Lobby4: How the Commission gets Employment and Company Law upside down.

Trillions of euros have been lost to the European economy because companies are badly structured. They take their constitution from ideas current decades if not centuries ago. They are encumbered with antiquated tax structures, which develop like some mutating monster by adding more and more complex annexes and qualifications to an already complex Tax Code. They are unfit for a Single Market of 500 million consumers

No wonder Europe is in a Employment crisis. Young highly educated people are waiting to find jobs. But employers are saying No Thanks -- not with today's complex and disadvantageous environment!

Why should young people wait?

Where are the young people in Europe who will create IN EUROPE tomorrow's Intel (Noyce and Moore), Google (Page and Brin), Microsoft (Allen and Gates), Apple (Jobs, Wozniak and Wayne) and Facebook (Zuckerberg and college roommates)? Why aren't European youngsters saying: "Forget my last years in university! I want to build my own firm'?

Many Europeans think they need a doctorate before they can start work! RUBBISH! Many of the world's greatest entrepreneurs never finished their first degree because they had a hot idea and wanted to create a company.

Is it because Europeans lack garages where a lot of multi-billion American firms like Microsoft saw the first light of day?

At the root of many of Europe's economic woes is the COMPANY STRUCTURE. What young 19-year old would want to start a company today? It's a nightmare to avoid at all cost! It is a jungle of local, national law and European Regulations, tying any foolhardly inventor or entrepreneur in masses of red tape, legal obligations and potential debt.

In Europe the complex system has become the greatest DISINCENTIVE to economic success!

Who should decide on the structure of companies? How should commercial companies be set up to take advantage of the European Single Market and globalization? How can they do it legally and SIMPLY?
What's more pertinent,

• who should be deciding how companies are structured?
• how they run their affairs?
• under what conditions should they move their operations from one Member State to Member State?

What about public companies or utilities? Should they be allowed to compete with commercial companies? Don't they have an unfair advantage?

Who decides? Should such issues be decided by bureaucrats? Is it really the business of officials who may have had no experience in running a company? Should they be decided by politicians? They may be considered to be representatives of the people but don't they have their own interests? Members of the European Parliament admit that corruption is widespread and hardly controllable. Isn't it a danger that they will shift the balance into their favour and make sure they have extra influence if not contributions for their depleted party funds?

Wouldn't it be better to collect all the experience of young entrepreneurs and ask them how they would wish to have their first company?

Surely three most obvious deciding groups have nothing to do with politicians or bureaucrats. They are:

• the entrepreneurs who have to pay and invest then employ people
• the consumers who buy goods and services and may have recommendations and complaints about what they are served
• the workers for the companies who may find themselves pressed between capitalists who want to cut their wages and consumers who also want the cheapest goods possible.

So how is the European Union dealing with the problem? The answer is BADLY. The Founding Fathers created a body to deal with the issue of companies, but the politicians and the bureaucrats have consistently over the last decades refused to allow the European bodies to develop democratically as they should.

So what do we get? The Commission does not refer to the Consultative Committee -- the parliament for industry and social issues -- but asks creates a questionnaire for all and sundry. This has no real legal standing. Even if the majority of people who had the time to reply came up with good ideas, there would be no guarantee that the Commission or the Council would make it their choice for a Regulation. They will decide what is to their advantage. Is that a hard cynical comment? Unfortunately it is based on fact because the first proposals for a European Company were made in 1949 in the Council of Europe and the governments have consistently refused to implement any thing that does not conform to the creaking tax-system that few citizens understand.

This week the European Commission closed what it calls a consultation on the Future of European Company Law (below). Notice how the questions force people to concur with what is a failed politiburo system. The very formulation of the questions show that the Commission is not thinking in terms of European democracy -- supranational institutions -- but in reinforcing the Politburo thinking of deals between Commission and Council with a fig-leaf of consultation from the 'public' -- whoever they are.

The following are my replies in bold to their questions.

I Identity Questions 1 to 4.

II. Objectives of European company law

Question 5. What should be the objective(s) of EU company law ?* (compulsory)
Improve the environment in which European companies operate, and their mobility in the EU.
Facilitate the creation of companies in Europe.
Setting the right framework for regulatory competition allowing for a high level of flexibility and choice.
Better protect employees.
Better protect creditors, shareholders and members.
Other.
No opinion.
Please specify

Since the 1950s European political leaders have failed to create a truly European company with simplified tax structures that might be headquartered in any Member State and receive favourable conditions for a fair and useful contribution to the European and world economy. There is also a notable failure to elect Consultative Committees (such as the Economic and Social Committee) based on the registration of all European professional associations. DEMOCRATIC ELECTION should prioritize EU action.

III. Scope of European company law
The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union provides the legal basis to adopt Directives harmonising EU company law (Article 50). That legal basis has been used for the adoption of Directives related to the disclosure of companies and their branches as well as the validity of their obligations and their nullity; the maintenance and alteration of the capital of public limited-liability companies; the merger and divisions of public limited-liability companies; and the single-member private limited-liability companies. It has also been used to adopt Directives concerning take-over bids, cross-border merger of companies and certain rights of shareholders of listed companies.

6. Would you support that the EU's priority should be to improve the existing harmonised legal framework or, rather, to explore new areas for harmonisation? * (compulsory)
Yes, the following pieces of existing legislation harmonising company law could be modernised further.
Yes, new areas could be explored for further harmonisation, such as...
Yes, both approaches could be combined and further work could target.
No, further harmonisation is not needed, the approach should rather be based on:
No opinion.

Please specify* (compulsory)
Soft-law instruments, like Recommendations.
Increased administrative co-operation and exchange of good practices.
Other.
Please specify
The Consultative Committees are required (1) to register all entrepreneur associations, all workers' associations and all consumer associations (Not done in 60 years) (2) Eliminate any lobby associations and establish professional criteria (3) Arrange elections to the seats in the CC such as the EESC and CoR. The Council refused to support this. It chose to select its own candidates (as it had for the EP). Schuman and Reuter (who wrote much of treaties) condemned this manipulation as 'ILLEGAL'

 

EU company law has been built on the basis of the distinction between public and private limited-liability companies. While some EU Directives apply to all company law forms, others focus on one type of company or the other. However, the reality has changed in the last years in particular to confer appropriate protection to public shareholders. A trend in some Member States is that public limited-liability companies are often used as legal form for listed companies while other large and medium-sized companies are private limited-liability companies. New hybrid company law forms have been designed in some Member States to grant further flexibility. Furthermore, the public-private distinction does not exist in all Member States.

7. Should the focus of EU company law move away from the distinction between public/private towards listed/unlisted in order to ensure adequate protection to shareholders? * (compulsory)
Yes, for all the legal instruments harmonising EU company law.
Yes, but only for legal instruments related to
No.
No opinion.

Please specify* (compulsory)
Disclosure of companies and their branches as well as the validity of their obligations and their nullity.
Maintenance and alteration of the capital.
Mergers and divisions.
Single-member ownership.
Take-over bids.
Cross-border mergers.
Certain rights of shareholders of listed companies.
Other.
Please specify
Company definitions, because they affect all Europeans, should not be defined exclusively by one State but should be subject to an agreement (Opinion) made at the European level by fully elected Consultative Committees such as the EESC and CoR as sketched out under answer to Question 6.

IV. User-friendly regulatory framework for European company law
Because of the large number of Directives dealing with it, European company law is sometimes regarded as not particularly ‘user friendly’. It is also exposed to the risk of inconsistencies, gaps or overlaps. In order to address this risk, the existing Directives could be amended and codified either to create a single instrument on Company Law or to only have a very limited number of Directives regrouping related areas.

8. Do you think that codifying existing EU company law Directives, thus reducing potential inconsistencies, overlaps or gaps, is an idea worth pursuing? * (compulsory)
Yes, a single EU company law instrument should replace all existing Directives.
Yes, EU company law Directives with a similar scope should be merged.
No, this is not an idea worth pursuing.
No opinion.
Please specify
Politicians have created a regulatory jungle and this cannot be cleared overnight. The approach of the Founding Fathers -- still to be applied -- is best. They proposed that a European Company statute should be created as simple as possible with simple tax rates and encouragement for expansion. This could be set up in any State and the success of its simplifying procedures would encourage the mass of existing Regulations to be eliminated over the course of time. Google eurdemocracy and Lobby2

V. EU company legal forms
Apart from harmonisation, EU company law has also focussed on the definition of specific EU company law forms, such as the Statute for a European Company (SE), the Statute for the European Cooperative Society (SCE), the European Economic Interest Grouping (EEIG) and more recently, the proposed Private Company Statute (SPE). Those instruments are often referred to as being a "28th regime" to the extent that they introduce new legal forms that do not harmonise, modify or substitute the existing national legal forms, but provide an additional alternative legal form.

9. What, if any, is the added value that EU company legal forms bring for European business? * (compulsory)
The European image of those company law forms.
Their European label ("SE", "SCE").
Their full legal personality.
Savings in costs of cross-border transactions.
Ad hoc solution to cross-border related issues.
Workable alternatives to existing national company law forms.
The possibility not to be subject to compulsory national requirements (for example, the SE allow public limited-liability companies to choose between one-tier and two-tier management structure).
The possibility to carry out operations, like cross-border transfer of seat.
Tax reasons.
Labour law reasons.
Other.
No added value.
No opinion.
Please specify
The EU should stop DIY or bricolage solutions and use the Consultative Committee duly elected democratically to sound out the real impact of such schemes. This would provide real data as the CC system provides for in-depth studies not reactions of companies and groups who have time and inclination to reply to such questionnaires as this.

10. What, if any, are the main shortcomings of EU legislation introducing EU company legal forms? * (compulsory)
The complexity linked to frequent cross-references to relevant national legislation.
The uncertainty linked to the application of different national legislations that are applied simultaneously.
The differences in the way EU company law forms are understood and used at national level.
The different degree of attractiveness across Member States.
The limitations that derive from unanimity decision-making.
Other.
No main shortcomings.
No opinion.
Please specify
Lack of democratic legitimacy and trust. This can only be recovered by having democratically elected Consultative Committees such as the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of Regions plus the scientific and technical bodies of Euratom.

11. Should existing EU company legal forms be reviewed* (compulsory)
Yes, in particular concerning...
No.
No opinion.

Please specify* (compulsory)
Simplification and rationalisation of existing procedures.
Increased uniformity through reduction of cross-references to national legislation.
Reduction of minimum capital required.
Deletion of cross-border element requirement.
Possibility to have the registered office and the headquarters in two Member States.
Explicit solution to the issue of shelf companies.
Other.
Please specify
Full and democratic examination can only be done via a fully functioning 5-institution Community system. The EU is falling into greater crises because of the lack of legitimacy of Council actions. Political, social and democratic legitimacy is outlined in answer to Q6.

The European Model Company Act (EMCA)* on which academics are currently working aims at providing a modern and flexible Model Act, taking account of the latest developments in Member States. The initiative does not strive to harmonise national company law, but rather to facilitate understanding of the specific features in various national systems and to serve as a flexible and optional model.
* For further information please see: http://law.au.dk/forskning/forskningscentre/europeanmodelcompanyactemca/overview-over-the-emca-project/

12. Could optional models such as the EMCA –or similar projects- be a suitable alternative to traditional harmonisation? * (compulsory)
Yes.
No.
No opinion.

Please explain
The only useful opinion would be that of democratically elected Consultative Committees that have full powers, equivalent to the European Parliament and the Council in such matters according to the treaties and the Founding Fathers.

VI. The particular case of the societas privata europaea (SPE) statute
The proposal on the SPE Statute has been discussed for more than three years without any final outcome. After lengthy negotiations, Member States could not agree in particular on the possibility to separate their registered office and the headquarters and the regime for employee participation. However, the Commission still believes that European small and medium size businesses need support at EU level, particularly in the current economic context.

13. Should the Commission explore alternative means to support European SMEs engaged in cross-border activities?* (compulsory)
Yes.
No, further efforts should be made to get an agreement on the current SPE statute proposal.
Other possibilities to explore?
No opinion.

for example:* (compulsory)
The Commission could prepare a new legislative proposal aimed at promoting EU SMEs through the European labelling of existing national company law instruments that meet a number of pre-defined harmonised requirements.
The 12th Company Law Directive could be reviewed in order to introduce a simplified company charter to facilitate the organisation of groups (i.e. single member private limited-liability companies would be exempted from certain harmonised rules, not indispensable for a single member company).
The scope of application of the SE Statute could be modified to allow smaller EU companies to benefit from it on the basis of more flexible requirements.
Other.
Please specify
The Commission should assume its responsibility to encourage proper elections to the Consultative Committees as is clear from the treaties and the Founding Fathers.

VII. Cross-border transfer of a company's registered office
Apart from the rules contained in the Statutes for the European Company (SE) and for the European Cooperative Society (SCE), the current EU rules do not provide for a general right to the cross-border transfer of a company's registered office, which would preserve the company's legal personality. Currently, only few Member States allow for a seat transfer without winding up and subsequent re-incorporation. In most Member states, companies must therefore establish a new legal entity in the Member State of destination, merge the companies in question and register the company formed by merger in that Member State

14. Should the EU act to facilitate the cross-border transfer of a company's registered office?* (compulsory)
Yes, through a harmonizing Directive.
Yes, through some other measure.
No, as the existing EU framework (European Company Statute, cross-border mergers Directive) provides for sufficient tools for a cross-border transfer of registered office.
No.
No opinion.

Please give further reasons for your opinion

This is again a measure that is within the legitimate right of the Consultative Committee involved to decide and give an Opinion by a vote of the three sections: enterprises, consumers, and workers.

Other questions: No opinion.

(Questions need to be settled in an institutional body after a full discussion of properly constituted professional associations with proper means of analysis and communication.)

Council6: On Schuman Day the politicians roam into a Politburo Wonderworld

On 9 May the leaders of the European Parliament met with the Commission and Council representatives. First they spoke of European solidarity and European values. They praised Robert Schuman for introducing a great democratic experiment that has brought the longest period of peace in Europe's several thousand year history.

That is true.

Then they spoiled it all. They immediately went into a self-congratulatory mode of their own delusions. They boasted that Commission, Council and Parliament have become the champions of the citizens and reduced roaming charges for mobile phone and now for data across the European Union.

Wasn't Europe wonderful!

The high charges were an 'irritant' to citizens, they said. Now we can show how 'Europe' protects their interests. The mobile companies had been charging excessively for telephone calls and data downloads across the Continent and they -- the Council, Parliament and Commission -- were the heroes that forced them to cut them. How? with a Regulation -- European law!! Now they expect all the citizens to love the new-style politburo politicians that rule Europe.

Is this fair? They boasted that they had got cuts of 75 percent in customers' bills. Is it helping the free market? Who knows? It was a Diktat.

Yes consumers like lower prices, but what if they find the bills going down in roaming and extra charges arising elsewhere because the companies find the prices unrealistic? The companies have spent billions on hi-tech satellite technology and land infrastructure and coordination. They made a strategy to pay for it over several years. Then along come a posse of cowboy politicians and say: 'Hey some of our people say you are robbing them! ' And with a pistol at their head they lower the prices.

Maybe the prices were too high to chat as if callers were at home. But who gave the cowboys the authority to decree lower prices in the market? What's the point of the internal market if it is not free from cowboy laws of politicians? It should be open wide to competition to increase efficiency of pan-European services and industry. It is supposed to reduce prices for consumers and make companies stronger so they can compete globally.

Guess what? The mobile companies reaction is not to complain loud in public. They are simply raising their domestic rates fast -- sometimes by 66 percent. Will the European Commission and its cowboys and girls be boasting that they were responsible for the rise in domestic mobile charges? I think not! The European Politburo has still to learn that they cannot get a free lunch wielding a gun.

Who should be setting prices? Should it be a free market with plenty of competition and innovation? Or should the politicians be setting the caps and ceilings for prices?

When Schuman warned of counterfeit democracy, Europeans had in front of them the so-called People's Democracies of the Soviet bloc. How did the Soviet socialists and Communists run their economies? They had artificial fiat currencies and they fixed the prices of all the goods on sale. The Politburo controlled the industries, the production and supply. They decided what everything should be worth in the funny coupons that passed for socialist money. They decided on the price by fiat.

Reminder: A real democracy does not have politicians fixing the prices of goods and services.

So why did the trio of white-hatted cowboys get in the business of fiat prices? Firstly something was uncomfortable for Europeans travelling across frontiers. More importantly the politicians wanted to gain some plaudits from the public as their credit and trust was hitting rock bottom. So they applied the same technique they did to the constitutional and Lisbon treaties -- they ignored democracy and imposed the political equivalent of martial law. They ignored the free market solutions in the same way as they had earlier ignored and despised the votes in the referendums.

Where will it lead to? Will everything on the European market now have its prices set by political fiat? By getting in the populist business of forcing reduced prices, the Council Politburo system is now heading in the same way as the People's Democracies.

Will we now see the Council Politburo responding to citizens' complaints and setting the price wherever single market customers complain? Will toothbrushes and toilet paper be the list? Will all electricity tariffs now be reduced? Will they soon decree a single low-price airplane ticket for anywhere across the EU?

Like a meteor in the fermament, some mobile phone companies have risen from nothng and replaced major companies that had been round for centuries as some of the biggest companies in Europe. The politicians often think of them as tax cows. Some long-established industries may be harder to boss around. But bossing around hi-tech industries is likely to be a bad industrial strategy for reducing unemployment. And of course those fig-leafs that the politicians use for doing anything they want -- Europe2020 or Europe2030-- say absolutely nothing about this antidemocratic market manipulation. How could they justify cheap populism for EU Public Relations?

The democratic five-institution supranational Community system on which the EU is based was created to

• stop price-fixing
• break cartels
• encourage European infrastructure for supply and demand.

How should the question of mobile phone rip-offs be treated in a real supranational democracy? Who should be setting the price of mobile calls?

The guardian of the European free market is the Consultative Committee, a major institution de Gaulle and other egocentric politicians blocked and are still blocking. The Coal and Steel Community had its own Consultative Committee that oversaw the introduction of Europe's first Single Market on 10 February 1953. The European Economic Community introduced an Economic and Social Community that was to be composed entirely of NON-POLITICAL European associations active in the market. European professional associations would all be listed and registered and THEY would then elect the member associations that should sit in the Consultative Committee.

They would vote on all matters of dispute.

Schuman suggested that three equal groups should be involved to come to a fair decision. This is confirmed in the treaties. Note: NO politicians, NO Government representatives are included. The real tripartate committee is defined as:

1. Industrialists and entrepreneurs who innovate and invest
2. Consumers who have to pay for the service and have criticism about price and service
3. Workers in the industry because they should have safe conditions and their wages should not be cut if the consumers want cheaper prices.

How did he say they should run the economical sector? If there is any dispute such as on roaming charges, the three sections would have to vote on an Opinion. As each of the sections had equal number of member associations, they would have to come to a consensus based on European values, intelligent economic strategy and social justice. Based on intensive in-depth debates, they would come to agree not only on price levels but the overall strategy for creating jobs for a stronger Europe. Such a powerful, intensive discussion of all the issues avoids quick-fix, cowboy regulators making a mess of industrial investment, and wreaking research and development plans.

The present treaties still provide the requirement for the Europe-wide elections to the Economic and Social Committee. When will it happen?

Obama1: Europeans! Prepare for a huge, Watergate-type, transAtlantic crisis!

A German Defence Minister resigned when it was revealed that many parts of his doctorate were plagiarized or "in error'. The British coalition government was shaken when a minister resigned over alleged fraudulent reporting of an eight-year old speeding fine. The Hungarian President resigned when it was considered that he quoted references in his doctorate without proper sourcing.

What would have happened if these politicians had refused to step down amid the accusations? A long and bitter dispute would have ensued, tying up the resources of the nation.

The German President resigned when the Parliament asked for legal immunity be stripped from him so that a full inquiry about freebies and favours could be conducted. What would happen if a minister of an EU country was not only suspected of fraud or questions about his degree but spent between one and two million dollars paying a firm of lawyers so that no voter or anyone else could see his college records?
These types of events affect all neighbouring countries. Today our countries are inevitably linked more strongly with each other.

No democracy can be based on lies. It must be based on Judeo-Christian values. 'Democracy owes its existence to Christianity,' wrote Robert Schuman. For the USA, democracy was established in what Schuman called 'the marvellous edifice of the American Constitution, raised up on foundations envisioned in the spirit of their times by Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton. ' (Pour l'Europe, p118.)
What if the country's president was found violating the Constitution, not  being 'a natural-born American citizen ' but a national and a passport-holder of another country? Would he then resign? Would people ask for an explanation for fraudulently posing under false nationality? That would be the least to be expected. Wouldn't that situation make a mockery, not only of the presidency but throw into question all the laws he had signed? What about international agreements, would they be null and void because the signature was an impostor and fraudulent president?

Yet this is what is happening in the United States. All of Barack Hussein Obama's college records have been legally sealed from public view by presidential decree, Occidental College in California, Columbia  and Harvard University.

Why?

Many journalists and voters suspect that he attended these as an Indonesian student, not as an American. Whoever is elected in the 2012 elections, a vast legal debate is about to explode, perhaps paralyzing the presidency in the coming years.

It won't go away. It is now entering the area of criminal process, not mindless political derision against 'Tea Party' activists and so far unsuccessful but outraged lawyers.

As a student Barack  Obama was known as Barry Soetoro, a muslim with an Indonesian step-father. Some student who were taking classes say they can't remember ever seeing him there. (The name Obama comes from his Kenyan father who held a British passport and was suspected of being already married by the Immigration Service when he came to the USA.)  Other people have now deposed legal affidavits that he was intimate with subversive groups involved in terrorist bombing campaigns and underground activities.

Astounding? There is even worse!

Who is paying the multi-million legal fees from keeping these records out of daylight? For the president, the most basic security for employing a federal building janitor seems not to apply. A whole range of documents have all failed multiple authentication tests. When some journalists and voters questioned whether Obama had ever become a US citizen, a Freedom of Information search brought to light Obama's Selective Service Card. According to US law all men must register with the Selective Service within 30 days of their 18th birthday. Evidently something was awry in Obama's case. The document is clearly forged.

It is filled out, not on a 1980 form, but one dating from 2000s, when it was vital if he were to be elected as a Senator. Furthermore the date stamp is clearly fabricated. It has '80' on it as the year and not what the authenticating stamp should have:  '1980'. A closer examination by a forensic team of lawyers, postal management and detectives shows that the '80' was made from cutting the last two digits from a rubber stamp with '2008' and inverting them -- rather badly and amateurishly -- in a US postal stamp.  It was also cut so that the larger, lower part of the '8' appeared less obvious when it was inverted.

This of course is a serious federal criminal offense and as distinct from fiddling with a few lines of a doctorate. Such forgery will likely to fine the perpetrator -- whoever he/she is -- and send him to prison. His reported Social Security Card number 042 68 4425 is also dubious and was issued in 1977 from the State of Connecticut -- where, at around 17-year old, the  Hawaii high schooler Obama never resided.

The Arizona police, acting on the tip-off that Obama might have been born abroad and not Hawaii, checked the incoming flight details to Hawaii in August 1961. They found that all the US Federal border agency cards for that week were missing. The governor of Hawaii in his election campaign promised that he would publish the birth certificate when elected. Despite all his efforts and authority, he gave up.

Given the furore about lack of documentation indicating who exactly the US President is, many citizens created a pressure group so that he would be forced to publish his birth certificate.  A short form birth certificate (COLB, Certification of Live Birth) was published on a website of a group Obama used to work for. Then President Obama published it. What, however, was published on the White House site had errors that required its replacement.  This publishing effort did not stop the protests from pointing out that this type of certification could be obtained without adequate checks, on the unsupported say-so of a relative.

Moreover, it did not indicate which of Hawaii's two hospitals Obama was supposedly born in -- and various of his family and supporters named  one while others named the other!

Before the publication of a major study on the Obama identity forgery and numerous legal actions, the White House was forced to put up at the White House website what they claimed was the full-length Birth Certificate that included the hospital, doctors and other information.

Technical specialists were surprised. This began to look like an amateur production too. In fact it was quite tacky.  It was supposed to be a copy of an opened page from a birth log but the green security hatching was printed over the page and also the space beyond the paper page! A false shadow was added for the gutter as if it had been placed on a photocopier. It hadn't. It was an electronic cut and paste job containing simultaneously binary, grey-scale and even colour letters! (Compare for example the grey tone D of Dunham or last '1' of the reference number 61 10641 under maximum zoom. They are different formats and exist on different layers.) The White House later reduced the resolution of the pdf file on its website but it is clear that some of the letters come from different fonts and white haloes show unexplained manipulation for a scan or photocopy. The higher resolution file published and given to news correspondents on 27 April 2011 seems no longer available. Who is fiddling with the 'facts'?

A group of voters petitioned the Arizona police force to investigate. They wanted to have real proof of the identity of their presidential candidate. Sheriff Arpaio called a volunteer group of former policemen and lawyers plus technical computer experts together. (Volunteer, that is, not paid by taxpayers to avoid political issues. )

He expected them to clear the birth certificate of all suspicion. In fact they proved it was forged. So was the Selective Service Card -- which the police considered a more serious criminal offence.
Much like the start of the Watergate affair, the main media in the USA are not investigating this -- or even reporting it. You can find full press conference report on YouTube, local TV and on foreign media such as Russian radio the sheriff is grilled about the facts and background.

The Arizona police department released some short explanatory videos for the public.
Sheriff Arpaio's introduction 'probable fraud and forgery'
1 Birth Certificate
2 Opening Birth Certificate with Illustrator
3 Was OCR software applied?
4 Was the file optimized?
5 Conclusion: fake and forgery
6 Forgery of Selective Service Card.

If you want to check the detectives' results in detail, view the official police press conference video. Those who have software like Illustrator or CorelDraw can check that the document has NINE electronic layers whereas a scan of a real paper document would not.  The seals and date stamps give no authentication. They can be moved anywhere at will!

Reminder: This is a clearly fraudulent document that the White House chose to introduce. It is still on its
website! Magnify with zoom and you can see the differences in fonts, saved in different formats from separate documents then pasted together!

Another demonstration video using CorelDraw shows that the file has been trimmed and that the hatched 'security' paper show manual manipulation and that white dots have been hand-painted to cover black spots in one layer. Amateur fraud!

A criminal case will not go away. The controversy has moved into new territory. The police say they can identify some of the computers used in the fraud. They now have a pile of  sworn affidavits from international specialists. The next years will increase, not dissipate, the affair.

Europe had better take a lesson from this criminal forgery. Democracy at the European level is languishing. Politicians have lost the trust of the public. Lasting trust can only be built on honesty and truth.
Today's leadership still refuse to put into effect the requirements of the treaties they signed up to. There are no proper European elections, either for the parliament, nor for the consultative committees, nor proper openness in the institutions.

In the European Union there is

• not even an election for the President of the Commission, free of party cliques,
• nor for the President of the European Council!
• The President of the European Central Bank is selected in secret.

Any document revealing who the political cartel selected, how, when, why and where or describing what goes on is forbidden to the public eye.  Once the supranational democratic sytems are inaugurated such biased, partisan politburo politics will be eliminated. It will be far more difficult to commit such identity crime at a European level. There will be multiple cross-checking systems to ensure fairness and justice.
OPENNESS AND THE ABILITY OF THE PUBLIC AND THE MEDIA TO DISCERN TRUTH IS A FUNDAMENTAL OF GOOD GOVERNMENT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can ask them for this Opinion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yours sincerely,

For the General Secretariat

 

In return I wrote the following reply:

Secretariat, DG F Access
Council of Ministers,
EU

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

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

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

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

My reasons are the following:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— court proceedings and legal advice,

unless there is an overriding public interest in disclosure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yours etc,

Schuman.info

I am awaiting a reply. And the Legal Opinion.

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

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

Take the recent happenings in Parliament.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monnet9: The BBC becomes a propaganda voice for the Monnet Myth

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is now broadcasting a Monnet-propaganda view of Europe. Its emphasis on Monnet the initiator of everything European is not only false but its anti-British tone is likely to turn the younger generation off Europe. Monnet is shown as ignoring the British concerns. Yet he seemingly controls the French, US and German governments and turns them around his little finger. This is ridiculous -- Monnet was a minor civil servant in France in 1950 with few staff. It is also a dangerous policy to broadcast counterfeit history to the British population but also to many others who listen to the radio. The Monnet myth is one reason why Europe is in such a mess with its democracy.

The threatening magnitude of the present crises specifically due to the Monnet Myth is why I felt it necessary to ask a few questions that perhaps the young people may care to explore, given that the older generation appears incapable or too lazy to do so. I hope that they will also ask a few more questions too about national broadcasting media.

Beyond Borders, a play about Jean Monnet by Mike Walker; BBC Radio 4, 16 December 2011, 14.15 GMT.
The European Dream, a documentary by John Tusa, BBC Radio 4, 17 December 2011, 20.00 GMT.

The play and the documentary were designed no doubt to glorify Jean Monnet as the ‘inspirer’ of the European Union. They presented no evidence that Jean Monnet was behind the European Community idea. Strange. But also indicative of the lack of critical thinking about someone who was after all trained as a salesman. One excruciatingly flattering biography says that 'Monnet was above all a public relations man.' Shouldn't that be a red light warning to communicators? (M & S Bromberger: Jean Monnet and the United States of Europe, p33.)

In Monnet’s case he was a salesman of cognac, he received little education, wrote very little but was surrounded by a group that included publicists and journalists. Compare that with Schuman. From 1919 on, Schuman was an elected deputy for the great Steel City of Thionville that had to import German coal to survive. He knew a thing or two about the industries where Monnet still showed ignorance, even when he was President of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community. The Monnet myths started being publicized at this time and are now paid for out of taxpayers’ money by the EU-funded Jean Monnet professors.

'I feel obliged to speak about Jean Monnet,' said one such professor recently, 'because I am a Jean Monnet professor.' This sort of nonsense should be stopped. He should be reminded that he is paid out of public funds not out of Jean Monnet's treasury. Universities have fee paying students. It is an insult to subject them to glorified public relations operations. They should be taught how to discern the truth from falsehood.

Chris Patten, former European Commissioner, now Lord Patten, is Chairman of the BBC Trust, its governing body. Lord Patten is a history graduate of Oxford University and currently Chancellor of Oxford University. Doesn't he feel a little shame that the BBC has fallen to such depths and poor scholarship? The British and international audience of the BBC deserve better than propaganda and repetitions of the Monnet industry lobbyists.

Both the play and the documentary were fiction. The documentary by John Tusa, an experienced journalist and former managing director of the BBC World Service, was frankly disappointing for the same reason. It failed to ask critical questions or even look into the myth-busting national archives that are now open for all to see. It largely ignored Schuman but then reiterated Communist propaganda that Schuman had fought for the Germans in WW1. He never even wore a German uniform. A quick look at the British archives alone would destroy Monnet-centered mythology. Why wasn't this done?

What happened to investigative journalism? Any self-respecting broadcaster or journalist should ask: Are Europeans a victim of a clever salesman and public relations campaign? This is a reasonable question, as the testimony of other witnesses and the archives of the USA, Great Britain, Germany and France provide no evidence that Monnet had the part he says in the invention of the idea of a supranational European Community. All that is certain is that several members of Schuman’s staff were involved with Monnet in writing a document. If three or four Schuman staffers were involved, why suddenly does Monnet become a prima donna? What happened to Schuman?

Paul Reuter, a member of Schuman’s staff, wrote the first draft of the Schuman Proposal, not Monnet. Monnet made few useful or substantial corrections. Monnet himself says he eliminated some essential sentences. So was Monnet at the center or did he play a different part at the periphery? Schuman, an erudite, multilingual, innovative Prime Minister, finance minister and foreign minister, had already introduced the concept of a supranational European Community into public discussion long before Monnet was ever involved. Monnet is factually incorrect in saying it was discussed only once in the French Cabinet. It was discussed twice in Cabinet. What does that say about Monnet's understanding of events?

Schuman, however, was the opposite of a self-publicist. He was humble and shunned personal publicity. Schuman was unstinting in his praise for all his collaborators, including Monnet. But this does not mean that Monnet’s subsequent story of self-praise is true. Schuman, very unusually for a politician, concealed his own part. It was effective politics. After Schuman, many other people, such as Bidault, Reynaud and Philip, claimed that they were the originators of the European Community. Yet only the followers of Monnet persisted with this outrageous personal claim. Persistence, powerful PR or impudence is no proof of Monnet’s involvement. Persistent Public Relations about lies are still lies.

Documents now out in the open after the thirty-year rule show what is true and what is factually impossible in Monnet’s claims. The BBC did not check the facts. Thus the listener is left with a sad conclusion: the BBC doesn’t seem to care about truth when it comes to Europe and the future of millions of Europeans.

The play shows Monnet having some ideas after a walk in the Alps in April 1950 – when he is supposed to have hit on the idea of European unity. But hundreds of people had written books about European unity before this famous walk – and they all had specific ideas. Monnet did not. He even says he had no clear ideas. Where are they, even today? No facts were presented to indicate that he made any special contribution, except being involved in the preparation team of the Schuman Declaration.

There is nothing that is specially Monnet’s in the Declaration. Far more important words and action are evident in Schuman’s work in the years before April 1950.

Thus the big failure of the play and the report of John Tusa is the failure to take any critical microscope to the Monnet fable. Instead the Monnet fairy stories were not only repeated but augmented with other quite imaginary material that were demonstrably nonfactual.

Here are a few items that any student of history can check.

1. Monnet did not invent the term Community. In his Mémoires, (pp 379, 625,), he claimed to have invented the term European Community on 21 June 1950. However Robert Schuman had used it many times before including at the United Nations General Assembly a year before this. Schuman also talked to the Member State delegations to the Schuman Plan conference and defined the supranational European Community. When? On the 20 June 1950! Monnet was part of Schuman's French delegation that included Jurisconsult André Gros and deputy Jurisconsult, Paul Reuter.
2. Monnet did not invent the idea of supranationality. (In his Mémoires, p352, Monnet says he did not like the term and never fancied it. So obviously he was not the inventor of supranationality!)
3. He was not the inventor of the term High Authority. In his Mémoires Monnet says that the term came from Paul Reuter, a close Lorraine colleague of Robert Schuman.
4. Paul Reuter was not just a professor as Monnet maintains. He was one of the highest officials working for Schuman in the Foreign Ministry. He was Deputy Jurisconsult, empowered to supervise and check all treaties and legal documents. He provided a political guard for Schuman because other top civil servants such as the two directors general in his own ministry, were hostile to his policy of reconciliation with Germany.
5. The play only provided a series of hype and non-factual events, meetings and conversations, which can be easily disproved by any competent historian who has looked at the material mentioned above. Proof comes from the other people in the conversations who refute the Monnet version.
6. Monnet seems to have persistently claimed the parentage of earlier ideas that were first circulated by others. The BBC should have been aware of this, especially when it could easily be checked where it dealt with British politics. For example, in 1940 although Monnet may have played some part presenting a paper to de Gaulle about the wartime Franco-British union idea, he was not the inventor of the idea. (Nor was de Gaulle an alternative government at the time.) It was being circulated independently six months earlier by other Frenchmen in government and British people before he arrived in London. Curiously one of the major exponents was a close friend of Robert Schuman, then serving as under Under-Secretary of State in the French government. (De Gaulle was also an Under- Secretary of State in the government – which is why the British thought it useful to deal with him.)
7. Sylvia says in the play that Monnet was a very good liar. Later Monnet says that he thought Schuman had the reputation for being an honest man. He made it sound like a public relations trick. But it came from deep within Schuman’s character. In contrast to Monnet, Schuman always told the truth even when his life seemed to depend otherwise – such as when he was held by a Nazi Gauleiter and SS general and interrogated. He said politicians should always tell the truth. He refused to lie even though he had been threatened with death by the Nazis and offered posts as a collaborator. The incident where Monnet had a conversation with Schuman about honesty had nothing to do with the Schuman Declaration. It occurred years before. Schuman was insistent that, following years of Nazi and government propaganda, Europe had to be based on TRUTH.
8. In April 1950 Monnet was ‘inspired’ to say ‘there will be war’, as if no one else knew about the threatening Cold War with the Soviet Union. Nearly everyone expected a war at this stage. The Statesmen too! Schuman not only understood the significance of the Soviet Atomic bomb but proposed a solution – Euratom – in 1949. Both the UN's International Atomic Energy Treaty (IAEA) and the European Atomic Energy Treaty have similar goals, even the same articles.
9. Monnet says: ‘We have done nothing.’ He meant the statesmen had done nothing, those who were not guided by him! This is rubbish. Schuman had started the Great Debate on the future of Europe, asking whether it should be a federation, confederation or something else (such as a Community). Hardly anyone was interested in the question. Where did Schuman pose these questions? Everywhere, to stimulate a debate. He said it in the Parliament and around Europe. He said it at the United Nations in 1948 and again in 1949. Yet Monnet did not seem to have read the speech even though it was obviously in all the newspapers and on the international radio etc.
10. Schuman’s government and the following ones where he was foreign minister created the Council of Europe. Its specific task was to define the new Community system – which they did in detail. Monnet seems to have been ignorant of this – but it no reason why the BBC should be.
11. The main problem of Europe and its wars was not about land, as Monnet says. It was about coal and steel cartels that controlled governments and world politics. Such cartels including financial ones could control political parties and were often the cause of wars.
12. Monnet never seems to have written anything at the Planning Agency about Germany – a country he knew nothing about and did not know the language. He had never visited Germany as far as it is recorded. How could he advise Schuman about Germany? Schuman was involved everyday in German politics as Foreign Minister and it was the major thrust of his policy. He knew Germany well, being the foremost German specialist in the government, spoke the language, had many German friends, knew exactly about Nazis having been threatened with death by them, and had many meetings with the new German democrats and shared ideas with them about a supranational Community for coal and steel. A stream of his friends maintained contact with German democrats. As Foreign Minister he also received the diplomatic reports.
13. Schuman gave a masterly analysis of the postwar problems, German and Soviet, in a speech, perhaps the most important postwar speech, in May 1949. This was the year before Monnet was brought into Schuman's editorial group. Monnet seems to have no knowledge of it, even though it was distributed widely within the French government and to all European governments. The lack of consideration of Schuman’s achievements in Monnet’s Memoirs indicates either widespread prejudice against Schuman’s achievement or vast ignorance by Monnet and those who helped him write it.
14. Who controlled the Ruhr? French governments where Schuman served as minister or prime minister brought in the International Authority for the Ruhr (IAR). It was not run by the Americans, as Monnet says. It was run by an Authority (like later the Community was) composed of representatives of the Allies, such as France, UK, USA (three votes each) and the Benelux (one vote each) plus Germany (THREE votes)!! Thus this is a direct distortion of historical fact.
15. Why did Monnet use the term Authority – suggested by Schuman’s staff member, Paul Reuter? Because this was the term Schuman had selected to point to a new way to do European politics. He used it for the Ruhr.
16. The anecdote about Monnet and Hirsch in wartime Algeria is misleading. Monnet's discussion merely involved modifying minor aspects of de Gaulle’s preposterous idea of recasting Belgium, Luxembourg and Alsace-Lorraine plus Switzerland into some new State called Wallonia or Lotharingia. Monnet was also thinking in terms of destroying the constitutions of these countries and reforming them into a buffer State. Totally unrealistic. He even believed this was possible as late as 1950! It has nothing to do with a Community system which is based on the existing nation states. Hirsch told Monnet it was rubbish (‘utopian’). How could the Americans dismantle the existing European States! What chaos it would have caused. At this stage Monnet was still greatly influenced by de Gaulle who was active but out of power. De Gaulle fulminated against the newly created Federal Republic of Germany at Bonn, calling it a Fourth Reich and wanting to dismantle it. US diplomatic records show that the Americans and British followed Schuman's lead about creating German democracy.
17. Monnet who was in charge of the Modernisation Planning Agency seems to have been oblivious of the German steel problem until the last minute. Schuman was involved with this on a daily basis as it was subject to Allied diplomatic discussions. It was by Allied agreement that the steel ceilings for production were set.
18. Coming to the time of the Schuman Proposal, the BBC continues to propagate Monnet errors of fact. The anecdote that in May 1950 Schuman had to present a proposal on Germany and a European solution at the Allied conference in London is also fictitious. Schuman said the opposite at the time. It was not on the agenda. Schuman said other factors showed it was the time to act.
19. Monnet did not first attract Professor Paul Reuter to do some work by jumping into his taxi to the train station of Gare de Lyon. Why should he? The idea makes no sense. The phrase ‘A chance to save the world’ is also fictitious. Reuter's accounts show this is all false. Monnet had no concrete ideas at this stage, so he says in his Mémoires, p342. Reuter was the initiator not Monnet. Reuter took exact notes about what happened and wrote a detailed report later. Monnet’s Mémoires were written by friends because Monnet had a poor memory for details. Reuter wrote the phrase ‘World peace can only be safefguarded etc..' It is in his notebook written in pencil by his own hand. Reuter describes when he wrote it.
20. Reuter came to Monnet’s office and then got Monnet into a long conversation which ended in Monnet accepting the idea of helping write a paper. So it was Reuter who got the ball rolling (to use Reuter’s phrase). Monnet said of Reuter that he was a young professor that he did not know that chance had brought to his office. He was Schuman’s right-hand man in the Legal Department of the Foreign Ministry! He was known for clear thinking and writing. He arrived the day after Clappier, Schuman’s Director of Staff arrived to talk to Monnet and try to persuade him to write a paper. The reason why Monnet was brought in at all relates to internal French politics.
21. Reuter, not Monnet wrote the first draft. This was then typed in the office not at Monnet’s home. Monnet made minor changes to some of the subsequent drafts. Reuter re-introduced some phrases and thoughts that Monnet had cut out. Monnet did not know the background of Schuman’s ideas which were expounded at the Council of Europe.
22. The word ‘supranational’ is a precise legal and political term used frequently by Schuman. It was not used by Monnet before 1950 and very little after that as he did not like the term. It is not the equivalent of international as was implied in the play.
23. The term Authority was used by Schuman in the years before 1950 and Monnet. Several supranational Authorities were discussed at the Council of Europe. It was also used practically by the International Authority of the Ruhr.
24. The last draft of the Schuman Declaration was not finished on 17 April, as stated. The final typing was on just before the Cabinet meeting of 9 May and Schuman made last minute, hand-written changes as well.
25. Schuman’s Declaration included a page-long introduction that was never seen by Monnet and is far more important in many aspects. For reasons that the European Commission has yet to explain adequately, the Commission has never published it.
26. In the play the alleged absence of Clappier to receive 'Monnet's paper' in April-May 1950 was farcical. If Monnet wanted to speak to Clappier and his whole grand design depended on it, why did he not phone him? He was prepared to speak to Schuman directly. It is factually incorrect to maintain that Monnet went to the train station and breathlessly gave the paper to Schuman before leaving on the weekend of 6 May 1950. The Cabinet papers were given as usual to Schuman by Clappier a day before.
27. It is also nonsense that Schuman decided on the Monnet paper only over the weekend. The drafts of the paper indicate that Schuman made changes to them to correct errors in the earlier drafts.
28. The incident with Monnet and Dean Acheson in a restaurant is also pure fiction. Schuman specifically arranged the stop-over of Acheson in Paris. Schuman spoke to Acheson on the Sunday and explained to him what he said would be the greatest innovation in European politics for centuries. This shows Schuman's minute planning. The US Secretary of State does not end up in Paris by mistake. The BBC should check the interviews Michael Charlton did with Acheson’s team. The BBC published it as a book, The Price of Victory.
29. As for Monnet writing his ‘guarantee’ that the scheme did not involve a cartel on a napkin – this is just plain crazy. Would a scribble on a napkin convince Congress, given that the German cartels had financed Hitler and encouraged his dictatorship?
30. The Adenauer incidents are also laughable. Robert Schuman had met Adenauer several times and kept a correspondence with him. Monnet had no contacts. Robert Mischlich was a member of Schuman private staff and was sent with the documents secretly to Adenauer – two days in advance!
31. Monnet was not manning the phones for the message from Bonn as Mischlich had already communicated to Schuman the day before the Cabinet meeting. The reception book in Bonn and Adenauer's return letters prove this date. There was no break for lunch on 9 May with Schuman recalling the ministers to the Cabinet table. There was a long debate in the Cabinet as is clear from the books of those present – Auriol, Teitgen, PM Bidault, etc.
32. The remaining material about Great Britain was very badly drawn and gave entirely the wrong impression that it was a fait accompli by Monnet against the British. Was the purpose of the play to antagonize the British or present history? There is no point in writing false history that makes plots against the British. Schuman was anxious to have them on board and bent over backwards to do so. His idea of creating a European democracy would have been greatly helped had the British been there to support the French and others.
33. In the Documentary, The European Dream, John Tusa, and the academics Kiran Klaus Patel, Desmond Dinan, Piers Ludlow should be well aware of previous political designs for Europe. Schuman listed and addressed failed utopian schemes in his great speech in May 1949, before the Council of Europe actually met. There is a great deal of difference between the Pan-Europa ideas of Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, which involved classical federation of States, and a supranational European Community of Coal and Steel. What do these academics teach their students? Schuman said these classical federalist ideas were unworkable and history had proved them so. That’s why he introduced the idea of a supranational union at his St James’s Palace speech in May 1949 with an audience of diplomats and foreign ministers.
34. Academics have to ignore a whole series of events to come up with the ridiculous idea that Schuman suddenly realized he needed to do something and luckily Jean Monnet 'turned up at his office with a solution'. Take the oft-repeated story of Churchill’s Zurich speech of 19 September 1946 on building Europe based on French and German reconciliation. What about Churchill's first postwar European speech that he gave in Metz, capital of Lorraine and home city of Schuman, on 14 July 1946 on the same theme with Robert Schuman at his side? What about Schuman’s role in organizing The Hague Congress of 1948?
35. What do the academics think was the origin of the supranational Community? When was the term first used? Why supranational? It was not coined by Monnet and was used many years before 1950. How did the Community stop war that had been the constant feature of European history for more than two thousand years?
36. Have the journalists and academics not read the documents which show that the plans for the European Defence Community were called the Schuman proposal before it was ever called the Pleven Plan and Monnet even knew a thing about it?

It is sad to see that what should be independent news organizations like the BBC being victims of a PR con trick and that so many academics go along with it. The world needs peace and a way to stop wars. Monnet did not have a clue how to do so.

The public deserves better. It is hoped that next year the full extraordinary account of Paul Reuter will be published written from his original notes made at the time. He had a few laconic remarks about the Monnet Memoirs which broadcasters, journalists and academics would do well to read.