Euro9: Should your lawyer, whom YOU pay, protect Euro Treaty fraudsters AGAINST YOU?

Very bizarre things are going on in the financial field with YOUR money at the moment. Governments are trying to raise trillion euro loans on the markets. YOU and the next generations will have to pay for them. What's it all about?

None of this happened before the Lisbon Treaty politicians -- you know the ones who passed the treaty and refused to take notice of any referendums -- decided to create a European currency without any consideration to supranational principles of democracy.

Wouldn't you like to know if it is all legal?

• A short while ago, Luxembourg was considered a bad place, a tax haven. Now politicians have created their own company there to syphon in international liquidity. What on earth are finance ministers doing becoming employees of a Luxembourg finance company? Haven't they a proper day job?
• The politicians created not one but two financial operations all of dubious legal standing, the European Stability and Finance Facility and the European Stability Mechanism. Is it really legal to create such tax-haven operations without the full-hearted consent of the people? After all, it is the people who will pay.
• The politicians then decided to bring in a Fiscal Compact that would, they said, bring discipline where their fellow politicians in the compact had failed in the past. Various countries had cooked the books, fiddled the stats, frauded all and sundry around Europe. Now this very same group that was either guilty in these matters or those who colluded with them or were passive at the fraud, say that this deal will solve all Europe's problems. This fraud has been going on since 1981 when Greece joined. But now, the say, it will all be solved LEGALLY. Are they to be believed?

European financial matters seem all of a sudden so complicated. It would require a high-grade lawyer to really know what's is going on, what's really cooking. Don't you wish you had a good lawyer to analyze all these shenanigans ?

YOU HAVE!! All Europeans have a lawyer who they have already paid for! They have more -- a whole team of lawyers working for them!

The legal team has been hired from your own European taxes. It is YOUR service.

The Legal Services of the Council of Ministers have already produced a Legal Opinion on all this. They can answer all your questions. If politicians in their secretive doings are bringing in dubious treaties that would encourage fraud, what can you do about it?

You can ask them for this Opinion.

The European Financial Stability Facility and the European Stability Mechanism plus the Fiscal Compact treaty were signed in the margins of the Council of Ministers. They were agreed by 17 to 25 Member State government ministers, not the full 27 State membership. That shows they are not conceived as a proper EU or Community treaty.

What should you do? Ask for the Opinion that was given to YOUR democratic representative, your servant.

The Fiscal Compact will affect every man woman and child in the European Union. Ostensibly it is designed to ensure budget balance among governments in the EuroZone. There is a major problem. It won't work. It sounds fierce and strong. It requires governments to follow certain budgetary rules to balance their budgets. This is what they all pledged to do in 1997 at Amsterdam, but didn't. The draft treaty requires States to do so by changing their constitutions or basic laws. But in the end it is the politicians -- meeting in secret -- who will judge whether their chums should be penalized or not. The Court, they say, will also act. The Council tried this before and even when the Court of Justice condemned the profligacy of France and Germany, the politicians just thumbed their noses at the European rule of law. Then the Netherlands and others were having to pay for the French and German overdrafts.

Does this worry you? Ask for the Council's Legal Opinion!

In this new treaty it is not even sure whether the Court will be empowered to act for the non-Community body defined in this draft treaty.

These measures designed to support the euro will only make Europe more bureaucratic and take further power from the citizens and non-political organized civil society of real Community democracy. Further, the euro was built on principles directly opposite from what the Founding fathers said were solid, moral and realistic foundations.

• The euro is not even built on sand.
• It is not build on air.
• It is built on electrons and the groundless wish fulfilment of politicians.
• It is based on what Robert Schuman called counterfeit democracy.

I therefore wrote to the Council on 2 February to have copies of the Legal Opinions about whether the EFSF, the ESM and the Draft Fiscal Compact comes under the European rule of law. This is vital information for everybody.

If the European Court of Justice is not empowered to act, no citizen nor any firm or trade union will be able to take the matter to Court. The Court of Justice will throw out the complaint. It will be as valid as an agreement made by some EU Member States OUTSIDE the EU framework. You cannot expect Member States in NATO or in the OECD taking a dispute between themselves to the EU Court of Justice. It is not competent to act for other bodies. A treaty creating a non-EU organisation of 25 States is not the EU. A complaint must be lodged at the proper court. A French Court won't deal with your parking fines in Romania.

The Council produced a Legal Opinion to discuss this question. If the Court is excluded from the actions of the band of 25, they will lie outside European supranational law. This is anarchy that will only encourage further abuse.

Like many citizens I wanted to see what the lawyers at the Council said. How did the Council reply to my request. Firstly I asked the Press Office to supply me with the Legal Opinions. They said I would have to apply formally through the Information Access web site under Regulation 1049/2001. This takes time -- two weeks MAXIMUM normally. However I did not get a reply until a few days ago.

This is what the Secretariat of the Access Directorate General wrote:

Your request of 2 February 2012 for access to "legal opinions from Council services on the insertion, application and operation of the European Court of Justice in the ESM and ESFS and other euro treaties pacts" has been registered by the "Access to Documents" unit. Thank you for your interest.

The General Secretariat of the Council has examined your request on the basis of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (Official Journal L 145, 31.5.2001, p. 43) and the specific provisions concerning public access to Council documents set out in Annex II to the Council's Rules of Procedure (Council Decision No 2009/937/EU, Official Journal L 325, 11.12.2009, p. 35). On 23 February 2012, the time-limit for replying to your application was extended by 15 working days. Having examined the request, the General Secretariat has come to the following conclusion:

The General Secretariat was able to identify only one opinion of the Council Legal Service related to the European Court of Justice in the context mentioned in your request. This opinion is to be found in document 5788/12.

Document 5788/12 is an opinion of the Council Legal Service drawn up in the context of intergovernmental negotiations taking place outside the ordinary institutional framework for a Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union (the "draft Treaty"). The draft treaty has subsequently been signed by 25 Member States but still remains to be ratified. The opinion analyses whether Article 8 of the draft Treaty, conferring jurisdiction on the European Court of Justice as regards compliance by Member States with the so-called "balanced budget rule", is compatible with European Union law. The document consequently contains legal advice.

The aim of the draft Treaty is to strengthen economic governance, including by introducing the abovementioned "balanced budget rule". It was drawn up in a difficult political and economic context and bears directly on the economic interests of the Member States.

Disclosure of the document would undermine the protection of the public interest as regards Member States' economic and monetary policies by making known to the public a comprehensive legal analysis on issues affecting those policies. This is especially the case as the opinion assesses questions linked to the balanced budget rule which is at the heart of the draft Treaty.

Moreover, given the sensitivity of the legal issues dealt with in the document and the high political and financial importance of the draft Treaty there is a real risk of litigation in the future which is likely to involve a Court review of the questions analysed in the Legal Service opinion. If access were to be given to the document in question this would undermine the protection of legal advice by making public an internal opinion of the Legal Service intended for the Member States. This clearly risks affecting the ability of those concerned to defend their position in a possible future case before the European Court of Justice. In addition, such a result could have the effect that comprehensive legal advice is not requested in similarly sensitive situations in the future, thereby seriously affecting the relevant decision-making processes on such issues.

It should also be added that the opinion is very broad in scope as it analyses the possibilities and conditions in general for conferring jurisdiction on the European Court of Justice by agreement.

In the view of the foregoing, the General Secretariat is unable to grant you access to this document, since its disclosure would prejudice the protection of the public interest as regards the financial, monetary or economic policy of the Union or a Member State as set out in Article 4(1)(a), fourth indent, of Regulation 1049/2001.

Disclosure would furthermore prejudice the protection of legal advice in the second indent of Article 4(2) of Regulation 1049/2001. In that regard the General Secretariat considers that, on balance, the principle of transparency which underlies the Regulation would not, in the present case, prevail over the above-mentioned interest so as to justify disclosure of the document and that, consequently, no overriding public interest in disclosure exists.

The General Secretariat has closely examined the document to assess whether certain parts could be extracted as not being covered by any of the above-mentioned exceptions, cf. Article 4(6) of Regulation 1049/2001. However, it has concluded that all parts of the document are covered by exceptions.

According to Article 7(2) of the Regulation, you may submit a confirmatory application requesting the Council to reconsider this position, within 15 working days of receiving this reply .

Yours sincerely,

For the General Secretariat

 

In return I wrote the following reply:

Secretariat, DG F Access
Council of Ministers,
EU

Dear Sir,
Thank you for your reply to my request of 2 February 2012 for the Legal Opinions on the draft treaty for the Fiscal Compact. This is an urgent matter and of great importance to all European citizens as it concerns legislation and a treaty that is presently under consideration by a number of Parliaments of Member States. I first made my request directly to officials of the Council press service but was told that I would have to request the document formally through the web service of the Council. This involved a period UP TO fifteen days before delivery, even though it was an extremely urgent matter.

You state that 'On 23 February 2012, the time-limit for replying to your application was extended by 15 working days.' I would like to point out that this delay was not caused by me but simply that the reply from the Council was not originally executed within the statutory 15 days as required by Community law. I was told by an official on the phone that the Council had failed to respect the deadline. In effect the Council gave itself extra time. I am in no way to blame.

You write that the Council has decided that not a word, not a comma, of any document will be released. This is not acceptable. I request that all documents in full should be released.

As to the substance of your reply I am asking for an immediate release, if necessary following a re-evaluation of grounds of the refusal to supply the Legal Opinions on the draft Fiscal Compact treaty aka 'Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union'. You have identified only one document which you refer to as document 5788/12. I was told by your press office there were at least two.

My reasons are the following:

1. You state: 'Disclosure of the document would undermine the protection of the public interest as regards Member States' economic and monetary policies by making known to the public a comprehensive legal analysis on issues affecting those policies.' The subject matter of the treaty is the stability of the European currency known as the euro. This is a public good. It is difficult to argue that the public should be protected from full knowledge of the stability and legality or otherwise of their own public good. It is in the public's interest to have complete information. Trillions of euros are at stake and any dubious practice should be exposed. That is the public's interest. This ultimate and authentic interest should be protected by having the fullest exposure of the facts. The Legal Opinion should be released.

2. The Legal Opinion deals with the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice which the Treaty attempts to render active in the affairs of a limited number of Member States. That is, a group of governments wants the Court to be able to act in a deal of their own that excludes the entire Community but where the excluded States and peoples have interests that will be affected, perhaps seriously. This is of prime importance, not only to the signatory States but also the EU non-signatory States. It is therefore essential that the document be fully exposed to the entire EU and all its taxpayers and citizens. The rule of law and democracy must not be excluded from the deal. The position of the Court is paramount. Any doubt about the Court's power must be ventilated. The Document therefore needs to be released.

3. You state: 'there is a real risk of litigation in the future which is likely to involve a Court review of the questions analysed in the Legal Service opinion. If access were to be given to the document in question this would undermine the protection of legal advice by making public an internal opinion of the Legal Service intended for the Member States.' This gives the impression that the Member States -- by which you seem to mean the Member States governments who signed the deal -- are somehow at odds with the people of those States. You also imply that those Member State governments are reluctant to expose their acts to the justice of the Court. I am sure that, in a European Community based on the rule of law and in the EU generally, the people and I hope the governments would affirm that justice should be paramount in all actions of government. The Legal Opinion is therefore the common property of both the people -- who pay for the salaries of the lawyers in the Council's legal service -- and only indirectly the governments who only act as intermediaries, agents and servants for the people who pay. This argument provides no ground that the Legal Opinion, presently inside the Council building and on its computers, all paid for by public taxes, should be restricted to the agents and servants of the people and refused to the people themselves. The citizens are the owners of the Opinion. The document should therefore be released.

4. You state that providing me with a copy of the legal advice 'could have the effect that comprehensive legal advice is not requested in similarly sensitive situations in the future, thereby seriously affecting the relevant decision-making processes on such issues.' This is clearly in contradiction with the major principles of European treaties: openness and democracy. Even the Lisbon treaty makes this clear in black and white. The Union is based on representative democracy (TEU Art 10), that the Council and European Council is democratically accountable (Art 10) every citizen has the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union -- including having access to information; and decisions should be taken as openly and as closely as possible to the citizens (paras 1 to 4). Article 11 says that the institutions shall, by appropriate means, give citizens and representative associations the opportunity to make known and publicly exchange their opinions. Legal Opinions about the essential legal structures involving the entire economic and monetary structure of the EU or even 25 Member States must be part of that exchange of opinions. Openness is further emphasized in TFEU Art 15: the Council should 'conduct its work as openly as possible.' This also says that the Council should meet in public when considering draft legislation (para 2). It makes nonsense of this Lisbon treaty, European Law and hard-won democracy if the consideration of any matter that refers to the Legal Opinion should be silenced from the public ear. In a Council open to the public will all direct and indirect references to this secret document be expunged from the airwaves and from the record? The only motive for that is to protect the dubious actions of ministers, not the public. This is ridiculous. The public has a right to know. The document should be released.

5. You state that the Legal Opinion 'analyses the possibilities and conditions in general for conferring jurisdiction on the European Court of Justice by agreement.' By agreement of whom? It is against the principles of democracy and openness that, for example, a dubious practice is subject to collusion among those who are responsible. Access to Justice should not be restricted by those guilty of crooked practice. The EU is presently suffering from a number of cases where the ministers have refused to take warnings about fraud, maladministration and malpractice in a number of Member States. As a result multiple hundreds of billions of euros are being raised in loans to deal with the problem. Future generations will have to pay. The Council's record with the Court also raises the alarm. In 2004, a number of Member States governments were condemned by the European Court of Justice and not only refused to take the action required by the Court but shrugged their shoulders at taking the Court seriously. This sentence in the reply therefore underlines all the more the reason why the Legal Opinion should be provided to the public.

6. As to the substance of the Legal Opinion relative to the jurisdiction of the European Court in the Fiscal Treaty signed by 25 Member States, there are three possibilities.
(a) The draft treaty lies fully inside the jurisdiction of the EU Court of Justice. In this case there is no need to hide the Legal Opinion as it endorses the juridical powers and oversight of the Court in all activities of Member states within the draft treaty.
(b) The draft treaty does not fall inside EU activities and EU law. In this case it is imperative that the Legal Opinion be published immediately so that the matter can be discussed within Member States' parliaments and by the public in general. Otherwise the Council could be considered a party to fraud.
(c) The draft treaty is a dubious construction. In this case it must be borne in mind above all that the Council is not a private organisation. It represents the governments of the people. It is not authorized to act as a cartel of political parties that wink at dubious practice with Community money. Is the Council proposing to go to Court against the people? Is it at war with the justice of the EU Court of Justice? If the draft treaty is of dubious construction then the sooner the Legal Opinion is released the better, both for the people, and the Court and for the Council.

7. You cite Regulation 1049/2001 in two places of Article 4, that you say supports your exemption from disclosure. In fact they do exactly the opposite. They urge that full disclosure must be met.

Article 4 para 1 (a).4. The institutions shall refuse access to a document where
disclosure would undermine the protection of:
(a) the public interest as regards:

— the financial, monetary or economic policy of the Community or a Member State.

Exempting or refusing disclosure of the Legal Opinion would only help monetary and economic policy if it were fraudulent. The integrity of the European Economic system demands the full understanding as to whether the draft treaty falls fully under the rule of law and does not unjustly impinge on citizens' interests. The Legal Opinion should therefore be immediately released so that Parliament and public can understand the legal, moral, social, economic and monetary principles and values on which it is based.

Article 4 para 2.2. The institutions shall refuse access to a document where
disclosure would undermine the protection of:

— court proceedings and legal advice,

unless there is an overriding public interest in disclosure.

An overriding public interest in full disclosure does exist as it it is everyone's interest that the treaty should be solidly, democratically founded and on complete justice and openness. The Opinion does not involve a case of an individual or association or one Member State against another or an institution, the main ground for the article indent. The exemption does not apply as it deals with the framework of law, the legitimacy of the draft treaty. The Legal Opinion should therefore be released immediately.

8. It is essential that the Legal Opinion be released in the present circumstances. A great deal of legislation and a number of treaties are being proposed at the moment in very disturbing and unorthodox processes. Decisions involving sums of money multiple times the whole annual budget of the EU are being arranged in closed door meetings by politicians -- often in the dead of night. The public needs to have a clear understanding of what is going on.

When it comes to this draft treaty, the contents and interaction with the institutions, already under stress and disoriented by non-democratic abuse, are difficult for the average citizen to fathom. It is not clear whether this treaty comes under the Community or EU rule of law. It is also a very technical matter where the citizen needs help in understanding the legal issues.

Failure to disclose is totally against the letter and the spirit of the legislation on democratic transparency. The aim of the transparency legislation is to ensure clear and open democracy, not hinder it. The drafting of the draft treaty was also conducted in abnormal ways. These irregularities should not be compounded by subtle or hidden blocking mechanisms in legal access to the Court of Justice, thus obstructing the right of every individual, association, and Member State of the Union.

It is essential therefore that the Legal Opinions of all the institutions are published in full. As the Council -- or a certain group of Member States who are also part of the Council -- are the prime movers in this operation, the Council services should set the example of openness and expel any suspicion of dubious practice.

I am therefore requesting the immediate release of the Legal Opinion, document 5788/12 and any other document on the draft treaty. I confirm that my name and this reply may be held on the register.

Yours etc,

Schuman.info

I am awaiting a reply. And the Legal Opinion.

Budget 10: The EU Cartel's dirty Trillion-Euro Game of Hide-and-Seek with Taxpayer's money

Did you read about the passionate debate about the 2012 Budget? Did you hear about the how Parliament minutely and forensically interrogated the Commission about taxpayer's money? Did you see how the Commissioner cowered as MEPs tore into the illogicality of its proposals? Did you cheer on seeing the riveting television when Parliamentarians shredded the arguments of Council of Ministers, declaring that they could not raise a cent of YOUR tax money without proper OPEN, DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATION?

Are you now fully aware about HOW and WHY the EU leaders take European tax from your pocket and HOW MUCH it spends on your behalf and WHERE? Did you see how 27 democratic States of Europe vigorously debated their common budget in the European Union?

NEITHER DID I !!!

The MAIN Debate on the 2012 Budget was IN SECRET! AGAIN!! The doors of the room 5G3 in the Spinelli Building of the Brussels Parliament were closed on 8 November 2011. I asked for admittance showing my press credentials. I also said that I was a journalist. I was asked whether I was part of the Council delegation. I said: No. I was then asked, if I was part of the Commission delegation. I said: No. I was asked if I was with the Parliament. I said: No.

I re-affirmed that I was a journalist and wanted to report about the raising of European taxes and the spending of taxpayers' money. I said it was a matter of the highest public interest. The Guardians of the Door who had a list of those who their bosses wanted to be admitted, refused to let me enter.

The European Union is now deep in the mire of a financial and monetary crisis. Both the finances and the money lack democratic legitimacy. At the heart of these problems is the illicit take-over of what are supposed to be independent institutions by a clique of politicians. Thus an oligarchic clique in Council dictates what 500 million citizens should do and how much they should pay. They also tell them what is good for them, whether they agree or not.

Consider. Who is in charge of the independent institutions?

When asked,

• The Parliament says the meetings on raising and spending taxes should be open.
• The European Commission says such meetings should be open.
• The Consultative Committees don't reply but they have open meetings.
• The Treaties say that all meetings from the initial consideration of tax and all stages about tax legislation should be open.
• Taxpayers demand that all meetings about taxation should be open, fair and just.
• The Council refuses to have open meetings.

There is a simple remedy in all the treaties from the founding treaty of 1951 to the Lisbon Treaty. ASK THE COURT TO DECIDE WHO IS RIGHT. Any national, regional Court or local tribunal where a civil association or even any individual is in dispute over European tax can have its judge ask the European Court for a judgment on the legality of the Council's 'secret taxation' system.

The European finances and the money system are controlled undemocratically by a coalition of the three major parties. Let us call it the Cartel. There is no real democratic Government and certainly no Opposition. The institutional independence required in the treaties is being systematically suspended by the Coup Leaders. The Cartel overrides the institutions.

• The European Commission, which is supposed to be composed of totally independent personalities, is now EXCLUSIVELY composed of card-carrying members of the political parties. They are chosen in secret. No real European is allowed to put his or her name forward. No Call for Candidates is allowed to be published for the posts that are paid for by taxpayers. All 27 States act in undemocratic unison.
• The Council of Ministers, which is supposed to represent national interests in a continuous open debate is now composed of a clique of party politicians who refuse to have proper discussions in the national parliaments or allow referendums. It is very far from its original role of initiating debate in the States with all the citizens that they supposedly represent. It is now a clique designed to stifle and stop debate at home.
• The European Parliament, which is supposed to hold the Commission to task, having the power to fire the Commission for incompetence or dereliction of duty, has become the Chorus for the Commission, now the Cartel secretariat, and other stronghold of the cartel, the Council. When it agreed to the Lisbon Treaty -- without even publishing the full text -- the Parliament gave up its PRIME POWER. The Lisbon Treaty made it impossible for the Parliament to sack the Commission. The Parliament, needless to say, has NEVER had an election according to the specifications of the treaties: direct elections according to a single statute for all Member States, not 27 statutes which favour the Cartel and eliminate other voices of citizens.
• The Consultative Committees, a vital debating and legislating chamber of organized civil society has NEVER been elected on a European basis. Schuman and Reuter (who was responsible for drafting the early treaties) declared the efforts of governments to prevent these elections ILLEGAL.

Who stopped the application of supranational democracy of the treaties? Who blocked a single statute for Parliamentary elections (when the Parliament had the courage to propose it)? Who stopped the Consultative Committees having elections for European organised societies?

The politicians in the Council of Ministers and now the European Council and its unofficial super-Eurogroup.

Why are the doors closed on Budget and Tax discussions? Who shut the doors?

A year ago I wrote to the President of the European Parliament about the closed doors of the Budget meeting of October 2010. I got no reply so I asked the Ombudsman to help.

On 1 June 2011, Mr Buzek replied:

As you know, the European Parliament's policy is one of full openness and transparency in such meetings. Our own plenary sessions are public, as well as, in principle, committee meetings (exceptions to this rule are rare and must be duly motivated). Equally, the Treaty of Lisbon established the principle that Council should deliberate in public on legislative matters.

In the light of these factors, a discussion is currently on-going within the European Parliament concerning the status of conciliation meetings. However, I must draw your attention to the fact that any decision concerning public access to conciliation meetings requires an agreement of all the institutions involved, which has not been reached yet. As you will understand, it is not possible for the Parliament to impose unilaterally an 'open door' policy for such meetings. We will continue to work to find a satisfactory solution...

Comment: The fact that the doors are closed must have the agreement of all those 'democrats' who are attending and are responsible to the public. The public demand open meetings, especially on taking tax and spending tax. Do the 'democrats' lack the courage of their convictions? Who has priority -- their electors or the politician-Cartelmasters in Council? Schuman and the Founding Fathers said the doors of European institutions including the Councils should be open so that the public can control what goes on. The Parliament has had SIXTY years from its foundational session on 10 September 1952 when it first met to resolve this problem of openness. How much more time does it require? Secondly the treaties provide a simple solution. The Court of Justice is empowered to decide on the interpretation of the Treaties -- in particular whether all matters of taxation should follow the same rules on open debates about taxation as all the democracies that make up the EU. The Parliament is empowered to initiate the case.

What happens at budget meetings when the Council is not present? They SHUT THE DOORS TOO. This happened at the meeting of the Parliament leaders and the Commission on the one Trillion euro multi-annual Budget for 2013-2020. It was held in Parliament on 29 June 2011, on the sixth floor of the Spaak Building. Paul-Henri Spaak, the first president of the European Parliament would have shot up bolt upright in his grave!

The supposedly democratic institutions want one TRILLION from Taxpayers -- but they were not going to tell them why, how they would go about it or whether there was any collusion between two institutions to do a dirty deal against the citizen!

Is the Council to blame for the secret Tax and Budget meeting when it is absent? Why was the meeting of the Commission and Parliament closed to the public? It is time for the so-called Democrats to clean up their act. It is the unseen hand of the Council that shuts the door -- and pulls the strings.

On 4 July 2011, I therefore wrote again to President Buzek.

Schuman Project
www.schuman.info

Dear President Buzek,
Thank you for your reply of 1 June 2011 to my letter of November 2010 concerning the exclusion of the press and the public from the Budget Conciliation Meetings in October and later on. (Ombudsman case 661/2011/RT) You mention that the Parliament's policy 'is one of full openness and transparency in such meetings' as the Budget. I am pleased to see your re-affirmation of Parliament's responsibility towards the public -- which is written into the treaties. The idea of a Parliament holding secret sessions is a contradiction of its purpose. Any exceptions must be reasoned with irrefutable logic, be properly motivated and democratically agreed and underpinned by law and jurisprudence. There should be no hint of political expediency. The principle must be that the public is also the partner of any democratic institution.

Because of past corruption, financial misappropriations and abuse of Wine Lakes, Meat Mountains and infrastructure funding scandals, the Lisbon Treaty spelt out clearly, as you say, the 'principle that the Council should deliberate in public on legislative matters.'

However I am at a loss as to why Parliament sees any question about the necessary public presence at the conciliation meetings. Nor do I understand why public access must stop when the Council acts contrary to what Parliament is convinced is the Treaty law for Europe. Public access and democratic debate is the paramount principle, not the whims and fancies of Council. Surely Parliament is an independent institution according to the law of the treaties and has been since the first session of the assembly on 10 September 1952 -- nearly 60 years ago.

You write that 'The status of the discussion in Council is a matter for which the Council, not the Parliament, is responsible'. Surely the reverse applies equally. The Council must respect the laws of the Treaties and rules of Parliament. If as you say the Parliament is convinced of the legality of its case, it should not hesitate an instant to defend the rights of the public, especially when a meeting takes place inside a building of Parliament, where you, Mr President, and the Members are legally sovereign.

Public access to meetings considering the collection and use of the citizens’ own money should not be in dispute anywhere. It should certainly not be a matter where Council bullies Parliament or any other body. If there is any doubt about the right of the public and the press to attend a meeting about their own money inside the independent European Parliament, there is a simple remedy in all the Treaties since 1951. The Parliament can ask the Court of Justice for an opinion on the interpretation of the treaties and validity of acts under article 267 TFEU and elsewhere. Any tribunal throughout the entire EU can do the same.
I would like to know why this has not been done.

The second question relates to Budget meetings where the Council did not play any part. On 29 June 2011, I was also excluded from the Budget meeting of the Parliament and the Commission. Why? The Parliament was considering the Commission's proposals for the Trillion euro multi-annual financial framework. It is huge money from the public's pocket. All political parties were represented at the meeting and their reaction was of primary public interest and concern. Article 15 of Lisbon Treaty TFEU states that all matters concerning the consideration of budget and legislation should be open to the public. I spoke to a member of Mr Barroso's Cabinet who was also present inside the meeting but he was unable to explain to me the reason for the press exclusion from the point of view of the Commission. On his recommendation I am therefore writing to you for an explanation.

In this case, blame for the exclusion cannot be sloughed off on the Council. The Commission says it is the Parliament’s responsibility.

The treaties and the jurisprudence state clearly that openness and consultation are required for legislation. The secrecy, the hidden political reactions and the refusal to consult the public throw in doubt the legality of previous 'legislation' because it is based on unjustly excluding the public presence and refusing proper consultation of the public and taxpayers in particular. Money cannot legally be taken from a taxpayer's pocket in a manner where the taxpayer is excluded from understanding how an exclusive group who will benefit highly from his money are proposing to seize it, what their first proposals are and the reactions among them. This is especially important when it comes to European matters involving vast sums, massive planning, specifics of revenue collection and taxation and principles of budgetary operations. It is all the more illegitimate when exclusion is decided by a coalition of people all holding party membership cards. They all have similar ideological motives. Party membership represents only about 2 percent of the population. The vast majority of electors refused to vote for any of the parties in the elections. The trend of party support is also continually downwards. It is this small but strong and persistent cartel of party members who refused press and public access in the Council and the Parliament. This is unjust.

Non-party political Civil Society and Organized Civil Society has now been excluded from the institutions where they used to be active in the Commission and in the Consultative Committees (which have legal rights about legislation). Tax and budget decisions are now exclusively made by party politicians contrary to the letter and spirit of the treaties. The Commission is also exclusively occupied by politically active national politicians whereas the original treaties say they should be independent, not maintain their occupation, paid or not, nor take instructions from any organisation or government. The result is that legislation lacks democratic legitimacy.

I am therefore asking you to also reply to the following:
1. The EP should make access for the public and the press permanently available via a physical presence inside the committee room and also for others via the internet and radio and television links.
2. It should ask the Court of Justice to review the legality of the previous acts where the budget discussions were held in secret, contrary to public interest and the Lisbon Treaty and other treaties. Public consultation, debate and democratic openness are legal requirements. The longer it is before this review is made, the more serious the outcome could be. A local or national court or tribunal in the EU will eventually ask according to article 267 for a European Court judgement, opinion or ruling determining the legitimacy of all such alleged legislation including the budgets under the Lisbon Treaty. The most chaotic outcome should be avoided.
3. The EP should, where possible, hold these same Budget meetings again in public so that they can be considered legal and so the public can be aware of the issues and discussions involved in the Budget and expenditures. The public needs to have an opportunity to object to any secret deals among party members and communicate their own opinions to their representatives. After all it is the public’s money that is being discussed. It is not the private funds of the political parties.
4. The Commission, Council and Parliament should review and propose how organized civil society in a properly elected Economic and Social Committee and other such consultative committees with a legal mandate can contribute to the budget proposals. The Founding Fathers intended and the treaties allow that the Consultative Committees should be elected among all registered European associations – as is presently the case in the Council of Europe. Direct elections for the European Parliament under a single mandate were also foreseen and legitimized in the treaties of Paris, 1951 and Rome, 1957 but this took decades to be even partially realized.

Mr President, I look forward to receiving your reply.

Many thanks for your help.

Yours etc,

Not having received a reply in the subsequent months, I have now written again asking for a reply.

Euro7: Who will stop euro crooks mortgaging the future? Not their buddies and comrades!

Parliamentarians in the UK are discussing a referendum -- promised by all three major parties. When the parties came to power, what happened? No referendum. It is still refused. The referendum would ask the public about the desire of some UK citizens to leave the EU or modify its membership. Why do so many Britons want to leave? Corruption of politics by what they see as an opaque, undemocratic cartel of power in Brussels. The parties at home who refuse their pledges also look like they have the same disease -- dishonesty.

The euro is just one example. Politicians, meeting in secret, want to mortgage future generations so grandchildren will have to pay off TRILLIONS of debt. These secret meetings in the eurogroup and in the so-called European Council of the euro States want to illegally use the Community framework to deal with amounts of money multiple times the entire EU budget.

Consider. The entire multi-annual budget for the whole EU for seven years from 2013 to 2020 amounts to ONE trillion euros. The secret politicians' cabal wants to use the EU framework to raise funds on the markets who are betting against them. They want many times the amount of that entire EU budget, two, three maybe more trillions. The comparatively tiny EU budget is not yet decided. Worse it is not subject to proper democratic control. Journalists and the public are refused entry to the deliberations of so-called democratic institutions on that EU budget.

The journalists and the public are even more restricted from Eurogroup meetings. They are given a briefing afterwards, if they are lucky, usually in the middle of the night. The trouble is the chairman of the eurogroup has said several times that he has to lie to journalists, when he is dealing merely with the timing of possible meetings on the euro. If he admits he is dishonest outside the meetings about their calendar, how can journalists and the public know that anything politicians say is going on inside the meetings is not also a lie?

A currency is based on confidence. Schuman who was faced with many currency problems, not only devaluations of the French Franc but secrets about the Pound Sterling and the Deutschmark and about launching the free gold market. He had to keep secrets, legitimately. He was surrounded by would-be saboteurs. Then he announced publicly to everyone the creation of the European Community. The Schuman Proposal gave birth to the European currency as a likely product.

He had a horror of lies. He was asked at the end of his career: 'Do politicians have the right to lie?' He said: 'You must not lie, not even in politics.' (Rochefort, p22).

It was part of his success as a Minister of Finance and Prime Minister. However, he added: 'People say that I am honest. Being honest, for a minister of finance, is not sufficient.'

Today Schuman's Europe has meetings called 'Councils of Ministers' with heads of State and Government. Are they European Councils? How can they be with only 17 of 27 Member States present? Are they just ministers holding a Council of Ministers or are they rather more as presidents and prime ministers? They are masquerading as EU official meetings. Is that honest? These are not official meetings of the EU under the Lisbon Treaty or any other treaty.

The so-called European Summits of these government leaders dealing with the euro have also nothing to do with official meetings of the treaties. It is a multinational conference meeting INFORMALLY in the EU offices. The Council of Ministers must have representatives of 27 sovereign States.

The politicians even try to make out it is part of the legal frame by fraudulently using Council letterhead paper. Supranational democracy has five key institutions. Any attempt to create counterfeit institutions is a sure sign both of fraud outside and mischief inside.

You can see why the democrats including a large number of Britons are fed up and some are enraged at the unethical management of mega money in the EU. If any politician thinks that by amassing a few more trillions in the betting game against the markets, he will convince anyone that no fraud is involved, he is gambling with public money in the wrong game at the wrong moment. And without the public's assent.

It is high time to come clean and put in REAL democratic reform.

Is it possible for government leaders to clean out corruption in government accounts, even throw out member States in the euro for fraudulent practice? The European cabal in the European Council says NO. No Member State can leave the euro, they say!

It is extraordinary that all the clever lawyers in Brussels say that it is impossible for EU delinquent countries to leave the euro zone. They have come up in the past with some pretty contorted interpretations of law to suit their political masters. Leaving the EU is possible but leaving the euro is impossible?? even for mega fraud involving fixing national and European statistics, corruption and thereby secretly indebting the whole Union? This view encourages moral hazard for the future, that is corruption.

Think. The clever lawyer-politicians could use the same 'exit clause' to clean up the game. They won't. If a tennis club has admitted a bunch of crooks who are taking all the resources and hogging the finances, it has two alternatives. One it can ask the crooked partners to leave. If they refuse then the honest members can all leave and reshape a new Community based on law, moral and ethical principles that have to be observed by all.

The European Council will not do this because there is a political clique that takes mega fraud– that is fraud at the government level with public money — as fundamental to the rules of their club. Example: All governments want to go on a spending spree BEFORE elections — not with party money but with State money, that is, taxpayers’ money. Is this a politicians’ perk or is it plain fraud, corruption and bribery? Companies would be taken to court for this. What sanction have the public against crooks in government who see public money as pocket money to get votes?

Some States have clean booking. The Community must learn that what applies to the honest nation States also applies to a Community of sovereign, democratic States, their governments and their peoples. We are now in clean up time for Europe.

EuroStat, the EU's statistical organ, long warned about fraudulent practice. Politicians had many such reports before, dating from when Commission President Roy Jenkins warned that Greece had serious problems even before it elbowed ahead of other candidate States to enter the Communities in 1981. It had buddy-buddy power not ethical purity. Inaction before obvious moral hazard became ingrained in the Council of Ministers with their buddy-buddy and comrade-comrade culture.

The so-called reforms of finances and debt with the six pack still suffer from the main defect: they leave all the levers of abuse in the hands of the perpetrators of excess debt and fraudulent accounts and statistics — the political clique or cartel. Only card-carrying members of the main political parties — the cartel — are power brokers. The reaction is similar to what commercial cartels normally do — ask for more power to regulate themselves, while refusing independent control to the citizens’ groups over the accounts.

At present the EU is not only NOT dealing fully with correcting the abuses of politicians by instituting proper measures of control of finance through elections of organised civil society through the Consultative Committees, it is refusing the most obvious ways to stem massive and continuous mega-fraud on VAT for example. Hundreds of billions are involved in ‘carousel fraud’. It is refusing to stem energy blackmail where oil / gas rises from 9 dollars /barrel in 1999 to 146 dollars in less than a decade. That price hike is typical action of a cartel too, OPEC and friends. The EU needs to develop proper energy INDEPENDENCE.

The life of the Community is at stake. The Warning about the jihadi attempt to DESTROY Western capitalism was made on 9/11 and recorded in 2001 at the European Commission and re-published as http://www.schuman.info/energypol.htm .

The politicians have had a decade to do some REAL reform. They have worsened the problem. They have had thirty years since Greece joined and it and others began to misspend Community money. Instead of insisting on reforms in the 1980s they gave more public money. If Greece is serious about reform it should look at the examples of Slovakia and Latvia. They work.

If the politicians are serious they should start the reforms by empowering independent, non-party organised civil society to act as their supervisors for their moral and ethical conduct, not party buddies in the European Parliament and the Commission where non-party, independent people are now banned.

A party oligarchy controlling all the institutions will expose Europeans to never having a referendum again. They may have no say at all as the reckless politicians fritter away money they do not have in a bottomless blackhole of debt.

Future generations will be the slaves of the debt masters.

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.