SUPRA2: After 60 years France releases Europe's Foundational Charter of Supranational Democracy

The foundation stone  of European Law and Democracy has been revealed at last! Below is a copy of the key institutional document of European democracy that politicians have refused to publish for decades. It may not have been seen for SIXTY years. Now it needs to be fully integrated into European codes of Law and jurisprudence.

On 18 April 1951 the the Europe Declaration was signed by all the representatives of the six founding Member State Governments of the European Community. It creates the Foundation of a New Europe which made 'war not only unthinkable but materially impossible'. It provided a path as it says to create a new common destiny so Europeans could look forward to a peaceful future both of prosperity but also be forced to resolve peacefully common problems together and, despite the corruption and perversities of human nature, arrive together at moral and ethical solutions.

 In his book, Pour l'Europe (p146), Robert Schuman called it the great Charter of Europe's Community. After its signature and that of the Treaty of Paris founding the European Community for Coal and Steel, it was then placed for safekeeping in the archives of the French Foreign Ministry at the Quai d'Orsay, Paris.

It contains the pledge of European Governments that all European Community future Treaties founding new Community organizations, all Acts and Laws arising from them would follow certain principles. This includes such things as supranational values, like honesty, justice and truth. It pledged that all citizens would have to give full democratic agreement to any future developments.

General de Gaulle was no friend of the European Community and tried to destroy it. The Europe Declaration of Interdependence may have been buried in the archives at this time. It contains the word de Gaulle hated: SUPRANATIONAL, meaning that dictators would find no place in a democratic Community of democratic Member States. He wanted to replace the independent European Commission searching out the common good and just solutions with a secretariat subservient to his own political views (Fouchet Plan and the crisis of the Empty Chair).

Democratic politicians in other countries together with democrats in France fought off this plan for Gaullist hegemony of the Continent.   Yet politicians after de Gaulle never published this foundational document, nor developed the Community's democratic institutions to any great extent. Referendums were avoided or simply disdained.

The Community's democratic and supranational principles have been ignored in recent developments including the construction of the euro. This is based on economics of national currencies strung inadequately together by international agreement of politicians, not the people. The Community system envisages a European Currency controlled by a properly elected European Parliament under a single electoral statute and organized civil society in a fully elected Economic and Social Committee.

 After being hidden in the archives of the Quai d'Orsay for sixty years, ignored and kept secret from the public by politicians, this Foundational Declaration has now been released by the French Government, following a request by the Schuman Project. It is now published on its site www.schuman.info/CharterQdO.htm

     

Supra1: Supranational values create the 'Grand Bargain' of Europe, not party oligarchs or markets.

The former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for a ‘Grand Bargain’ to set Europe on the right track. Part of his idea, said Mr Blair, speaking in Berlin at the Council for the Future of Europe on 29 October 2012, is the election of the President of the European Commission.

‘My feeling is that the only way, ultimately, confidence can be restored is with a fully comprehensive set of measures that convince markets and public alike that the fundamental issues have been overcome.’

The first major mistake of this analysis relates to the true foundation of European construction. It is a supranational institution.

• It is not based on pleasing the markets.
• Europe cannot be built on money like the euro (even if it were well-constructed and it isn’t).
• Nor can it be built on commercial activity (even if the EU is the largest commercial power in the world, equivalent to the USA, Canada and India).
• It cannot even be built on some ideological concept of democracy. (Ideology means part truth).

Putting the Commission into the hands of politicians by elections, organized and controlled by political parties, is completely wrong. It would exclude 98 percent of the population who are not members of political parties. It is the road to disaster. It violates the most elementary principles of Human Rights. A fairer, more just and honest idea is required.

Europe must be founded on truth and the search for truth. Truth can be arrived at by experience, examining one’s conscience and investigation. That is the only realistic basis for a sound society. Experience tells us that politicians should not be given absolute control, that their  declarations should be examined by ordinary citizens and interest groups in non-political representative bodies. Their conclusions should be published and examined conscientiously by all the public.

That is because all human beings have a tendency to corrupt and putting known corrupters in charge of anti-corruption is to corrupt the system absolutely.

Appeasing corruption is no formula for resolving the present crisis, nor for the future. AT THE MOMENT POLITICIANS ARE FAR TOO KEEN TO OBSCURE CORRUPTION RATHER THAN EXPOSE IT AND CORRECT IT.

European integration can only be founded on values like fairness, justice and honesty. Schuman called these supranational values because, in the past, empires, federations and confederations have collapsed because of violation of justice and the rule of law. Science properly founded on correct premises is a supranational value, said Schuman. Its results were true in antiquity (even if not always recognized). It is true today. As Schuman learned in his university days, justice decided in the court systems of ancient societies tended to follow similar rules to modern justice. Societies also failed when, as contemporary critics observed, corruption replaced justice or when sexual depravity became commonplace. Today lack of trust in politicians does not justify giving them more powers.

It is true that Europe needs to defend itself externally from predatory and dangerous powers that would like to exploit its disunity. That idea is not new. Schuman said that precisely in his address to the United Nations General Assembly in 1948: ‘Europe must unite to survive.’ Europeans have fought each other for thousands of years and disunity is more natural than unity.

What is important for us now is how the foundation based on supranational values can be developed. These values form the basis for European democracies. They arose from Christian basis of our civilization but also present in other successful societies too.
Should Europeans fear the future? Should they chase after the chimera of exploitative wealth?

Mr Blair says: ‘The 21st Century case for Europe is based not on war or peace but on power or irrelevance. A 21st Century with China and India that in time, as GDP and population size realign, will become vast economic and political powers.’

Where this analysis is wrong is that ALL civilizations will fail if they cannot handle the problem of corruption. This is true not only for China, India and Europe but also for Russia and other rising, populous states including the super-rich but corrupt oil powers of the Middle East. What is relevant is building on a sound foundation, not coveting immoral and unethical practices that seem to bring instant wealth. Peace, which Europe gained by the Community, can continue to bring vast improvement in technical and moral progress, when the real keys of the supranational system are  honestly applied.

Where Mr Blair makes a further fundamental mistake is to ignore the fact that a Grand Bargain has already been made. It is the politicians too often who are responsible for not holding to it. Take for instance the European Commission. Mr Blair says it should be elected. That sounds fair. But it is not what the Grand Bargain of 18 April 1951 to put an end to war made actually says.  Electing the President would throw the whole procedure into the hands of the political parties who have a near monopoly of putting up candidates. It would reinforce the party political control of the institutions. Within the main political parties a small group of party officials decides on who should be candidate. Thus the whole process puts the presidency of the Commission into the hands of party machines and a few apparatchiks who decide.

This is an oligarchic system and has great dangers. It does not oppose antidemocratic attitudes of fellow politicians. The European Council would reinforce its undemocratic meetings of all and everything in secret. The ultra-secret Eurozone group would cook up lawless schemes to bilk the public of trillions of euros. No democratic control is possible. The Commission becomes fully complicit in any corruption. The independence of the Commission from governments, and from political parties and from any commercial, industrial or other interest group, is fundamental to the Community system.

The word ‘supranational’ appears twice in Europe’s founding treaty and in subsequent treaties like the European Political Community and Defence Community.

This proposal of Mr Blair is directly opposite to what the original Grand Bargain entailed. So what was the Grand Bargain of 18 April 1951?  It provided a way to end war between Member States. It created FIVE mutually independent institutions to safeguard this bargain and to build the future. By separately analyzing and then cross-checking the proposal of an impartial Commission (alone able to propose legislation), the most democratically fair bargain could be struck to provide the basis for European laws, taxes and budgets.

1. The European Commission must be (a) INDEPENDENT and (b) represent Europe not national interests or in fact not be tied to any interest group at all. The Commission must be impartial. Therefore the selection of the future Commissioners must be made by a process that would avoid political corruption or the election of those representing special interests.

2. The Commission should be in permanent dialogue with a consultative body representing Organized Civil Society. These Consultative Committees should be elected equally from three lists of European professional organizations representing workers, consumers and entrepreneurs. There should also be elections for the Committee of Regions and the Euratom Committees. These Consultative Committees have full powers in the preparation and supervision of all European legislation.

3. The Council of Ministers should be held in OPEN sessions. There should be no taxation without full and appropriate debate both inside the Council and also in the national parliaments.

4. The European Parliament should be elected according to a single statute for all the territory of the European Union. There should no longer be 27 national elections where the government parties bias the rules in favour of their own political parties. (Under the Lisbon Treaty the Parliament gave up its prime weapon for democracy — the ability to sack the Commission.)

5. The Court of Justice should be composed of impartial judges who are open to all tribunals and courts for their ruling on the interpretation of European law.

The most solemn part of the Great Bargain of 18 April 1951 was that no European measure should be brought in WITHOUT THE WHOLE-HEARTED AGREEMENT OF THE EUROPEAN PEOPLES. It is called the Great Charter of Europe, its Declaration of Interdependence.

This is not what has happened in Europe recently where we have seen treaties brought in by secretive cabals of politicians, meeting in the dead of night in European Councils. These treaties are not OPEN nor are they agreed freely by the people. They are as legitimate as the measures brought in by the Politburos of the so-called ‘People’s Democracies’ of the Soviet era. Worse, the politicians went ahead even though, in the few referendums that the politicians permitted, the public of several nations pronounced decisively against them. Then the politicians changed the system so that no further referendums would be permitted, especially in the founder States who knew exactly what abuses had been committed by de Gaulle and others!

The Great Charter said that the Community was the TRUE FOUNDATION of an organized Europe. It was declared as the first instance of a supranational organization in the world. It was a Community of peoples (not political groups). It set as prime condition that the people must be ‘FREE TO CHOOSE’. The first measure of renewing the Grand Bargain is to republish this Great Charter. It is the first Statute of European Law.

Mr Blair said: ‘I bear the scars of participation in the Amsterdam Treaty, the Nice Treaty, the – Laeken process culminating in the Lisbon Treaty and the 2005 EU budget negotiation, when the UK held the Presidency –  the most difficult negotiation I participated in, (even including the Northern Ireland peace agreement.) Many of those here today bear similar scars! ‘

The politicians are likely to get many more scars until they learn their lessons about the real foundations of European democracy.

Euratom2: Alfred Nobel, the Peace Prize and Robert Schuman

The awarding today of the Nobel Prize for Peace is a great recognition of the most prominent peace-making system the world has seen. Europe has experienced the longest period of peace in its more than 2000 years of history.

It is also ironic. The Nobel Prize Committee recognized the six decades of peace that should be celebrated this year as the European institutions began their work in 1952.

But WHY did none of the European institutions themselves celebrated the 60 years and the 60th Anniversary!!

The European Commission did not celebrate the sixty years of its entering in function in August 1952.

The Council did not recognize or celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of its first session after the signature of the Europe’s first treaty coming into force. Nor did it celebrate the signature of the European Community Treaty of 18 April 1951!

The European Parliament did not celebrate the first session of the democratic Assembly of the European Community under the presidency of Paul-Henri Spaak.

Secondly, Why has the EU not fully developed the EURATOM Community — the means to create a powerful non-proliferation instrument that would prevent nuclear bomb technology turning the world into flames. Robert Schuman whose Proposal created the European Community the core of the present EU, said in 1949 that he was inspired by some aspect of the Nobel Dynamite trust to make sure that such powerful materials should not be misused. Explosive materials such as dynamite owed its existence to coal tar chemistry. These explosives were far more powerful than gunpowder used up to the beginning of the First World War.

Schuman's first Community, the European Coal and Steel Community created Europe's FIRST SINGLE MARKET in coal and steel products. This made the secret production of weapons of war 'not only unthinkable but materially impossible'. He provided the most democratic means to run the Community, but this requires that the politicians properly apply the treaties. For example the politicians still need to agree on having fair elections.

Let us hope that the European institutions will now begin to examine their past histories and reverse the disastrous political decisions that reject Community principles.

Euro10: The Commission to skivvy for an above-the-law, non-EU, 'tax haven' company?

Grave defects in THREE current treaties and agreements will affect your money and Democratic structures across Europe — for the worse. The European Council is trying to force through unethical and undemocratic treaty proposals. It aims to create the European Finance and Stability Facility/Mechanism (EFSF), the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), and the Fiscal Compact (TSCG). They will radically change your life and all Europeans. It is giving short shrift to democratic debate either in national parliaments, the European Parliament and trying to stifle public debate.

It took ten years to force through the irresponsible Lisbon/Constitutional Treaty against the expressed will of the people, asserted in referendums and public opinion. Now it is trying to do the same in one year with three treaties that are not even properly subject to the European institutions — and the European Court of Justice. Each treaty pushed through against public opinion and court battles produces ever decreasing political legitimacy and plummeting public trust.

It is highly dangerous. Why? Because the treaties abandon common values of Democracy of Member States. They subvert supranational principles about how to create a sound money in a Community composed of many and varied economies of 27 States, each with their own history.

ONLY a Community system with proper elections and independent institutions can safeguard a Community currency. Wishful thinking of politicians telling each other not to be too greedy and corrupt will not work. It will end in a deeper crisis.

Will politicians succeed in destroying sound money by their shenanigans behind closed doors? Will the Commission be turned into a toothless secretariat? Should politicians ‘task‘ it for their own dubious purposes? Or should it be INDEPENDENT?

Would you agree that government ministers,

• some of whom have been accused or shown to be guilty of fiddling the books,
• fraudulently breaking European law,
• undermining the currency,
• being involved in political corruption,
• or knowingly colluding with those who do so in secrecy

should HAVE LEGAL IMMUNITY FROM COURT ACTION? Should all their staff be:
“immune from legal proceedings with respect to acts performed by them in their official capacity and shall enjoy inviolability in respect of their official papers and documents. ”
Politicians have created a fraudulent EURO that ignores the Community democratic rules. Their aim was to hide national fraud behind a European cloak — without democratic control or proper elections.  If they were again involved multibillion euro fiddles, why should they be above all Courts of Law? Does anyone have a guarantee that politicians will always be moral and never make any mistake? Democratic control and the Law are there because politicians can be immoral and often make mistakes.

Do you think the public should have a say before this legal immunity of the political class is applied? Should the legal framework be decided by those who have previously been found guilty of wasting billions of taxpayers’ money? Should LAW be INDEPENDENT of Government, especially those who control the budget?

The concept of a supranational and democratic Community demands that the Commission must be independent and composed of universally accepted fair-minded individuals. Their task is to PROPOSE to politicians measures that will be to the benefit of all Europeans. When politicians and government ministers want the Commission to be their secretariat acting at their dictates, the idea of Community is turned upside down. It is hegemonic rule by a Council Politburo. In the past the Commissions were almost entirely non-political. The European Commission was created so that politicians could not turn Europe into a zone of corruption and warfare. Corrupting the Commission and making all members colluding fellow politicians is to place the fox in charge of the chicken-house and all the EU budget too.

What do YOUR lawyers, paid for from your taxes, the Council’s own  lawyers, say about these bizarre and extraordinary proposals?

The Council refused my request to see the Legal Opinion of their Legal Service on the following non-Community innovations: the EFSF (European Finance and Stability Facility), the ESM (European Stability Mechanism) and the Fiscal Compact (the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union), TSCG and similar matters. I appealed, reminding the Council that it was both URGENT and of major financial importance, and needed for democratic debate.

After the longest delay possible according to the Freedom of Information Regulation 1049/2001, the Council again refused. I therefore introduced a complaint to the European Ombudsman (0862 /2012).  The Council again refused to supply documents paid for by the tax-payer and vital for a democratic debate on what exactly is happening on the Euro crisis. The so-called rescue mechanisms cost multiple times the annual budget of the EU. The crises involve politician-generated frauds and Treaty-busting overspends. Now the politicians expect the public to have politician-generated solutions, legally secure as a sieve. They will waste oodles of money for generations to come.
The following is my reply to the Ombudsman, awaiting his decision.

Council’s Refusal to supply Legal Opinions on the EFSF, ESM and Fiscal Compact.
Please refer to my earlier correspondence with the Council.
The Council has chosen only to reply about the Fiscal Compact, the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the EMU.

My reply is in three parts:
(A) The lack of sensitivity and sense of proportion of the Council/European Council to democracy in monetary matters, given its huge financial and democratic importance;
(B) Legal position – the refusal to show a Legal Opinion is in violation to the treaty articles and European court judgements. The Council position is untenable and hypocritical because parts of the legal Opinion have already been published by some Parliaments. Publication is normal and required in any civilized democracy. Legal opinions must be published for democratic debate.
(C) I also ask the Ombudsman to investigate if other Legal Opinions exist for the ESFS Agreement and ESM treaty, by hiding them in other contexts. The ESM treaty for example gives legal immunity from Court action to the staff of the ESM and tax-free status for staff. This is a highly controversial matter given the number of governmental frauds exposed during the euro crises. The ESFS Agreement results in a private company in Luxembourg, ‘tasking’ the European Commission, a tax-paid, EU civil service in the public sector, ‘to perform certain duties and functions as contemplated by the terms of the Agreement’ (Preamble 3). Is the Commission a public or a private body?  The Agreement is contracted according to English law and may be dealt with by Luxembourg Courts, although the position of the Commission to act or complain remains dubious as it is considered a skivvy of the Company and only Member States are mentioned in legal action (Art 16). Has the Commission become the private secretariat of a Luxembourg company?

A. Importance of the issue.
1. Practically unlimited amounts of money is involved. Public liability to irresponsible politicians’ action is at stake. A group of countries but not the whole Community of 27 Member States is proposing to implement monetary innovations that represent a budget of FIVE or more times the entire EU budget without proper discussion or control through the EFSF and ESM with dubious control through the Fiscal Compact. The proposed solution lacks adequate democratic supervision. It involves ministers setting themselves up in a private company in a location that many of them previously denounced as a tax haven and subject to utmost secrecy about banking transactions.

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 31 July 2012
France and Italy favour giving the ESM “virtually unlimited firepower” via ECB liquiditySüddeutsche reports that a number of eurozone member states, including France and Italy, as well as leading members of the ECB Governing Council, favour granting the eurozone’s permanent bailout fund, the ESM, a banking licence – which would give the fund “virtually unlimited firepower” beyond its projected 700 billion euro via an open credit line at the ECB. Handelsblatt cites the ECB’s former Chief Economist Jürgen Stark as saying that “an ESM with a banking licence would be a clear violation of European law.”
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/schuldenkrise-in-europa-eu-staaten-wollen-euro-schutzschirm-ohne-limit-1.1426870

2. Anti-democratic procedures and obscurity adopted by governmental leaders. The subject was discussed at what was a mixed meeting of EU heads of Government and States plus a Eurozone meeting of these leaders (which does not have legal status in the treaties.)
In this case it is not clear who is in charge. Is it the European Council, the Council of Ministers or a grouping of government ministers of the Eurozone? The latter, the ‘Eurogroup’ is an informal group according to the treaties. It is not a decision-making body.
3. Legal obscurity. Only the full Council is regarded as an institutional body for legal decision-making. Thus any decisions taken by the Eurogroup are legally dubious.
4. The euro is in crisis, we have been told, for the last several years. Now politicians say it is urgent and the new arrangements must be done rush, rush, rush. All this while the legal status is highly dubious. This tactic is unworthy of democracies and more common of tin-pot dictatorships trying to fool the public.
5. The European institutions and European national governments have a responsibility to act fairly, lay their cards on the table and take the public into their confidence as the leaders are supposed to be representatives of the public. Legal Opinions are owned by the taxpayers.
6. The EU leadership is presently in a critical low of public confidence, mainly because of lack of accountability of the EU budget, lack of proper accounting procedures where the EU budget has failed to be signed off.  TRUST in the EU leadership has fallen to the lowest level EVER, 31%. http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb77/eb77_first_en.pdf
The European Union and Communities and intergovernmental conferences have institutions that are there for democratic discussion once information is supplied. The draft treaties have to be discussed for safeguards in national parliaments and other democratic fora before ratification.
7. The politicians – whether of the Council or the Eurogroup – have shown great reluctance to present relevant information to the public. I asked Council press officers on 30 January for the Legal Opinions. They did not have them to give me. Instead I was forced to ask via the website, which is more suited to historical archives than news journalism.
8. The response of the council is mechanistical lacking any sort of sense of urgency, proportion or public responsibility. It involves obfuscation and denial rather than democratic accountability, given the enormous sums of money and political implications involved.
9. Political leaders refuse to open a debate on this multi-billion matter. MEP Francis Wurtz said recently ‘It is not because votes in the Council are supposed to be public, or that debates in Parliament are obviously public, that democracy is safe. Everything possible is being done, not through negligence but as part of a strategic design, to avoid feeding understandable information to the man in the street and to avoid a debate on public ideas, in other words genuine grass-roots democracy. You just have to look around you! Speaking on TF1 on 9 September, François Hollande discussed the crisis and the budget, but he did not say a word about the treaty.’

B. Legal position

a. Turco Case. European Court of Justice 1049/01 PRESS RELEASE No 43/08 , dated 1 July 2008
Judgment of the Court of Justice in Joined Cases C-39/05 and C-52/05 Sweden and Turco v Council and Others
THE COURT AUTHORISES, IN PRINCIPLE, ACCESS TO LEGAL ADVICE GIVEN TO THE COUNCIL ON LEGISLATIVE QUESTIONS
The transparency of the legislative process and the strengthening of the democratic rights of European citizens are capable of constituting an overriding public interest which justifies the disclosure of legal advice.
Mr Maurizio Turco said later: Democracy and the Rule of Law are based on publicity of the laws and of the decision-making process, hereby including all acts (proposals, amendments, discussions, votes, legal opinions, reports, etc) that are examined and contribute to the determination of a decision having effects on citizens. The EU, as well as Italy, has to guarantee these fundamental principles that allow for citizens to get closer to institutions and to participate in public life, following the principle that it is necessary to have the possibility “to know in order to deliberate“.

b. In’t Veld Case. European Court of Justice Sophie in’t Veld vs the Council
It was the General Court’s judgement in Case T-529/09 to annul the Council’s October 2009 decision insofar as it refuses access to the undisclosed parts of the requested document (11897/09) other than those that concern the specific content of the envisaged agreement or the negotiating directives and considers overall that both the Liberal MEP and the Council were “partially unsuccessful” in their endeavour. The parties will have to settle between themselves what can be disclosed.
Ms in’t Veld – who earlier this year drafted a report for the parliament’s civil liberties committee calling on MEPs to reject the EU/US agreement on the data transfer of flight passengers – described the ruling as “a step forward for transparency in Europe” which establishes a precedent that “negotiations on international agreements are not automatically exempt from EU transparency rules.”
Other ECJ judgement reinforce this requirement for the Council to share Legal Opinions. Publishing opinions is not only a treaty obligation, it is an obligation for democratic debate (TFEU #288) and elsewhere already cited in my correspondence with the Council.

c. Part of the Legal Opinion has already been published!
It is ridiculous and hypocritical to refuse access to any part of the Legal Opinion of the Fiscal Compact (TSCG). I have not been able to check what has been published in all 27 Member States but the following relates to the UK. The UK House of Parliament Library (UKHPL) Research Paper 12/14 of 27 March 2012 prints a number of extracts.
“Council Legal Service Opinion
On 26 January 2012 the Council Legal Service issued an Opinion on the compatibility with EU law of draft Article 8 and related preamble recitals, based on the fourth treaty draft. The Legal Service answered four questions:
1. Can the procedure foreseen be described as a dispute settlement mechanism between Member States?
A Member State considering that another Member State had not complied with mutually accepted treaty obligations “is enough to be regarded as a genuine dispute between them” if one takes action against the other. The initiators are Member States, not the Commission, and the Member States could be in breach of their obligations under international law if Court not seized. “There is no convincing reason not to regard Article 8 as a clause that aims at settling disputes between Contracting Parties, which are Member States of the European Union”.
UKHPL research paper adds
N.B. Paul Craig disagreed with the Legal Service view that the Commission was not directly involved in bringing an action before the Court. A negative report from the Commission would trigger a mandatory obligation on one/more Contracting Parties to bring the recalcitrant state to the Court: “The reality is therefore that the Commission is still ‘bringing’ the action”.
2. Can the clause be regarded as a “special agreement”?
Member States can establish in advance “a mechanism that may be made use of, in predetermined conditions, if a dispute happens” but only if the “speciality” criterion is fulfilled. Article 8 fulfils this criterion because it refers specifically to violation of Article 3(2). The Court is limited to reviewing the transposition only of the balanced budget rule, to be accomplished according to a defined legal framework and precise timetable. Therefore, Article 8 conforms to Article 273 TFEU because it “merely anticipates possible incidents of which the nature, the limits and the time of occurrence are known with a relatively high degree of precision at the time of its conclusion”.
3. Do the issues to be brought to the Court relate to the subject matter of the Treaties?
The provisions Contracting Parties adopt must give legal effect to rules that apply within the framework of the “revised Stability and Growth Pact” (Council Reg. 1466/97, as amended by Reg. 1175/2011). This is in line with implementing EU policies, e.g. to strengthen EMU and “conceptually and practically inseparable” from EMU as established by the EU Treaties. “Therefore, although as such the control of the adequacy of national measures transposing rules established outside the Union is not an EU law issue, the assessments required would necessarily involve consideration of problems of EU law and must for this reason be regarded as ‘related to the subject matter of the Treaties’”.
4. Does the Court have jurisdiction to impose “sanctions” on Member States following an agreement between them to have recourse to Article 273 TFEU?
Article 273 TFEU does not exclude the capacity of the Court to impose penalties, but the capacity must be explicit in the dispute settlement clause as it cannot be presumed, as must the procedures, since they differ from Article 260 TFEU. Imposing financial penalties does not alter the nature of the Court’s responsibilities because Article 260 TFEU empowers it to impose sanctions. Article 8(2) therefore does not introduce “an element alien to its existing practice”. Although the violations here are not of EU law, they are closely related to EU law (see note 3 above). Also, it is the Member State(s), not the Commission, which asks the Court to impose penalties, which “does not significantly affect the conditions in which the case will be treated by the Court nor the exercise of its powers”. Article 8 “broadly anticipates the framework that will apply to the norm” when the substance of the new treaty is incorporated into EU law within five years of entry into force, “while being entirely compatible with the legal basis of Article 273 TFEU” before that time.
The Research Paper adds the following:
Craig did not think the Legal Service opinion was the end of the story, as the questions of principle and legality remained unanswered:
The issue of principle presented above nonetheless remains relevant, even if the consent to the use of the EU institutions by non-signatories to an agreement such as the SCG was unequivocal and even if there was no external pressure. This is because the issue of principle in paragraphs 1-6 above is not dependent on whether particular Member States at particular times are willing to allow it to be circumvented.
For Craig the proposition that institutional powers granted under the EU Treaties or EU law could simply be “cut and pasted” into a different, non-EU treaty was “not legally or politically tenable” and “The fact that an EU institution has power pursuant to the Lisbon Treaty or EU legislation to do certain things, cannot per se legitimate use of an analogous power pursuant to a different Treaty”.

The UKHPL research paper adds:
Arrangements for legal procedures under Article 8 TSCG
At the signing ceremony on 2 March, signatories agreed an annex to be attached to the minutes of the signing ceremony on the arrangements for bringing a matter to the Court of Justice under Article 8(1) TSCG. The Annex clarifies that an application to the Court will be made by the Trio of Presidencies as set out in Annex I to Council Decision 2009/908/EU of 1 December 2009 (assuming there are no criteria which would exclude any of these three States, in which case the applicants will be the former Trio of Presidencies), in close cooperation with all Contracting Parties. Technical and logistical support and costs will be provided by the Contracting Parties linked to the case in question. Sub-section 6 provides that, on the basis of the Commission’s assessment that a State Party has failed to comply with the Court’s judgment, “the Contracting Parties bound by Articles 3 and 8 of the Treaty state their intention to make full use of the procedure established by Article 8(2) to bring the case before the Court of Justice, building upon the arrangements agreed for the implementation of Article 8(1) of the Treaty”.”

My Conclusions

1. I initially asked for Legal Opinions on the ESFS Agreement between Euro Member States and EFSF Société Anonyme of Luxembourg, the ESM treaty and the Fiscal Compact. I am surprised that the Council says that it has found only ONE Legal Opinion related to the Fiscal Compact and nothing for the EFSF, the ESM treaties. This contradicts what I was told. I would ask the Ombudsman to investigate the matter to see if the Council or some of the Member States, acting separately from the Council as an institution, have indeed asked any Legal Services of any description to provide Legal Opinions and are hiding these by a form of words. For example the ESFS is not a fully Community or EU framework. Yet it takes the Commission (EU civil service) as its servant, says that English law applies and that Luxembourg Courts may be used for disputes (Art 16). The issues are serious. The ESM treaty gives complete legal immunity to its staff in their actions (articles 32,35) and is able to set its own tax rates (arts 5, 35). This is more than disturbing given the nature of the Euro crises. Government frauds, statistical fixing and other matters, which would be prosecuted as crimes in private companies, have been uncovered.  Government action must be under control of democratic supervision and the law.
2. The Fiscal Compact involves a great deal of taxpayers’ money and its use, and should involve multiple democratic controls. For this reason any Legal Opinion must be made public. So should any other legal opinion relating to pseudo-European bodies or companies.
3. The Fiscal Compact Legal Opinion has at least in part been published by the UK House of Parliament Library and may have been published in part or in full by other democratic institutions. The refusal of the Council to publish it is contrary to ECJ judgements and normal democratic practice. Furthermore instead of publishing the document/s right away it has used the prolongations to refuse in the most uncooperative, undemocratic way possible.
4. The information requested is urgent and necessary as it is apparent that the governments refused to follow the Community-based guidelines to create a Single Currency given in the Werner Report. They have sought to use European institutions to hide fiscal and monetary irresponsibility in their own governmental systems as is apparent from the crises in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, France and also Germany etc. The timely production of this information is necessary for a wider debate on the future of the Euro.

USE1 Why a 'Federation of Nation States' is a NONSENSE and a FRAUD!

European Commission President Barroso, in his 'State of the Union' speech to the European Parliament on 12 September 2012 called for a Federation of Nation States. Was he confused or just ill-informed? His proposal was to try to solve the EU's politician-generated woes, both falling trust in politicians and skyrocketing debt mechanisms mortgaging future generations.

On 18 September Mr Barroso repeated this call for a Federation of Nation States to a German audience of his political party, the EPP. We can say that this silly idea of a federation was no slip of the tongue. It is a ploy, a distraction.

I call as witness to my case an eminent lawyer, twice prime minister of France, and its longtime foreign minister. Robert Schuman made a lifetime study of democracy before he proposed Europe's first Community based on supranational principles and universal values. Schuman called such ill-defined, emotional talk of a federation of nation states an illusion.

In his May 1949 Strasbourg speech he called for a supranational union and gave cogent reasons why this great scientific experiment in supranationality must succeed. He cited a thousand year history of such unrealistic ideas of federations and concluded they were all 'a utopia'. This analysis was made in one of the greatest speeches on European unity of the postwar years.

Why is the concept of such a Federation not only a nonsense but also a political fraud? The simple answer is that: No federation in the world has anything similar to to an independent Commission. The suggestion to change the European Community system into a Federation would therefore involve elimination of the European Commission. Mr Barroso's spokesperson assured the press that Mr Barroso is not suggesting that. He is keen, she said, to retain the supranational character of the Commission.

That underlines the FRAUD that the politicians are trying to perpetrate. It is impossible to have a Federation and a SUPRANATIONAL system at the same time. I say this on the highest authority -- that of the initiator of the supranational system for Europe, Robert Schuman. This is how Schuman defined the three terms Confederal, Federal and Supranational. The first two terms follow the definitions well known in international law, in which Schuman was a world-renowned specialist.

No other term (but supranational) is able to express as well the significance of the new idea that it is necessary to explain, in distinguishing it from all the traditional terms of juridical categories. The supranational is situated at an equal distance between, on the one hand, the international individualism of States which consider their national sovereignty as untouchable except for occasional and reversible contractual obligations; on the other side, Federalism of States which submit themselves to a Super-State doted with its own territorial sovereignty.

The supranational institution, such as our Community, represented by the High Authority (or Commission) does not possess the characteristics of a State, but it retains and exercises certain sovereign powers. It is independent as regards the national Governments within the limits of the Treaties; this independence is irreversible as is the transfer of competence of which it is the source.

The Treaty confers on the Community its own function; it does not exercise it as a delegation for the States that adhere to it. The Commission (High Authority) is not responsible to the Governments, but to the institutions of the Community (such as the Assembly and the Court); the Declaration of 9 May 1950 already spoke of these 'means of appeal' against decisions of the High Authority.

The vague concept of Federation of Nation States was raised by a previous Commission President Jacques Delors more than a decade ago. But he warned then of ideas of reducing democracy by pushing for qualified majority voting of politicians 'against the will of the people'. But that is exactly what has happened since then when the politicians chose to ignore the referendums of several Member States who voted soundly against such measures in the Constitutional /Lisbon Treaty. Mr Delors warned then that it would lead to 'big trouble'.

The 'BIG TROUBLE' has arrived with a vengeance. That is because since the time of de Gaulle, politicians refused to have proper elections for the Parliament and the Consultative Committees. And to this day, sixty years later, NO SUCH ELECTIONS HAVE EVER TAKEN PLACE. De Gaulle and many other national politicians were happier cutting deals behind the closed doors of the Council, than organizing the elections required in the treaties.

Democratic control would only hamper their autocratic ways. Democracy is useful, for example, for controlling budgets and overspending. Politicians are nowadays trying to borrow five to seven times the EU's annual budget to prop up the misconceived euro. Meanwhile trust has plummeted to historic low points, not only for politicians, but in the EU and also in the European Central Bank, which is bending the rules to buy government debts and offering to substitute it with 'fresh' inflation-ridden euros from a central printing press.

That mistake was obvious to the experienced Founding Fathers such as Robert Schuman and Paul-Henri Spaak. Both had to deal with problems of monetary stability after WW2. It was why they said that a supranational Community approach, not a federation, was essential. Nowadays few politicians know or it seems want to know how the Community system is supposed to work. It has FIVE democratic institutions.

Some of these same politicians want to reduce that to three main ones Council, Commission and Parliament plus a host of other groups which have nothing to do with a democratic Community system, which are called institutions in the Lisbon Treaty! Thus the Court of Auditors is considered an institution! The Council became 'more equal than the others' and now controls the Parliament by selecting its president, and turning the Commission into a Secretariat and restricting it to buddies having party cards.

In a real Community system the accounts are properly balanced and the money is supervised carefully by the five institutions and there is no need to call some accountants in as a separate 'democratic' body! Having frozen (temporarily) elections in some of the institutions, the politicians of Delors generation created a single currency without the proper democratic competences and checks. Hence the trillion euro manipulations of the ESM and ESFS are discussed and decided in secrecy, far from the public's eyes.

Why do I call the jelly-like Federation of Nation States a FRAUD? Firstly, a federation of nation states means nothing. Some States are Republics and many are monarchies. If Mr Barroso was serious, he would have explained how he was going to be the emperor who would rule over such monarchies as the British Queen, the Belgian King, not to mention the Scandinavians, Spanish and the Grand Duke plus the French, German and other Presidents.

Secondly, Schuman said we should be aware of the danger of politicians who expand the bureaucracy and create a COUNTERFEIT democracy. That is exactly what a Federation of Nations States is. It has no real meaning and cannot be defined in terms of responsibility and competence. It cannot be defined as to how the politicians can be SACKED.

Thirdly, if Mr Barroso were sincere about real democracy he would as representative-guardian of the treaties have reminded the Parliament that they had not once in the sixty year history of the Parliament had an election in conformity with the principle in all the treaties that elections should be under one statute for all Member States. There should not be 27 statutes where each biases the results in favour of the government parties. What a strange coincidence!

Fourthly, the proof that this is a fraud and an attempt at counterfeit democracy is clear from last week's events. On Wednesday 12 September 2012 we had the theatre of the Commission President speaking to the European Parliament in Strasbourg that has forgotten its history and purpose. The Commission still vaunts itself as being 'Guardian of the treaties'. It is there to see the Treaties are remembered and respected. The 'Guardian' did not even remember when it first met as a College! 

  We have the spectacle of the European Parliament that does not recognize that 11 September 2012 was the sixtieth anniversary of the first meeting of the European representative body. Its president then was Paul-Henri Spaak, after whom the Parliament has its main building named in Brussels.

The day following this unmarked anniversary, the President-Guardian of the Treaties, Mr Barroso came to speak to them about the need for democracy and a Federation. Did he mention that they should be celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of European Democracy? Not a word. The silence remains deafening. Of all 753 MEPs, not one got up to mention the fact. Why? Simply because all the heads of the main political parties made it clear that this was not acceptable.

Do you know why? After the first assembly of the Community met under the dynamic leadership of Paul-Henri Spaak, he created an enlarged Assembly called the Ad Hoc Assembly with some members of the Council of Europe. They were tasked to draft the European Political Community, a democratic system based on supranational principles.

Schuman refers to this European Political Community treaty in the same passage cited above. The legal term 'supranational ' appears in the very first article. So are both the Commission President and all the MEPs ignorant or less than sincere? Anyone who really wanted democracy would have recalled the early principles of supranationality that was designed to bring to Europe the most democratic, fair and just system that had been conceived.

Fifthly if this approach to a new democracy were sincere, the Commission would have reminded Europeans, like Schuman did, that the Great Charter defined the principles up on which any Community of Europeans must be built. Instead to my knowledge the Commission has yet to publish this Great Charter. It refuses to publish this foundation of European law! For Democrats who wish to understand the principles which notably say that no treaty can be put into effect without the full acquiescence and support of the peoples, they can read the original French or the English translation on www.schuman.info.    

Jihad5; Mr Morsi, Will the Arab Uprisings lead to Mediterranean Peace or a new Jihad?

Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi, on the first visit of a democratically elected Egyptian President to the EU,declared that he was fully supporting the implementation of Fundamental Freedoms and Human Rights in Egypt. President Barroso announced vast programmes of aid to Egypt and a Task Force to deal with its management. 'We believe there is stability in Egypt,' said Mr Barroso. EU is Egypt's first trade partner. The focus would be on citizens, human rights, jobs and other matters such as scientific cooperation. Both Mr Morsi and Mr Barroso condemned Syria's President Assad: 'A president who kills his own people must go.' Mr Barroso 'condemned in strongest terms' the recent attacks on the 'US diplomatic installation' in Benghazi, Libya. There must be respect for all, he said, irrespective of gender or creed.

These oral guarantees for human rights including religious rights are certainly good news for non-Muslim minorities. The Copts (descendants of the Egyptians before the Arab invasions) who make up some ten percent of the population, complain of constant discrimination, persecution, killings, burning of their property, kidnapping and selling of their young women, forced marriages and islamization. Egypt was one of the most populous Christian-professing countries before the Islamic invasions.

Copts, other Christian groups, the Baha'is and the Jews, now disappearing after being one of the most ancient communities, complain that the Egyptian authorities take no action against such crimes because of article 2 of the Constitution. This places Sharia law centrally for all the population. Many officials interpret such actions against kafirs (unbelievers), dhimmis (taxed as second or third class citizens) or non-Muslims to be fully applicable within Islamic law.
Can the Mediterranean become a Sea where all the border countries respect Human Rights? It is clear from Robert Schuman's action that he was attempting to make the Mediterranean a lake of peace, exchanges and enlightenment.

How did Robert Schuman create a European Community system that made war not only unthinkable but materially impossible? He created the foundations for European Democracy and Human Rights.
Democracies do not go to war against each other but prefer the rule of law, talking problems to find a solution and arbitration if necessary by a mutually agreed intermediary. He also set up an anti-cartel system so that democracies could not be abuse the citizens or worse begin to control governments as they had done in various times in European history. The same applies to dominant religions that abuse minorities. They can be taken to the European Court of Human Rights.

In the 1950s Algeria was still a part of France, Tunisia and Morocco protectorates. If the Convention of Human Rights had been properly applied it would have avoided much of the bloodshed that was later stirred up by nationalists and Gaullists. When Schuman pointed out in 1950 that the French Constitution required that the French Government lead the protectorates of Tunisia and Morocco to independence, he was roundly attacked by Gaullists, as if he had said something treasonous. France was divided in government, in Parliament and in the countries by the irresponsible action of Residents-general.
It is worth repeating what Robert Schuman wrote about the path to follow:

'If we want to avoid an unbridgeable gap opening up between French and the natives; if a real confident and active association is to be established between all elements of the population for the common safety of all the interests involved; if we wish that the youth come along to us and with us to be able to construct a political and social structure compatible with freedom and human dignity, we the French, must by loyalty to our commitment leave aside prejudices and resentments, and propose a comprehensive programme provided with all the necessary stages.
For such a policy, it is necessary to show courage and a clear vision, together with as much goodwill as firmness. Our worst enemy in that as elsewhere is to follow a routine which cannot trust anything but the past and closes its eyes to the demands of the future. '

The future demanded freedom for all. Freedom and human dignity were lacking in Europe during the Hitler period. Hitler wanted to eliminate or subjugate all races that were not 'Aryan'. Curiously he made an exception with some Arabs such as the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj al-Husseini who raised over 100,000 Muslims for several SS divisions. During the Mandate period, Al-Husseini had gained the post of 'Mufti' from the British High Commissioner under the influence of anti-Semitic British officials. This decision to appoint the violent rabble-rouser was described as 'sheer madness' by more clear-headed diplomats. Husseini called the World Islamic Conference in 1931. After the war, Husseini escaped being tried as a war criminal, finding refuge in Egypt. There he joined forces with the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood. Later he helped train his young distant relative, the Egyptian-born Yasser Arafat, an active Muslim Brotherhood member.

Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's new president, is an engineer by training. He earned his PhD from a US university and taught there for a few years. He was a member of the Guidance Office of the Muslim Brotherhood until the founding of the Freedom and Justice party in 2011. He was its head but resigned this position on becoming president. The famous slogan of the Brotherhood used world wide is 'Islam is the Solution'. The brotherhood has spawned a network of organizations, including terrorist groups banned in the EU and the US. The Brotherhood's credo is: 'Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.' Islamic law, Sharia, makes all those who think Islam does not represent the truth about history, belief and the Godhead, at best second class citizens and subject to penalties, taxes and worse.

Schuman's vision was to stop Europe entering into a further phase of internal death and destruction. He saw to it that Germany did not descend into a new Hitlerism or start another war in Europe. He wanted Europe to arise into a new era of not only prosperity but intellectual honesty that would outshine its achievements in previous centuries.  This was an extraordinarily positive vision, as at the time of his proposal, 9 May1950, many saw Europe descending again into an area of war and conflict.

We need the same for European-Islamic relations across the Mediterranean. The instrument to re-establish Human Rights was the Convention of the Council of Europe which Schuman signed in December 1950. Schuman encouraged the secular State of Turkey to adhere to the Convention of Human Rights. This was a key player to make the Mediterranean to be a zone of peace. The borders of New Europe, he said, should not be set by geography but be defined according to how far freedom and human rights is respected.

Schuman had long considered what the relation of Europe should be in relation to Muslim majority countries such as Turkey.  The origin of Schuman's thoughts on the subject goes back to before the First World War. It culminates in the agreement of nations from Iceland to Turkey to use Human Rights as the legal definition of the New Europe.

Wars between European States had been continuous for more than 2000 years. Those with Islam only a little less. Schuman also drew on the important researches of 'the great Belgian historian' Henri Pirenne. This is how Wikipedia summarizes his work on Islam.

According to Pirenne, the real break in Roman history occurred in the 8th century as a result of Arab expansion. Islamic conquest of the area of today's south-eastern Turkey, Syria, Israel, North Africa, Spain and Portugal ruptured economic ties to western Europe, cutting the region off from trade and turning it into a stagnant backwater, with wealth flowing out in the form of raw resources and nothing coming back. This began a steady decline and impoverishment so that by the time of Charlemagne western Europe had become almost entirely agrarian at a subsistence level, with no long-distance trade.
Pirenne used statistical data regarding money in support of his thesis. Much of his argument builds upon the disappearance from western Europe of items that had to come from outside. For example, the minting of gold coins north of the Alps stopped after the 7th century, indicating a loss of access to wealthier parts of the world. Papyrus, made only in Egypt, no longer appeared north of the Alps after the 7th century: writing reverted to using animal skins, indicating an isolation from wealthier areas.
In a summary, he famously said, "Without Islam, the Frankish Empire would probably never have existed, and Charlemagne, without Muhammad, would be inconceivable." That is, he rejected the notion that barbarian invasions in the 4th and 5th centuries caused the collapse of the Roman Empire. Instead, the Muslim conquest of north Africa made the Mediterranean a barrier, cutting western Europe off from the east, enabling the Carolingians, especially Charlemagne, to create a new, distinctly western form of government.

Pirenne's careful statistical and scientific work has been reinforced by recent archeological work and examination of underwater wrecks. Trade virtually halted across the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean, the gateway for Africa, Europe and Asia, became a barrier, shutting the gates between three continents.
Compare this with the trade at the time of emperor Nero in the first century CE. The Mediterranean was full of ships, many of them transporting hundreds of tons of grain. Egypt and North Africa were the granary areas for the Roman Empire. For Rome alone, 420,000 tonnes of grain was sent by ship (equivalent to 520 million litres). Of this Egypt supplied 140,000 tonnes.

With the Islamic invasions, the land across North Africa became depopulated and barren. When Arabs settled there, the Mediterranean became a barrier to trade as all trade shipping was pillaged in continuous warfare.  This can be shown by the periodic outbreaks of plaque and pandemics. In the past plague reached the area of Egypt from Asia and took only four months to spread around the Mediterranean. After the Islamic invasion of North Africa and elsewhere the Mediterranean, it took four YEARS to spread around the Mediterranean. Shipping stopped. The internal lake was an area of warfare, pillage and later Barbary pirates. Previously thousand of ships plowed their trade. Afterwards the traders had to take the much more difficult and slow routes by land across the Alps and broken roads.

The Center for Islamic Political Studies has made a historic analysis of Europe's relations with Islam bringing in the latest scientific information from archaeology relative to battles and statistics. For a realistic understanding of our common history, I recommend Dr Bill Warner's easy to understand review of the most recent data on Islam- European interactions.

It is important that Europeans and Muslim-thinkers should be on the same page when it comes to human rights. After all, A Hitler had his own definition of Human Rights that distorted Christianity and opposed 'the Jewish spirit'. Usual European concepts such as 'human rights' and 'defamation of religion' mean something different to the Muslim organizations.

The founding document of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, OIC, (now the Organization of Islamic Cooperation) is its Charter. Article 15 states:

The Independent Permanent Commission on Human Rights shall promote the civil, political, social and economic rights enshrined in the organisation’s covenants and declarations and in universally agreed human rights instruments, in conformity with Islamic values.

'In conformity with Sharia values' is a red flag of danger for non-Muslims. What are the 'universally agreed human rights instruments' referred to here? Don't assume that the OIC is referring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of the United Nations. It has nothing to do with Europe's legally-binding Convention of Fundamental Freedoms and Human Rights.

The OIC considers the UDHR inadequate and un-Islamic. To codify the human rights of Muslims, the OIC created the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, commonly known as the 'Cairo Declaration'. It is a formal legal instrument put together by the OIC on behalf of OIC member states in 1990, and was formally served to the United Nations in 1993.
Article 22 of the Cairo Declaration states:

(a) Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah.
1. Everyone shall have the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Shari’ah.
(c) Information is a vital necessity to society. It may not be exploited or misused in such a way as may violate sanctities and the dignity of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical Values or disintegrate, corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith.
(d) It is not permitted to excite nationalistic or doctrinal hatred or to do anything that may be an incitement to any form or racial discrimination. [emphasis added]

If the Mediterranean is to become a Sea where Human Rights flourish, European diplomacy must insist on freedom of religion, freedom of assembly and freedom to choose and to change one's religion, as laid down by the Council of Europe. It must involve supranational values of honesty, truth and justice not sectarian concepts of law, binding every aspect of life, like the Sharia.

Europeans for their own security and defence against rabid, mob violence related to cries of self-defined 'sacrilege' must be able to analyze and criticize dispassionately any religion. Why is such an intrusive right needed? Why should such a right against the sensibilities of others be so necessary?
Europe's citizens must be able to retain or discover the most precious product of any civilization:
THE TRUTH.

Election7: Politicians' Ministry of Truth 'FORGETS' to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Europe's DEMOCRACY

Did Europe's politicians forget? Today 11 September 2012 is the sixtieth anniversary of the first assembly of the European Parliament.

Guess who was the first president? None other than Paul-Henri Spaak. Yes, the same one after whom the Paul-Henri Spaak building of the European Parliament is named. It is difficult for the MEPs to forget the name. It houses the Hemicycle, the main debating chamber plus scads of other conference and committee rooms. But the MEPs 'forgot' to celebrate the very central democratic reason why they have a building boasting Spaak's name. They 'forgot' to celebrate why they have a job and a handsome salary.

Spaak's Presidency has been written out of the politicians' history on flawed and erroneous site of europa.eu However those interested in the principles and roots of democracy can find details of Spaak on Wikipedia or good history books. The importance of the Spaak presidency is underlined when it is realized that in just a couple of days of action, Spaak had created a special Assembly (the Ad Hoc Assembly) to draft the European Political Community, based on supranational democracy. The Council of Ministers had asked the Assembly of the Coal and Steel Community to help draft the architecture for a democratic Europe. Irony indeed. The Council today would do no such thing even with a partially elected European Parliament. By writing Spaak out the political fraudsters now in the European Parliament are trying to write out democratic history so the public does not question present Politburo politics. George Orwell, the author of the anti-totalitarian novel 1984, must be turning over in his grave! Today we have much more than a Ministry of Truth.

Did the MEPs really forget the date? Well it should be a date that is important for all democrats. We are told Democracy is now being talked of again. Confidence and trust in European politicians reached an all time low recently according to Eurobarometer polls. Trust in the EP fell from 56% in 2007 to 46% last year. Trust in the Commission, the ECB (both 36%) and Council (31%) plumeted.) Can a currency survive without the people's trust?

Now is the time to emphasize democracy, say the politicians. Is that what the present Politburo system is all about? The fact that they 'forgot' indicates that the political powers are not really interested except for a thin veneer of democracy. They can decide policy behind closed doors. They want the public to agree this is democracy. They live in a dreamworld that invents its own fraudulent history. They think a political cartel can run not only European politics but cheat the money markets.

That goes for not only 'normal' EU expenditure but now the money-crazed little outfit called the Eurogroup (which isn't an institution of the EU) and its totally extra-Treaty Big Brother Eurogroup composed of heads of government. They want to grab hold of between FIVE and SEVEN times the EU budget to cover over the financial misdeeds and crimes of their political co-conspirators of the mammoth EURO FRAUD. All Member States politicians were active or passive culprits in this misuse of European money to cover skyrocketing debts, political backhanders and falsified statistics. The public is then asked to claim 'ownership' of the Council Diktat. No democracy, no legal system. Generations into the future will have to pay for this fraud. The poor suffer most from political duplicity. The European Central Bank, whose head was chosen in secret with no other candidates able to apply, is now a willing and profligate partner with YOUR money, throwing good money after bad to help crooks and a crooked system.

Did the Parliamentarians really forget? Six months ago I mentioned this important date to several MEPs including a former President of the European Parliament. No action.

Yesterday, one of the leaders of the major political groups told me that the question had never arisen to his knowledge among any of the joint meetings with the other groups.

So why did they all REFUSE to mark the date?

Well they are not alone.

• On 10 August 2012 the Commission REFUSED to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the first meeting of Commission /High Authority of the first Community. Jean Monnet was its first President as the Europa site reminds us all. Mr Barroso's spokesperson said they were too busy to remember such dates!
• On 18 April 2011 the Council of Ministers REFUSED to celebrate the first meeting of the Council that signed the FIRST treaty of the EU, the European Community of Coal and Steel. It and the other institutions refused to publish the great European Charter of Democracy that says that no measures, no laws and no treaties can be passed without the full-hearted consent of the European peoples. This legal document forbids any treaty -- such as the Constitutional Treaty or the Treaty of Lisbon to be passed and considered law without the peoples' consent. The Charter was signed as a legal document to prevent any state or the Community as a whole from being governed by a Politburo as was then the case of the People's Democracies in Central and Eastern Europe.
• On 8 September 2012 the Council of Ministers -- and indeed the European Council its bosses -- REFUSED to celebrate the first meeting of the Council under Europe's first treaty. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of Germany was the first president of the Council.
• The Consultative Committees first met on 26 January 1953. It is not known whether they will mark this occasion.
• The European Court of Justice of the EU will mark the event of their opening session in December. After all lawyers cannot write off their history as easy as politicians. Case law has dates on them.

The Council of Europe is not afraid to celebrate its history. It celebrated the sixtieth anniversary in 2009. What happened in European history after 1949 ?

Well, firstly we must turn to the Constitutional Treaty and then the Treaty of Lisbon, which apart from the removal of the European Flag and anthem, is basically identical. The public in several countries realized that the Constitutional Treaty was not either a Community system or fair. They voted it down in France, the Netherlands in May-June 2005. It failed before a further referendum with an expected No in Ireland, UK and elsewhere could be held. Instead the text as the Treaty of Lisbon was forced through by regimented political parties in the national parliaments. Countries which had promised a referendum, REFUSED to have one. No one else was asked what they thought of it. And if they did, the Council did not care. This is called the Politburo method. The European Parliament to its lasting shame refused to demand the full text of the document before they approved it, like sheep to the slaughter. It removes Parliament's power to dismiss the Commission.

In 2007-8 in order even to get the Member State parliaments to vote for a document that was not available as a full-text, the Council spent an enormous amount of money in a Public Relations campaign. Where did the PR money come from? You guessed it -- the European tax-payer. The Council decided to CELEBRATE the anniversary of the European Union. Unfortunately there was only 1957 to celebrate. It was NOT the anniversary of the EU. It was merely the anniversary of the second and third Communities of the Treaties of Rome, the Economic Community and Euratom, for nuclear security, anti-proliferation and energy independence (little mentioned).

So 1957 became the Politburo 'BIRTHDAY' of Europe. The Parliament -- which was composed of spineless yes-men and women agreed. They celebrated their fiftieth anniversary. That was a FRAUD.

By REFUSING to mark any landmarks of democracy, by supporting the Gaullist system of Council-knows-best, European politicians are not only undermining democracy itself, but also their cherished, illegitimate currency, the Euro. Only a democratic Community system can lay the democratic foundation for a currency circulating in a score of diverse Member States. Without democratic trust the EU is entering a parallel history of the People's Democracies of East Germany, Poland, Hungary and the rest. No amount of writing by the European Ministry of Truth will prevent the fate of counterfeit democrats.