The Real Voice of Europe

By Mark Pritchard. In an emotional address to the European Parliament on Wednesday President of the European Commission,  Manuel Barroso admitted the EU was in deep trouble as the Euro sinks in sea of sovereign debt but proclaimed that the cure was even more of the bureaucratic centralism that got the EU into this mess  in the first place. Whilst the voice of those offering a different remedy was sedulously silenced.

Senor Barroso, as President of the European Commission  is not to be confused with the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, or the President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy.

The European Council, as a layer of EU bureaucracy, is itself not to be confused with the Council of Europe, which is nothing to do with the EU.  None of this muddle of Presidents and Councils has stopped Senor Barroso, since he was as usual in EU matters not elected but appointed in 2009, from strutting and fretting his hour upon the Euro-stage, proudly describing himself as “the President of Europe.”

As such he has taken to aping the President of the United States and inflicting an annual pretentious “State of the Union” address on the Euro-Parliament.

It was this platform this worthy used to declaim in distinctly sub-Churchillian tones that    “We are today faced with the greatest challenge our Union has known in all its history.”

Since the said Union is only 18 years old, having been created, as usual without benefit of democracy, by the 1993 Maastricht Treaty this is not necessarily as portentous as it sounds.

Although with the euro generally regarded as on the brink of collapse he is probably right to say his “Union” does now face a significant problem and its applecart is teetering ominously.

After wagging his finger at the Greeks, who are not impoverishing themselves quickly enough for the liking of their EU masters in Brussels (officially) and Berlin (actually), quoting with approval the convicted Communist terrorist Nelson Mandela, and blustering about “a baptism of fire for a whole generation” el Senor Presidente declaimed his Cunning Plan to save the EU.

Basically the usual Euro-nostrum of surrendering even more national independence to Brussels and dunning the long-suffering German, and to a lesser extent British, taxpayer for yet more money to pay for it all.

Confirming what nationalists across Europe have said all along, he spelled out that the price of the European Single Currency must inevitably be a European Single State: “It was an illusion to think that we could have a common currency and a single market with national approaches to economic and budgetary policy”.

El Presidente Barroso made clear he wanted monetary union to be completed by economic union, and to that end the European Commission would present certain plans in the coming weeks…

So the 17 eurozone countries, having already given up their own money, are told they must now surrender all control of their economies, tax and spending to Brussels. Leaving ancient and proud nations like Germany, France and Spain, as well as Greece and Italy, with scarcely a shred of national independence. Their national equivalents of our Chancellor of the Exchequer being replaced with a faceless committee of German bankers in an office in Brussels.

Whilst the tab for the colossal national debts membership of the Euro let the likes of Ireland. Portugal, Greece and Spain run up must be picked up by the German taxpayer, beneath the diaphanous fig-leaf of a “eurobond”: “Once the euro area is fully equipped with the instruments necessary to ensure both integration and discipline, the issuance of joint debt will be seen as a natural and advantageous step for all”, quoth el Senor.  “Joint debt” means the Greeks spend and the Germans pay, basically. Although the Euro-tin is also in the process of being rattled before the British taxpayer who is being asked to guarantee sundry bailout Euro-funds and -loans even though we are nothing to do with their euro.

British Nationalist MEP Andrew Brons was ready with a ringing reply to this pompous pantaloon on behalf of the free peoples of Europe, under the so called “catch the eye” process which enables MEPs to speak in the debate following Barroso’s bombast. 46 MEPs succeeded without difficulty in capturing the relevant optic and rose to pile praise upon el Presidente as a man of vision, world statesman etc etc.

Curiously enough the Euro-eye was not caught by a further 10 MEPs seeking to do so. Surprise, surprise, whilst 83% of those who wanted to speak in the debate were indeed allowed to do so, this small minority who somehow failed to catch the all-important Eye included Mr Brons.

Who was thus denied the chance of deflating el Presidente posturing on his rostrum with the following pithy and apposite response:

“There is an eccentric alternative school of medicine that prescribes, as a cure, more of whatever made you ill. I was reminded of this approach when listening to Mr. Barroso’s speech.

“The troubles of the Euro-zone were caused by a, one-size-fits-all approach to interest rates and external currency values. The debt-ridden and recession-suffering countries of Southern Europe need cheap capital and low currency values to boost their exports and their economies.

“What is the remedy of the European Union’s physician, Mr. Barroso?

– A one-size-fits-all fiscal policy;

– A one-size-fits-all economic governance policy;

– The same sovereign debt bonds;

– The same embrace of globalisation and

– The same support for starving bankers.

“If we really want to solve the European debt crisis and round two of the world economic recession, we must: scrap the Euro-zone and allow interests and currency values to meet the very different needs of each economy; allow each government to expand or constrain their economies according to need; and abandon the suicidal policy of globalism, rebuild our manufacturing bases and protect them.”

The voice of freedom and common sense which the EU evidently does not want heard by one of its numerous lavishly-remunerated Presidents in its halls of pomp and power. But a voice nonetheless that will not be silenced, for it, not Barroso and all his bombast, is the voice which really speaks for Europe.

The real Europe, of ancient and proud peoples and the nations they brought to birth in blood and fire over a thousand years. The Europe that is at last beginning to awake…