Calling for the creation of a State of Palestine in 2011 is an obvious incitement to political FRAUD. It has all the hallmarks of what Robert Schuman warned democrats would lead to a disaster. 'Nothing is easier for political counterfeiters to exploit good principles for an illusion, and nothing is more disastrous than good principles that are badly applied.' In that he was agreeing with two French philosophers, Bergson and Maritain.
In 1948 the government of the Holy Land changed its name from 'Palestine' to Israel. Previously it was the Jews who mainly bore the name Palestinians. The Arab population preferred to call themselves simply as Arabs, or Bedouins but more often villagers of a certain place. Nationalism was not a factor.
After World War One, the lack of any strong national identity presented western nations with a problem. When the victorious Allied powers divided up the Ottoman empire and freed the peoples from the yoke of control from Istanbul, they had to carve the borders according to lines on a map, not natural or ethnic boundaries. Ancient Persia had also lost its geographical identity. The other nations had had their boundaries completely changed by the invasion of the Huns, Mongols and Arabs. Massive migrations of populations took place in the first millennium.
The only indigenous people who were sure about boundaries were the Jews. Western people educated in history were also familiar with the boundaries of ancient Israel.
Some of those living in Palestine called themselves southern Syrians. Then there was a large influx of Arabs in the nineteenth century from neighbouring countries who wanted to benefit from the economic revival under the Jews. Many accounts speak of how barren and bare the land was before the immigration of educated Jews.
In this post-Ottoman period after WW1, when the world powers agreed legally to a Mandate to return the land to the Jews, the term Palestine was used. This was because it was the 'normal' but anti-Semitic term that Europeans had used for the land of Israel since around the time of emperor Hadrian in the second century CE. Many in the so-called 'Christian' West did not consider that the term Palestine was abusive.
It was a Latin word used of a long-extinct troublesome mini-state of the Philistines in the extended area of Gaza. The use of iron instead of bronze was known in ancient times, but the Hittites in what is now eastern Turkey were among the first to produce iron goods on an intensive scale. Iron was previously found in meteorites, the mysterious stones that fell from the heavens. They had religious significance. The Egyptian pharaoh, Tutankhamun, had a magnificent steel dagger obtained by his father from the Hittites.
Iron technology is quite different from copper or bronze. The early iron was an oddity. It was brittle and of little practical use, unless special and secret techniques were applied. It also required higher temperatures. It was later found iron ore could produce the same results if special furnaces funneling the prevailing winds could cause the charcoal to blaze extra hot. A range of other trade secrets were developed by the iron-smiths who learned how to make the metal stronger than bronze.
The Philistines in the Gazan towns seemed to have made a cartel agreement with the Hittite empire (or Hatti). That way they could deal with the Egyptians and traders to the east. While the Philistines were not particularly numerous, they were powerfully backed and the iron monopoly gave them power over the Israelites and far beyond in the Grecian islands. They were able to forbid the Israelites from even owning iron tools at the time of the Israelite judges such as Samson. With more abundant iron they could not only make swords but chariot wheels and other armoury that helped them easily to subjugate the surrounding nations.
The cartel power was however as fragile like the early, unskilled iron. The Philistines were also the weak point of this international military-industrial complex. It is there that the Samson, a Danite judge, attacked and brought the cartel-complex down.
Archaeologists have discovered that Philistine houses were often supported on central pillars. Samson destroyed the assembled Philistine leadership by demolishing the two central pillars of the crowded temple of Dagon (Judges 16). With hundreds or thousands of the leaders killed, Philistine power collapsed and they were reduced and eventually exterminated by the Assyrians. The Hittite Empire which also had a highly central administrative structure was invaded and collapsed around this time. The surrounding nations that had suffered cruelly under this oppression made sure that the Philistines disappeared from existence.
The Romans applied the term Philistia or Palestine to the land of the vanquished Jews because of the enormous efforts the Roman Empire had had to destroy Jewish freedom of thought under Vespasian, Titus 67-73 and Hadrian 132-4 CE. The Roman name Palestina implied that it was the land of a totally extinct empire. It had been dead a thousand years. It could be interpreted to mean Dead-as-a-Dodo land.
The Roman enemy name, Palestina, applied only to the land. Nearly all Jews were cleared out. The land reverted to the name of the state of the Philistines that had existed a thousand years before the Roman-Jewish Wars. The state and all its people, the Palestinians or Philistines, were long extinct. Nobody in Roman times called themselves Palestinians even though the land was called Palestina. It was just a bad, anti-Semitic joke. The people called themselves Syrians the name of the Roman province. Some of the Jews who managed to live there were also called Syrians. There are gravestones of 'Syrians' around the Roman Empire, some witness to the fact that some of the 'Syrians' were Jews.
The use of the term Palestine for the Mandate of the League of Nations was bizarre and insensitive. Yet that was how the League and the United Nations created an international legal system to return the land of Israel to the Jews. Palestine was the name of an extinct race, dead for 2800 years. Geographically it defined what must be returned to the Jews, not "Palestinians".
If there were no Palestinians in Roman times how can there be ethnic Palestinians today? Did the people who were dead for the best part of a millennium, spring up and beget children?
If nowadays people call themselves Palestinians it shows (1) they are ignorant of history (2) they are a complete fraud because the Palestinians or Philistines were extinct in 800 BCE; (3) they are anti-Semites because the name of Palestine since Roman times is anti-Semitic abuse. We can add a fourth conclusion: They think that the rest of the world are as ignorant and fraudulent as they are.
Anyone who claims a Palestinian State is an utter fraud and anyone who says he sincerely supports them is foolish. The Europeans set on this self-delusion when after the massive deployment of the Oil Weapon it agreed to the Venice Declaration of 1980. Oil prices in the 1970s were quadrupled and quadrupled again by the oil cartel. A total embargo of oil was targeted on European States who refused to trade the truth for lies under these blackmail conditions. The Europeans agreed to pay for the 'Palestinians'. They began to pay, and pay, and pay. Now European taxpayers are paying for more than half of the cost of all Arab Palestinian refugees, their children and their children's children. All Jewish Palestinian refugees arising from the illegal invasion by Syrian, Egyptians, Jordanian and other foreign armies that were registered under UNRWA have been re-settled more than sixty years ago. The displaced Arab Palestinians were refused a proper home in Arab countries.
Consider an equivalent potential fraud case. The Celtic Britons have been in the British Isles about three thousand years. When the Romans left, some Anglo-Saxon tribes were originally invited to support the Britons in the fifth century. They called the native Celtic Britons the Welsh. What does Welsh mean in Anglo-Saxon? It means Foreigner!
Now consider someone who arrived in the last few years and says I am owner of the British Isles and I can prove it. I am of a tribe which calls itself, Foreigner! That is a double fraud, the use of a name initiated by a later arrival and the name itself obviously fraudulent for an indigenous people.
It is obviously a fraud to claim to come from an extinct nation. Anyone who calls himself Palestinian is a fraud who does not know where the name came from -- the Romans.
If a group, a would-be nation, does not have a history, then it is not a nation. It does not deserve to be considered a nation. It is merely a group of peoples, some who have lived there plus many who arrived only a year or two before 1948.
If this type of fraud becomes a common place other nations had better watch out. Turkey for example. Maybe some group will claim they are descendants of the Hittites, another empire that disappeared from history. No Hittite appears to have been around for more or less the same period. There is no genealogical connection. No trace of continuity. No trace of the blood-lines. How would Turkey react if some Arab migrants now said they were ancient Hittites and claimed all of eastern Turkey? What if they bought favours with oil largesse and blackmail and took the case to the United Nations? Would the other nations in the United General Assembly know or care that the Hittites, and their empire disappeared 3000 years ago?
The reason the nations of the world decided that 'Palestine' should be returned to the Jews was simple. Jews had continuously prayed that they would return to the land during the two thousand years of exile. They mourn the loss of the Temple many times during each year. They remembered the loss of Jerusalem and Israel for more years than most of the States of the world have existed.
Those who managed to move to their ancestral land despite massive persecution tended the graves of their patriarchs, there. Joseph's and Joshua's tombs were tended at Shechem. Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Israel and other patriarchs were honoured near Hebron, and Rachel's near Bethlehem. They kept up the rituals for celebrating their forefathers that had with extreme difficulty been handed down over centuries by courageous Jews who returned. The presence and the claim for the land of Israel has been continuous for two thousand years.
King David is also commemorated in Hebron as he is in the city of David, Jerusalem. Under David the cartel was broken and iron was produced in abundance, 1Chron 22. The earth of the land is full of archaeological treasures proving this Israelite connection, including seals of personalities mentioned in the Bible. The 2000-year old Dead Sea Scrolls containing parts of nearly all the books in the Hebrew Bible were found in the Judean desert, on the so-called 'West Bank'. Today some Hebrews can trace their genealogies back to the twelve tribes of Israel. It is an obligation and condition for priests, Levites and Israelites when they participate in some the synagogue rituals of the community worldwide.
There were no finds of Philistines dating more recently than 2800 years ago! Palestinians and Philistines are extinct.
23 September, 2011
14 September, 2011
Eretz1:Democracies Beware! The Declaration of a SECOND Palestine is a Declaration of War!
If the European Union leadership supports the recognition of a new State called Palestine, it will be co-responsible for further conflict and war. The area has already seen too much death and destruction, hate and ignorance.
The Government of Palestine already exists. Its name is now Israel. Making a SECOND Palestine is a recipe for disaster. It will bring rivalry, conflict and a war of legitimacy. Encouraging this folly is encouraging a bloody catastrophe!
If European or other leaders recognize a SECOND Palestine, based on Saudi-style Sharia law and excluding Jews, Christians, Baha'is and other religions, it will initiate an endless conflict. It could well end in embroiling the EU and North America in a new Middle Eastern war. Ignorance is no excuse. Two Palestines cannot claim the same land. One is legitimate and the other is an outright fraud. One is tolerant, the other praises its martyrs or suicide bombers.
Which Palestine is the real one? Like the two women who came to King Solomon for judgement, only one can be the real mother of the baby that they disputed, 1Kings 3:16. Is it the one whose charter would eliminate all Jews and Christians?
Look at this document.
Note the letterhead: GOVERNMENT OF PALESTINE ! Note the city : JERUSALEM.
Before the State of Israel was proclaimed in 1948, a Government of Palestine existed with its capital at Jerusalem. This is a British Mandate official document. Note the British seal. The Mandate of Palestine was set up by international law to return the government of the Land of Israel to the people of Israel, who had been scattered, persecuted, tortured and terrorized for around 70 generations.
The text reads:
It is signed by an official called Salomon.
Mr Josef Pollak is Jewish and a Palestinian. At this time everyone in Paris and in Europe understood the term Palestinian to mean Jewish citizen under the Mandate living in the former Land of Israel.
What does PALESTINE mean? It is a Roman term. It is the Roman way of pronouncing Philistine. It was applied after the Roman Empire had wiped out the last effort at Jewish independence in the second century. It is anti-Semitic abuse. It was used to show that the land was cleared of Jews. Israel or Judah became Judenrein, (to use Hitler's term). That is Jews were for a time cleared out and banned from entering the own home territory. However over the succeeding centuries, the Jews re-entered and always maintained a presence there, not only in Judea and Samaria but also Gaza, the home of some Jewish sages.
Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople, nowadays called Istanbul. The Roman Empire finally fell when its capital at Constantinople was taken by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. In Europe people still used the term Palestine. It is found on old maps and those in many Bibles. It is not a Biblical name. The Christian 'New Testament' uses the term Land of Israel, even when the Romans were in control with the Herodian dynasty. (See Matthew chapter 2 v21).
Who were the Philistines, the Palestinians?
They were a small group of a few tens of thousands of people who occupied four or five towns in what is now the Gaza strip. They gained their power because of alliances with Egypt and some other Mediterranean powers because they sat on the gateway of the trading route between Mesopotamia, via Israel to Egypt. They also maintained a monopoly of the iron industry which was then the latest war technology. They succeeded in creating a cartel system in iron production with the Hittite empire in what is now Turkey, but this empire also disappeared from later history.
After wars with the Israelites and others, they were wiped out or absorbed three thousand years ago. The remaining Philistines living in the towns of Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, Gaza and Ekron were killed in the time of Joash king of Israel in the eighth century (see Amos 1:8). This was accomplished efficiently by the brutal Assyrians when they invaded from the N.E.
Today there are no Philistines in Ashdod or Ashkelon, nor Gaza or Gath. The Philistines no longer exist. Nor had they existed for centuries before Rome itself was founded. The Romans had to dig far back into history to find a insult big enough to abuse the Jews.
Why? Because the Jewish revolt in the first and second centuries involved the mobilisation of many of the Roman legions and a huge amount of imperial resources. That a small people could defy the Roman Empire was a huge insult to the imperial Caesars. It was not enough to slaughter them and render the remainder slaves of no worth. They chose to name the land after a small trading people of a few thousands that was a cause of irritation by their culture and war over the centuries.
The term Philistine still exists as an insult. It means uncultured person. Perhaps it derived its force from the fact that the Philistines ate dogs and pigs as archaelogy shows. The masses of drinking vessels show they were enthusiastic beer-drinkers, which was probably also a source of trouble.
In the same way the abusive term Palestine, that is, Philistia still existed as an insult until the last century. It is no surprise that Jews did not want to keep this vile name. There was never a State called Palestine nor a Government -- until the British revived the term and used it to create the Government of Palestine for the Jewish Homeland.
The British passports before the end of the Mandate are stamped
Palestinian Citizen.
That is exactly how the family of Moshe Dayan are classified. Information is written in English, Hebrew and Arabic. Both parents of Moshe Dayan, Dvora and Shmuel, and General Dayan himself were classified by the British under international law as Palestinians.
When foreign armies tried to invade the land, Dayan and other leaders resisted. (The black eye-patched Dayan lost an eye in Syria during WW2 fighting under British command.)
In 1948, the new government changed the name of their beleaguered country officially to what it had been two thousand years ago: ISRAEL.
Like the previous Government of Palestine, it comprised Jews and Arabs, Baha'is, Druzes, Muslims, Christians, atheists and agnostics and other religions in a multi-cultural Jewish State. It became the State and Government of Israel by the proclamation of a name change on 14 May 1948. The idea of tolerance comes directly from the Torah and the rest of the Bible.
You shall love your neighbour as yourself, Leviticus 19 v18.
Democracy, said Schuman, derives from exactly the same Biblical principles.
Some, perhaps most of the 'Arab' Palestinians as Ben Gurion observed were actually Jews who had for generations been in the land and had been forcefully converted to Islam. Recent DNA tests and analysis of their customs indicate it may be the majority of the residents.
Thus the Government of Palestine is now called the Government of Israel. This was the original intention of the Mandate system. After WW1, it was set in law by the Allies and agreed by nearly all the States of the world, who became members of the the League of Nations and then members of the United Nations. It is written in the UN Charter. Other States such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq which were part of the Ottoman Empire owe their legitimacy to these legal agreements as much as Israel.
The only thing that was not clear was the final designation of the name of the State. The choice of the name Israel was hardly a shock as it had been published by the British and other States for decades.
Thousand or millions of paper and metal documents attest to it. The identity of the Palestine with Israel was long recognized since the 1920s by the British and world authorities. How can Europeans, Americans and others know today? How can the leaders of the democracies be absolutely and legally sure that Palestine = Israel?
All they have to do is to look at any stamp or any coin of the Mandate period. There you will find Palestine in English, Hebrew and Arabic. You will also find two Hebrew letters Aleph Yod. This stands for Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel.
Every coin and every stamp of the period is living proof that Palestine Mandate territory and the Land of Israel are identical.
The Government of Palestine already exists. Its name is now Israel. Making a SECOND Palestine is a recipe for disaster. It will bring rivalry, conflict and a war of legitimacy. Encouraging this folly is encouraging a bloody catastrophe!
If European or other leaders recognize a SECOND Palestine, based on Saudi-style Sharia law and excluding Jews, Christians, Baha'is and other religions, it will initiate an endless conflict. It could well end in embroiling the EU and North America in a new Middle Eastern war. Ignorance is no excuse. Two Palestines cannot claim the same land. One is legitimate and the other is an outright fraud. One is tolerant, the other praises its martyrs or suicide bombers.
Which Palestine is the real one? Like the two women who came to King Solomon for judgement, only one can be the real mother of the baby that they disputed, 1Kings 3:16. Is it the one whose charter would eliminate all Jews and Christians?
Look at this document.
Note the letterhead: GOVERNMENT OF PALESTINE ! Note the city : JERUSALEM.
Before the State of Israel was proclaimed in 1948, a Government of Palestine existed with its capital at Jerusalem. This is a British Mandate official document. Note the British seal. The Mandate of Palestine was set up by international law to return the government of the Land of Israel to the people of Israel, who had been scattered, persecuted, tortured and terrorized for around 70 generations.
The text reads:
Dear Mr Erlanger,
This is to introduce Mr Josef Pollak a young Palestinian Singer who is to visit Paris.
It is signed by an official called Salomon.
Mr Josef Pollak is Jewish and a Palestinian. At this time everyone in Paris and in Europe understood the term Palestinian to mean Jewish citizen under the Mandate living in the former Land of Israel.
What does PALESTINE mean? It is a Roman term. It is the Roman way of pronouncing Philistine. It was applied after the Roman Empire had wiped out the last effort at Jewish independence in the second century. It is anti-Semitic abuse. It was used to show that the land was cleared of Jews. Israel or Judah became Judenrein, (to use Hitler's term). That is Jews were for a time cleared out and banned from entering the own home territory. However over the succeeding centuries, the Jews re-entered and always maintained a presence there, not only in Judea and Samaria but also Gaza, the home of some Jewish sages.
Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople, nowadays called Istanbul. The Roman Empire finally fell when its capital at Constantinople was taken by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. In Europe people still used the term Palestine. It is found on old maps and those in many Bibles. It is not a Biblical name. The Christian 'New Testament' uses the term Land of Israel, even when the Romans were in control with the Herodian dynasty. (See Matthew chapter 2 v21).
Who were the Philistines, the Palestinians?
They were a small group of a few tens of thousands of people who occupied four or five towns in what is now the Gaza strip. They gained their power because of alliances with Egypt and some other Mediterranean powers because they sat on the gateway of the trading route between Mesopotamia, via Israel to Egypt. They also maintained a monopoly of the iron industry which was then the latest war technology. They succeeded in creating a cartel system in iron production with the Hittite empire in what is now Turkey, but this empire also disappeared from later history.
After wars with the Israelites and others, they were wiped out or absorbed three thousand years ago. The remaining Philistines living in the towns of Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, Gaza and Ekron were killed in the time of Joash king of Israel in the eighth century (see Amos 1:8). This was accomplished efficiently by the brutal Assyrians when they invaded from the N.E.
'I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza ... and I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holds the sceptre from Ashkelon, and I will turn mine hand against Ekron and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish.'
Today there are no Philistines in Ashdod or Ashkelon, nor Gaza or Gath. The Philistines no longer exist. Nor had they existed for centuries before Rome itself was founded. The Romans had to dig far back into history to find a insult big enough to abuse the Jews.
Why? Because the Jewish revolt in the first and second centuries involved the mobilisation of many of the Roman legions and a huge amount of imperial resources. That a small people could defy the Roman Empire was a huge insult to the imperial Caesars. It was not enough to slaughter them and render the remainder slaves of no worth. They chose to name the land after a small trading people of a few thousands that was a cause of irritation by their culture and war over the centuries.
The term Philistine still exists as an insult. It means uncultured person. Perhaps it derived its force from the fact that the Philistines ate dogs and pigs as archaelogy shows. The masses of drinking vessels show they were enthusiastic beer-drinkers, which was probably also a source of trouble.
In the same way the abusive term Palestine, that is, Philistia still existed as an insult until the last century. It is no surprise that Jews did not want to keep this vile name. There was never a State called Palestine nor a Government -- until the British revived the term and used it to create the Government of Palestine for the Jewish Homeland.
The British passports before the end of the Mandate are stamped
Palestinian Citizen.
That is exactly how the family of Moshe Dayan are classified. Information is written in English, Hebrew and Arabic. Both parents of Moshe Dayan, Dvora and Shmuel, and General Dayan himself were classified by the British under international law as Palestinians.
When foreign armies tried to invade the land, Dayan and other leaders resisted. (The black eye-patched Dayan lost an eye in Syria during WW2 fighting under British command.)
In 1948, the new government changed the name of their beleaguered country officially to what it had been two thousand years ago: ISRAEL.
Like the previous Government of Palestine, it comprised Jews and Arabs, Baha'is, Druzes, Muslims, Christians, atheists and agnostics and other religions in a multi-cultural Jewish State. It became the State and Government of Israel by the proclamation of a name change on 14 May 1948. The idea of tolerance comes directly from the Torah and the rest of the Bible.
You shall love your neighbour as yourself, Leviticus 19 v18.
Democracy, said Schuman, derives from exactly the same Biblical principles.
Some, perhaps most of the 'Arab' Palestinians as Ben Gurion observed were actually Jews who had for generations been in the land and had been forcefully converted to Islam. Recent DNA tests and analysis of their customs indicate it may be the majority of the residents.
Thus the Government of Palestine is now called the Government of Israel. This was the original intention of the Mandate system. After WW1, it was set in law by the Allies and agreed by nearly all the States of the world, who became members of the the League of Nations and then members of the United Nations. It is written in the UN Charter. Other States such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq which were part of the Ottoman Empire owe their legitimacy to these legal agreements as much as Israel.
The only thing that was not clear was the final designation of the name of the State. The choice of the name Israel was hardly a shock as it had been published by the British and other States for decades.
Thousand or millions of paper and metal documents attest to it. The identity of the Palestine with Israel was long recognized since the 1920s by the British and world authorities. How can Europeans, Americans and others know today? How can the leaders of the democracies be absolutely and legally sure that Palestine = Israel?
All they have to do is to look at any stamp or any coin of the Mandate period. There you will find Palestine in English, Hebrew and Arabic. You will also find two Hebrew letters Aleph Yod. This stands for Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel.
Every coin and every stamp of the period is living proof that Palestine Mandate territory and the Land of Israel are identical.
07 September, 2011
Monnet8: Is Jean Monnet to blame for the euro crisis and the EU's financial black-hole?
Is Jean Monnet responsible for the euro debacle? Did a flaw in the 'Monnet Method' bring about today's financial crisis and the black hole into which billions of taxpayers' money are being poured? That's what one Eurocrat implied, as quoted in the Economist newsmagazine: 'The European Union was not designed to deal with a crisis'. Blame Jean Monnet, says the Economist's columnist, Charlemagne.
Eurocrats should know better. They should know more about the institution they work for, its values and its real history. Unfortunately Monnet and his over-enthusiastic fans and publicists set Europe on a false track. What exactly IS the 'Monnet Method'? You need to know: your bank balance may depend on understanding the facts!
Some politicians still believe that Jean Monnet was the architect behind the European Union. This is false, as any competent historian knows. Monnet did not invent the European Community; it was in existence before he even first uttered the term on 21 June 1950, regardless of the false claims of his Memoirs. Schuman announced the European strategy at the United Nations in 1949!
States can form international currencies with other States either by force or by means of a solid agreement. Alexander the Great used the first method 2300 years ago when he conquered the Medo-Persian empire and imposed his own monetary system, based on gold and silver. In nineteenth and early twentieth century some States agreed to the gold standard. But the Latin Monetary Union (1865- 1926) fell apart on disagreements about silver. Then first the UK (with the Sterling zone) and later the US, 1971, took their currency off the gold standard.
Any bad management of the dollar -- which is designed mainly for a domestic electorate -- has worldwide implications, and that includes wars and bloodshed. So does any other corrupt currency. (Monetary dishonesty encourages internal and external opponents to exploit the politicians' vulnerability.)
The depreciation of the dollar meant that Arab oil producers gained a little bit less for a barrel of oil. The Americans got the same barrel of oil. Although they were already hyper-rich, the oil sheikhs wanted more. They used this as one excuse to launch an attempted war of annihilation against Israel. The Arab exporters then realised that Americans and Europeans were 'hooked' on petroleum. They nationalised the oil companies. From then on they formed a cartel and succeeded to blackmail by the oil weapon and oil embargoes throughout the decade. Now Europe's Human Rights values are under threat by such States that wish to establish a Christian-free and anti-Semitic entity based on Saudi style Sharia law that they would call Palestine.
(Palestine is actually the name of the Jewish State that all the world's governments agreed to after WW1. It was a mandate given by the League of Nations to Palestinian Jews and confirmed by the United Nations in its Charter. The government of Palestine changed the name to Israel in 1948 when a State of Israel was proclaimed. When false or depreciating money reigns, Truth more easily becomes 'lies' and lies become the 'truth'.)
Thus any weakness or fraud in a monetary system has untold and often mammoth implications in politics. The reverse of this is also true. A solid, well-founded monetary system, based on sound ethics, has a major decontaminating and purifying effect on politics. Robert Schuman used to quote the Baron Louis, Finance Minister under France's Second Empire:
IF it is properly implemented, this Community approach provides the best hope for the future. The idea of a new European currency was announced by Robert Schuman in his Declaration of 9 May 1950. Schuman had great expertise in finance and monetary affairs and stabilized France's ruinous finances as Minister of Finance and Prime Minister. He criticised Hitler's ramshackle financial and monetary sysyem of the 1930s. Before the war he helped Austria defend itself financially against Nazi aggression. It nearly cost him his life when later he was arrested by the Gestapo. After the war he helped create the European Payments Union in July 1950. The politicians later abandoned this but had to try to re-invent it when they wanted to create the euro.
The creation of a supranational monetary system depends on fully understanding a supranational Community system. It is based on trust, that is democracy writ large. Here Monnet made a grave mistake.
Monnet's flawed action is another proof that he did not conceive of the idea of a supranational Community. When Paul Reuter, Schuman's legal aide, presented him with a draft document of the Schuman Declaration he crossed out the word, supranational, saying he did not like it. Nor was Monnet able to explain how the European Community was able to bring peace to nation States that had been at war almost continuously for 2000 years. Schuman could and did.
Some politicians say they are proceeding on the basis of the so-called 'Monnet Method'. What is the 'Monnet Method'? No one can properly define it. It is pure PR -- public relations hype. It is foisted on a public by a political class that did not want to deal with the spiritual fundamentals of democracy. It is a chimera that allows politicians to do what they like, without principles or even democratic accountability. That makes it an international system, not a supranational democratic one.
The supranational Community, in contrast, is a scientific discovery, to use Schuman's term, that requires education, training and another quality, humility, listening to others. It does not involve foisting treaties on people who have refused them in many referendums. Democracy, said Schuman, is at the service of the people and acts in agreement with the people.
What is a more serious accusation than aggrandisement is: Was Monnet responsible for the mess we are in? Was it his lack of understanding of the Community system that has led to the financial and monetary loopholes and hence the abuses now costing hundreds of billions of euros?
Monnet was only at the Commission (High Authority) of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) for a couple of years. His responsibility there was to see that the Treaty of Paris was fully implemented. It was not. He was to serve the people, all the people, including organized civil society. His period there was long enough to cause a loophole that the politicians made into an entrance and climbed in to do damage and get their fingers on to European money.
Monnet was instrumental in cutting out (in collusion with the politicians/ ministers) the democratic representation of organized civil society in the consultative committees. This was one of five essential organs for supranational Community.
In Monnet's time the first European Community had a Consultative Committee which was designed as its successors to be in close liaison with the Commission. It was divided into three sections: consumers of coal and steel products, entrepreneurs and trade unions working in the sectors. They kept a close watch on the money, how it was raised and how it was spent. They made sure that the budget was balanced. In those days there was a European tax and it was spent according to the wishes of the taxpayers.
The Treaty of Paris said that the Consultative Committee should be elected on a European basis. However, there were no European associations in some areas. The treaty said that the first Consultative Committee could create a system especially for this in the near future. In the interim the Committee was composed of a mixture of various national organisations.
European organisations were formed. But the Commission/ High Authority under Monnet never changed the system or encouraged the responsible people to do so. The politicians were happy at this because it meant that they nominated or decided who should be on this crucial debating chamber. They also managed the membership to the European Parliamentary Assembly. That way they could control the criticism by electing more placid members. The three great seats of European democracy will eventually all be independent: the Council representing national States, the Parliament representing the individual and his or her rights and the Consultative Committee representing all organizations in the sectors.
Any professional organization, whether a professional organization of steel makers, or an association of steel consumers or an association of European trades unions, has democratic rules. They are not the same as parliaments but not inferior to them as they have to be agreed by votes of the membership. This is an essential layer of democracy that should be independent of political parties and, amongst other tasks, can keep an eye on them.
De Gaulle and many other politicians did not like the idea of consumer organisations, together with entrepreneurs and labour unions holding politicians to their word. That is why de Gaulle arrested their development. He did not stop them developing, merely froze them for a time. Schuman and Reuter (who wrote the Schuman Declaration), declared ILLEGAL the politicians' subterfuge aimed at not having a fully democratic consultative committee with its own European elections. And sure enough, de Gaulle got away with illegal and corrupt measures such as Wine Lakes and Meat Mountains.
In the Gaullist period of European stagnation, the Parliamentary Assembly was nominated by a clique of politicians, its revisions to legislation ignored. The Consultative Committees including the Economic and Social Committee and the Scientific and Technical Committee of Euratom, were frozen and ignored. They are still at the infantile level of development that the European Parliament was until around 1980.
If Monnet had set up the Consultative Committee on a fully democratic European basis, a powerful democratic institution would have existed that would have resisted de Gaulle's attempts to destroy and freeze the Community system. We would be living in a much more successful and prosperous Europe, even than ours today. And it would have been a shining example of democracy to the world, including the States on the south bank of the Mediterranean. Democracy and higher civic standards would have flourished across the whole Mediterranean zone and as far north as the Arctic. Instead under nationalists and Gaullists, Algeria -- which was part of the European Coal and Steel area -- entered a period of bloody strife and warfare.
None of the euro crisis would have arisen if the members of a currency zone had proper civil society scrutiny of the fraudulent statistics and toxic buddy-buddy deals that the politicians come up with at the closed door Council meetings and eurozone rencontres.
Schuman also said that these meetings should all be open. The Lisbon treaty also says this but the politicians do not care a hoot when they close the doors. The next step is to use the European Court -- one of the five institutions that Schuman said was essential. Some actions in the 27 national courts could also stop much of this abuse. Discussions on the Budget -- that is taxation -- are also closed to the press, something which is both illegal and would be totally intolerable in any of the democratic Member States. (see www.schuman.info/budget8.htm ) No taxation should take place without FAIR representation and OPEN debate. That is central to European civic values.
There are three main types of international currency systems. (A fourth involves the informal use of a national currency like the US dollar by external trading partners.)
Firstly there is the international system (agreement of States) that Europe now has, thanks to Monnet's indecision. There is the imperial currency system of a non-democratic authoritarian system like the ruble of the Soviet system or the closed system of Mao's China. The banknotes cannot circulate much beyond the borders of the empire, because they are artificial. In the 1930s Hitler had a similar system where the Nazi party dictated the monetary policy on its neighbouring or trading partners. Europe has aspects of this monetary authoritarianism, because the euro rules are made and then ignored by a small cartel of politicians. The politicians think that they alone should impose their choice on who runs the system, not the public, nor the companies or workers, nor the buyers, traders and consumers.
Thirdly there is a real supranational currency. Supranational means a European democratic system, not imposed authoritarianism. It is so defined in the treaties and by Schuman -- see www.schuman.info/supra5.htm . Solid monetary policy will be made once this democratic foundation is followed. It involves agreement at three levels: the States that is not just the Council of Ministers but their 27 national democratic systems PLUS organised civil society (the Consultative Committees entrepreneurs, workers and consumers, of the treaties which need to be democratically elected as the treaties say) PLUS the individuals' interest (through the EP and Court petitions and judgements).
The euro crisis will not be solved by a further smoke and mirrors approach of eurobonds involving either the ECB or some other artificial institution without democratic legitimacy. Moritz Kraemer, Standard & Poor's managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa sovereign ratings, speaking at the Alpbach European Forum, said, “If we have a euro bond where Germany guarantees 27%, France 20 and Greece 2% then the rating of the euro bond would be CC, which is the rating of Greece." That applies also to shuffling the cards in a new card trick or rather paper con trick.
Politicians have already tried to dispose with elements of the supranational system. Now some want them back, having seen their great utility. At the beginning, the supranational European Community system had not only its own European tax system with democratic control down to a local level but also a European loan system. This was not based on a fiat system of some politicians acting within the secret chambers of the Council or the 'informal' eurozone committee. In the 1950s the loans were raised on world markets based on real economic achievement and a real programme. That delivered real goods for the future. The loans were based on solid evidence of economic progress, improved employment data and general economic integration with real cost benefits.
The ECSC loan system -- which was a bigger operation than the European Investment Bank -- had outline supranational democratic control. The politicians did not like it. Around 2000 they egotistically got rid of this loan system and the European tax system by deciding not to renew the ECSC treaty. They wanted tax, loans and money without proper democratic representation. Their word would be enough, they said. Then the politicians abused their own buddy-buddy system. The markets saw its toxicity. They had been doing dirty deals for decades. Banks of course did the same thing, saying that if the politicians could get away with fraud, so could they in a property bubble and financial market fraud.
The way forward is to put the democratic control and the support of half a billion Europeans behind a reform programme. Only thus can a solid European money be agreed, formed and circulated.
Eurocrats should know better. They should know more about the institution they work for, its values and its real history. Unfortunately Monnet and his over-enthusiastic fans and publicists set Europe on a false track. What exactly IS the 'Monnet Method'? You need to know: your bank balance may depend on understanding the facts!
Some politicians still believe that Jean Monnet was the architect behind the European Union. This is false, as any competent historian knows. Monnet did not invent the European Community; it was in existence before he even first uttered the term on 21 June 1950, regardless of the false claims of his Memoirs. Schuman announced the European strategy at the United Nations in 1949!
States can form international currencies with other States either by force or by means of a solid agreement. Alexander the Great used the first method 2300 years ago when he conquered the Medo-Persian empire and imposed his own monetary system, based on gold and silver. In nineteenth and early twentieth century some States agreed to the gold standard. But the Latin Monetary Union (1865- 1926) fell apart on disagreements about silver. Then first the UK (with the Sterling zone) and later the US, 1971, took their currency off the gold standard.
Any bad management of the dollar -- which is designed mainly for a domestic electorate -- has worldwide implications, and that includes wars and bloodshed. So does any other corrupt currency. (Monetary dishonesty encourages internal and external opponents to exploit the politicians' vulnerability.)
The depreciation of the dollar meant that Arab oil producers gained a little bit less for a barrel of oil. The Americans got the same barrel of oil. Although they were already hyper-rich, the oil sheikhs wanted more. They used this as one excuse to launch an attempted war of annihilation against Israel. The Arab exporters then realised that Americans and Europeans were 'hooked' on petroleum. They nationalised the oil companies. From then on they formed a cartel and succeeded to blackmail by the oil weapon and oil embargoes throughout the decade. Now Europe's Human Rights values are under threat by such States that wish to establish a Christian-free and anti-Semitic entity based on Saudi style Sharia law that they would call Palestine.
(Palestine is actually the name of the Jewish State that all the world's governments agreed to after WW1. It was a mandate given by the League of Nations to Palestinian Jews and confirmed by the United Nations in its Charter. The government of Palestine changed the name to Israel in 1948 when a State of Israel was proclaimed. When false or depreciating money reigns, Truth more easily becomes 'lies' and lies become the 'truth'.)
Thus any weakness or fraud in a monetary system has untold and often mammoth implications in politics. The reverse of this is also true. A solid, well-founded monetary system, based on sound ethics, has a major decontaminating and purifying effect on politics. Robert Schuman used to quote the Baron Louis, Finance Minister under France's Second Empire:
Make sound finances for me and I will make for you a sound policy.Schuman confirmed this truism from his own long study of the monetary history. Based on those principles, a new system was introduced in world history with the creation of a supranational Community system. Without it, Europe would be in no position even to think of a common currency.
IF it is properly implemented, this Community approach provides the best hope for the future. The idea of a new European currency was announced by Robert Schuman in his Declaration of 9 May 1950. Schuman had great expertise in finance and monetary affairs and stabilized France's ruinous finances as Minister of Finance and Prime Minister. He criticised Hitler's ramshackle financial and monetary sysyem of the 1930s. Before the war he helped Austria defend itself financially against Nazi aggression. It nearly cost him his life when later he was arrested by the Gestapo. After the war he helped create the European Payments Union in July 1950. The politicians later abandoned this but had to try to re-invent it when they wanted to create the euro.
The creation of a supranational monetary system depends on fully understanding a supranational Community system. It is based on trust, that is democracy writ large. Here Monnet made a grave mistake.
Monnet's flawed action is another proof that he did not conceive of the idea of a supranational Community. When Paul Reuter, Schuman's legal aide, presented him with a draft document of the Schuman Declaration he crossed out the word, supranational, saying he did not like it. Nor was Monnet able to explain how the European Community was able to bring peace to nation States that had been at war almost continuously for 2000 years. Schuman could and did.
Some politicians say they are proceeding on the basis of the so-called 'Monnet Method'. What is the 'Monnet Method'? No one can properly define it. It is pure PR -- public relations hype. It is foisted on a public by a political class that did not want to deal with the spiritual fundamentals of democracy. It is a chimera that allows politicians to do what they like, without principles or even democratic accountability. That makes it an international system, not a supranational democratic one.
The supranational Community, in contrast, is a scientific discovery, to use Schuman's term, that requires education, training and another quality, humility, listening to others. It does not involve foisting treaties on people who have refused them in many referendums. Democracy, said Schuman, is at the service of the people and acts in agreement with the people.
What is a more serious accusation than aggrandisement is: Was Monnet responsible for the mess we are in? Was it his lack of understanding of the Community system that has led to the financial and monetary loopholes and hence the abuses now costing hundreds of billions of euros?
Monnet was only at the Commission (High Authority) of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) for a couple of years. His responsibility there was to see that the Treaty of Paris was fully implemented. It was not. He was to serve the people, all the people, including organized civil society. His period there was long enough to cause a loophole that the politicians made into an entrance and climbed in to do damage and get their fingers on to European money.
Monnet was instrumental in cutting out (in collusion with the politicians/ ministers) the democratic representation of organized civil society in the consultative committees. This was one of five essential organs for supranational Community.
In Monnet's time the first European Community had a Consultative Committee which was designed as its successors to be in close liaison with the Commission. It was divided into three sections: consumers of coal and steel products, entrepreneurs and trade unions working in the sectors. They kept a close watch on the money, how it was raised and how it was spent. They made sure that the budget was balanced. In those days there was a European tax and it was spent according to the wishes of the taxpayers.
The Treaty of Paris said that the Consultative Committee should be elected on a European basis. However, there were no European associations in some areas. The treaty said that the first Consultative Committee could create a system especially for this in the near future. In the interim the Committee was composed of a mixture of various national organisations.
European organisations were formed. But the Commission/ High Authority under Monnet never changed the system or encouraged the responsible people to do so. The politicians were happy at this because it meant that they nominated or decided who should be on this crucial debating chamber. They also managed the membership to the European Parliamentary Assembly. That way they could control the criticism by electing more placid members. The three great seats of European democracy will eventually all be independent: the Council representing national States, the Parliament representing the individual and his or her rights and the Consultative Committee representing all organizations in the sectors.
Any professional organization, whether a professional organization of steel makers, or an association of steel consumers or an association of European trades unions, has democratic rules. They are not the same as parliaments but not inferior to them as they have to be agreed by votes of the membership. This is an essential layer of democracy that should be independent of political parties and, amongst other tasks, can keep an eye on them.
De Gaulle and many other politicians did not like the idea of consumer organisations, together with entrepreneurs and labour unions holding politicians to their word. That is why de Gaulle arrested their development. He did not stop them developing, merely froze them for a time. Schuman and Reuter (who wrote the Schuman Declaration), declared ILLEGAL the politicians' subterfuge aimed at not having a fully democratic consultative committee with its own European elections. And sure enough, de Gaulle got away with illegal and corrupt measures such as Wine Lakes and Meat Mountains.
In the Gaullist period of European stagnation, the Parliamentary Assembly was nominated by a clique of politicians, its revisions to legislation ignored. The Consultative Committees including the Economic and Social Committee and the Scientific and Technical Committee of Euratom, were frozen and ignored. They are still at the infantile level of development that the European Parliament was until around 1980.
If Monnet had set up the Consultative Committee on a fully democratic European basis, a powerful democratic institution would have existed that would have resisted de Gaulle's attempts to destroy and freeze the Community system. We would be living in a much more successful and prosperous Europe, even than ours today. And it would have been a shining example of democracy to the world, including the States on the south bank of the Mediterranean. Democracy and higher civic standards would have flourished across the whole Mediterranean zone and as far north as the Arctic. Instead under nationalists and Gaullists, Algeria -- which was part of the European Coal and Steel area -- entered a period of bloody strife and warfare.
None of the euro crisis would have arisen if the members of a currency zone had proper civil society scrutiny of the fraudulent statistics and toxic buddy-buddy deals that the politicians come up with at the closed door Council meetings and eurozone rencontres.
Schuman also said that these meetings should all be open. The Lisbon treaty also says this but the politicians do not care a hoot when they close the doors. The next step is to use the European Court -- one of the five institutions that Schuman said was essential. Some actions in the 27 national courts could also stop much of this abuse. Discussions on the Budget -- that is taxation -- are also closed to the press, something which is both illegal and would be totally intolerable in any of the democratic Member States. (see www.schuman.info/budget8.htm ) No taxation should take place without FAIR representation and OPEN debate. That is central to European civic values.
There are three main types of international currency systems. (A fourth involves the informal use of a national currency like the US dollar by external trading partners.)
Firstly there is the international system (agreement of States) that Europe now has, thanks to Monnet's indecision. There is the imperial currency system of a non-democratic authoritarian system like the ruble of the Soviet system or the closed system of Mao's China. The banknotes cannot circulate much beyond the borders of the empire, because they are artificial. In the 1930s Hitler had a similar system where the Nazi party dictated the monetary policy on its neighbouring or trading partners. Europe has aspects of this monetary authoritarianism, because the euro rules are made and then ignored by a small cartel of politicians. The politicians think that they alone should impose their choice on who runs the system, not the public, nor the companies or workers, nor the buyers, traders and consumers.
Thirdly there is a real supranational currency. Supranational means a European democratic system, not imposed authoritarianism. It is so defined in the treaties and by Schuman -- see www.schuman.info/supra5.htm . Solid monetary policy will be made once this democratic foundation is followed. It involves agreement at three levels: the States that is not just the Council of Ministers but their 27 national democratic systems PLUS organised civil society (the Consultative Committees entrepreneurs, workers and consumers, of the treaties which need to be democratically elected as the treaties say) PLUS the individuals' interest (through the EP and Court petitions and judgements).
The euro crisis will not be solved by a further smoke and mirrors approach of eurobonds involving either the ECB or some other artificial institution without democratic legitimacy. Moritz Kraemer, Standard & Poor's managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa sovereign ratings, speaking at the Alpbach European Forum, said, “If we have a euro bond where Germany guarantees 27%, France 20 and Greece 2% then the rating of the euro bond would be CC, which is the rating of Greece." That applies also to shuffling the cards in a new card trick or rather paper con trick.
Politicians have already tried to dispose with elements of the supranational system. Now some want them back, having seen their great utility. At the beginning, the supranational European Community system had not only its own European tax system with democratic control down to a local level but also a European loan system. This was not based on a fiat system of some politicians acting within the secret chambers of the Council or the 'informal' eurozone committee. In the 1950s the loans were raised on world markets based on real economic achievement and a real programme. That delivered real goods for the future. The loans were based on solid evidence of economic progress, improved employment data and general economic integration with real cost benefits.
The ECSC loan system -- which was a bigger operation than the European Investment Bank -- had outline supranational democratic control. The politicians did not like it. Around 2000 they egotistically got rid of this loan system and the European tax system by deciding not to renew the ECSC treaty. They wanted tax, loans and money without proper democratic representation. Their word would be enough, they said. Then the politicians abused their own buddy-buddy system. The markets saw its toxicity. They had been doing dirty deals for decades. Banks of course did the same thing, saying that if the politicians could get away with fraud, so could they in a property bubble and financial market fraud.
The way forward is to put the democratic control and the support of half a billion Europeans behind a reform programme. Only thus can a solid European money be agreed, formed and circulated.
08 August, 2011
Euro5: TRUST is the key to a strong European currency. Schuman gave the plan for sound policy.
The European leaders are learning the lesson known to all monetary authorities throughout the ages. The main foundation of all money is trust. Once trust evaporates the currency collapses. It is like chasing after a wild animal let loose out of a field.
Is the European currency doomed to failure? No. The supranational European Community system is far more robust than any flawed plan for a currency. European unity is a powerful and ineluctable force, stronger than any politicians or self-serving group.
There is a plan for the European currency that will get the approval of all major sections of Europe. It would also make it extremely difficult for blackmail operations by speculators -- that is those who try to use the markets for immoral, selfish purposes.
On 10 February 1953 the European Coal and Steel Community introduced Europe's first Single Market. With a single market it was necessary that eventually a single currency would have to be built on the five institutions. The first Community had its own European tax, based on production, not currency or accountant-adjusted profits.
The idea of a currency was already implied in the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950. When the time was ripe, it should be built on the principles of supranational democracy.
When they created the euro, the European leaders did not follow the concept of a supranational democracy backing up the European currency. They thought they knew best. The naive or willingly ignorant politicians made an international currency based on so-called 'good intentions' and their equally faulty theory of human nature. They made their decisions in secret, relying on their own instincts and personal and political attachments to each other.
'Just make all the currencies relatively stable,' they said, 'convert the name to euro and, Hey Presto! you have a European currency!' They seem to think if they invited some darker culprits to join the euro gang, then they would appear white in comparison. It does not work that way!
And it was inevitable that the markets would test their theory and practical failures to destruction if they could. That is the nature of markets. It proved a vapour of self-deceit. The political 'partners' cheated on each other. They used the coffers of the 'own' States as their own party campaign funds. They cooked the statistics.
In a commercial company if such things were done, it would not only mean that the executives were fired, they would enter the gates of the local prison for a long stay. It's called embezzling. For some reason, politicians think that they are above such justice.
With the introduction of two further European Communities a broad range of other goods had to be brought into as Single Market, from fissile material to agricultural products. In the 1960s intra-Community trade was based on units of account later known as the ECU, the European Currency Unit. At a time when no one imagined the US dollar would be devalued, it was defined and set at parity with the dollar in terms of gold.
Then President Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. So the politicians decided that they would remain on the gold standard. But France's Franc proved to be weak and de Gaulle did not want to be shown up. He was concerned about his rural and agricultural voters. Solid, honest money proved too hard for other light fingered politicians.
They fudged the matter. They brought in a highly complex system of compensatory funding. They were supposed to be temporary. Guess what? These handouts of tax money to the politicians' favourites became permanent and more and more complex.
The second fudge was not to use any standard at all but to make the currency up as they went along. Look ! No Hands! The European Currency was not based on US dollars based on gold. It was not based on gold. It is not even based on GDP. It is based on crooked statistics!
When the ancient kingdom of Lydia (now western Turkey) created a coinage that was used far and wide as a trading aid, it did so by assuring that the coins had
The earliest known legal code -- the Laws of the old Babylonian kingdom of Eshnunna which predates Hammurabi -- showed that wheat and barley were considered much more prized as exchange than money. The interest rate on the cuneiform tablets show barley had an interest rate of 33 percent while silver had only 20 percent. Food was more valuable and it was also perishable. Food is real. You cannot eat gold.
Two and a half thousand years ago, Aristotle, the Greek philosopher and royal tutor, warned that there was a big difference between economics (dealing with running the household) and chrematistics, the immoral (and ultimately senseless) hoarding or accumulation of wealth. There were three goods, an external good, a good of the body and a good of the soul.
Some of these principles were applied by his Macedonian student, Alexander the Great. Millions of coins were struck across his empire with a specific image and of standard weight. The museums and private collections of Alexander's silver tetradrachm indicate the fine detail of the coin production. It created a common external good. They circulated from Britain to Afghanistan, in Africa and beyond. The gold coins were known as philippi, after Alexander's father.
They were not easy to forge. At least in those days. Later generations shaved the rims of the coins, or forged them of inferior materials. That is what some European leaders are trying to do electronically today.
Everyone seems to be at it. The modern Greeks were the most flagrant. They probably did not have to learn much from the others. But they took the cheating a bit too far. Some politicians wanted to ignore the common politicians' problem and they persuaded them to let the fiddling go on for years. The others tried to put an end to it.
Remember the politicians were the people who gave you the Meat Mountains and Wine Lakes. Monetary fraud was less obvious and more devious. It is easy for one or more (in this case, many) States to illegitimately exploit the huge benefits of a common currency. They let the others keep the rules, remain honest and keep their books straight. False statistics didn't really fool anyone but no one wanted to cause a scene and shout: 'CHEAT!' at fellow politicians. They knew that once the blame game started all would be found guilty ins some sort of dubious practice.
And if they kept their mouths shut as many did, they would also be found guilty and irresponsible towards their own electorate because they had promised to keep their own currency solid and follow the common rules for the euro. Guilt by fact or guilt by collusion and association, that is the outcome of secret meetings without public accountability. That's why Schuman said that the Community democracy should be open with open meetings subject to public control.
Then the European Statistical service, Eurostat, put in the knife.
Why are budgetary statistics different in a electoral year? Why do they 'slip'? Aren't governments managing the budget properly regardless of what year it is? Or are they bribing the voters by giving them goodies from money they do not have? Would the executive committee of a tennis club coming up for re-election be considered ethical if it took out a loan to give free tennis balls to the membership before they voted?
Politicians do not want to discuss when governments are guilty of crimes that would send company executives to prison. Yet we are talking about sums of money larger than those of most commercial corporations. The leaders have to have the courage to treat finances as a non-ideological matter. They have responsibility beyond their parties to the people. And the people should have their say in the management of the monetary system, according to supranational democracy.
A common currency cannot be built when one or many States refuse to keep honest accounts. A Community must be built on values that include honesty to each other. This has huge advantages. An honest interchange builds a Community that cannot be broken. Honesty, the 9th of the Ten Commandments is a fundamental Biblical value on which European democracy is founded.
'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour'
Schuman wrote:
The financial realist Robert Schuman -- who as Finance Minister and Prime Minister rescued France from widespread corruption and financial chaos after the World War, stabilizing the currency, balancing the budget and attacking galloping inflation -- had this additional warning:
Is the European currency doomed to failure? No. The supranational European Community system is far more robust than any flawed plan for a currency. European unity is a powerful and ineluctable force, stronger than any politicians or self-serving group.
There is a plan for the European currency that will get the approval of all major sections of Europe. It would also make it extremely difficult for blackmail operations by speculators -- that is those who try to use the markets for immoral, selfish purposes.
On 10 February 1953 the European Coal and Steel Community introduced Europe's first Single Market. With a single market it was necessary that eventually a single currency would have to be built on the five institutions. The first Community had its own European tax, based on production, not currency or accountant-adjusted profits.
The idea of a currency was already implied in the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950. When the time was ripe, it should be built on the principles of supranational democracy.
When they created the euro, the European leaders did not follow the concept of a supranational democracy backing up the European currency. They thought they knew best. The naive or willingly ignorant politicians made an international currency based on so-called 'good intentions' and their equally faulty theory of human nature. They made their decisions in secret, relying on their own instincts and personal and political attachments to each other.
'Just make all the currencies relatively stable,' they said, 'convert the name to euro and, Hey Presto! you have a European currency!' They seem to think if they invited some darker culprits to join the euro gang, then they would appear white in comparison. It does not work that way!
And it was inevitable that the markets would test their theory and practical failures to destruction if they could. That is the nature of markets. It proved a vapour of self-deceit. The political 'partners' cheated on each other. They used the coffers of the 'own' States as their own party campaign funds. They cooked the statistics.
In a commercial company if such things were done, it would not only mean that the executives were fired, they would enter the gates of the local prison for a long stay. It's called embezzling. For some reason, politicians think that they are above such justice.
With the introduction of two further European Communities a broad range of other goods had to be brought into as Single Market, from fissile material to agricultural products. In the 1960s intra-Community trade was based on units of account later known as the ECU, the European Currency Unit. At a time when no one imagined the US dollar would be devalued, it was defined and set at parity with the dollar in terms of gold.
Then President Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. So the politicians decided that they would remain on the gold standard. But France's Franc proved to be weak and de Gaulle did not want to be shown up. He was concerned about his rural and agricultural voters. Solid, honest money proved too hard for other light fingered politicians.
They fudged the matter. They brought in a highly complex system of compensatory funding. They were supposed to be temporary. Guess what? These handouts of tax money to the politicians' favourites became permanent and more and more complex.
The second fudge was not to use any standard at all but to make the currency up as they went along. Look ! No Hands! The European Currency was not based on US dollars based on gold. It was not based on gold. It is not even based on GDP. It is based on crooked statistics!
When the ancient kingdom of Lydia (now western Turkey) created a coinage that was used far and wide as a trading aid, it did so by assuring that the coins had
- a standard weight
- a standard purity, either of gold, or silver or of electrum, a natural mixture of the two.
The earliest known legal code -- the Laws of the old Babylonian kingdom of Eshnunna which predates Hammurabi -- showed that wheat and barley were considered much more prized as exchange than money. The interest rate on the cuneiform tablets show barley had an interest rate of 33 percent while silver had only 20 percent. Food was more valuable and it was also perishable. Food is real. You cannot eat gold.
Two and a half thousand years ago, Aristotle, the Greek philosopher and royal tutor, warned that there was a big difference between economics (dealing with running the household) and chrematistics, the immoral (and ultimately senseless) hoarding or accumulation of wealth. There were three goods, an external good, a good of the body and a good of the soul.
Some of these principles were applied by his Macedonian student, Alexander the Great. Millions of coins were struck across his empire with a specific image and of standard weight. The museums and private collections of Alexander's silver tetradrachm indicate the fine detail of the coin production. It created a common external good. They circulated from Britain to Afghanistan, in Africa and beyond. The gold coins were known as philippi, after Alexander's father.
They were not easy to forge. At least in those days. Later generations shaved the rims of the coins, or forged them of inferior materials. That is what some European leaders are trying to do electronically today.
Everyone seems to be at it. The modern Greeks were the most flagrant. They probably did not have to learn much from the others. But they took the cheating a bit too far. Some politicians wanted to ignore the common politicians' problem and they persuaded them to let the fiddling go on for years. The others tried to put an end to it.
Remember the politicians were the people who gave you the Meat Mountains and Wine Lakes. Monetary fraud was less obvious and more devious. It is easy for one or more (in this case, many) States to illegitimately exploit the huge benefits of a common currency. They let the others keep the rules, remain honest and keep their books straight. False statistics didn't really fool anyone but no one wanted to cause a scene and shout: 'CHEAT!' at fellow politicians. They knew that once the blame game started all would be found guilty ins some sort of dubious practice.
And if they kept their mouths shut as many did, they would also be found guilty and irresponsible towards their own electorate because they had promised to keep their own currency solid and follow the common rules for the euro. Guilt by fact or guilt by collusion and association, that is the outcome of secret meetings without public accountability. That's why Schuman said that the Community democracy should be open with open meetings subject to public control.
Then the European Statistical service, Eurostat, put in the knife.
- The reliability of Greek government deficit and debt statistics has been the subject to continuous attention for several years. The Greek general government data reported by the authorities have been persistently contested by Eurostat, far more frequently than for any other Member State.
On 2 and 21 October 2009, the Greek authorities transmitted two different sets of complete Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) notification tables to Eurostat, covering the government deficit and debt data for 2005-2008, and a forecast for 2009. In the 21 October notification, the Greek government deficit for 2008 was revised from 5.0% of GDP (the ratio reported by Greece, and published and validated by Eurostat in April 2009) to 7.7% of GDP. At the same time, the Greek authorities also revised the planned deficit ratio for 2009 from 3.7% of GDP (the figure reported in spring) to 12.5% of GDP, reflecting a number of factors (the impact of the economic crisis, budgetary slippages in an electoral year and accounting decisions).
Why are budgetary statistics different in a electoral year? Why do they 'slip'? Aren't governments managing the budget properly regardless of what year it is? Or are they bribing the voters by giving them goodies from money they do not have? Would the executive committee of a tennis club coming up for re-election be considered ethical if it took out a loan to give free tennis balls to the membership before they voted?
Politicians do not want to discuss when governments are guilty of crimes that would send company executives to prison. Yet we are talking about sums of money larger than those of most commercial corporations. The leaders have to have the courage to treat finances as a non-ideological matter. They have responsibility beyond their parties to the people. And the people should have their say in the management of the monetary system, according to supranational democracy.
A common currency cannot be built when one or many States refuse to keep honest accounts. A Community must be built on values that include honesty to each other. This has huge advantages. An honest interchange builds a Community that cannot be broken. Honesty, the 9th of the Ten Commandments is a fundamental Biblical value on which European democracy is founded.
'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour'
Schuman wrote:
‘This idea of ‘Europe’ will reveal to everybody the common bases of our civilization and will create little by little the bond similar to that which in ages past has forged our home countries. It will be a force that will breach all obstacles.’Unless they realise the futility of any other path, the politicians are doomed to get deeper into a maelstrom of disaster.
The financial realist Robert Schuman -- who as Finance Minister and Prime Minister rescued France from widespread corruption and financial chaos after the World War, stabilizing the currency, balancing the budget and attacking galloping inflation -- had this additional warning:
'Ideology or dreams will not change the facts about finances, whether in the State budget or that of the family.'Stealing other people's property was wrong in the time of the Laws of Eshnunna and it is wrong today.
26 July, 2011
Euro4: Eurozone leaders repeat: You must be honest! But honest practice brings honest money.
A euro based on supranational democracy would not fail to gain the highest credit ratings in all rating agencies worldwide. That is evident because it would have already been examined and rated that way by European civil organisations, businesses, workers and consumers, via their controlling chamber. Yet EU politicians want to do it their way: party political internationalism. They are fighting a tide of adverse criticism that says it will not work. Despite their efforts at the Euro zone summit, US credit rating agencies have downgraded Greece because of the long-term loan swaps are considered a selective default.
The answer? In a phrase, honest conduct for an honest currency. Honest conduct does not come from words alone. Nor does it come from a system where the policeman is a paid up member of a gang. The control must be public and legal, not political.
Amid the multi-billion euro deal at the Euro zone Summit on 21 July 2011, all the leaders appealed their fellow politicians to be honest. They had in mind Greece, which they said posed a unique problem. They were not addressing the public, that is the voters. The voters are hardly relevant at this stage when elections are not in sight. They were addressing the markets. Their audience for this section was headlined Private sector involvement.
In other words, forget the voters. What they are interested in is the private sector and if it is going to loan any more money to a bunch of people who clearly cannot trust each other.
The top Eurozoners said:
Is there any reason why the bankers, speculators and financiers should not believe the government leaders? Aren't they all honourable people?
Well, it only takes a brief look at what the leaders have said in the past to have some doubts. Did they say that their signatures could not be trusted? No. They said the opposite. The reality was somewhat different. They had to continue to repeat this when news leaked out that raised doubts.
Only on 25 March 2011 the European Council had already
I do not know why the Statement issued on 21 July 2011 was published on paper headed Council of the European Union as it was not a meeting of the Council of Ministers. Hardly honest. Why this subterfuge? Is it illegality-creep because the case needed shoring up? At least they hesitated to call it a European Council to avoid prime-ministerial objections from the British, Poles, Hungarians, Danes, Swedes, Latvians, Lithuanians, Romanians, Bulgarians and Czechs who were absent. Did the absentee States protest that the Euro zone Statement was a false-flag communication of the Council of Ministers?
It is a pity that, when the Heads of State and Government of the euro zone 'reaffirm their inflexible determination to honour fully their own individual sovereign signature', they do so in a fraudulent document. Worse, they say that 'the credibility of all their sovereign signatures is a decisive element for ensuring financial stability in the euro area as a whole.'
On 17 June 2010 the European Council said in its conclusions:
Yes, yes, but who checks up on all the politicians and their sums? The European Commission -- but it is now composed entirely of politicians, not independent, competent personalities as the treaties require. The selection of the Commissioners is made by the governments who they are supposed to check. Hardly a guarantee of independence. The goverment ministers insist that all candidates should be party members! The Commissioners also insist on retaining party membership and attending party meetings. The outlaws are now the sheriffs!
Nearly all the States had distorted, corrupted or just ignored the Stability and Growth Pact. Among the first guilty Member States to do this were France and Germany. The French and German ministers immediately said that they should be let off the hook. The honest Dutch and others protested -- in vain. The Dutch said they were now paying for the Franco-German deficits. Other States got caught out later when the level of their statistical fiddling became apparent.
The Council added that new measures were necessary,
Is that an honest mistake or it because they wanted to be free for political or social bribery for votes?
It can be statistically shown that this was electoral bribery and not honest statistical mistakes. How? Because the errors in the statistics are all in the same direction. They are all hidden deficits. Deficits increase before elections.
So what should the leaders do about it? How can these addictions to bad habits be resolved? In a Community moral values must be agreed by all. The honesty of politicians' decisions is exposed when times turn rough. When they were considering monetary union in around 1999, the price of oil was around 9 dollars a barrel. That was the free market price. Times and morals were easier. Countries like Italy had a huge surplus. Then energy blackmail recommenced. The twelve-fold rise in oil prices in a dozen years not only strained the economies but exposed corrupt practice and speculative bubbles.
Consider what would happen if your local tennis club, commune or parish had a group of politicians who were accused of corruption. One may have been a worse culprit than the others but they were all in it together. Would the local parishioners or voters agree that the secret meetings should continue? Would they be happy that in the many subsequent secret meetings of the clique of culprits, the group issued the same sort of communiques on offically headed paper saying: 'Don't worry, the entire Tennis Club is insisting on being honest'?
Probably not. What may be happening was that the politicians were dividing up the spoils amongst themselves or inventing new ways to hide the corruption. They might be insisting on meeting in private so that the more corrupt members were putting pressure on the least corrupt members so that they would comply with their wishes. In some States, the politicians are now facing legal cases in the courts.
That is why Schuman and the other more politically honest Founding Fathers insisted that the Council should be open. Schuman wrote that
The solution for the euro is ultimately:
Openness is not impossible in monetary matters. It is only impossible when for years politicians have been making cushy deals between themselves. On Greece it covers a lax period of thirty years. The questions arose when a cushy deal was made by politicians that it should leap forward from the least qualified candidate to join the EU -- according to the then Commission President Roy Jenkins -- to be the first. The questions remained unanswered when lots of EU money went missing. They were reinforced when in spite of huge and constant increase in its deficits and its past history, the politicians agreed to let Greece join the euro. It got even deeper into murk when statistical fiddling in many of the new euro States was exposed.
Who is in charge of monetary policy the central banks or the politicians? If it is the central banks that are by treaty law independent, why do politicians still have secret meetings on the monetary fundamentals? Are the central banks so secretive? Good banking practice is to publish the minutes of the monetary committee a few days after the decisions are reached. That way openness and protection of the currency from speculation is guaranteed. The Bank of England and the Riksbank of Sweden, which are not part of the euro, do this.
So why does the European Council refuse to have open sessions on what should not be their business? Why does it refuse to publish anything that resembles minutes, even though it is obliged to by treaty law? Is it something to do with their concept of honesty and honest practice?
The question of honesty has now been raised in the context of a global financial calamity. It is for the Member States to show they are serious. It they are, they will implement the treaties that call for independent institutions, not continue to fill them with compliant politicians.
The answer? In a phrase, honest conduct for an honest currency. Honest conduct does not come from words alone. Nor does it come from a system where the policeman is a paid up member of a gang. The control must be public and legal, not political.
Amid the multi-billion euro deal at the Euro zone Summit on 21 July 2011, all the leaders appealed their fellow politicians to be honest. They had in mind Greece, which they said posed a unique problem. They were not addressing the public, that is the voters. The voters are hardly relevant at this stage when elections are not in sight. They were addressing the markets. Their audience for this section was headlined Private sector involvement.
In other words, forget the voters. What they are interested in is the private sector and if it is going to loan any more money to a bunch of people who clearly cannot trust each other.
The top Eurozoners said:
'As far as our general approach to private sector involvement in the euro area is concerned, we would like to make it clear that Greece requires an exceptional and unique solution.'The Statement they issued adds:
'All other countries solemnly reaffirm their inflexible determination to honour fully their own individual sovereign signature and all their commitments to sustainable fiscal conditions and structural reforms. The euro area Heads of State or Government fully support this determination as the credibility of all their sovereign signatures is a decisive element for ensuring financial stability in the euro area as a whole.'So the leaders are saying: Do not consider what has happened in the past about what we said to the voters. We are now telling you bankers, financiers and capitalists, we will be honest.
Is there any reason why the bankers, speculators and financiers should not believe the government leaders? Aren't they all honourable people?
Well, it only takes a brief look at what the leaders have said in the past to have some doubts. Did they say that their signatures could not be trusted? No. They said the opposite. The reality was somewhat different. They had to continue to repeat this when news leaked out that raised doubts.
Only on 25 March 2011 the European Council had already
'underscored the need to give priority to restoring sound budget and fiscal sustainability. ... Fiscal policies should aim to restore confidence by bringing debt trends back onto a sustainable path and ensuring that deficits are brought back below 3% of GDP in her time frame agreed by the Council.'On 25 March 2010, the Heads of State and Government of the euro area issued a statement on unheaded paper:
'We reaffirm that all euro area members must conduct sound national policies in line with the agreed rules and should be aware of their shared responsibility for the economic and financial stability in the area.'The paper is unheaded because the euro zone meetings are not officially part of the legal framework of the EU. Protocol 14 of the Lisbon Treaty allows them to meet 'informally'.
I do not know why the Statement issued on 21 July 2011 was published on paper headed Council of the European Union as it was not a meeting of the Council of Ministers. Hardly honest. Why this subterfuge? Is it illegality-creep because the case needed shoring up? At least they hesitated to call it a European Council to avoid prime-ministerial objections from the British, Poles, Hungarians, Danes, Swedes, Latvians, Lithuanians, Romanians, Bulgarians and Czechs who were absent. Did the absentee States protest that the Euro zone Statement was a false-flag communication of the Council of Ministers?
It is a pity that, when the Heads of State and Government of the euro zone 'reaffirm their inflexible determination to honour fully their own individual sovereign signature', they do so in a fraudulent document. Worse, they say that 'the credibility of all their sovereign signatures is a decisive element for ensuring financial stability in the euro area as a whole.'
On 17 June 2010 the European Council said in its conclusions:
'The crisis has revealed clear weaknesses in our economic governance, in particular as regards budgetary and broader macroeconomic surveillance. Reinforcing economic policy coordination therefore constitutes a crucial and urgent priority.'The government leaders were therefore obliged to present their accounts for inspection in the so-called 'European Semester'. This involved preventive and corrective aspects of the Stability and Growth Pact, a pledge central to the euro. It is a legal requirement in treaties since Maastricht.
Yes, yes, but who checks up on all the politicians and their sums? The European Commission -- but it is now composed entirely of politicians, not independent, competent personalities as the treaties require. The selection of the Commissioners is made by the governments who they are supposed to check. Hardly a guarantee of independence. The goverment ministers insist that all candidates should be party members! The Commissioners also insist on retaining party membership and attending party meetings. The outlaws are now the sheriffs!
Nearly all the States had distorted, corrupted or just ignored the Stability and Growth Pact. Among the first guilty Member States to do this were France and Germany. The French and German ministers immediately said that they should be let off the hook. The honest Dutch and others protested -- in vain. The Dutch said they were now paying for the Franco-German deficits. Other States got caught out later when the level of their statistical fiddling became apparent.
The Council added that new measures were necessary,
'ensuring the quality of statistical data, essential for a sound budgetary policy and budgetary surveillance; statistical offices should be fully independent for data provision.'The 23/24 June 2011 the Heads of government and State in a full European Council noted:
'the clear determination of all Member States to do everything that is required to fully implement the Stability and Growth Pact.'Why do government leaders need to keep repeating the same old thing? Firstly because they have been found out not adhering to the solemn pledge they had all made. Secondly even after they had repeated this pledge for growth and stability, some of the politicians still wanted to overspend their budgets -- especially just before elections. And the others said nothing.
Is that an honest mistake or it because they wanted to be free for political or social bribery for votes?
It can be statistically shown that this was electoral bribery and not honest statistical mistakes. How? Because the errors in the statistics are all in the same direction. They are all hidden deficits. Deficits increase before elections.
So what should the leaders do about it? How can these addictions to bad habits be resolved? In a Community moral values must be agreed by all. The honesty of politicians' decisions is exposed when times turn rough. When they were considering monetary union in around 1999, the price of oil was around 9 dollars a barrel. That was the free market price. Times and morals were easier. Countries like Italy had a huge surplus. Then energy blackmail recommenced. The twelve-fold rise in oil prices in a dozen years not only strained the economies but exposed corrupt practice and speculative bubbles.
Consider what would happen if your local tennis club, commune or parish had a group of politicians who were accused of corruption. One may have been a worse culprit than the others but they were all in it together. Would the local parishioners or voters agree that the secret meetings should continue? Would they be happy that in the many subsequent secret meetings of the clique of culprits, the group issued the same sort of communiques on offically headed paper saying: 'Don't worry, the entire Tennis Club is insisting on being honest'?
Probably not. What may be happening was that the politicians were dividing up the spoils amongst themselves or inventing new ways to hide the corruption. They might be insisting on meeting in private so that the more corrupt members were putting pressure on the least corrupt members so that they would comply with their wishes. In some States, the politicians are now facing legal cases in the courts.
That is why Schuman and the other more politically honest Founding Fathers insisted that the Council should be open. Schuman wrote that
'New Europe needs to have a democratic foundation. Its Councils, Committees and other organs should be placed under the control of public opinion, a control that should be efficient while not paralysing action nor useful initiatives.'It is hard to argue that the current behaviour of politicians passes the democratic criterion.
The solution for the euro is ultimately:
- to establish its foundation as full supranational democracy
- to include the full participation of organised civil society
- to establish a fully independent European Commission.
Openness is not impossible in monetary matters. It is only impossible when for years politicians have been making cushy deals between themselves. On Greece it covers a lax period of thirty years. The questions arose when a cushy deal was made by politicians that it should leap forward from the least qualified candidate to join the EU -- according to the then Commission President Roy Jenkins -- to be the first. The questions remained unanswered when lots of EU money went missing. They were reinforced when in spite of huge and constant increase in its deficits and its past history, the politicians agreed to let Greece join the euro. It got even deeper into murk when statistical fiddling in many of the new euro States was exposed.
Who is in charge of monetary policy the central banks or the politicians? If it is the central banks that are by treaty law independent, why do politicians still have secret meetings on the monetary fundamentals? Are the central banks so secretive? Good banking practice is to publish the minutes of the monetary committee a few days after the decisions are reached. That way openness and protection of the currency from speculation is guaranteed. The Bank of England and the Riksbank of Sweden, which are not part of the euro, do this.
So why does the European Council refuse to have open sessions on what should not be their business? Why does it refuse to publish anything that resembles minutes, even though it is obliged to by treaty law? Is it something to do with their concept of honesty and honest practice?
The question of honesty has now been raised in the context of a global financial calamity. It is for the Member States to show they are serious. It they are, they will implement the treaties that call for independent institutions, not continue to fill them with compliant politicians.
14 July, 2011
Euro3: How to pay the huge bill for Euro Frauds and 'political' fixes
Many of the EU States are now in deep debt and looking for a bail-out. Too often this is due simply to government overspending for ideological or "political" reasons. Too often these debt problems are accompanied by fraudulent national statistics or fiddling the books. Some of the secrets have not yet seen the light of day and public discussion. Yet the European Community system is vibrant and resilient. It can correct abuse.
Europe needs honest government and a solid economy. But it will take time to bring it in. In the meanwhile it will cost hundreds of billions of euros to shore up failing systems. Europe needs a breathing space to overcome this mismanagement and get a democratic and fully open system into place.
The road is clear. Any viable monetary system for Europe needs to have full participation of organized civil society in the institution designed for it. It needs the trust and confidence of ordinary people. That can only come from their active involvement -- especially when and where the politicians fail.
Non-political civil society has been cut out by 'egotistical and selfish' politicians. Before Europe can get on its monetary feet, politicians will have to learn humility and provide for the election of this major Community institution for organized civil society.
In the meanwhile how can Europe pay the bills? Two basic imperatives are required. One is to stop the secret deals of politicians deciding matters behind closed doors, thus thumbing their noses at civil society. The other imperative is to mobilize civil society to new goals that will make Europe a continent fit, prosperous and comfortable for our children and grandchildren.
Here are some examples. You can make a list of similar ones for yourself.
The European Union budget amounts to some 130 or 140 Billion euros. It is still discussed in secret by a cabal of politicians -- who think they know best about (1) How to raise the money (2) How to spend it.
Are they efficient in their secret deals? A recent report reveals that perhaps an amount equal to between half to three-quarters of this annual amount is lost to the European economy -- by politician-induced FRAUD. According to a recent report by MEP Bart Staes the fraud due to Value Added Tax (VAT) 'carousel fraud' amounts to 80 to 100 Billion euros EACH YEAR. Mr Staes says that the fraud is entirely avoidable. It is merely the lack of political will that has failed to introduce the counter-fraud measures. This is not all. Fiscal fraud altogether may amount to twice the entire EU budget around 250 Billion euros.
Ask yourself: 'If the people were in charge, rather than politicians meeting in a secret Council, would the taxpayer allow fraudsters to get away with stealing what amounts to the most of or even the double the entire EU budget? Would they say "Yes OK, you can take 100 Billion euros from my pocket and give it to fraudsters who are laughing in my face on the beach.'?'
No, they would certainly be active to stop the matter as soon as possible. There is one thing worse than paying tax and that is that someone else is not only refusing to do so but is in effect taking your tax money and living high on the hog at your expense. That is worse than government waste. It is encouraging criminal activity -- except that the people involved in the carousel operations are not yet in gaol. They aren't convicted criminal criminals -- yet.
Politicians too often are not willing to take hard decisions for ideological reasons or for lack of guts. If they made a mistake in the system they should correct it. If they have introduced a system that works only partly then they should repair it. An active Chamber for organized civil society, the Consultative Committees, would make sure this was done rapidly. All members would be tax-payers and represent all Europe's taxpayers.
Carousel VAT works by the same fraud well known to politicians -- spin. This time it is geographical spin. It uses the benefits of the Single Market to extract VAT refunds from governments while the fraudster spins his base of operations from one country to the next. The fraudsters 'sell' easily items like microchips, hi-fi, perfumes, mobile phones and carousel from one State to another while the tax officials run around wildly trying to catch them by their fleeing coat-tails.
Mr Staes says:
Mr Staes says politicians' irresponsibility extends to other aspects of taxation.
A supranational Consultative Committee is a Treaty-based organ. It was designed to be a powerful network of democratic associations with regular statutes recognized at the European level, all paying tax honestly, represented in the chamber for organized civil society. It would make sure such nonsense never happened.
That is why the politicians in the Council arrested its growth and wanted to kill it off or freeze the three Consultative Committees in the treaties. The Council acted illegally ever since the first Consultative Committee in the 1952 Treaty of Paris and was so condemned by Schuman and Paul Reuter. The Council then decided that the members of the European Economic and Social Committee should be not be properly elected. They would chose who would be members of this 'independent' institution. The membership is decided by the political elites in their party cartel, in the secrecy of the Council of Ministers. Civil society needs to have a chamber with democratic legitimacy.
The long reform of the Parliamentary Assembly into the European Parliament -- still far from complete -- shows the path for the Economic and Social Committee. It took nearly thirty years before MEPs were able to be directly elected. All that is lacking is civil courage -- to stand up against what is wrong and what is fraudulent in the political cabal that believes in secret 'economic governance'. Time will tell.
Now reflect on an example of what could be done positively with a revived supranational democratic system comprising the five active institutions in the energy sector. This is far more democratic and powerfully productive than the present political internationalism that passes for governance in the EU.
First consider how much money is lost on foreign energy supply. Last year the rise in gas and oil prices -- not the actual cost but just the rise in price -- cost the EU as much as HALF the EU budget. The total cost amounts to more than twice the cost of the EU budget. The Founding Fathers warned that reliance on external energy sources was bad for Europe. It was bad for the economy and also bad because with Middle East oil in a cartel like OPEC Europe would lose its ability to have an independent foreign policy. They warned Europe to get off oil addiction. De Gaulle and other self-willed politicians did not listen. Europe has already lost trillions of euros.
This warning has proved to be accurate. Oil and gas prices are set to rise and rise. The time to start doing something sensible and intelligent is NOW. Oil is not only vital for the engines of cars and freight vehicles, it is also necessary for building the roads themselves. The price of tarmac is now sky rocketing too.
Why use tarmac or bitumen on the road? Habit, bad habit. Europe and North America have been doing it for more than a century. But in the last four years the price of a ton of bitumen rose from $175 to over $1000. Tarmac (tarring McAdam roads) may have seen a good idea in 1901, but is it a good idea today? Hardly. It was then a means to improve roads for horse drawn carriages to smooth and waterproof them for cars. Until then the speed of travel on roads differed little from the time of the Romans -- or for that matter the ancient Persians. Bitumen was sold off as a waste product from the people who gave you the oil cartel. They also set up an infrastructure of petrol pumps and roads that made it difficult for Europeans, who have little oil, to kick the addiction.
It is time to move on. What is the solution? One innovative scheme getting US funding is solar roadways. The idea is to use a whole range of new industrial developments and intelligent innovations to create solar panels made of reinforced glass. Glass? Well, if glass can withstand bullets and bombs it is no problem to withstand the weight of a large lorry or multi-wheeler truck. Made from sand, glass has been developing technological refinements since 3500 BCE in Babylonia.
Modern glass can also have safety features unheard of and even undreamed of last century. Glass embedded with high tech microchips can not only supply electricity to the electric vehicles as they travel and powerfeed into to nearby homes, it can turn the highways into an intelligent system with warning lights, ice and snow melting system and human safety features. A parking area could power an entire office building.
If the USA had these panels in place today it could generate THREE times its entire electricity supply needs with enough for most of the rest of the world.
Europe needs to mobilize this present generation to create new ideas that will make Europe a place fit for the next generation. A system of solar roadways could pay for itself in 20 years. The pay off would come that much sooner if Europe really set itself the goal of energy independence by 2020 through an Energy Community based on democratic supranational principles.
Let us assume that this is a proven, technically feasible idea that would save the EU trillions of euros, create new industries, provide a European IT nervous system, an intelligent backbone across the Continent and help share intelligent grids systems and cut costs of power, how shold the EU proceed?
Do you think that the politicians would understand the technicalities of changing a centuries old infrastructure into one fit for the future? Would they have the courage to introduce it? Not much hope. Many of the career politicians with backgrounds in politics and the law would be afraid of derisive laughter from the media and maybe from their electors about a fragile glass road.
But if you asked a chamber composed of highly technical associations of industries, workers and consumers they could tell you how to change from a petroleum based economy to one based on creating an intelligent electrical infrastructure. They would all gain, in products, services and work so they would be highly motivated to succeed. They could call on the greatest expertise in computer networks, highways, in glass, electricity, safety, vehicle production and a whole range of other leading edge areas that need to be coordinated to make it a success. Europe's confidence in its future must similarly depend on the solidarity of expert experience and trust of all our citizens.
A Consultative Committee would force competing lobbies to work together. Why? because they would have to vote in a tripartite consultation of industries, consumers and workers, on all the important legal measures. It acts like a comprehensive, continent-wide think tank, a network of expertise. This would ensure that instead of wasting an ever-increasing amount of resources on petroleum, the Energy Community projects would use the money on creating employment and expertise for Europe that it could then help the rest of the world with in the inevitable transition to the sustainable, non-polluting, non-oil economy.
Europe has the brains, the industries the workers. What it lacks is the will to get its supranational act together. Schuman designed it as the most moral solution. A humble Statesman brought in a solution based on humility and pragmatic wisdom. After two thousands years of continuous war, European nations implemented the first stage of a system that made war 'not only unthinkable but materially impossible'.
Today politicians want to forget that lesson. When will they come to their senses? That time might come, unfortunately, when the politicians have been shown the futility of all the other cul-de-sac policies that they are presently trying.
A supranational Europe with a fully functioning system of Consultative Committees would also have a major purifying effect on monetary fraud. Their specialized committees would make sure that the politicians did not get their fingers into the national and European piggy banks. They would be subject to the proper supervision and control.
Thus Europe could enter on the next exciting stage of democratic solidarity that Schuman predicted.
Europe needs honest government and a solid economy. But it will take time to bring it in. In the meanwhile it will cost hundreds of billions of euros to shore up failing systems. Europe needs a breathing space to overcome this mismanagement and get a democratic and fully open system into place.
The road is clear. Any viable monetary system for Europe needs to have full participation of organized civil society in the institution designed for it. It needs the trust and confidence of ordinary people. That can only come from their active involvement -- especially when and where the politicians fail.
Non-political civil society has been cut out by 'egotistical and selfish' politicians. Before Europe can get on its monetary feet, politicians will have to learn humility and provide for the election of this major Community institution for organized civil society.
In the meanwhile how can Europe pay the bills? Two basic imperatives are required. One is to stop the secret deals of politicians deciding matters behind closed doors, thus thumbing their noses at civil society. The other imperative is to mobilize civil society to new goals that will make Europe a continent fit, prosperous and comfortable for our children and grandchildren.
Here are some examples. You can make a list of similar ones for yourself.
The European Union budget amounts to some 130 or 140 Billion euros. It is still discussed in secret by a cabal of politicians -- who think they know best about (1) How to raise the money (2) How to spend it.
Are they efficient in their secret deals? A recent report reveals that perhaps an amount equal to between half to three-quarters of this annual amount is lost to the European economy -- by politician-induced FRAUD. According to a recent report by MEP Bart Staes the fraud due to Value Added Tax (VAT) 'carousel fraud' amounts to 80 to 100 Billion euros EACH YEAR. Mr Staes says that the fraud is entirely avoidable. It is merely the lack of political will that has failed to introduce the counter-fraud measures. This is not all. Fiscal fraud altogether may amount to twice the entire EU budget around 250 Billion euros.
Ask yourself: 'If the people were in charge, rather than politicians meeting in a secret Council, would the taxpayer allow fraudsters to get away with stealing what amounts to the most of or even the double the entire EU budget? Would they say "Yes OK, you can take 100 Billion euros from my pocket and give it to fraudsters who are laughing in my face on the beach.'?'
No, they would certainly be active to stop the matter as soon as possible. There is one thing worse than paying tax and that is that someone else is not only refusing to do so but is in effect taking your tax money and living high on the hog at your expense. That is worse than government waste. It is encouraging criminal activity -- except that the people involved in the carousel operations are not yet in gaol. They aren't convicted criminal criminals -- yet.
Politicians too often are not willing to take hard decisions for ideological reasons or for lack of guts. If they made a mistake in the system they should correct it. If they have introduced a system that works only partly then they should repair it. An active Chamber for organized civil society, the Consultative Committees, would make sure this was done rapidly. All members would be tax-payers and represent all Europe's taxpayers.
Carousel VAT works by the same fraud well known to politicians -- spin. This time it is geographical spin. It uses the benefits of the Single Market to extract VAT refunds from governments while the fraudster spins his base of operations from one country to the next. The fraudsters 'sell' easily items like microchips, hi-fi, perfumes, mobile phones and carousel from one State to another while the tax officials run around wildly trying to catch them by their fleeing coat-tails.
Mr Staes says:
'The removal of internal administrative borders and the failure to introduce an effective system of fiscal control within the EU has created massive opportunities for fraud. The absence of any EU-level co-ordination of VAT rates and the deficient systematic co-operation and information exchange are two major issues that have facilitated this fraud. They make it more difficult for authorities to effectively tackle cases.'
Mr Staes says politicians' irresponsibility extends to other aspects of taxation.
'Another major shortcoming is the absurd absence of any formal or official definition of this particular form of fraud within the EU. A clear and uniform European definition of VAT carousels is absolutely necessary and a crucial step towards addressing the problem and allowing for better enforcement. A comparative European {study}, including the authorities of 25 member states, shows that there are almost no coinciding formulations of the coordinated directive on VAT.
Eurofisc - a new initiative, providing for voluntary fiscal co-operation between member states - has so far failed to emerge as a meaningful platform for co-operation. Despite an annual reporting requirement, the deliberations of Eurofisc remain secret. Transparency on Eurofisc is a necessary step to improving its effectiveness.'
A supranational Consultative Committee is a Treaty-based organ. It was designed to be a powerful network of democratic associations with regular statutes recognized at the European level, all paying tax honestly, represented in the chamber for organized civil society. It would make sure such nonsense never happened.
That is why the politicians in the Council arrested its growth and wanted to kill it off or freeze the three Consultative Committees in the treaties. The Council acted illegally ever since the first Consultative Committee in the 1952 Treaty of Paris and was so condemned by Schuman and Paul Reuter. The Council then decided that the members of the European Economic and Social Committee should be not be properly elected. They would chose who would be members of this 'independent' institution. The membership is decided by the political elites in their party cartel, in the secrecy of the Council of Ministers. Civil society needs to have a chamber with democratic legitimacy.
The long reform of the Parliamentary Assembly into the European Parliament -- still far from complete -- shows the path for the Economic and Social Committee. It took nearly thirty years before MEPs were able to be directly elected. All that is lacking is civil courage -- to stand up against what is wrong and what is fraudulent in the political cabal that believes in secret 'economic governance'. Time will tell.
Now reflect on an example of what could be done positively with a revived supranational democratic system comprising the five active institutions in the energy sector. This is far more democratic and powerfully productive than the present political internationalism that passes for governance in the EU.
First consider how much money is lost on foreign energy supply. Last year the rise in gas and oil prices -- not the actual cost but just the rise in price -- cost the EU as much as HALF the EU budget. The total cost amounts to more than twice the cost of the EU budget. The Founding Fathers warned that reliance on external energy sources was bad for Europe. It was bad for the economy and also bad because with Middle East oil in a cartel like OPEC Europe would lose its ability to have an independent foreign policy. They warned Europe to get off oil addiction. De Gaulle and other self-willed politicians did not listen. Europe has already lost trillions of euros.
This warning has proved to be accurate. Oil and gas prices are set to rise and rise. The time to start doing something sensible and intelligent is NOW. Oil is not only vital for the engines of cars and freight vehicles, it is also necessary for building the roads themselves. The price of tarmac is now sky rocketing too.
Why use tarmac or bitumen on the road? Habit, bad habit. Europe and North America have been doing it for more than a century. But in the last four years the price of a ton of bitumen rose from $175 to over $1000. Tarmac (tarring McAdam roads) may have seen a good idea in 1901, but is it a good idea today? Hardly. It was then a means to improve roads for horse drawn carriages to smooth and waterproof them for cars. Until then the speed of travel on roads differed little from the time of the Romans -- or for that matter the ancient Persians. Bitumen was sold off as a waste product from the people who gave you the oil cartel. They also set up an infrastructure of petrol pumps and roads that made it difficult for Europeans, who have little oil, to kick the addiction.
It is time to move on. What is the solution? One innovative scheme getting US funding is solar roadways. The idea is to use a whole range of new industrial developments and intelligent innovations to create solar panels made of reinforced glass. Glass? Well, if glass can withstand bullets and bombs it is no problem to withstand the weight of a large lorry or multi-wheeler truck. Made from sand, glass has been developing technological refinements since 3500 BCE in Babylonia.
Modern glass can also have safety features unheard of and even undreamed of last century. Glass embedded with high tech microchips can not only supply electricity to the electric vehicles as they travel and powerfeed into to nearby homes, it can turn the highways into an intelligent system with warning lights, ice and snow melting system and human safety features. A parking area could power an entire office building.
If the USA had these panels in place today it could generate THREE times its entire electricity supply needs with enough for most of the rest of the world.
Europe needs to mobilize this present generation to create new ideas that will make Europe a place fit for the next generation. A system of solar roadways could pay for itself in 20 years. The pay off would come that much sooner if Europe really set itself the goal of energy independence by 2020 through an Energy Community based on democratic supranational principles.
Let us assume that this is a proven, technically feasible idea that would save the EU trillions of euros, create new industries, provide a European IT nervous system, an intelligent backbone across the Continent and help share intelligent grids systems and cut costs of power, how shold the EU proceed?
Do you think that the politicians would understand the technicalities of changing a centuries old infrastructure into one fit for the future? Would they have the courage to introduce it? Not much hope. Many of the career politicians with backgrounds in politics and the law would be afraid of derisive laughter from the media and maybe from their electors about a fragile glass road.
But if you asked a chamber composed of highly technical associations of industries, workers and consumers they could tell you how to change from a petroleum based economy to one based on creating an intelligent electrical infrastructure. They would all gain, in products, services and work so they would be highly motivated to succeed. They could call on the greatest expertise in computer networks, highways, in glass, electricity, safety, vehicle production and a whole range of other leading edge areas that need to be coordinated to make it a success. Europe's confidence in its future must similarly depend on the solidarity of expert experience and trust of all our citizens.
A Consultative Committee would force competing lobbies to work together. Why? because they would have to vote in a tripartite consultation of industries, consumers and workers, on all the important legal measures. It acts like a comprehensive, continent-wide think tank, a network of expertise. This would ensure that instead of wasting an ever-increasing amount of resources on petroleum, the Energy Community projects would use the money on creating employment and expertise for Europe that it could then help the rest of the world with in the inevitable transition to the sustainable, non-polluting, non-oil economy.
Europe has the brains, the industries the workers. What it lacks is the will to get its supranational act together. Schuman designed it as the most moral solution. A humble Statesman brought in a solution based on humility and pragmatic wisdom. After two thousands years of continuous war, European nations implemented the first stage of a system that made war 'not only unthinkable but materially impossible'.
Today politicians want to forget that lesson. When will they come to their senses? That time might come, unfortunately, when the politicians have been shown the futility of all the other cul-de-sac policies that they are presently trying.
A supranational Europe with a fully functioning system of Consultative Committees would also have a major purifying effect on monetary fraud. Their specialized committees would make sure that the politicians did not get their fingers into the national and European piggy banks. They would be subject to the proper supervision and control.
Thus Europe could enter on the next exciting stage of democratic solidarity that Schuman predicted.
05 July, 2011
Budget9: Is the EU Budget Illegal? You and any tribunal can ask the European Court!
Can a Parliament and any other allegedly 'democratic institution' ban the public and journalists from their meetings? Do they have the legal right? Once they have shut the doors, can they then make a deal to IMPOSE a budget on taxpayers who are not present? Is its secretive procedure LEGAL? If it is not, is the budget illegal, void and invalid?
In October to December 2010, the Council, Parliament and Commission held a series of meetings on the 2011 Budget. The public and journalists were banned from setting foot in any of the meetings. A guard was put on the door. Only people on a special list were allowed to enter. On the agenda was the means to collect and spend around about 130 Billion euros defined in their 2011 budget. At the meetings were the Belgian Prime Minister and others representing the Council. The meetings included the President of the European Parliament and a score of his MEP colleagues and the European Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski, responsible for the Budget.
What did they get up to? We know that the Commissioner accused the politicians of behaving like a 'kindergarten'. It was not an edifying spectacle. Each side claimed the budget was their toy. Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski characterised the whole affair as ‘self-centered and egoistical'.
Whose toys, or rather, whose money were they arguing over? It was the group that was refused entry to all the meetings -- the public. The politicians did not only refuse to include them, they banned them outright. The political 'leaders' did not deign to have any REAL representative of the people from whom these 'democratic' leaders were about to extract their Billions! No member of the press was officially allowed to observe and report the politicians' infantile behaviour. No outsider was invited who would criticize this dangerous clique's discrimination and predatory action against the citizen.
I call these political juveniles 'dangerous' because they follow the pattern of President de Gaulle and others who refused to have open Council meetings that Robert Schuman said was essential. In the secrecy of the Council of Ministers, they created a vast pattern of corruption for votes with their Wine Lakes, Meat Mountains, faudulent, regional infrastructure projects that never happened.
The next generation of politicians did not open the doors either. They paid huge amounts of European taxpayers' money to party comrades in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, winking at the money that disappeared into boltholds and their subsequent fraudulent statistics. Those monetary falsehoods are now being exposed as Europe falters on the edge of a euro collapse.
The politicians today are committing similar immoral acts against European citizens in their secret sessions. Their arrogant offences would not pass in most of their home parliaments where a national press has free comment. Don't they think that secret budget discussions in Brussels must be wrong? Or do they just think: 'If we can get away with it here, why not?' They now want economic governance, another term for cartel dictatorship of their parties, by their parties for their party cartel.
Then in June 2011, not content with this trivial amount of hundreds of billions of euros, the European Commission proposed that a TRILLION euros should be levied from the European public, industries and workers. It is to be a combined seven-year plan. The public need not worry their silly, little heads over watching this unsavoury performance every year. It would be done in one quick stroke!
The Commission said it would speak about it to the people's representatives, the European Parliament. And so, the European Parliament quickly closed the doors on the people and the press! What happened behind closed doors? How did the party leaders react to this further money grab from European citizens? Did they rub their hands with delight? Did they yell 'Sock it to the public! We will bleed them dry!' We do not know the facts because the press was thrown out!
Why? Why did these very privileged people -- all of them obviously considered themselves very privileged -- feel it necessary to impose secrecy? Why did they ban the public? Why did they ban the press?
What is common with all these people? What unites those who have the only say-so in the European budget? They are all card-carrying members of political parties. Isn't that normal? NO it is not. They will tell you it is. Don't believe them. The European Community had a much more balanced democractic system where non-political civil socity plays an important part.
These 'closed-door politicians' represent ... what and whom exactly? Those in Nazi Germany were told the true German party members were those who decided matters for them. In fact they were kleptocrats and gangsters, stealing from the people. Those in Communist-controlled East Germany, Czechoslavakia, Poland and Hungary were told: 'The Worker's party is in charge!' Those in Mao's Communist China said the Party must control not only the Budget but every aspect of life.
Some systems banned non-Aryans, others businessmen, or capitalist running dogs from entering their 'parliaments' when deliberating the budget. All these diverse systems had one thing in common. They did not like a free press.
Are Europeans free? Those in control in the EU all have party cards. They are a tiny minority. All party card-holders amount to about one in fifty of the entire population. And the parties are increasingly unpopular. In the European elections more people who can vote refuse to vote for any of them. The majority in the EU is not the parties but an entity called 'None of the above' that should appear on the ballot.
At one stage in history party affiliation had some importance. Now they nearly all act together in a continuous coalition or a cartel of parties. It makes no difference who the electors vote for, they get the same result -- more expenditure and luxurious padding for the parties. When corruption is exposed, confidence in the parties plummets again. Public support has been declining for decades.
Yet this small but powerful cartel plans to extract more and more money from the other 98 percent of the population. They are all generally in favour of having more projects and subsidies which they feel will buy them support. These bribes are just tax money being returned diminished under new conditions set by the political parties. For themselves they want nothing but higher salaries, more assistants, help for friends in the same party wherever they are, expansion of agencies and dubious employment initiatives such as the 'External Action Service', overseas aid which corrupts and anything else that supports the ideologies of the parties.
Now consider if the European leaders were all identified with another small group. What if the Commission, Parliament and Council were composed entirely of Freemasons? What if they were all Catholics or Jews or Shi'ite Muslims or Europeans of Chinese origin? What if they were all paid up members of the FBSS, the Fraudulent Bankers' Speculation Society? What would be the public's reaction if the controlling class in the European institutions all believed in Ju-Ju?
It is obvious that the secret and secretive control of the budget by any one tiny group raises questions of motive and propriety. When they close the doors the public would immediately presume that they are making some underhand contributions of tax money to the furtherance of Ju-Ju. No moral person would allow himself to get into such an dubious situation and be enthusiastic to keep the ban on outsiders and the press. A well run parish or tennis club would ensure their meetings would always be open. Are the EU's leaders moral? They have no qualms about secret sessions on the budget. They insist on them.
The party cartel who seized control of the institutions have included those bodies which the treaties say should not be political. What should the citizen do if the public remain banned from budget meetings because they do not have a Ju-Ju membership card?
Should the citizens ask for a Ju-Ju card? Or would they ask: Is it legal? Is the Budget legal? Is the discrimination against the citizen legal? What can we do about it?
We can go to Court! But how?
The Founding Fathers, you will be happy to know, put adequate safeguards in the Treaties. If any institution feels that another is not acting democratically according to the treaty, there is a recourse. That institution can take the other to the European Court of Justice.
But what if all the main institutions are in cahoots? What if all the leaders of the main institutions are all members of Ju-Ju and they ban anyone who isn't?
Don't despair! The founding Fathers provided a powerful solution. They said that any citizen who feels that he or she is being discriminated against can go to the European Court. And it won't cost a cent more. If the European institutions bring in legislation -- such as the Budget -- and the citizen feels it is unjust or discriminatory, then he can go to any local court or tribunal in the land and have redress.
If it is a matter of paying taxes and the citizen refuses to pay European taxes, then the citizen can explain to the judge that the European tax is unjust because it was decided in secret without democratic control. As part of the case the judge is then allowed and encouraged to ask for an opinion of the European Court of Justice, to see whether it is so and whether it is legal. The citizen should cite article 267 of the Lisbon Treaty which reproduces the article from earlier treaties.
A few hundred million citizens can do this. So can all companies, trade unions and consumer groups of civil society.
Article 267 states:
The service of the European Court is open. If not today, then maybe tomorrow an individual or an association will bring a case complaining that raising taxes without the knowledge of citizens and in secret meetings is illegal.
The judges would be sure to check Article 15 of the Lisbon Treaty. It was added by civil society group specifically because of M. de Gaulle's bad habits. It states:
The next paragraph is especially relevant:
There are few legislative acts as important as the Budget.
If the Court agreed that
then the law in question could be annulled on any one of these grounds. The whole of the EU budget and all its programmes would be thrown into confusion until it could be sorted out.
That recourse to justice can happen at any time, by any citizen or association. For the cartel it is like a time bomb that will one day explode against them.
It would be far better for the Parliament and the Council to begin to act like democratic institutions TODAY.
In October to December 2010, the Council, Parliament and Commission held a series of meetings on the 2011 Budget. The public and journalists were banned from setting foot in any of the meetings. A guard was put on the door. Only people on a special list were allowed to enter. On the agenda was the means to collect and spend around about 130 Billion euros defined in their 2011 budget. At the meetings were the Belgian Prime Minister and others representing the Council. The meetings included the President of the European Parliament and a score of his MEP colleagues and the European Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski, responsible for the Budget.
What did they get up to? We know that the Commissioner accused the politicians of behaving like a 'kindergarten'. It was not an edifying spectacle. Each side claimed the budget was their toy. Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski characterised the whole affair as ‘self-centered and egoistical'.
Whose toys, or rather, whose money were they arguing over? It was the group that was refused entry to all the meetings -- the public. The politicians did not only refuse to include them, they banned them outright. The political 'leaders' did not deign to have any REAL representative of the people from whom these 'democratic' leaders were about to extract their Billions! No member of the press was officially allowed to observe and report the politicians' infantile behaviour. No outsider was invited who would criticize this dangerous clique's discrimination and predatory action against the citizen.
I call these political juveniles 'dangerous' because they follow the pattern of President de Gaulle and others who refused to have open Council meetings that Robert Schuman said was essential. In the secrecy of the Council of Ministers, they created a vast pattern of corruption for votes with their Wine Lakes, Meat Mountains, faudulent, regional infrastructure projects that never happened.
The next generation of politicians did not open the doors either. They paid huge amounts of European taxpayers' money to party comrades in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, winking at the money that disappeared into boltholds and their subsequent fraudulent statistics. Those monetary falsehoods are now being exposed as Europe falters on the edge of a euro collapse.
The politicians today are committing similar immoral acts against European citizens in their secret sessions. Their arrogant offences would not pass in most of their home parliaments where a national press has free comment. Don't they think that secret budget discussions in Brussels must be wrong? Or do they just think: 'If we can get away with it here, why not?' They now want economic governance, another term for cartel dictatorship of their parties, by their parties for their party cartel.
Then in June 2011, not content with this trivial amount of hundreds of billions of euros, the European Commission proposed that a TRILLION euros should be levied from the European public, industries and workers. It is to be a combined seven-year plan. The public need not worry their silly, little heads over watching this unsavoury performance every year. It would be done in one quick stroke!
The Commission said it would speak about it to the people's representatives, the European Parliament. And so, the European Parliament quickly closed the doors on the people and the press! What happened behind closed doors? How did the party leaders react to this further money grab from European citizens? Did they rub their hands with delight? Did they yell 'Sock it to the public! We will bleed them dry!' We do not know the facts because the press was thrown out!
Why? Why did these very privileged people -- all of them obviously considered themselves very privileged -- feel it necessary to impose secrecy? Why did they ban the public? Why did they ban the press?
What is common with all these people? What unites those who have the only say-so in the European budget? They are all card-carrying members of political parties. Isn't that normal? NO it is not. They will tell you it is. Don't believe them. The European Community had a much more balanced democractic system where non-political civil socity plays an important part.
These 'closed-door politicians' represent ... what and whom exactly? Those in Nazi Germany were told the true German party members were those who decided matters for them. In fact they were kleptocrats and gangsters, stealing from the people. Those in Communist-controlled East Germany, Czechoslavakia, Poland and Hungary were told: 'The Worker's party is in charge!' Those in Mao's Communist China said the Party must control not only the Budget but every aspect of life.
Some systems banned non-Aryans, others businessmen, or capitalist running dogs from entering their 'parliaments' when deliberating the budget. All these diverse systems had one thing in common. They did not like a free press.
Are Europeans free? Those in control in the EU all have party cards. They are a tiny minority. All party card-holders amount to about one in fifty of the entire population. And the parties are increasingly unpopular. In the European elections more people who can vote refuse to vote for any of them. The majority in the EU is not the parties but an entity called 'None of the above' that should appear on the ballot.
At one stage in history party affiliation had some importance. Now they nearly all act together in a continuous coalition or a cartel of parties. It makes no difference who the electors vote for, they get the same result -- more expenditure and luxurious padding for the parties. When corruption is exposed, confidence in the parties plummets again. Public support has been declining for decades.
Yet this small but powerful cartel plans to extract more and more money from the other 98 percent of the population. They are all generally in favour of having more projects and subsidies which they feel will buy them support. These bribes are just tax money being returned diminished under new conditions set by the political parties. For themselves they want nothing but higher salaries, more assistants, help for friends in the same party wherever they are, expansion of agencies and dubious employment initiatives such as the 'External Action Service', overseas aid which corrupts and anything else that supports the ideologies of the parties.
Now consider if the European leaders were all identified with another small group. What if the Commission, Parliament and Council were composed entirely of Freemasons? What if they were all Catholics or Jews or Shi'ite Muslims or Europeans of Chinese origin? What if they were all paid up members of the FBSS, the Fraudulent Bankers' Speculation Society? What would be the public's reaction if the controlling class in the European institutions all believed in Ju-Ju?
It is obvious that the secret and secretive control of the budget by any one tiny group raises questions of motive and propriety. When they close the doors the public would immediately presume that they are making some underhand contributions of tax money to the furtherance of Ju-Ju. No moral person would allow himself to get into such an dubious situation and be enthusiastic to keep the ban on outsiders and the press. A well run parish or tennis club would ensure their meetings would always be open. Are the EU's leaders moral? They have no qualms about secret sessions on the budget. They insist on them.
The party cartel who seized control of the institutions have included those bodies which the treaties say should not be political. What should the citizen do if the public remain banned from budget meetings because they do not have a Ju-Ju membership card?
Should the citizens ask for a Ju-Ju card? Or would they ask: Is it legal? Is the Budget legal? Is the discrimination against the citizen legal? What can we do about it?
We can go to Court! But how?
The Founding Fathers, you will be happy to know, put adequate safeguards in the Treaties. If any institution feels that another is not acting democratically according to the treaty, there is a recourse. That institution can take the other to the European Court of Justice.
But what if all the main institutions are in cahoots? What if all the leaders of the main institutions are all members of Ju-Ju and they ban anyone who isn't?
Don't despair! The founding Fathers provided a powerful solution. They said that any citizen who feels that he or she is being discriminated against can go to the European Court. And it won't cost a cent more. If the European institutions bring in legislation -- such as the Budget -- and the citizen feels it is unjust or discriminatory, then he can go to any local court or tribunal in the land and have redress.
If it is a matter of paying taxes and the citizen refuses to pay European taxes, then the citizen can explain to the judge that the European tax is unjust because it was decided in secret without democratic control. As part of the case the judge is then allowed and encouraged to ask for an opinion of the European Court of Justice, to see whether it is so and whether it is legal. The citizen should cite article 267 of the Lisbon Treaty which reproduces the article from earlier treaties.
A few hundred million citizens can do this. So can all companies, trade unions and consumer groups of civil society.
Article 267 states:
The Court of Justice of the European Union shall have jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings concerning:
(a) the interpretation of the Treaties;
(b) the validity and interpretation of acts of the institutions, bodies, offices or agencies of the Union;
Where such a question is raised before any court or tribunal of a Member State, that court or tribunal may, if it considers that a decision on the question is necessary to enable it to give judgement, request the Court to give a ruling thereon.
The service of the European Court is open. If not today, then maybe tomorrow an individual or an association will bring a case complaining that raising taxes without the knowledge of citizens and in secret meetings is illegal.
The judges would be sure to check Article 15 of the Lisbon Treaty. It was added by civil society group specifically because of M. de Gaulle's bad habits. It states:
In order to promote good governance and ensure the participation of civil society, the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies shall conduct their work as openly as possible.
The next paragraph is especially relevant:
The European Parliament shall meet in public, as shall the Council when considering and voting on a draft legislative act.
There are few legislative acts as important as the Budget.
If the Court agreed that
- consultation with citizens is pre-requisite for any legislation to pass,
- a minority cannot oppress the majority,
- all legislation must be conducted in the open from the first consideration to the final vote,
- the press must be allowed access to report any political chicanery,
then the law in question could be annulled on any one of these grounds. The whole of the EU budget and all its programmes would be thrown into confusion until it could be sorted out.
That recourse to justice can happen at any time, by any citizen or association. For the cartel it is like a time bomb that will one day explode against them.
It would be far better for the Parliament and the Council to begin to act like democratic institutions TODAY.
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