And then we kill them - when do we start?

Is this not inevitable? And how we do we make sure the right people get it in the neck? From European Referendum:

"The full extent of the police and criminal prosecution powers that the European Union has over British citizens can be revealed today," writes Mary Ellen Synon.

This is the result of a Mail on Sunday investigation, which has "uncovered an alarming array of new EU controls over justice and home affairs for which no one has voted, and most are unknown to the public."

Of course, the reason why most are "unknown to the public" is because the media rarely talk about them and, when they do, "no one seems to care". More specifically, no one in parliament seems to care for, as we wrote when that plaintive statement was made, in legislative terms, "the parliament has collectively lost the will to live".

Parliament is no longer really interested in its primary functions, we wrote, and has turned in on itself, to the extent that its internal, petty politicking has assumed an overweening importance, to the exclusion of everything else.

That was over two years ago, when Philip Johnston was railing against the creation of "a powerful new EU interior department, called the Standing Committee on Internal Security (COSI)." He had devoted some space to then home secretary Jacqui Smith's failure to mention it.

But then, as now, this was our old friend the Hague programme, about which we were sounding the alarm in 2004. But, if you had then asked the average British political blogger or MSM political correspondent about it, they would have thought you were referring to young William's last television appearance.

But since then, more than enough has been written about it for those who wanted to know about to keep themselves informed, not least the European Union - Tenth Report of 15 March 2005. And therein lies another part of the problem.

This does go back all the way to 2004, when we saw the European Council reaffirm the priority it attached to "the development of area of freedom, security and justice", claiming, as always, that it was "responding to a central concern of the peoples of the States brought together in the Union". Despite our concerns, nothing happened then and, six years later, as the Mail on Sundayraises the alarm (and not for the first time), precisely nothing will happen now.

Therefore, the real problem is that, unless the issue can gain political traction, and there is a felling that this is an issue that can get resolved, there is and will be nothing to drive it forward. People, and the media – in the short-term, at least - will take a lead from the politicians. And if the politicians do nothing, the issue dies.

But that is the short-term. As Booker reveals in his column today, more and more we see the "authorities" working to their own agendas, which have nothing to do with the principles of justice or good administration.

When it also dawns – as it eventually will – that the authorities are also working for an alien power (not "foreign" - but alien), as is increasingly the case with the police through the Hague Programme, then the last vestiges of consent will break down. The divide between "us" and "them" will become a permanent breach. And then we start killing them.

This is not a warning, nor a threat, nor a prediction, nor indeed an instruction. It is simply an observation. When the compact between the people and their rulers breaks down, the result is always the most extreme form of violence.

In Britain, however, having been tolerably well administered for several centuries, we have become slow to turn to serious violence. Thus, our rulers have got lazy and complacent and they think they can continue along the route they have taken. They can't. The worm will turn eventually. When it does, people will die. That now is the only certainty.

Was it for this? Ireland shafted. Now they realise.

From The Irish Times. At least it shows that there are people in Ireland who've realised what shit the EU really is. Their political class sold them out, just as ours have.

IT MAY seem strange to some that The Irish Times would ask whether this is what the men of 1916 died for: a bailout from the German chancellor with a few shillings of sympathy from the British chancellor on the side. There is the shame of it all. Having obtained our political independence from Britain to be the masters of our own affairs, we have now surrendered our sovereignty to the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Their representatives ride into Merrion Street today.

Fianna Fáil has sometimes served Ireland very well, sometimes very badly. Even in its worst times, however, it retained some respect for its underlying commitment that the Irish should control their own destinies. It lists among its primary aims the commitment “to maintain the status of Ireland as a sovereign State”. Its founder, Eamon de Valera, in his inaugural address to his new party in 1926, spoke of “the inalienability of national sovereignty” as being fundamental to its beliefs. The Republican Party’s ideals are in tatters now.

The Irish people do not need to be told that, especially for small nations, there is no such thing as absolute sovereignty. We know very well that we have made our independence more meaningful by sharing it with our European neighbours. We are not naive enough to think that this State ever can, or ever could, take large decisions in isolation from the rest of the world. What we do expect, however, is that those decisions will still be our own. A nation’s independence is defined by the choices it can make for itself.

Irish history makes the loss of that sense of choice all the more shameful. The desire to be a sovereign people runs like a seam through all the struggles of the last 200 years. “Self-determination” is a phrase that echoes from the United Irishmen to the Belfast Agreement. It continues to have a genuine resonance for most Irish people today.

The true ignominy of our current situation is not that our sovereignty has been taken away from us, it is that we ourselves have squandered it. Let us not seek to assuage our sense of shame in the comforting illusion that powerful nations in Europe are conspiring to become our masters. We are, after all, no great prize for any would-be overlord now. No rational European would willingly take on the task of cleaning up the mess we have made. It is the incompetence of the governments we ourselves elected that has so deeply compromised our capacity to make our own decisions.

They did so, let us recall, from a period when Irish sovereignty had never been stronger. Our national debt was negligible. The mass emigration that had mocked our claims to be a people in control of our own destiny was reversed. A genuine act of national self-determination had occurred in 1998 when both parts of the island voted to accept the Belfast Agreement. The sense of failure and inferiority had been banished, we thought, for good.

To drag this State down from those heights and make it again subject to the decisions of others is an achievement that will not soon be forgiven. It must mark, surely, the ignominious end of a failed administration.

Bailouts battering the bastard EU

Ireland crisis could cause EU collapse, warns president

Herman Van Rompuy, president of the EU, has warned it faces a 'survival crisis', with the risk of contagion spreading from Ireland across the continent

Oh, if only.

The Greek Bailout Crackup Is Here, As Austria Refuses Payments

Still, that's a bit of good news.

Then there's Portugal to come.

The NUJ Can Go Fuck Themselves

Journalists call for 'internet tax' to rescue media

The main journalist trade union in Europe and the UK wants citizens to be given 'European Democracy Vouchers', funded by internet service providers, which can be used to buy newspapers and pay for online media subscriptions.

The vouchers, which would work in the same way as restaurant vouchers currently used in several countries, would be funded through a levy on internet service providers (ISPs), according to the National Union of Journalists in the UK (NUJ).

The idea was aired in a submission to the European Commission's consultation on creative industries, published in April (EurActiv 30/04/10).

Faced by the fact that their industry can't adapt by itself to changing market conditions, ie the internet, journalists are now demanding the taxpayer fund them (via a levy imposed on ISPs). If the arts can receive public subsidy then so should journalists, they argue, among other things.

Anyone familiar with the jourmalism produced by the British media will be aware that many of these goons are not worth being paid at all.

It's such an insane, ridiculous idea that the EU will probably give it serious consideration.

Royal Mail and the (deliberately) concealed hand of the EU.

Privatisation of the mail has resurfaced, as it was bound to do.

No mention anywhere, though, of the primary cause of this, ie EU directives requiring 'liberalisation' and 'full market opening' of postal services. Not in the BBC, anyway, though I don't suppose any of the rest of the British media will have the honesty to mention it, either.

Strange, too, that the media dutifully follow the falling profits/too much competition line they've been given, despite the fact that for the two previous years the whole group has actually been making a profit.

Service has noticeably declined here in Lincolnshire over the past five years. Most of what gets delivered is junk mail, different posties seem to appear every week and there is no consistency in time of delivery (except that it is always late morning at the earliest). Many items either sent to us or posted by us now take a week or more to arrive.

All our politicians conspire to keep the truth from us and the media aid them, irrespective of party bias. The unions oppose the changes but also refuse to point the finger at the EU (they can't, can they? because they support the Labour Party, who are as firmly wedged up the EU's arse as the LibDems).

So you can look forward to higher prices and lower standards. And you can kiss goodbye to six-day delivery as well; EU directives only require a five-day minimum service.

How The EU Works - By Threats

Europe tells Britain not to ask for help in a crisis - Telegraph

Our lovely colleagues in Brussels have turned sulky and nasty because we didn't simply roll over and commit billions to bail out their crappy euro.

This is how the EU works - lies, deception and bullying.

Eu Wants Total Economic Control

Germany backs Greek bail-out as EU creates 'economic government' - Telegraph

Talks are under way about the Greek bailout package and so not much is making it into the media. Apart from the distinct possibility that our 'colleagues' will invoke Article 122 of the Lisbon Treaty to compel the UK to stump up to help bail out Greece.

This is what's disturbing (though not, of course, unexpected) - the use of the crisis for a power grab by the EU over the economic governance of member states:

The breakthrough comes as this week's summit of EU leaders in Brussels rapidly evolves from a policy workshop into an historic gathering that may catapult the EU across the Rubicon towards fiscal federalism and a de facto debt union. The EU's top brass are seizing on the crisis to push for a radical extension of EU powers, saying Greece has exposed the deep flaws in the structure of monetary union.

Herman Van Rompuy, the EU's new president, has submitted a text calling for the creation of an "economic government" that shifts responsibility for economic planning from national authorities to the "EU level".

In a parallel move, Commission chief Jose Barroso said Brussels has treaty powers allowing it to take the reins of economic management."

This is a time for boldness. I believe that our economic and social situation demands a radical shift from the status quo. And the new Lisbon Treaty allows this," he said.

"Economic policy isn't a national, but a European matter. No modern economy is an island. When a member state doesn't make reforms, others suffer because of that."

Luckily for our friends in the EU, everyone here is too engrossed in the flimflam about PR, etc, to take any notice of what's happening.

Bankrupt! But Don't Talk About It In Front Of The Electorate.

Don't let the voters know we face bankruptcy - Telegraph Christopher Book on the crisis which our politicians won't face up to in public.

And this, of course:

A third, closely related shadow which the political class has been only too keen to hide away has been the still barely understood extent to which it has handed over the running of our country and the making of our laws to that vast and mysterious new system of government centred on Brussels and Strasbourg. Nothing better exemplified how our politicians are caught by this system, like flies in a spider's web, than the shifty means whereby each of the three main parties weaselled its way out of keeping the manifesto promises of the last election that it would give us a referendum on the EU constitution, otherwise known as the Lisbon "reform treaty". Here was another great surrender of Parliament's power to decide how our country is run, and the MPs of all parties were not only happy to agree to it, but treated us all with contempt as they lied about it.

As I have often observed before, one of the consequences of this abdication of their responsibilities by our politicians has been the way in which vast tranches of policy-making which used to be the stuff of debate have simply passed into a limbo, where they are no longer properly discussed or even explained. Farming and the countryside, the fate of our fishing industry, our immigration rules, our laws on employment and how businesses are run, on the environment, on food safety, the regulating of our financial services, including the operations of the City of London – the key decisions in all these areas, and many more, have been handed over to a form of government which is unconcerned with our national interests and almost wholly unaccountable, with consequences which in almost every case have proved disastrous for Britain.

Yet on all these hugely important issues our political class remains virtually silent, because it no longer has any power to decide what happens. All our political nonentities are left to bicker over at election time is that ever shrinking area of policy-making still under our national control: schools and hospitals, crime… that's about it.

Democracy - EU-Style, ie NOT

Commission sets out rules for citizens' initiative

Commission sets out rules for citizens' initiative
By Constant Brand
31.03.2010 / 16:46 CET

One million signatures needed from nine countries

The European Commission today (31 March) set out the rules for using a “citizens' initiative” which allows one million people to ask the Commission to propose new laws.

Using the initiative, which was introduced by the Lisbon treaty, will require at least one million signatures from at least nine of the 27 member states.

Organisers will also to make sure they get a minimum number of names from each country, based on the so-called digressive proportionality system, which is used to divide up seats between member states in the European Parliament.

Maroš Šefčovič, the EU commissioner handling the “European Citizens' Initiative”, said the measure will mark “a real step forward in the democratic life” of Europeans.

Šefčovič presented a draft guidebook on how the initiative will work on Wednesday. “It should not be too difficult, not too technical or complicated for citizens”, he said.“It is a concrete example of bringing Europe closer to its citizens and it should foster a lively debate about what we are doing in Brussels”.

The plan, which still needs the backing of the European Parliament and member states, will give citizens across the 27-nation bloc their first direct say in setting the EU's legislative agenda, a procedure which could lead to gridlock in EU decision- making.

But it will not go as far as other similar direct democracy instruments like those in Switzerland or California, where citizens can bypass parliaments to pass new rules and regulations via ballot initiatives or referenda.

Šefčovič acknowledged the initiative would also allow interest groups and political parties to launch signature drives, raising doubts about how effective the initiative would be in bringing citizens closer to the EU.

“We are trying to be as open as possible, we would not like to limit who would be the organisers ... so political parties clearly fall within the remit,” he said.

The initiative opens the door for people to voice their position on an array of contentious issues, including the use of genetically modified crops to Turkey's entry talks, all of which fall under the remit of the Commission, which has powers to draft and amend EU rules and regulations.

Under the proposed rules, those wanting to change EU legislation will have to organise and collect at least one million signatures from at least nine of the 27 member states.

Added to those requirements is another complex one that will force organisers to make sure they meet a minimum number of names from each country, based on the so-called digressive proportionality system, which is used to divvy up seats between member states in the European Parliament.

At least 72,000 signatures will be needed from Germany for example, 54,750 from the UK and only 4,500 each from tiny Malta and Luxembourg.

The initiative will have to be formally filed via a special Commission website, after which organisers will have one year to collect the signatures.

Šefčovič said he had introduced several safeguards to prevent extremists or other “silly” initiatives from hijacking the process. An initial check will be done once an initiative is filed on the website to see whether the proposed signature drive abides by European rights and values.

A second check is done once organisers reach 300,000 signatures to see whether it falls under its legislative powers and is viable.

The names collected either online or on paper will have to be verified by national authorities and the organisers of the initiative will have to disclose who finances their campaign.

A group representing thousands of EU-based non-governmental organisations, including Greenpeace, the European Trade Union Confederation and the European Women's Lobby welcomed the proposal calling it “an important new step to increase public participation in EU decision-making.”

Seventeen member states already have similar initiatives at national level.

So there you have it: instead of just voting directly for the people who make your laws, you now have the ability to go through a complicated and ridiculous procedure, which will be vetted by unelected officials - all on the off-chance that the (unelected) commissioners think it's worth bothering about.

Welcome to democracy, EU-style.

How about starting an initiative to get the UK expelled from the EU? I'm sure we could make ourselves so disliked that we could easily get 1,000,000+ signatures.

Conservatives Will Inherit EU Merde-Sturm

Conservatives may by forced to call early EU referendum - Telegraph

I wonder if Dave and his mates have decided they'd rather not be running this country after the next general election.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has raised the prospect of new EU treaty only months after the Lisbon Treaty took force.

Mrs Merkel said that a new EU accord would be required to create a new European Monetary Fund able to bail out crisis-hit members of the euro like Greece. “We would need a treaty change,” she said.

Talk of a new EMF has led to warnings that power of tax and spending could be centralised in European institutions.

When the Lisbon accord was proposed, European leaders said that it would be the last attempt to change the EU’s basic rules for many years.

But some European politicians have taken the recent financial crisis as an opportunity to suggest more changes. The European Commission has said the crisis is a chance to improve Europe’s “economic governance”.

Britain is not a euro member, but it is a signatory to the Maastricht treaty that created the single European currency. Maastricht bans one euro member giving direct financial aid to another.

EU rules mean that any change in the union’s fundamental rules must be approved by all EU members in a new treaty.

Any new treaty that creates a “gouvernement économique” based in Brussels and Frankfurt would face stiff opposition from Eurosceptics across the British political spectrum.

Both Labour and the Conservatives signalled they would oppose any new EU treaty, and the issue has the potential to be a political embarrassment to both.

When David Cameron dropped his commitment to hold a referendum on Lisbon last year, he reassured voters and Eurosceptic Tories that a Conservative government would put any future treaty to a referendum.

Conservative officials confirmed that the referendum “lock” would be applied to any new EMF treaty.

Mark Francois, the Conservative shadow Europe minister, said: “A European Monetary Fund must create no financial or legal obligations on Britain.”

However, the Conservatives are wary of letting Europe become a major issue at the general election, fearing that Labour could use the subject to portray them as an unreformed right-wing party.

Labour promised a referendum on the European Constitution, the forerunner of Lisbon, but then dropped the commitment.

Mr Brown told the Commons in 2007 that he would not accept any change in Europe’s rules for another decade.

Downing Street confirmed on Tuesday that the UK would oppose any new treaty brought forward to set up an EMF.

Downing Street said: “The Government opposes further institutional change in the relationship between the EU and member states for this parliament and the next.”

Asked about Mrs Merkel’s remarks, No 10 said: “We don’t actually expect further institutional change.”

Mats Persson, director of Open Europe, a think-tank, said that any new treaty could be a move to centralise power over tax and spending policies.

He said. “This will be seen, rightly, as a step towards fiscal federalism. That would be a step in the wrong direction for the UK.”

Even though Britain is outside the euro, Mr Persson said it was “not inconceivable

that the UK could take part in some way” in a new European bail-out fund.

As an example, he said, the UK pays to help fund the running costs of the European Central Bank, despite not being a member of the European single currency.

Nigel Farage, a UK Independence Party MEP, said: “British participation in a European IMF will prove to be a bottomless pit down which taxpayers’ money can be poured in an attempt to save a lost cause.”

The Germans Are Getting Restless

German court overturns law on phone, e-mail data - Yahoo! News

BERLIN – Germany's highest court on Tuesday overturned a law that let anti-terror authorities retain data on telephone calls and e-mails, saying it posed a "grave intrusion" to personal privacy rights and must be revised.

The court ruling was the latest to sharply criticize a major initiative by Chancellor Angela Merkel's government and one of the strongest steps yet defending citizen rights from post-Sept. 11 terror-fighting measures.

The ruling comes amid a European-wide attempt to set limits on the digital sphere, that includes disputes with Google Inc. over photographing citizens for its Street View maps.

The Karlsruhe-based Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the law violated Germans' constitutional right to private correspondence and failed to balance privacy rights against the need to provide security. It did not, however, rule out data retention in principle.

The law had ordered that all data — except content — from phone calls and e-mail exchanges be retained for six months for possible use by criminal authorities, who could probe who contacted whom, from where and for how long.

"The disputed instructions neither provided a sufficient level of data security, nor sufficiently limited the possible uses of the data," the court said, adding that "such retention represents an especially grave intrusion."

The court said because citizens did not notice the data was being retained it caused "a vague and threatening sense of being watched."

Nearly 35,000 Germans had appealed to the court to overturn the law, which stems from a 2006 European Union anti-terrorism directive requiring telecommunications companies to retain phone data and Internet logs for a minimum of six months in case they are needed for criminal investigations.

Civil rights groups had fiercely opposed the law, arguing that even excluding the content of phone calls and e-mails could allow authorities too deep a view into their personal sphere.

"Massive amounts of data about German citizens who pose no threat and are not suspects is being retained," Germany's commissioner for data security issues, Peter Schaar, told ARD television.

Security experts argued the information is crucial to being able to trace crimes involving heavy use of the Internet, including tracking terror networks and child pornography rings.

While the court upheld the EU directive as necessary to fight terror, it took issue with how the German law had interpreted it and ordered further restrictions on access to the data.

Changes ordered by the court included granting access to the data only by court order and only in the event of "concrete and imminent danger." The court further insisted the information be stored in the private sector so it was not concentrated in one spot.

Germans, in particular, are sensitive to privacy issues, based on their experiences under the Nazis as well as the former East Germany's Communist dictatorships, where information on individuals was collected and abused by the state.

Can't see our courts taking that much interest in our rights, can you?

EU - Hidden Disaster

Already flagged up by various blogs and papers, etc, Hidden Disaster, the EU's expensive propaganda comic aimed at children. This time about the Commission's Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO). Written by Erik Bongers (yes, it is a 'g', not a 'k').

Should you have the slightest interest in reading and ridiculing this piece of rubbish, either check out the copy over at our Scribd site or pop along to the EU's own online bookshop for a free pdf.

Why British Journalists Are Shit

The deliberate refusal to acknowledge to influence of the EU in everyday life is a disgrace in most of the British media, particularly in the left-wing journals such as the Guardian and the Observer.

Hence this in the Observer's Business section today on Home Improvement Packs ('Will estate agents shake the Hips?'):

Hips were introduced in England and Wales in 2007 to provide more "up front" information for buyers. Before them some 28% of sales fell through, often because of problems discovered late in the purchase process.

Wrong. Hips were introduced to comply with the EU's Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. Typically, though, whereas the original legislation demands only one document, the British government demands nine.

Check that out here.

As for Mr Norwood's second statement, I doubt very much that sales he said had fallen through because of 'problems discovered late' had anything to do with energy concerns.

Misleading, incorrect and uninformed. Since these journos are paid to investigate and check sources I can only assume it's deliberate. A bit like Toby Helm covering the problems at the Royal Mail without once mentioning the direct effect of the EU's Postal Services Directive.

World Delusions of Politicos And Their Media Whores

The UK's world role: Great Britain's greatness fixation

Britain has no such potency [ie as important world power]. Yet we still struggle to adjust to our reality. We can propose, as we shall be doing in three important London meetings this week, but we cannot dispose. Every day, the descant of the Chilcot inquiry reminds us of where the refusal to recognise this truth can humiliatingly lead. Our national interest should be to play our important role as a true, trusted and committed European partner on the world stage. No longer the greatest. Just one great among others. Good enough ought to be good enough. The people get it. If only the politicians did too.

'We can propose...'? 'We'? - what 'we' is this? We, the people, won't be proposing anything at all. We are not struuggling to 'adjust' to any reality. The 'we' of those sentences is the corrupt political class, which has no relation to the populace of the country.

I'm pretty sick of being told Britain has lost its role because it is no longer an imperial power. I'm even sicker of idiots telling us we should drown our sovereignty and identity within the EU in some sort effort to retain our international standing.

This is the waffle of vain politicians and their toadies in the media. As far as my own experience goes, the people don't give a fig for the loss of imperial power or for Britain's 'importance' or role in the world. Gordon Brown is but the latest in a line of Prime Ministers bloated with vanity who strutted around on the world stage proclaiming the greatness of Britain when all they were really doing was saying 'Look at me, aren't I a great world statesman?'

This country would be better off if our politicians concentrated on domestic matters and improving the lot of the people and let the rest of the world get on with its own affairs and wars by itself (especially American wars). That includes the EU. There is no such thing as a European identity. And Europe will never be a nation, whatever the EU does, whatever its apologists say.

The people aren't deluded. The politicians are.

BBC Paid By EU

Fears of bias as BBC gets £141m in EU loans - Times Online

No wonder the EU rarely figures much in news reports - and never in documetaries or current affairs programmes.

Britain Heads For Power Cuts

E.ON chief: Preserve coal plants to keep lights on.

Ageing coal-fired power stations should be exempted from environmental regulations and kept open to stop the lights from going out, the chief executive of E.ON UK has urged the government.

Paul Golby told the Guardian that some of the coal and oil-fired plants due to close this decade because of European pollution regulations should remain operational and ready to come online during periods of peak demand such as those experienced in recent weeks. The Guardian revealed this month that almost 100 large power users had to switch to alternative sources when National Grid triggered clauses in their interruptible supply contracts.

And just because we are run by cretins who obey their cretin-masters in Brussels, we are going to suffer longer and more frequent power cuts in the very near future - and for a long time.

The green lobby are already whingeing, but even they must have noticed we are getting interrupted supplies. Not that they need worry, since no British government will have the guts or the intelligence to do anything about it.

EU Needs To Fiddle Its University Rankings

EU to test new university ranking in 2010

The European Union is developing a new worldwide ranking system of universities to rival currently established league tables in a bid to improve the ranking of European universities and improve Europe's economic power.

National league tables have been common since the 1990s but as higher education has increasingly become globalised with many students opting to take part of their studies abroad, the focus has shifted to worldwide university rankings.

This means the rankings are increasingly receiving more attention for different specific purposes: Students use them to short-list their choice of university; public and private institutions use them to decide on funding allocations; universities use them to promote themselves; while some politicians use them as a measure of national economic achievements or aspirations.

Europe's around 4,000 higher education institutions have over 19 million students and 1.5 million staff. However, European universities have time and again failed to make it big in the current world university rankings.

In other words, not enough of the EU's universities are making the grade, so they'll have to devise a way of pretending they are. A bit like the UK's exam system.

Iceland Suffers Democracy

Iceland's referendum decision provokes angry UK and Dutch response

Iceland's EU membership bid was seen as at stake on Tuesday after a shock decision by the country's president to block legislation on paying billions of euros to Britain and the Netherlands to compensate investors in the collapsed Icelandic bank Icesave.

In a televised speech, President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson acknowledged the strength of popular opposition to the deal among ordinary Icelanders, many of whom are questioning why they have to pay for the actions of their country's banks. His move means the issue will now be put to a referendum.

Last June, Iceland made an agreement with London and the Hague to pay them back €3.8 billion they used to compensate British and Dutch savers who lost money in October 2008 when their accounts with the online savings account Icesave were frozen, following the collapse of the parent company Landsbanki.

The president said an "overwhelming majority" wanted a direct say over the issue after a petition objecting to the terms of paying back the loan gathered the support of one fifth of the population.

Under the terms of the agreement the loan will be paid back over 15 years with interest, with estimates suggesting every household will have to contribute around 45,000 euros.

Feelings in Iceland have been running high, particularly after the heavy handed tactics at the height of the crisis used by Britain which invoked an anti-terrorism law to freeze the country's assets in the UK.

"It is the cornerstone of the constitutional structure of the Republic of Iceland that the people are the supreme judge of the validity of the law," said Mr Grimsson.

The president's decision, which comes just a week after the parliament narrowly approved legislation to pay back the loan following months of wrangling, has prompted an immediate and angry response.

Fitch, the international rating agency, downgraded Iceland's longterm foreign currency credit rating to junk status on the back of the move and called it "a significant setback to Iceland's efforts to restore normal financial relations with the rest of the world."

The Times newspaper reported that Britain's financial services minister Lord Myners said that if the referendum decision was allowed to stand then Iceland would be frozen out of the international financial system and would not be able to join the European Union.

"The UK Government stepped in to ensure that all retail depositors with Icesave were fully paid out, and now we expect the Icelandic Government to ensure that we are repaid that amount which Iceland owes us," he said.

The Netherlands has also reacted with anger.

"We are very disappointed about the decision," said a Dutch finance ministry spokesman, according to the Wall Street Journal. "Iceland has the obligation to pay back the money."

With recent polls showing that Icelanders would likely reject the terms of the repayment in any referendum, the country's EU path is also set to be affected.

Each member state may veto an attempt by another country to join the European Union. Iceland submitted a formal application for membership in July 2009. Once hailed as a probable EU member shoo-in, the banking situation as well as Icelanders more ambivalent feelings about joining the 27-nation bloc is likely to complicate the negotiation process.

Good.

UK E-Borders Crap Illegal Under EU Law? Hahahahahahahaha

U.K.’s Plan to Track Visitors May Be Illegal, Lawmakers Say

Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s 1.2 billion-pound ($1.94 billion) plan to track passenger movements in and out of the U.K. probably will be ruled illegal under European Union law, a panel of British lawmakers said.

The Home Affairs Committee said the so-called e-Borders program, which allows authorities to check passenger data supplied by airlines against a watch-list of suspected criminals, probably won’t be legal to operate on routes between the U.K. and European Union.

The panel said the program, which brings together the U.K.’s immigration agency, customs, police and visas authority, would interfere with both EU data protection standards and a rule that citizens of the 27-nation bloc can travel freely as long as they can show an identity document. The lawmakers want the program put on hold until its validity can be tested.

“The major stumbling block, and a very disappointing oversight, is that we are sure that what the program requires will be illegal,” Keith Vaz, a lawmaker from the ruling Labour Party who leads the panel, said in an e-mail. “It is shocking that money has already been spent on a program which could never be implemented.”

Damian Green, a member of Parliament who speaks on immigration for the Conservative opposition, said “it beggars belief that after so many years of pursuing this project, the government still isn’t sure whether it is even legal.”

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas said the program is “fully compliant with EU law and has been confirmed by the European Commission.” The program has screened 137 million passengers and led to 4,700 arrests since 2005, he said.

Fuckwits, the lot of them. Woolas being one of the biggest fuckwits ever to hold office.

Baroness Ashton: EU couldn’t make it up

Baroness Ashton: EU couldn’t make it up - Times Online

The plotting and bungles that led to an obscure British bureaucrat heading the EU’s foreign service were even greater than first thought. She now commands staff in 130 countries.

Quite an extensive article on the scretiveness and duplicity of the EU.

The bit that made me laugh, however, was the following:

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former French president and “framer” of the EU’s constitution, was also dismayed at the insignificance of Ashton and van Rompuy, saying that he would have preferred a figure of the stature of George Washington as president.

“When the Americans in Philadelphia sought a personality to lead their new state, they chose ... the conqueror in the war of independence, as their founding president,” intoned d’Estaing. “I would have preferred a strong president corresponding to this profile.”

It just shows how delusional the EU regime and its supporters are - just where does D'Estaing think they could find anyone of the stature of Washington among the European political classes?