Inadequacies of the Lisbon Treaty being further highlighted by Eurozone crisis

These are interesting times. As Ireland prepares to vote on the Fiscal Treaty and the new French President insists the treaty must be renegotiated, Greek voters sent a message to politicians by moving away from those parties that advocate austerity.

Against this background, the European Central Bank and Eurozone ministers appear to be 'talking up' Greece's exit from the single currency. It is interesting that it was an Irish banker, Patrick Honohan, who highlighted this weekend that although the Lisbon Treaty does not address the scenario at all, it is still technically possible for a country to abandon the Euro.

So now, as if the economic crisis was not bad enough, the inadequacies of Lisbon are being factored into the equation.

Speaking at the Employment committee

Yesterday I spoke at the Employment committee for the first time:

The text of my speech:

Your 18,000 "Europe at work" programme has sentiments that have been echoed a thousand times before it was probably build for from a blueprint from the Commission and Berlin

Last week in Strasbourg Commission President Barroso naively said if every small and medium enterprise created one position unemployment would be eliminated in Europe.

Does the presidency understand that over EU regulation is helping to destroy jobs?  In the UK the Federation of Small Businesses manifesto plea at the last election was, "no more EU regulation please".
Minister, you said that "jobs are not created by employment and social policies only"  but Minister the destruction of jobs and the creation of jobs are destroyed by such policies.

A series of EU-dictated cuts have degraded public services, reduced salaries and wreaked havoc on people's lives.
Whilst I share your opinion about creating training opportunities for our young people - it is all rhetoric isn't it with no solid proposals.

And again I agree with active ageing, how do you square the circle? Where are all these jobs going to come from? Maybe you want to create jobs by creating thousands and training schemes that bleed the taxpayer without providing any real substance.

Finally, I note that you extoll the virtues of the Euro as currency, from a country that like the UK does not have the Euro. Your people twice rejected the Euro, last time in 2000 in a Referendum. Your country, your population does not believe in the Euro - and quite rightly so. We had the scaremongering in the late 90s about the Euro and we were told we would lose jobs and that certain companies would move out. We've stayed outside of the Euro. Those companies such as Nissan did not move out, it is just scaremongering. Jobs are created outside of the Eurozone, not inside the Eurozone.

Letter printed in the Metro

Printed 11th January 2011

Speech in Strasbourg, Comission Work Programme.

President Barroso will be presenting his proposals for the above programme. This will be the text of my speech.

The Lisbon strategy's aim in 2000 was to make the EU "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion",  As we know it failed.

And now looking at this proposal for a work programme the EU will continue to be a failure

According to Eurostat, industrial output in the EU fell by 19% during the economic crisis. In comparison to 17% in the US,  Downturn in industrial output in the Eurozone has been worse than in the EU 27 as a whole, suggesting that the Euro is a burden to recovery  

Even the EU´s own figures show that more job growth is created outside the eurozone than in.

And yet Unelected President Barroso says that the UK is obliged to join the euro.

No thank you very much - the UK needs to divorce ourselves away from this covern of failure and despair - to instigate a free trade agreement with Europe and the world. Let us be gone and plague you no more

For the sake of my country, be gone with your damaging regulations, be gone with your harmful harmonisation, be gone with your destructive laws, be gone with your affronts our democracy and be gone with your begging bowls

Plague us no more

Skint EU Borrows from Bankrupts

Borrowing from Bankrupts

 By Marta Devon on Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - 06:11

In response to a formal question, the European Commission has admitted that it has "No financial reserves...". Nikki Sinclaire, independent MEP for the West Midlands, was shocked by the revelation. It took the EU Commission a full month to come up with an answer. Nikki Sinclaire's question to the Commission on financial reserves (P-000290/11) was submitted on Jan 14th 2011. The official response from the Commission was received on Feb 16th.
"The Commission has actually admitted to me that neither it, nor the other EU institutions, have any financial reserves, and are effectively living from hand to mouth" Ms Sinclair added continuing that "in the event of member states failing to make their contributions on time, the EU institutions could find themselves unable to meet their considerable financial commitments."

This is in the context of an economic crisis, where certain member states are actually being bailed out by the EU, and with others looking likely to follow suit" she said. "Belgium, for example, is the home of the EU institutions, and its national debt has risen to 100% of GDP. It is effectively a bankrupt nation"

                                  - Nikki Sinclaire, MEP


Article 12 of the Council Regulation 1150/2000, however, allows for the Commission to spend money borrowed against future income.
"It is a really perverse business plan that depends on being able to borrow from bankrupts", concluded Ms Sinclaire.

Read article here
http://www.euchronicle.eu/borrowing-bankrupts

Last rites for the Euro?

I can reveal that last week, whilst MEPs were in Strasbourg, a delegation from the European Commission paid a visit to London for hush-hush high level discussions with the British government concerning the perilous state of the Euro.

The same week, on Thursday, the heads of the Commission's Directorates were given orders not to discuss the Euro, or to speculate on its future, under any circumstances.

Just how bad is the economic crisis in the EU? Worse than the Commission would have us believe, it would appear. In the last hour it has been announced that three member states have had to apply for aid in order to deal with rising unemployment.

EU adjustment Fund aid worth more than €8.7 million for workers in Spain, Poland and the Netherlands was approved by Parliament's Budgets Committee this morning.

In total, 2,312 redundant workers (retail trade, car and construction sectors) in Spain, 779 former workers in the car and ship building industry in Poland and 613 ex-employees in the ICT sector in the Netherlands are set to receive support.

The Spanish authorities applied for aid to unemployed workers in three regions: Valencia (several firms in the construction and textile sector), Catalonia (the Lear company, producing electrical equipment for cars) and Aragón (several firms in the retail trade sector).

The two Polish applications concern the Wielkopolskie province (two firms in the car industry) and the H.Cegielski-Poznań company, the only Polish manufacturer of marine engines, plus its suppliers.

The Dutch application is for two ICT companies, Getronics and HP, in the region of Noord Holland.