

The Consultative Committees should have specialized subcommittees on monetary affairs, representing various types of associations of taxpayers. These would be open and would eliminate much of the comitology -- which is neither open nor democratically approved.

Meanwhile both Parliament and the European Council make sure that Budget matters are dealt with the doors closed to the public.

What is to be done? I wrote to both presidents asking for justification, morally and legally, for what is clearly UNdemocratic practice. The following is the latest correspondence.

5 December 2011

Mr Herman Van Rompuy
President, European Council

Dear President van Rompuy,
A year ago I sent a letter asking for the legal and moral justification that the European Council closed the doors on meetings on the taxation of European citizens and budget expenditure matters. This is in opposition to the articles of the Lisbon Treaty. The treaty says clearly that all such matters, especially those dealing with the earliest consideration of legislation, should be dealt with openly. Morally, all Member States adhere to the principle that there can be no taxation without fair and open representation, which is then the basis for public awareness and public consultation. Consultation is impossible if the consideration of such vital financial matters is presented cut and dried by politicians, without public access to the debate so they can employ the means in the treaties to influence the decisions, to ensure control and provide adequate inspection of the results through properly elected Consultative Committees.

The public is showing increasing distrust of politicians and so are markets. This lack of open responsibility has now resulted in proposals for trillion euro operations mortgaging the future of the next generations. Even before the European Council was designated an institution in the Constitutional and Lisbon Treaties, it had the moral obligation to have open meetings. It did not. That was the reason that a decade ago the principles of openness were written into the treaties. Half a century ago Robert Schuman said that "the Councils, the Committees and the other organs {of Europe} should be placed under the control of public opinion."

Secret political 'deals' of the past are now paralyzing Europe. Why is the principle of openness and democracy still not being respected? European finances are not the property of politicians.

I am therefore sending this reminder, as I believe the public has a right to know the legal and moral opinion why the European Council deems it can close the doors while attempting to extract tax money and design its plans for spending public money.

Many thanks for your help in this matter.

Yours etc

A reminder letter was sent to President Buzek of the European Parliament with this complaint introduced to the European Ombudsman for non-response.

The Parliament has not replied to my letters. They deal with my exclusion, press exclusion and exclusion of the public to matters of primary importance to all, namely, holding secret, closed door meetings on taxation of European citizens and use of the budget.

I was excluded from meetings as noted in the correspondence. President Buzek's earlier argument made for exclusion is not logical or consistent. The Parliament excludes journalists and the public whether or not the Council is involved.

The Parliament says it upholds the principle of open meetings. As for the Council setting the rules in prima facie violation of the treaties, there is a simple way to resolve any potential 'bullying' of the Parliament by the Council. That is to get a ruling by the Court of Justice on such articles as Article 15 TFEU and general principles of taxation and open representation.

For decades the institutions involved which are supposed to be independent and sovereign have refused to do so, being submissive to Council. The public which is the most important partner in the taxation debate should under no circumstances be excluded from discussions among politicians who have their own agenda and interests that are not identical with their electors (the voters are a minority of the electors who increasingly refuse to vote) or the public in general. All the institutions were created for the citizens, not for the political parties who are now (often contrary to the treaties) firmly ensconced in all the institutions, save the Court.

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.

Budget6 Fiasco as EU's Budget egotistical talks fail. What happened to the taxpayer?

'A fiasco!' 'A kindergarten.' That's what Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski called the failure of the Council of Ministers and Parliament to agree in the Budget Conciliation Committee. It broke up soon after midnight on 16 November 2010. It became a dialogue of the deaf, the politics of the 'kindergarten'. Each was claiming the budget is my toy. Yet the budget is taxpayers' money. Guess who was excluded from the meeting? Yes, the public!

European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek kept repeating his question about how to make the budget less crisis-prone in the future, but the Council refused to answer. It was not able to do so because some Member States would not discuss the matter. They claimed the budget was THEIR money. Whose money is it really? Who should decide how to spend it?

It is an expensive mistake to plan a crisis when the financial markets are scrutinizing the EU's political will on financial matters and testing the euro. The honesty and integrity of governments is under the microscope. This crisis could easily be avoided if the European governance system put the citizen at the centre of its affairs rather than marginalizing him.

The Council wanted the EP's agreement on the 2011 budget according to their whims. The Parliament which initially asked for a 6 percent increase rapidly changed its tune and agreed to accept the Council's 2.9 percent. Why? That way Parliament could concentrate on a matter they considered a priority. Control. It wanted to establish clearer rules for the longer term to avoid the knock-down-drag-out discussions every year. A flexible mechanism under the new treaty was needed for the future finances, the Parliament maintained. Commissioner Lewandowski said it was a legitimate request of Parliament. But the Council refused to respond.

Instead neither party got what it wanted. The budget now moves into crisis mode with the possibility that next year's budget will be fixed at the present level and doled out in monthly packages.

The Parliamentary delegation told the Council it had lost its position of trust. Never before said the Budget committee chairman, Alain Lamassoure, had the Parliament simply accepted the Council's budget figure. However the removal of this financial point of contention only exposed more to daylight the Council's lack of political interest in creating a new working relationship on the budget which would treat the Parliament as co-partner. The Council -- or at least three or more member States -- refused to discuss the subject. Their intention is simply to retain their governments power as the sole decider in budgetary matters.

Council President, Belgian Minister Melchior Wathelet told the Conciliation Committee that the lack of agreement would 'hit the citizen'. Really? The citizen was the main interested party left out of the whole discussion. The whole of the budget process involves a system that tries to shut out the citizen. Why? Because money is involved, the plaything of politicians. The citizen is incidental to the process. The budget involves taking taxes from the citizen, and spending it for the citizen. It was all done behind the citizen's back and with the public being excluded wherever possible.

What was the scrap about? One so-called democratic institution was at loggerheads with another. Each had 27 delegates in the meeting. Both sides claimed (somewhere in the past) that they were representing the citizen either via his national government or via his parliamentarians. If they were both representing the citizen accurately and faithfully, why then was there such disagreement? Why was there a crisis? Who was the advocate for the citizen? Were neither?

It can easily be proved that none of the three institutions involved had the citizen's welfare at heart. How? The citizen is totally excluded from the meetings and all the debates of the Council and the Conciliation Committee. The secret committees are the places where the politicians decide how much they will take out of the pocket of the citizen. The Conciliation Committee was a closed door affair. The so-called democratic institutions are ASHAMED to show their real behaviour on television.

This is all the more extraordinary when both institutions were quoting the Lisbon Treaty at each other. One Article they did not quote was article 15. It says: 'The Union institutions .... shall conduct their work as openly as possible. The European Parliament shall meet in public, as shall the Council when considering and voting on a draft legislative act.'

The Commission, which is supposed to represent all the interests in the Community and is guardian of the treaties, said nothing at this travesty.

The Council's own meeting was advertised to the public as 'Public debates and deliberations'. In reality it was not available to the public because the Council opened it for public viewing for one second on the internet. Then someone pressed the PAUSE button. Nothing was seen or heard until the final moments several hours later when it was clear that no agreement could be made. Not even on a simple text of a couple of sentences that was to represent their views on how exactly the Council and Parliament would work together.

The whole debating process would have been of major interest to citizens because it would show how their governments advocated, or failed to advocate, common action on the budget when they meet and talk to other European governments. Any voter would like to have this information. So would the media. It would provide means to analyse political ethics in action on raising and using tax.

The 27 members of the Council, finance ministers or their representatives of the 27 Member States, then left the Council building to attend the joint meeting in room 5G3 of the European Parliament.

The Parliament had worked with commendable openness on the Budget question until the Conciliation Committee. It then fell in with the Council's bad habits. The Conciliation took place in Parliament but Parliament immediately shut the doors to room 5G3 when the Council and Commission entered. Why? Who authorized this?

Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski characterised the whole affair as 'self-centered and egoistical'. This was to be expected from the people who brought Europe the Lisbon Treaty (Also Known As the Constitutional Treaty) in spite of its rejection by the citizens. In the Parliament's library a few days before, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the author of the Constitutional Treaty, addressed a meeting about Europe 2020. He explained that after it had been soundly rejected in referendums, the politicians purposely thought of a way to pass the same text by making it unreadable. It was reproduced in the form of a list of amendments to the existing treaties. (A few non-controversial matters like the the European flag and anthem were left out -- it was then called a simplified version.) The Council refused to publish the cut-and-paste list of amendments as a complete text.

That conjuring act was designed to try to fool the citizen and obliterate the citizen's rights. It was immoral. So it is unlikely that anything moral will result from a method so ugly and in favour of a political cartel acting against democracy. That is proving to be the case. 'Self-centered' and 'egoistical' are clearly descriptions of institutions that have forgotten they are servants of the citizens not the bosses.

The citizens were rejected and ejected out of the system. And now the citizen-rejecting politicians (both Parliament and Council) want to speak for the citizen. In reality they are only speaking for themselves.

It bodes ill for future and those who wished to replace the supranational Community system by the inter-governmental Lisbon Treaty system.

Budget4 How EU's leaders can prove they are democrats, not kleptocrats

Seventy years ago Europeans fought a war about theft of property. The Nazis were kleptocrats. The gang stole from everyone they could. It became a planetary war. In Germany Hitler disenfranchised many of his honest citizens. He stripped them of their wealth and then sent them with any persistent supporters, Jews, Christians, journalists or politicians, to the gas chambers and death camps. Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland and subjugated lands that were not his own. He then stormed into Russia to steal its petroleum. Western democracies united to free themselves from oppression by these gangsters.

Europe's Founding Fathers helped fight and win that war. They then established a new democracy for the whole of Europe. They did not do so to AGAIN subjugate Europeans to another form of political kleptomania.

Today, to have a position in the main European institutions, you have to be a member of a political party. That puts you in 2 percent of Europe's population who have a party card. Fully 98 percent of the population are excluded from representation. This is the greatest act of discrimination in modern times. Both Hitler and Stalin had far more party members. (Their enlightened enemies compromised critics who refused to join the party for cultural, religious, ethical, racial or political reasons.)

Party political leaders want secrecy to divide up Europe's wealth. Should today's political leaders of Europe impose taxes on Europe's citizens IN SECRET? Should excluded citizens submit to any amount of tax that Eurocrats designate behind closed doors? Who decides what money is raised from the population? Who decides how it will be spent?

Imagine a Court case. If honest citizens do not know HOW and WHY taxes are formulated in secret sessions, how can they go to Court to say the leaders were all unjust? How can the Judge know the motivation of the leaders?

It should be remembered that Hitler was also voted into power in democratic elections. That did not make him a democrat. He was antichristian and a corrupter of democratic power. With slick propaganda he immediately misused and overturned democratic controls to install his Fuehrertum.

The lesson is that we can only judge what is a democratic, fair-minded and just government by its action. We cannot judge it by its words. Hitler's propaganda ministry under Dr Goebbels was powerful in persuading the German people and many in other countries, including Britons and French, that he was doing something right. It was all lies. Some were subtle lies. Others were blatant, repetitious lies that people believed out of weariness. Or that was what Goebbels hoped would be the outcome of his PR campaigns.

Lies contain the seeds of their own destruction. Schuman gave grave warnings about pseudo-democrats and political fraudsters.

How does anyone tell if a government is democratic? A key test involves MONEY. What are they doing with the people's money? How are they collecting taxes? Above all, how are they spending taxes they collect? Who gets this money? Is it fattening the governors or feeding the governed needy? Consultation and democratic assent are required on all money matters.

No taxation without representation! That was the battle cry throughout the ages of democrats against autocratic regimes. It led to the revolt of the British colonies in America in the 1770s, even though their taxes were minimal by today's standards.

The Americans based themselves on ancient British laws. In 1215 the British declared the principle when King John met with the barons at Runnymede. The result was the Magna Carta setting out democratic principles. Articles 12 and 14 laid down that taxes could not be raised 'without common counsel of the realm.' In other words no arbitrary taxation by the king. The Charter specified the categories of citizens, moral and secular, from bishops and abbots and barons, who had to be consulted in the process. This allowed the larger part of the population to be brought into the consultation. The key concept was that taxes could not be conceived and imposed in secret by the king or leader.

The principle goes back thousands of years before the Magna Carta. Ancient civilisations such as the Celtic nations proclaimed before all meetings that truth was the foundation of all civil society. Truth requires open assemblies, more than representation. Why? Because there was no guarantee that the representatives would not seize the opportunity to fatten their own face before they really cared for those they were supposed to represent.

Today the European Union is ruled by party machines. It is not governed by non-political civil society. Non-political citizens do not get a look-in. Politicians have taken some autocratic Gaullist ideas and applied them to milking the fattest milch-cow in sight, the EU budget. The Gaullist strategy was closed meetings, package deals, arm-twisting and blackmail in private.

His first target was the Council of Ministers which he attempted to exaggerate in importance to make it the decision-maker of the Community system. It isn't. The Council still discusses in secret. The European Council more so. At the core of the present day system are not representatives of civil society but three main parties, the left middle and right. (That sort of categorization makes no sense to many people).

The Commission which is supposedly by treaty law independent of all such associations is now exclusively composed of card-carrying party members. This party cartel violates the spirit and the letter of the treaties. The action of the parties and their fiddling of the parliamentary results has resulted in ever declining voter turn-outs. More people say 'None of the above' when looking at the ballot paper.

However, the Lisbon Treaty, the party-imposed version of the Constitutional treaty, does demand open sessions of the institutions. This, as discussed previously, was introduced by non-party civil society organisations. They revolted against the Meat Mountains and Wine Lakes that Gaullist and Italian corruption encouraged. The present action of the party cartel to close doors as they did in the past has no legal standing. It is also immoral.

The Lisbon Treaty includes the principle that: The European Parliament shall meet in public, as shall the Council when considering and voting on a draft legislative act. The Budget is a primary legislative act.

THREE institutions are involved in the conspiracy of closed doors at the Conciliation Committee. Three bodies violate the treaty and also democratic morality. The Parliament usually has open sessions on the budget has succumbed to this secrecy. The Commission, supposedly the Guardian of the Treaties, did not speak out. It was represented by a Commissioner at the Conciliation Committee on the Budget. He helped shut the door. The Council was present in the person of the acting Belgian Prime Minister. No one seemed concerned about the public's rights, the public's money or public accountability.

They all need to explain why the doors were closed when they discussed how much they should collect of the citizen's money in the form of tax and how THEY would spend it. Some money will go on EU programmes. Other money goes on pet party projects. The budget also increases the salaries and allowances and expands illicitly the subsidies given to the party machines. Money given to the party machinery and buddy infrastructure has not had the approval of the people because it was the politicians in and of the party machines who decided that they wanted more taxpayer's money for party purposes.

I have therefore sent the following letter to Mr Buzek, the President of the European Parliament.

Schuman Project

10 November 2010

Mr Jerzy Buzek
President, European Parliament

Public access to Budgetary draft legislation meetings

Dear President Buzek,
The Parliament has public meetings to consider the Budget. At the European Council press conference on 29 October 2010 in reply to a question about the Budget Conciliation Committee, citing the Lisbon Treaty Article 15.2 (TFEU) the Commission President, Mr Barroso, replied that ‘I think we should keep full respect of the Lisbon Treaty in all the co-decision procedures.’

The treaty says in Article 15.2 (TFEU) The European Parliament shall meet in public, as shall the Council when considering and voting on a draft legislative act.

Public access is the fundament of democracy. It is most important for open, public sessions when it comes to draft legislation on public money. Today is both the time of austerity and of grave suspicions of fraudulent practice in high places.

However, the Conciliation Committee on 27 October and subsequent meetings were shut to the public and the press. The highest representatives of the Parliament, Council and Commission participated in the meetings of the Conciliation Committee to consider draft financial legislative act involving public money.

May I ask for an official reply as to why these meetings were shut to the public, television and the press? Who decided that the public and press should be excluded?

Many thanks for your help in this matter.

Similar letters were sent to European Commission President Barroso and Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme.

Budget1 European Parliament fails its Lisbon test. It submits ILLEGALLY to Council Secrecy on Citizens' money.

The European Parliament conducts its plenary Budget debate in public. It is obliged by Treaty articles, even if did not want to. Its Budget Committee is also open to the public. That is defined by the Rules of Procedure. There are many other meetings that Parliament holds, all usually in public.

Parliaments feel that they have a responsibility to have their meetings openly. It is the basis of democracy. They also feel like the local tennis club that everyone has a right to see that money is collected and handled properly. The EU should be based on the same principle.

The Lisbon Treaty FEU article 15.2 says: "The European Parliament shall meet in public". Why? Because the other party to an open debate is the public. If any meeting is open it means that the public, even if it is represented by one lonely journalist, is also present. That is healthy when it comes to public's own money.

The Council on the other hand likes to do things in secret. This is especially the case when it comes to money. Whose money? Not their own money but the public's money. Why should the public's money be a matter of secrecy? If ministers are doing nothing improper, what motive would they have to close the doors? Should not public servants -- government ministers (minister means servant) -- be open and frank about other people's, that is, their master's money?

So which attitude do you think is correct? The Parliament where the budget is discussed in public or the Council's where they do what they like in secret and tell the public what the Council are doing with the public's money?

Under the Lisbon Treaty we have a new situation. Both institutions have a say in the EU budget. If there is no agreement, the budget is discussed in what is called a Conciliation Committee.

So whose rules will succeed? Will the Parliament make the Council be more democratic? Or will the Council force the Parliament to close the doors of its committee room and cut a deal away from the eyes and ears of the public and the cameras and microphones of the press?

Are Parliament's democrats strong enough to stand up to such obvious undemocratic practice?

Today, 27 October 2010, we found out. Parliament's President Jerzy Buzek and Alain Lamassoure, chairman of the Budgets Committee, met with Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme plus a score of other officials, including those from the Commission.

The Parliament closed its doors of room 5G3. Parliament officials patrolled the corridors to see no one from the public snook in. Shame on them! Any journalist asking entrance was refused. He was told the meeting about public money was private.

The Council faced out the Parliament. And the Parliament blinked.

It is worse than that. Both the Parliament and the Council are bound by the same Treaty law. They are bound in the same sentence to be open and have open sessions on the budget.

Let me now quote article 15.2 in full: The European Parliament shall meet in public, as shall the Council when considering and voting on a draft legislative act.

If the Budget is not a legislative act and the Conciliation Committee is not involved in drafting that legislative act, what is the Treaty talking about? Money is the source of nearly all legislative acts.

At this time the public is undergoing vast programmes of austerity, cut backs and reforms. Thousands of employees are being thrown out of work. Why? because of budget mismanagement and plain fraud in high places. Massive demonstrations on the streets have rocked several European capitals. Acting in almost total oblivion of this, the Council and Parliament want massive increases in the budget. The public should be fully a partner and at least an observer of the draft legislative acts of the budget. It is its right.

Who is thumbing their noses at law of the treaty? Whose money is it any way?