Don’t hold your breath

Philip Johnston, home affairs editor for The Daily Telegraph, today publishes his "Home front" column, entitled "We don't need a Euro police force".

It is a good enough piece, but we do wish he had read our Blog first, on the Eurocops – which would have added significantly to his understanding of the subject.

Nevertheless, Johnston does us a service, echoing a complaint aired may times on this Blog, to the effect that, while attention is focused elsewhere, EU integration goes marching on.

Thus, he points out that, while Parliament returns today to complete this year's legislative programme before next month's Queen's Speech, "much attention will focus on the fate of foxhunting, Tony Blair will be under renewed pressure over Iraq and there are other key measures - among them the Housing Bill and the Civil Contingencies Bill - to be concluded."

"You can be certain, however", he writes, "that a debate pencilled in for Thursday will attract little notice. The motion looks so innocuous that few may be aware of its implications. It is to 'take note of EU document relating to justice and home affairs work programme'."

And how accurately does he convey the reaction to such matters:

What a yawn. Yet another boring EU missive, full of impenetrable legalese and replete with apparently benign ambitions such as working towards the creation of an "area of freedom, justice and security" and the "mutual recognition" of laws in the interests of the "citizens of Europe". Who but a swivel-eyed Europhobe could be against that?

Except that Philip Johnston is not a "swivel-eyed Europhobe" and he certainly is against it. As he rightly says:

…what the European Commission has in mind is not benign at all. It maintains that the "European judicial area" will respect the legal traditions and systems of member states. But this is simply not true when you actually read what is being proposed.

Under the guise of co-operation, it seeks greater uniformity of law and criminal procedure - including minimum penalties and the end of life sentences - in the EU. In addition, the Commission wants to create a European Public Prosecutor, set up a European Corps of Border Guards, give more powers to Eurojust - a sort of centralised DPP - and allow the Dutch-based Europol agency to become an investigative police force, something we were told it would never
be when it was set up.

And once again, the evidence is there for anyone who wishes to look at it, as Johnston points out:

This is not an integrationist fantasy along the lines of those "myths" the Commission is always trying to debunk, such as straight-banana laws. The aims are clearly spelt out in two documents. One is the five-year programme for justice and home affairs, which MPs are debating on Thursday; the other is an even more far-reaching Green Paper entitled "Approximation, mutual recognition and enforcement of criminal sanctions".

This is the tragedy of it all. This Blog does its best to draw attention to what is going on and now Johnston is in the same position, albeit with a wider readership. He writes words that could easily have appeared on this Blog:

These documents have been examined by MPs on the Commons European scrutiny committee, whose job is to cast a parliamentary eye over the deluge of directives and communications that pour out of the Eurocracy on a weekly basis. If you want to know where the power to change our lives really lies - with or without a constitution - take a look at the papers considered by the committee in its most recent report.

They covered 16 subjects, including flood prevention, a simplified common market in fruit and vegetables, greenhouse gas emissions from car air-conditioning systems, mobile broadband services and the migration and integration of third-country nationals. This was just one report from the committee; so far this year, it has issued 30, each looking at a dozen or more EU-based laws or would-be directives.

These rarely get debated in the Commons chamber. The committee can make recommendations about changes it would like to see, but these do not have to be accepted. The real work goes on in the bowels of Brussels, in behind-the-scenes negotiations between officials.

Final decisions are made by the Council of Ministers; but because so much EU law is made by majority voting, it is easy for a country to get stuck with something it does not want or which proves to be unworkable or harmful.

And here is the rub. "Needless to say", Johnston writes, "the Government supports the continuation of the justice and home affairs programme for a further five years. It is less enamoured of the contents of the Green Paper, but insists it is just a 'discussion document' and there is, therefore, no need for anyone to get too hot under the collar."

Wait for it – where have we seen this before: "Yet what starts off as a discussion document in the EU often turns up a few years later as a fully fledged directive. If Britain gets drawn into negotiations, by the time they are concluded the harmonisation of judicial procedures will have been further advanced."

"The alternative," says Johnston, "is to kill it off now". Unanimity is still required for decisions on these matters and Parliament should state unequivocally that Britain has no intention of entering any talks about an area of policy that, as the scrutiny committee observes, "lies at the heart of member states' sovereignty".

The five-year programme comes up for agreement at the European Council in December. Tony Blair could veto it there and then; but don't hold your breath.

Aah… and where have you seen these words before: "don’t hold your breath". European integration marches on, with or without the constitution and maybe, one day, the nation will wake up. But don't hold your breath.

Turkey on their minds

Turkey seems to be on everybody’s mind. Naturally, I do not mean the bird but the country and its possible entry into the European Union. The question is almost entirely academic since all that has happened is that the Commission has recommended negotiations. The Council of Ministers will have to take the final decision in December. Normally, that is a foregone conclusion but one cannot be entirely certain on such a ticklish subject.

Then the negotiations will start. They are predicted to carry on for ten years at the very least. Who knows what will happen by then? Still, opinions are being aired in the media. Some are fairly vacuous, others much more substantial. One of the latter was Roger Bootle’s column in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph. The piece was entitled unambigously: Why we must let Turkey into the EU.

Mr Bootle, as behoves an economist, starts off with all the many reasons why taking Turkey into the EU would be little short of madness: large and ever growing population, economic backwardness and social otherness, geographic extension well beyond European shores, political instability. Then he adds:

“Given all this, it should be obvious what an economist like myself should think about Turkish entry. I am, of course, in favour of it.”

Sensibly, Mr Bootle does not bother to explain away or even finesse the difficulties he had laid out. Instead, he produces a double argument to show that Turkey’s membership of the Union would be a good thing for both sides, doubly so for the EU.

Membership of the EU and, even more so, preparations for it, argues Mr Bootle has done wonders for “poor countries with troubled political histories”. These are three: Spain, Portugal and Greece, all of whom have benefited from entry, economically and politically.

“Improvements extend beyond the narrowly economic into the fields of politics and human rights. But these have economic consequences as well. Full democracies bound by the rule of law rarely if ever descend into the blatant incompetence and kleptocracy that is the fate of so many dictatorships.”

Naturally enough, a stable and prosperous Turkey would be of great benefit to her European neighbours. We do not want her to slide into Islamic fundamentalism, but, as Roger Bootle does not add, neither is it entirely satisfactory that the main prop against that fundamentalism is the army.

Secondarily, Mr Bootle thinks that the entry of Turkey and, possibly, even just the negotiations with her, would change the nature of the EU.

“The fundamental narrative of the EU is the tension between widening and deepening. Wild enthusiasts like to think that the EU can do both, but it is becoming increasingly clear that we will not be able to run even the current EU as an integrated political unit, never mind a much larger union. With Turkey in, this would become blindingly obvious.”

Ah yes, the dear old widening versus deepening debate. How often have I heard this since Bill Jamieson and I first raised doubts about enlargement to the east as it was being contemplated (and has been carried out ) in 1998.

Enlargement is a good thing despite all the problems on both sides, we were told, because by widening we can prevent deepening of European integration. No, said we (together with successive Commission Presidents), given the nature of the European Union and the aim of the “European project”, which can be achieved only by greater integration. The very existence of the project requires that, in order to widen, we need to deepen. The Treaties of Amesterdam and Nice, as well as the proposed Constitution, all of them supposedly essential for enlargement but really for the completion of the project, have proved us right. But some people prefer not to learn the lessons.

It is, of course, true that a politically stable, socially mature and economically prosperous Turkey would be to our benefit and would also be, incidentally, a completion of the Kemalist revolution. But is membership of the EU absolutely essential to it? After all, the entity Turkey would be entering would not be a mature democracy or a democracy of any kind. In fact, it could be described as a body of frequent incomptence and kleptocracy and, therefore, not a particularly good example to a country struggling to find its place in the modern world.

Could Turkey not benefit from a creation of a free market across Europe, including Asia Minor, in goods, services and financial ventures? I am just throwing this suggestion out for discussion. Would it not be a good idea for us and, in particular for France and Germany, to stop growling at that country and scream abuse at the slightest departure from the norms that apparently are inessential for “our friends” such as China, Libya and Saddam’s Iraq? In other words, are there any other solutions to our relationship with neighbouring countries apart from lengthy and frustrating membership negotiations and the imposition of completely inappropriate rules and regulations?

Which brings me to Roger Bootle’s final argument. It is actually quite an interesting one. He disagrees with the “fanatical supporters of the EU”, who hold that the economic development of the Continental economies in the first years after the Treaty of Rome is due to that document. Clearly, “the countries of core Europe were set to grow strongly without the EU” or, even, the EEC as it then was. Furthermore, Mr Bootle, might have added, the biggest growth came before the wretched thing was set up.

He does, however, add that “more recently, its large members have been held back by the EU’s emphasis on regulation and harmonisation and its suppression of competition”. Win some, lose some, one might say, though the recent losses are beginning to be very alarming.

The real benefit of the EU has been to

“the peripheral countries of Europe to aspire to core European standards of living and extending democracy and accountable government to countries that had been plagued by dictatorships.

In this way, the EU has played the role that the great empires, including the British, have sometimes played in the past, bringing a measure of prosperity and stability to areas that might otherwise fall prey to tinpot nationalism and bad government.

Historians will surely judge the success of the EU not by its contribution to raising German living standards but rather by what it has done for Spain, Portugal, Greece and the former communist states of eastern Europe. Doing the same thing for Turkey would be an enormous triumph.”

This sounds so wonderful that it takes a little while to work out that, actually, it is bunkum. Helping peripheral countries at the expense of economic growth and political democracy in the core member states (where does Britain fit in here?) sounds little short of idiotic. Surely, there could have been another way. In fact, there are various other ways and, having missed our opportunity to change the nature of the EU before we took in the East European countries, we had better try to get it right before Turkey even begins to negotiate. But we won’t.

In any case, which peripheral countries are we talking about? I notice Mr Bootle does not mention Ireland, which has also benefited economically from membership, then decided to increase the benefits by changing its tax system, much to the annoyance of certain other member states. One can debate what has helped Ireland more, its low taxation or the large amount of EU money pouring into the country, which has ensured that the usual effects of tax cuts did not have to be contemplated and no hard political choices had to be made. But, one cannot possibly argue that without the EU it was “plagued by dictatorships”.

That leaves the three peripheral Mediterranean countries: Spain, Portugal and Greece. Yes, they have remained democratic, though in the case of Greece, probably less essentially so than the others, and more corrupt.

But how much of that is due to the EU and how much to the determination of its own people and, even, leaders, in particular, King Juan Carlos? In any case, the real test has not been faced yet: a lessening and, finally, cessation of constant EU funds, subsidies, effectively bribes. Will those economies survive and if they do not, will the democracies? So far, all attempts to cut back on such things are regional funding or subsidies for tobacco farmers have met shrieks of horror and stubborn heel drumming as well as threats of social and economic break-down. A complete success? That remains to be seen.

What about Eastern Europe? The first thing to be said is that six months after the entry into the EU is hardly the time to pass final judgements. The second thing is that it was not precisely tinpot dictators they were suffering from before 1989 but a complex, well-worked out and deeply oppressive political system. The consequences of that system and its collapse are still being worked out in Eastern Europe as well as the former Soviet Union, not least its largest and most important member, Russia.

However, it is fair to say that the determination of the Central European countries (and, really, they are the ones that have become part of the EU) to develop democratic systems and to stick to them has been quite astonishing. It happened without any help from the EU, which, as our readers may recall, was very wary about negotiations for several years after the wall’s destruction.

Equally astonishing has been those countries’ determination to liberalize much of their economy. Mr Bootle is a little disingenuous in his suggestion that this process took place as a result of negotiations with the EU. On the contrary, several of the new member states have found that they have had to reverse some of the liberalizing legislation, in order to fit in with the EU’s own less than liberal order.

Nor has that process stopped, as we can see with the repeated attempts to change the corporate tax rates and the demands that all the various economic, social and environmental regulations be put into place, in order that the core countries should have no real competition in the east. What makes Mr Bootle think that only the large members are held back by regulation, harmonization and suppression of competition?

Has Turkey benefited from negotiations with the EU so far? Hard to say. It is beginning to do things that fit the EU’s image of what a country should be like in order to become a member but is that necessarily of benefit? Will it benefit from further negotiations, assuming they actually happen? Possibly. But, equally, possibly not.

The East Europeans found that once real negotiations started they were so badly treated and bullied and cheated to such an extent that support for entry collapsed in those countries. With Turkey being somewhat more volatile politically, the same process could have serious consequences.

The little European

There are times when one could get very angry, not least with Mr Patten, who is spouting off in today’s Independent, slamming Howard’s plans for a negotiated withdrawal from EU social legislation and the common fisheries policy.

Says the ignorant Mr Patten, "If you decide to repatriate fish policy are you going to depend on our fish being taught to swim only in our territorial waters? Is this the real world?" Considering that this man is external affairs commissioner with, presumably, a wide-ranging knowledge of world affairs, one can only ask which world he lives in.

If he steps for one moment outside his narrow, claustrophobic world of the European Union and looks at a map, he will see that four of the major fishing nations adjoining the UK – Norway, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroes – are actually not in the EU. Yet we manage to cooperate with these nations, not because they are in the CFP - we have bilateral and multilateral agreements with them.

Furthermore, in the real world, the management of straddling stocks, as they are called, is an international problem and, while the Europhiles are fond of saying that fish do not respect national boundaries, that applies as much to the boundaries between EU member states and other nations as it does between EU member states.

Therefore, this issue needs to be dealt with on a much wider scale than the narrowly defined EU area, and indeed it has been. In 2001, the United Nations brokered a world-wide agreement implementing the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), with the agreement on the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (in force as from 11 December 2001). An overview can be found on the UN website and the text of the agreement is also available.

Patten’s trite response, therefore, does not reflect the views of a man of the world, as he would have us believe, but the narrow blinkered world of the little European. Yet this is the man of whom we said in this Blog that he was "intelligent". It looks as if we need to revise that opinion. As for Patten, he needs to get out more.

An American speaks out

"Britain and other EU member states should steer clear of a constitution that promises little benefit and much hardship."

So says Richard Epstein, professor of law at the University of Chicago and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, in a storming article in The Financial Times, previewing a lecture he is to give this evening at the Cass Business School, London.

"Appearances can often deceive", he writes. "On the face of it, the proposed European Union constitution imitates the American federalist form". But it does not replicate it. The US constitution created a nation, with a president as commander-in-chief who presided over a national army and had the power to call state militias into federal service. The states were barred from entering "into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation", thereby ceding the federal government monopoly power over foreign relations.

It moved America towards a national free-trade zone, barred states from coining money, and allowed Congress to impose a uniform tariff wall against the world.

But, although the constitution did contain strong classical liberal guarantees that protected life, liberty and property from government regulation and taxation, the US still managed, through the 1937 New Deal, to promote the ill-founded belief in large government that simultaneously expanded federal power and constricted individual rights.

This, Epstein asserts, illustrates how even mostly sound constitutional structures can fall prey to political pressures and intellectual fads. "And that lesson counsels all defenders of market institutions, both in Britain and elsewhere in the EU, to oppose adoption of an EU constitution flawed at its inception."

No EU constitution can deliver one big benefit of the US model: a unified defence force or foreign policy. It can only "help with social and economic affairs", but "the proposals enshrine principles that can only work to perpetuate the EU's economic malaise and lead to unwise social legislation."

Its root difficulty, however, "lies in solidifying the worst aspects of the status quo by trying to serve the causes of freedom and regulation simultaneously."

It voices a deeply felt commitment to open borders and free movement of capital and labour within the Union. But it also embraces "the sustainable development of the earth, solidarity and mutual respect among peoples, free and fair trade, eradication of poverty and protection of human rights". It then extols "growth, price stability, social progress, full employment, balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full
employment and social progress".

This infinitude of ends means no nation can know what it signs up to. Some deep conflicts occur. Free trade allows each nation to buy and sell goods across borders. But "fair" trade invites a prohibition against trading with nations that fail to adopt the right minimum standards for workers and the environment. The same provision could either open markets or slam them shut. Requiring that trading partners lavish resources on their environments promotes "sustainable development", while wage and price controls promote price stability. Yet both stifle competition from poorer nations.

Unfortunately, concludes Epstein, "ducking hard choices today invites larger conflict tomorrow." The alternative is to push hard for a comprehensive free-trade agreement that avoids the risk of oppressive centralised regulation and exerts pressure for the EU to liberalise its own internal markets. “But do not make the foolish bet”, he adds, “that the EU's byzantine political processes will cleanse its cluttered and flawed constitution.”

This has to be the most succinct and unequivocal condemnation of the EU constitution I have ever seen from an American academic. However, his argument is double-edged. The Europhiles would see in them the need for further political integration. And that is the real divide – the question of more or less. No rational person could believe the current EU constitution is the end of the process. We must either go further, or carve out our separate ways. The status quo, represented by the constitution, is not an option.

Some you win, some you lose

Some summits happen and are successful, some summits happen and are not so successful, and some do not even take place. That’s life in the international fast lane.

The ASEM Summit (which we shall cover) probably came into the second category. After a great deal of trouble it took place. And what good came of it all? As old Kaspar replied in Southey’s poem:

“Why that I cannot tell, …
But ‘twas a famous victory.”

At least it took place, much to the delight of seasoned summit watchers. Another one did not even happen.

It seems that the EU-India Summit, scheduled for October 13 -14 in The Hague, has been cancelled, which is something of a relief to the rest of the world, that had not even realized it was happening.

Not everyone is pleased. Armin Laschet, the German Christian-Democrat MEP, who is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and a substitute member of the Defence and Security Sub-Committee has expressed his disappointment. The EU, according to him, is India’s largest trading partner and source of foreign direct investment but India is only the EU’s 20th trading partner. The problem with those figures is easily seen. If one broke them down member state by member state, the correlation might turn out to be different. Nevertheless, trade has grown constantly and is now worth €27 billion. Fine, but does this require a summit?

It seems that there was going to be a secondary, business summit on October 13 as well, but the main one was to discuss the EU-India Strategic Partnership that was proposed by the European Commission in June.

The details seem a little vague. Herr Laschet again:

“With India, Europe shares not only common interests but also common values. This is a very important basis for a strategic partnership.”

Tomasz Koszlowski, head of the Asia taskforce in the Council of Ministers listed conflict prevention and post conflict reconstruction (such as in Afghanistan), the fight against terror and organized crime and the non-proliferation of weapons as some of the key areas to discuss.

Is India doing conflict reconstruction in Afghanistan? Not according to the Heritage Foundation research paper. What about that non-prolifaration of weapons? Is India about to stop her mind-boggling games with Pakistan? I think not. But, above all, why is there no mention in this list of the Galileo surveillance system? Was that not going to be discussed? Hardly worth having a summit.

Anyway, it was all cancelled for “pressing domestic circumstances” in India – a small matter of ethnic clashes in the nort eastern province of Nagaland. More than 60 people were killed in the last few days and not a word filtered through to the British media. Common values Herr Laschet?

Bullying? Would we ever?

One of the accusations the “sophisticated” Europeans with their “new” ideology have been levelling at the United States is that country’s apparent inability to listen and respect anybody else’s point of view. Not like us. We listen to people, act multilaterally and are in favour of motherhood and apple pie when it comes to international relations.

Well, maybe. What about Russia, one asks oneself. Commenting on Russia’s extremely reluctant agreement to sign the Kyoto agreement, Margot Wallström, the outgoing Environment and incoming Propaganda Commissar, said jubilantly that this was “very much a victory for the European Union”. Understandably, the EU, a political expression of the transnational and international organizations, has made Kyoto its own project. In order to achieve it, as a large number of “major polluters” have refused to sign and an ever growing number of scientists and economists have cast serious doubts on its efficacy, the EU has resorted to naked blackmail of the one country they had something on, Russia. (See Russia and Kyoto again).

Most of us would not consider successful blackmail a victory, but what do I know of the mind of a Swedish Commissioner? More importantly, Ms Wallström seems to have paid no attention, while dancing her dance of triumph (in an environmentally sustainable fashion), to the fact that the Russians are not happy. They do not like being slighted, pressurized or blackmailed by Western countries. They are funny that way.

Often they continue smiling through gritted teeth. Over Kyoto there is no pretence, as we have shown. The Russian government and economic establishment is very unhappy at the EU’s behaviour. Ms Wallström and her thoughtless colleagues may well live to regret their behaviour.

A picture of decline

In our Blog yesterday, when we picked up on the declining economic fortunes of the Eurozone, we mentioned the EU commission’s recently published quarterly report on the euro area, noting that the next year’s growth forecast for the area had been revised downwards, from 2.3 to 1.9 percent.

This figure we actually picked up from one of the press reports but it was suggested to us that we should actually read the commission’s report, available from its website.

Having taken that advice, we commend the same action to our readers. Although hardly a gripping read, its 42 pages are packed with facts and figures, illustrated with plenty of graphs, which all to show one thing – the euro, as a single currency, simply has not delivered on any of its economic promises.

What is remarkable – or perhaps not – is that the commission makes no attempt to hide this. It talks of "the lacklustre investment performance of the euro area"; of recent indicators which "do not suggest a strong acceleration of business investment in the months to come"; a "disappointing short-term outlook" for investment; labour markets showing "little signs of recovery"; growth that was "at best, modest"; acceleration of employment growth that "appears unlikely"; and forecasts that "could remain modest…".

Looking at some of the key indicators over time, which the commission helpfully depicts in graph form, we see producer price inflation increasing, wage rates dropping, profitability deteriorating – lagging far behind the USA and the UK – while corporate and domestic debt is increasing. And, in the highly technical area of "discretionary fiscal policy" the report makes it clear that current measures are failing to have a stabilising effect on the economic cycle.

Altogether, from this highly revealing report – written by expert officials rather than politicians – we see a graphic picture of decline, making it impossible to conclude anything other than the euro has been a disaster.

The worm turns

Given the enthusiasm displayed by Green MEP Caroline Lucas for wind power - to the extent that she believes the democratic process should be overturned in order to allow developers to cover the country with wind factories – it is instructive to read in today’s Sunday Telegraph the account of the German professor who has taken on the wind lobby.

Professor Hans-Joachim Mengel, who vehemently opposes wind power, has dealt a blow to Germany's powerful Green lobby after winning 19 percent of the vote in the key Brandenburg regional election.

Standing on a platform of opposing plans to double the number of wind turbines in Germany, his vote-winning plea was remarkably similar to that offered by the UKIP and other single issue groups: "…none of the major political parties is prepared to listen to voters' concerns."

In fact, it really is quite remarkable how the political establishment, across the whole of Europe has managed to grasp the wrong end of the stick on environmental issues, and it is no surprise that the EU has followed in their train.

But, as the obsession with wind energy continues, Britain – and the rest of Europe – faces the spectre of serious electricity shortages and even the collapse of the grid, as politicians fail to come to grips with our growing energy crisis.

Such is the deficit that the UK government is being forced to keep in service obsolescent and highly polluting coal-fired electricity generators, as reported by the same edition of the Sunday Telegraph, which announced "Power stations can pollute more".

Interestingly, this story was in the business section but, if it had been linked with the wind power story in the main paper, readers might have been able to see the beginnings of a cause and effect relationship.

But, as politicians bleat about "Kyoto targets" – with the Europhile Tim Yeo affirming the commitment of the Conservative Party to this failed mantra at the Conservative Conference -
dissenting voices are increasingly being heard.

Not least of these is Bjorn Lomborg, whose thesis that we would be better off tackling global poverty rather than wasting our money on global warming, repeated today in the Sunday Times is unarguable.

And, while the EU and its fellow travellers are happy to bleat about Kyoto, global warning, pollution and the rest, they are spending billions of our money on not solving the problem. Perhaps this dictatorship should take a lesson another, with which it is so keen to have relations – China. There, the leadership is getting to grips with the energy crisis by going nuclear, capitalising on the flexibility and safety of pebble bed technology.

In the not too distant future, one of the most polluting nations of the world is set to become one of the cleanest – not least though its ability to provide nuclear-generated hydrogen for motive power. Then, as we light our candles yet again to see us though the latest power cuts, the worm will really have turned.

Booker column

Today’s picture story in the Booker column is important – not that it will be universally recognised as such.

While starting off with a classic "red-tape funny" in the Booker mould, it actually describes the consequences an important development in the history of the CAP and of the EU in general.

The "funny" then is Colin Flux, who farms on the Suffolk-Essex border, who recently received details of the new ‘Single Farm Payment’ scheme for paying agricultural subsidies. When he saw them, he got a shock. 300 acres of his farm, which he has been farming for 15 years, he holds under a tenancy. And under the new EU rules, which switch subsidies from production to a farm’s land area, the chief beneficiary will now be the owner of the land, because until 2002 Mr Flux only farmed it under contract.

Thus, the owner of the 300 acres, now retired, will receive £26,000 in the first year, and £100,000 over seven years; while Mr Flux, doing all the work, will only get £2,400 a year. He finds this so odd that he wrote about his plight to his MP, to ministers such as Margaret Beckett and Lord Whitty, to the shadow agriculture spokesman Tim Yeo and several more. Most didn’t reply, and none could explain how such a situation could have arisen.

Now we get down to the serious detail. What Mr Flux did not realise was that he is only a pawn in a much larger game, involving what has come to be known as ‘Franz Fischler’s poison pill’. Booker continues:

For years the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy has been one of its biggest headaches, taking up nearly half the EU’s budget and representing easily the largest single component in its expenditure. Furthermore Brussels has for years been trying to find ways to curb the surpluses created by subsidising food production. Much of these are then dumped on the world market, thus inflicting severe damage on the economies of poorer countries unable to compete with produce which is cheap only because it has been subsidised by EU taxpayers.

With the approach of ‘EU enlargement’, the need to curb the EU’s agriculture budget became more urgent than ever. But any attempt to cut farm subsidies would be blocked, not least by its main beneficiary, France. So Franz Fischler, the EU’s agriculture commissioner, came up with a cunning plan.

First, instead of subsidising production, he would simply make payments to farmers based on how much land they occupied. They would no longer have to produce anything, but would receive their money regardless, so long as they ‘cross-complied’ with 18 directives on such matters as affording protection to wildlife and animal welfare.

The appeal of this system was that it would seem wonderfully ‘environmental’, would reduce those surpluses and would comply with WTO rules against subsidising production. Yet, because it would not reduce the overall level of subsidies, the farmers would not complain. They would in effect be paid for doing, if not nothing, then at least much less.

Herein, however, lay Fischler’s real cunning. He knew that when the penny began to drop that farmers were no longer being paid to produce cheap food, there would be outrage at the whole system. Why should farmers be subsidised at all, when the original justification for those subsidies had been removed?. The CAP would become so indefensible that it would be possible to slash the entire budget, freeing billions of euros a year for other purposes.

Mr Flux’s misfortune is that he is merely an early victim of Fischler’s ‘poison pill’. He is expected to farm virtually without subsidies, but to sell his produce in a market where all his competitors are still subsidised. But eventually, when that pill has done its work, we shall see it being argued that his competitors should lose most of their subsidies as well. Right now he may not see that as much consolation.

In the fullness of time, we will see a lot more stories of this nature but few, if any, will have the depth that this article offers. Reading the agricultural press as I do, I have seen acres of stories on this so-called "mid-term" review and I can say with some conviction that none that I have seen get anywhere near what is going on.

The problem with CAP commentary is that the generalists and political commentators who deal with the EU regard this subject as "technical" and leave it to the specialists. The specialists, on the other hand, look at the technicalities and either ignore, or do not understand, the politics. Thus, analysis of the CAP falls through a huge gap in EU coverage for, although it is a technical policy, its driving force is entirely political.

Where the technical commentators fail is in assuming that there is some sense in the provisions that have come out of Brussels. They seek to explain the details as if it was a coherent policy, with an internal logic. Yet, the policy has no logic – no technical coherence. It is a policy designed to fail, a policy so absurd that, once its full implications become known to farmers, the public, and the politicians, they pressure for change will become irresistible. That is the diabolical cleverness of it and one can only admire Herr Fischler for his skill and cunning.

Moving from the deliberately ridiculous to something which is just ridiculous, Booker, in the wake of the Conservative Party conference, then deals with Michael Howard and his policy on "Europe". Readers will perhaps not be surprised to find that the issues Booker raises have been rehearsed in this Blog but, as always, he expresses them more succinctly and adds his own distinctive touches. Readers might also want to look at Sean Gabb’s analysis of the Tory’s EU policy, which can be found on his website. We will review his article later today.

Back to the column, Booker offers an interesting perspective on NUTS and then records Conwy council somewhat idiosyncratic view of "cradle to grave" services. As always, he provides an unmissable read.

Another one we missed

In the excitement of the Conservative Party conference (zzzzz), and the general boredom engendered by the thought of reading yet another opinionated piece about Turkey joining the EU, we actually missed quite a good comment on Thursday in The Times, written by Anatole Kaletsky.

Fortunately, one of our fellow Bloggers over on North Sea Diaries spotted it and pointed out the key comment, without us having to read the whole article – which can be somewhat trying, especially as the title seems to bear no relation to what Kaletsky actually had to say on tuis matter. "Turkey", he writes:

is likely to scupper the strongest argument in favour of ratifying the European constitution: the claim that voting rights among the EU member nations must be reformed to accommodate past and future enlargements. The fact is that, far from preparing the EU for the future, the constitution will have to be torn up if Turkey joins. Turkey’s rapidly growing population, which will overtake Germany’s by 2015, would give it more votes under the new constitution than any other nation. Since an EU with Turkey as the single most powerful member would make no sense to anyone, including even the Turks, enlargement would mean completely rewriting the constitution just five years after the new arrangements are supposed to come into force. While conspiracy theorists suspect that the constitution was drafted to block Turkey’s accession, it looks increasingly like Turkey will sabotage the new constitution.

Nice one "DaveVH" at the Diaries. Nice to know someone is awake.

A basket-case on wheels

A group of leading economists, forming a team known as the European Forecasting Network, yesterday reported to the EU commission that the European Union was, in effect, an economic basket case.

Despite years of efforts, they wrote, "Europe" had made little progress toward its goal of surpassing the United States in growth, innovation and productivity by the end of the decade. "There is little sign that Europe's economic decline is stopping or turning around, particularly in the large countries of continental Europe," they concluded.

With the commission's own 2004 autumn report forecasting sluggish growth of 1.9 percent for the eurozone next year as the oil shock and business gloom take their toll – downgraded from the current forecast of compared to the commission's current forecast of 2.3 percent, the economic sages added their own layer of doom about the euro. "We do not find any evidence of a pro-competitive impact of the creation of the euro area. The impact of the euro remains an open question," they concluded.

According to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph this admission refutes a central tenet of the pro-euro lobby that monetary union would give Europe's economy a shot in the arm by cutting transaction costs and exchange-rate risks.

Even then, the sages have not finished. Acknowledging that the eurozone's Stability and Growth Pact was "in tatters", they have also decided that the year 2000 Lisbon economic reform agenda, when EU leaders pledged to turn the EU into the "most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010" had achieved nothing that would not have happened anyway, despite over 100 new EU directives and regulations.

"Rising unemployment has dented any enthusiasm for major change. The supply side reforms - particularly in the large countries of continental Europe - have failed to materialise. The economic reforms needed are not being implemented," they said.

In keeping with its commitment to transparency and openness, commission spokesman, Gerassimos Thomas, declined to comment on the report, saying only: "We like to encourage external forecasts on the area." Presumably, they were too busy translating "basket case" into the 20 Community languages.

The seeds of tyranny

In July last, Christopher Booker ran a story in his Sunday Telegraph notebook on the the plan by Npower, a subsidiary of the German energy giant RWE, to erect 27 giant wind turbines covering 1,000 acres of Romney Marsh.

Each turbine would be 370 ft tall, nearly the height of Centre Point (385 ft), with concrete foundations sunk 110 ft into the earth. Six and a half miles of new roads would be built across the marshland, requiring 50,000 tons of roadstone, completely transforming a much admired landscape.

The plan was originally rejected by Kent County Council (KCC) on aesthetic grounds, but such is this government’s obsession with covering the countryside with these monstrosities that it has changed the planning rules for windfarms above 50 megawatts, allowing the Department of Trade and Industry to override normal planning procedures.

Justifying its actions, in its recent Planning Policy Statement (PPS) 22, the government says that Britain's need for a huge expansion of windpower to comply with EU renewable energy targets must now become an overriding factor in planning decisions.

And so it has come to pass that the DTI has been holding its own public inquiry throughout this month, a procedure that will allow its own inspector to decide whether the wind farm can be built, regardless of the views of residents or local councils.

Such an affront to the democratic process might, one would think, attract protests from far and wide, and so it has. Even the Conservative Party managed to complain about it. But not that great democrat, Green MEP, Dr Caroline Lucas.

According to a pro-wind factory website yesterday, our girl has called for planning permission to be granted, stating that the potential impact of climate change should far outweigh aesthetic landscaping concerns.

Claiming to be a Eurosceptic, Lucas is in fact clearly at one with the EU she professes to dislike in laying the seeds for a new tyranny. No wonder they call the Greens "water melons" – green on the outside but red inside.

Decommissioning by death

In this week’s edition of Fishing News (essential reading for Eurosceptics) is a chilling tale of just quite how insane the CFP rules have become and how their application nearly cost the lives of the crews of five North Sea fishing boats.

Last Sunday, five boats were trawling about one hour’s steaming off Whitby (off the North East coast of England – for our American and other offshore friends) when the coastguard issued a severe weather warning.

Sensibly, the skippers decided to head for shelter in the nearest port but, under current CFP "cod recovery" rules (Council Regulation (EC) No 423/2004 of 26 February 2004 establishing measures for the recovery of cod stocks), if they have caught more than a ton of cod, they must notify the authorities before entering port – giving them at least four hours notice.

Duly, at about 6.15 pm, they contacted the call-in centre in Edinburgh to report that they were making for Whiby, whence they were told that, under the CFP rules, they could not enter until at least 10.15 pm.

The skippers pointed out that, by that time, the tide would be too low and the boats would not be able to enter, and they would be forced to stay out in the gale until the early hours of the morning. Despite this, and the very real risk to life, the skippers were still refused permission to enter the port.

Risking prosecution, however, three of the skippers ignored the prohibition and entered the port anyway, and two made for Scarborough, a few miles south. Dick Brewer, skipper of one of the boats, Ocean Rose, complained that "this isn’t fisheries legislation, this is decommissioning by death".

After the event, DEFRA issued a statement, without a hint of an apology, saying that there were "procedures in place" to deal with situations where safety was at risk but, "unfortunately the call centre operator did not follow the correct procedures and gave incorrect advice…".

This, frankly, is b******s. the regulations are very clear on the requirement for four hour notification, and there are no exemptions whatsoever written into them (see link above). The operator was entirely correct in stating the law, and the rules did put the fishermens’ lives at risk.

And it is not as if they had not been warned. When the regulations were first framed, fishermens’ representative Barrie Deas, had told DEFRA that the rules could cause potentially life-threatening situations, but clearly, no effective action was taken.

Furthermore, the lovely Ben Bradshaw, fisheries minister, had not responded to a letter asking for the application of the rules to be delayed. But then, he is not in charge, so he couldn't anyway.

The things that surprise them

Speaking as someone who has been predicting this for a while, I cannot understand why the International Herald Tribune should start an article with the words:

“European Union foreign policy is emerging as an unexpected casualty of expansion, as new members are using their weight in the 25-nation bloc to settle scores with their non-EU neighbours, senior EU diplomats said this week.”

Unexpected? By whom? Not by anyone who knows any European history. After all, the main reason most East European countries joined the EU was to protect themselves from Russia. Now that they are in, they want that protection.

More than that, they want the EU to be on their side in some of the centuries’ old disputes they have been having with their neighbours or members of previous European or federal states.

Just about a week ago a completely incomprehensible border dispute blew up between Slovenia, already a member, and Croatia, a potential member. Wisely, Javier Solana refused to intervene. Next time he might not be able to stay out of matters.

The Greeks and the Greek Cypriots have been trying to throw their weight around to ensure that the EU strangles Northern Cyprus, but, unfortunately for them the Greek Cypriots overplayed their hand during that double referendum.

Hungary, who has borders with both Serbia and Croatia, and keeps an eye on ethnic Hungarian populations in both those countries and Romania had been very quiet about all of that until May 1. Now, it feels the EU should intervene to protect its people in those countries.

And so it goes. Personally, I cannot wait for the day Romania joins the EU and the question of Transylvania raises its head again.

Of course, one can see what the problem is. The older members, particularly France and Germany, have been labouring mightily and, on the whole, unsuccessfully to create the concept of a common security policy that is based on a common foreign one, largely defined in terms of opposition to the United States and the need to be a powerful presence on the world stage. The new member states are not anti-American – something I remember saying first at a conference in Oxford three years ago, long before Donald Rumsfeld did – and their idea of a security policy is to protect them. As for a common foreign policy, they have not the slightest interest in it. That is not why they joined the great European leviathan.

A smoke-free Europe

Health commissioner designate Markos Kyprianou, the Cypriot commissioner, has told MEPs at his confirmation hearing that he wants a Europe-wide smoking ban on smoking in public places in five years - along the lines of Ireland's recent outlawing of the habit in pubs, clubs and workplaces.

"European citizens merit full protection from smoking, especially in the workplace and other public spaces", he said, adding that such a move "will of course have to be founded on a dialogue and consensus on a national and European level."

Is that what we expected in 1975 when the nation voted in favour of staying in the Common Market?

A disinterested statesman speaks

In Hanoi for the first-day sessions of the fifth Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit - the largest ever gathering of Asian and European leaders, from which Blair seems to be absent – Chirac has lost no time in pronouncing his support for the lifting of the 15-year-old arms embargo on China, claiming it is "totally senseless".

This, of course, is the same Chirac who opposed the Iraqi war, and neither his past stance on Iraq nor his current enthusiasm for China can possibly have anything to do with French commercial interests. In the case of China, this entirely disinterested statesman is merely expressing his concern that "the embargo shows lack of trust in China." And that would never do.

They are still saying it

In advance of a full round-up of those European Parliament sessions with the incoming Commissioners (though I am out of my post-Tory Conference quarantine) here is a small and incomprehensible item.

Writing about the questioning of Charlie McCreevy, already described by my colleague, the Wall Street Journal Europe said yesterday:

“Mr McCreevy is a prospective member of what some analysts say is shaping up as the most free-market Commission ever.”

Who are these analysts, we should like to know? Did they pay any attention to Peter Mandelson’s assurances that he will continue with the same EU trade policies or Ms Boel’s shock at the very idea that agriculture could be run without subsidies according to market forces or to the derided Greek Environment Commissioner Dimas earning brownie points after his cheerful admission that the the European countries are unlikely to comply with Kyoto, that he will keep up the flow of legislation?

Apparently Commission President Barroso “is an avowed Atlanticist who isn’t shy about affirming his free-market credentials”. The two are not, of course, the same thing at all, and what Barroso has not been shy about is demanding a greater contribution from member states to the EU budget in order to have money for grand projects. I don’t remember anything of that kind in Adam Smith’s or David Ricardo’s writings, but perhaps I simply missed the relevant chapter.

Then, of course, there is Nellie Kroes, who has been lambasted for her business connection. Well, that is her story, anyway. Actually, if she really does believe in economic freedom she should not have become Competition Commissar but having done so, she should have realized that sitting on endless corporate boards was not a good idea. And since when have large corporations believed in the free market?

Oh yes, and Industry Commissioner has promised to look into the possibility of amending a new law on chemicals regulations, which the industry dislikes. Unbridled capitalism, this ain’t.

Well, what of Mr McCreevy? He has come up with the obligatory comment about too many regulations and the market being the best regulator. All fine and dandy, but what is he going to do about it all? What can he do about it all? The EU does not provide for repeal of legislation. Is Mr McCreevy going to introduce that concept? Um no. He wants to knock down barriers and introduce “more of a single market for business and consumers”.

Not a free market but a single market. That means yet more harmonizing and consolidating measures that will apply to firms whether they sell their produce across the EU or not. In other words, he wants more of that regulatory structure under which business across the Union is groaning. A somewhat ridiculous Conservative UK MEP, Arlene McCarthy has announced that Mr McCreevy’s approach “is exactly what we are looking for UK businesses”. Really? Has she ever been anywhere near a UK business? Has she heard their tales of woe as a result of single market regulations? Does she know how many perfectly successful small and medium sized businesses became non-viable because of inappropriate single market (I repeat not free market) regulations?

Mr McCreevy did express himself in favour of member states keeping their own laws on taxation – he would, being Irish – but that is not precisely his portfolio. Noticeably, he did not say that he will look into and deflect some of the ongoing legislation, planned years ago, turned into framework directives more recently and emerging as regulations even as we speak. Perhaps, like most commentators, he is unaware of the relentless managerial system of legislation that is the EU.

The (senior) Eurocops cometh

At its meeting in Tampere on 15 and 16 October 1999, the European Council agreed to establish a network of national police training institutes. At the centre of this network would be a new European college, which could ultimately lead to the creation of a permanent institution.

The agreement was given effect by Council Decision of 22 December 2000 establishing a European Police College (CEPOL). The Secretariat of CEPOL was established in Denmark from 1 March 2002. Then, at the Brussels European Council in December last, the permanent home for the College was established, at Bramshill in Hampshire – the location of the English police staff college.

To date, however, CEPOL has had no formal status. It has been funded voluntarily by member states, with staff on attachment, and has been living a hand-to-mouth existence. But no longer.
On the first of this month, the commission issued a proposal (COM(2004) 623 final) for a Council Decision establishing the police college as an EU institution with a permanent seat in Bramshill.

With a projected budget of €7.5 million for 2005 and 2006, to be paid from community funds, its staff will now be EU officials. They will be devoted to training senior police officers – and other law enforcement officers – in order to "improve cooperation in criminal matters in the European Union".

Their task is to increase the the knowledge of member state police officers "of the instruments at law-enforcement services’ disposal in the European Union…" as well as their "awareness of belonging to the European Union". It will also produce common teaching modules for all member state police colleges, moving towards common (i.e. harmonised) training curricula and common certification

By any measure, this is a back-door attempt to harmonise the police forces in the member states and to indoctrinate senior police officers in the "European dimension" of policing. No senior police officer will escape the course, and attendance will inevitably be regarded as a compulsory addition to the cv of all aspiring chief constables.

That is the devil of the system. We will not see black uniformed police officers, bearing the ring of stars on our streets. They will continue to wear the familiar uniforms. But, once CEPOL is fully established, they will be commanded by fully paid-up Eurocops.

How very helpful

Everybody seems to be competing on who should be spending aid money and, indeed, to whom. (Lenin would, no doubt, have appreciated this new version of his old conundrum of “Who whom?”)

Michael Howard, having previously announced that foreign aid was one policy field that ought to be repatriated, has backtracked a little and told his attentive audience in Bournemouth that more aid money should be disbursed from London than from Brussels.

Yesterday Gordon Brown had another one of his celebrated rows with the European Commission, this time about foreign aid, which is not, strictly speaking his province. Speaking to a London conference of charities (at least half of whom were, presumably, NGOs and the other half regularly accepts government money for their activities) he criticized the Commission for allegedly spending more money in the relatively better off Balkan countries than in the impoverished countries of Africa.

His proposals of how to deal with debt and poverty in the poorest countries were dismissed by the current aid and development Commissioner, Poul Nielsen as being too much “like Enron accounting”. When one remembers some of the Chancellor’s shenanigans in successive UK budgets and financial statements, one finds oneself believing Mr Nielsen’s comment.

The all-purpose anti-poverty campaigner Bob Geldof immediately joined in the fray. (What is it about Irish pop musicians? There is Geldof and Bono, both travelling round the world, making completely nonsensical statements about poverty in Third World countries. Is it something in the water?)

Mr Geldof was in Addis Ababa to discuss poverty and starvation in Africa and announced that Poul Nielsen was “talking through his a***e”. (This is a family friendly blog, even if we do have to write about people like Mr Geldof and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.) He also added that Mr Nielson should resign if he does not want to help. Well, Mr Nielson is actually on his way out and his job will be taken over by another Commissioner but Mr Geldof could not possibly know that.

One wonders whether this is the same Mr Geldof who, having organized the collection of very large amounts of money to help people in Eritrea, then had the honesty to admit ten years later that none of that had been of the slightest help because of the political situation? That was before he becameone of the international humanitarian great and the good, one presumes.

What gets lost in all this toing and froing of who controls aid and how much goes to whom is the simple question: but what good does it do. As we have written before and will write again, aid money goes on keeping NGOs, charities and other international organizations in business; it gets stolen; but above all it keeps bloodthirsty, tyrannical kleptocrats in power. Billions have been spent in aid over the years to poor countries, not so poor countries and very poor countries. All of them have become even poorer and more dysfunctional. And no amount of expensive criss-crossing of skies by hundreds of the great and the good or thousands of conference attendees will alter that fact, merely add to the budget.

Still, one interesting event at the Addis Ababa conference did occur. Apparently Prime Minister Blair’s aeroplane flew off to Nairobi to bring back a supposedly gourmet meal for him. As it consisted of asparagus mousse, prawn risotto and cheese cake, one doubts its credentials on the gourmet front and almost believes the Downing Street spokesperson who assured everyone that it was for the travelling press as Mr Blair had eaten already in Addis Ababa. I suppose one could argue that the money spent on the round trip did not find itself in a numbered off shore bank account or in the hands of a terrorist organization or a murderous militia. Otherwise, it is hard to see what the justification was.

Outsourcing the legislative process

In one of our very first of our "myth" series, we dealt with the claim that the EU could not be a "superstate" because the commission employed so few people - fewer employees than Leeds City Council, according to Labour MEP Richard Corbett.

In our response, we drew attention to the 97,000 pages (and rising) of regulations - plus millions of pages of other documents – pointing out that the commission, with such a small staff could not possibly achieve such levels of productivity. "And, of course", we wrote, "it does not."

The preparation of much legislation and many of the technical reports is contracted out, or otherwise farmed out to outside agencies, ranging from paid contractors, universities and other academic institutes, sympathetic think-tanks and even the growing legion of non-governmental organisations in the pay of the commission.

Very recently, however, we discovered a graphic example of that process, when we learned that the Europe-wide organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation – Eurocontrol – had been asked by the EU Commission to develop rules "on a charging scheme for air navigation services".

This proposal, incidentally had the General Aviation fraternity in a flap, as the scheme initially proposed that all light aircraft should be charged for using radio services – even in uncontrolled airspace – but we learned that, as of yesterday, this particular plan had been vetoed by member states.

It was while reseraching the fate of this proposal that we learned that Eurocontrol - which administers that EU’s "Single European Sky" project, with a budget of over £200 million – had been mandated by the EU commission to develop the rules on the charging scheme, including a writing a draft Commission regulation. Once produced, this will be adopted by the Commission and then go through the regulatory process to emerge as EU law.

The procedure by which the draft is being created is set out in a document produced by Eurocontrol, and provides a graphic insight into how part of the pre-legislative process works.

Most of all, though, it confirms our thesis that, when it comes to making its laws, the commission outsources much of the process (and, incidentally, gets the member states to pay for it, outwith the official budget), which is how an organisation "with fewer employees than Leeds City Council" manages to rule its growing empire.

Herding cats

Not days after the "Tory killer" motion from the UKIP conference, Stafford UKIP has announced that it is refusing to toe the party line. Instead of fielding its own candidate at the general election, it is proposing to support Tory Eurosceptic David Chambers.

The party wants to avoid splitting the Eurosceptic vote, thus allowing Labour’s David Kidney to keep his seat.

Says Paul Gilbert, UKIP’s Stafford constituency association chairman, "It would be a pointless exercise for the UKIP to field candidates in constituencies with sitting Eurosceptic MPs or where there are stronger Eurosceptic candidates with a greater possibility than the UKIP of winning that seat. The probability will be to split the Eurosceptic vote and return a pro-European to Westminster. This is certainly self defeating."

Mr Gilbert said Stafford members would now use their energies to support Victor Chell, chairman of the South Staffordshire constituency, in his efforts to dislodge MP and pro European Sir Patrick Cormack.

The Tory challenger was delighted with the decision, confirming that he was a Eurosceptic who supported Michael Howard in wanting to pull powers back from Brussels. "If we were unable to do that then I personally would call for a referendum for the British people", he said.

Meanwhile, on the Lesley Riddoch Show on BBC Radio Scotland today, Peter Duncan, the last Tory MP in Scotland, was challenged on how the Conservatives would force their EU renegotiation agenda. Parroting his party line, he offered the "Thatcher handbag" ploy - arguing that she got the rebate "because we stood firm" - only to have his argument comprehensively trashed by UKIP’s Peter Troy, who was also on the programme.

He, in turn, was only echoing the sentiment expressed by Nigel Farage in last night’s Question Time, sentiments which also found their way into the Times today, in a letter from Marcus Watney, who wrote:

Michael Howard’s promise to renegotiate the Common Fisheries Policy is a cruel deception: success would require unanimity from all 24 other members, including Spain, which is very happy with the present arrangement. Unilateral action would incur heavy fines.

With Howard claiming in his closing speech to the conference that, "Only by being honest can we hope to win people’s trust", this – at best – disingenuous line on the EU does not exactly inspire confidence.

Speaking with a number of Tory MPs this morning, they were acutely aware of this Achilles heel and are acutely nervous about it. Knowing how the media works, once they sense the inconsistency, they will keep worrying at it. Once they draw blood, skittery Tory MPs will start looking to their own salvation and Howard may find that he needs to hone his cat herding skills.

What do they get their money for?

One does not begrudge newspaper reporters their salaries – even if they tend to be somewhat overpaid these days – but the deal is that they report the news, as honestly and as accurately as their editors will allow.

But George Jones, the Telegraph’s political correspondent, is evidently exempt from this stricture. Reporting on the Conservative Party conference, with a story headlined "I'll give you a government you can trust", his grasp of the actualité (or lack of it) is such that he reports "Mr Howard hardened Tory policies on Europe…".

Why do these witless hacks insist on peddling these myths? A straightforward analysis of Howard’s speech readily demonstrates that, if anything, he has slightly back-peddled on his policy, having softened his line on repatriating foreign aid. Even David "la-la" Cameron, on Question Time last night conceded that the policy had not altered since before the Euro-elections.

Jones, is of course, not the only hack – or politico – peddling the myth of a "tougher policy on Europe" but the facts are that Howard has not made any concessions whatsoever to UKIP. Whether he should or not, is not the point of this particular Blog. The point is that if the George Joneses of this world can't even get simple facts right, what do they get their money for?

Were the French going to support the war in Iraq?

The Wall Street Journal Europe (a newspaper that believes in putting news on the paper) yesterday reprinted a piece by Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post. Mr Kessler reports that a new book published in France Chirac Contre Bush: L’Autre Guerre (Chirac vs Bush: The Other War) has put an interesting gloss on the story of French refusal to support the war in Iraq.

According to the two authors, Thomas Cantaloube and Henri Vernet, both journalists for the newspaper Le Parisien, the French military were planning to provide 15,000 troops for an invasion of Iraq and a French general, Jean Patrick Gaviard, even visited the Pentagon on December 16, 2002 to discuss details and negotiate landing and docking rights for French jets and ships.

According to the book, which, curiously, does not seem to mention, the benefits various highly placed French politicians and officials seem to have extracted from the food for oil scandal, President Chirac stopped the negotiations because he thought that the Americans were pushing too fast and more time should have been given for inspections.

The French military were not best pleased, it seems, feeling that “not participating with the U.S. in a major war would leave French forces unprepared for future conflicts”.

The theory of Chirac overruling his military on whatever pretext sounds plausible enough. He had much to lose by the war and he may not have believed that the coalition forces will take the country quite so quickly and find quite so many incriminating documents. Otherwise, perhaps he would have made sure that there were French troops there to ensure that information did not fall into the "wrong" hands

There are some fascinating glimpses in the book. It seems Chirac conducts confidential conversations on his mobile phone despite his officials telling him that these calls are listened to. Also, a great deal of blame for the frosty relations between France and the United States is placed on the personal antipathy between the two presidents.

One particular problem seems to be Chirac’s constant references to Bush senior. As Mr Kessler writes:

“During one of Mr Bush’s first European trips, when the new president impressed other European leaders at a summit. Mr Chirac excitedly pulled out his cellphone to call Mr Bush’s father to report that the new president had done a great job, the authors [of the book] said.

‘The father reported this to his son,’ Mr Cantaloube said. ‘It was not very well received in the White House.’”

I’ll bet.

Of what possible use are MEPs?

The unctious monthly newsletter from Caroline Jackson MEP’s office details with much jolliness and self-congratulation the many wonderful things she and her colleagues do in the European Parliament. It is full of phrases like

“The Parliament has met twice since the election, and MEPs are settling down.”

How very nice for them. Meeting twice between June and October? I hope they do not get overtired.

Then she gets a few kicks into UKIP – a great menace in the west country, where farmers, fishermen and sundry others are getting distinctly fed up with the European Union and beginning to desert from all the parties to the one whose policy is complete withdrawal.

The most extraordinary part of the missive is the last paragraph. It desrves to be quoted in full:

“At the end of September we began the Committee hearings of the nominees to the new Commission. As I write Peter Mandelson waits to be grilled but we have examined Stavros Dimas, the Greek nominee for the environment portfolio. His nomination was a surprise: Greece has the worst record in the EU for compliance with environmental law and he was seen as a sign that Barroso was downgrading what had been a very active new legislation machine under the out-going Swedish Commissioner, Mrs Wallstrom. But there are hopeful signs. Dimas is a former Wall Street lawyer and Greek finance minister, and he set out his main priority as improving the implementation of existing EU environment legislation through “determined enforcement”. He also strongly supports our idea of “price tags “ on new laws, or, in the jargon, “impact assessments”. We will be voting on him, and all the others, in a collective vote of approval later in October.”

I like that idea of a collective vote of approval. It does so remind me of another political system that largely disappeared at the beginning of the nineties. And isn’t it a good idea that the new Greek Environment Commissioner shows every sign of pulling his socks up and re-cranking the “very active legislation machine” that Margot Wallström had put into place. Wouldn’t want the five year plan for legislation to fall off, would we now.

Spanish bluster

American soldiers have been disinvited from next week’s parade in Spain, that will be commemorating Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World. (Columbus was not, of course, a Spaniard but a Genoese.) Americans had first been invited to participate in the wake of 9/11 but Zapatero’s government apparently does not feel that there is any need to honour American or any other dead victims of terrorism. Except, presumably, the Madrid ones. (Am I the only person who is still rather puzzled by the fact that a dozen backpacks filled with explosives were left at various points of the underground system and nobody, absolutely nobody reported them to the police?)

Not only has the government decided that Americans were not wanted at the parade, while the French were for the first time (what on earth has Columbus’s arrival in the New World has to do with the French?) but the Defence Minister, José Bono, was also moved to pronounce on the relationship between the two countries:

“What does not continue is subordinating and getting down on our knees on orders from a foreign government.”

Perhaps not. But orders issued by foreign terrorists through bombs seem to be obeyed with regards to participation or otherwise in the war against terror. Spanish forces were pulled out of Iraq, Spanish help in Afghanistan is being cut back and Prime Minister Zapatero is urging America’s allies to follow suit in order to “open up a more favourable prospect” in Iraq. Just how abandoning the people of that country to the neo-Baathist insurgents would open up a favourable prospect is not entirely clear, but perhaps it made sense in Spanish.

It has also been suggested rather strongly that one reason for Zapatero’s decision was a threat from France and Germany that those structural and cohesion funds might be cut back if Spain does not fall into line. After all, there are needier recipients further east. Perhaps Prime Minister Zapatero and Defence Minister Bono might care to explain that some time.

The Thatcher rebate

I do not usually watch BBC TV’s Question Time. Not least, my aversion stems from a detestation of David Dimbleby’s sanctimonious posturing but, having also been in the audience of one of these programmes, I am aware of how much the audience is rigged.

However, with Nigel Farage, Patricia Hewitt, David Cameron, Jody Dunn and Matthew Parris on the programme last night – in the wake of the Conservative Party conference – I thought that I should watch it as a "Europe" question was bound to come up. Indeed it did. The question was, paraphrased: has Michael Howard done enough to attract back UKIP voters with his pledge to hold an early referendum?

I do not intend to offer a blow-by-blow account of the discussion. Suffice it to say that Farage was given the first crack, saying that it would make no difference to the UKIP vote. After all, Blair was also offering a referendum, so the only difference was that the Tories were allowing it to happen a few months earlier.

But the substantive point, for this Blog, was that he moved on to the question of renegotiating the repatriation of powers, whence he poured scorn on the Tory policy saying that all the other 24 member states had to agree, and this simply would not happen. Would the Spanish agree to give up fishing in UK waters?

David Cameron conceded that the pledge was not enough, and followed the "wet" line that the Tories should concentrate on the things that really concerned people… public services, etc. But on Farage’s point, he defended Howard’s stance by invoking Margaret Thatcher, who "managed to get he money back by sticking to her guns". And Matthew Parris, who should know better, agreed. "You can still get a lot if you stick to your guns. Margaret Thatcher did", he said.

How I wish these people would take the time out to learn their history, instead of offering such lame, stale, facile statements. The point about the Thatcher rebate – and the reason for her success - was simply that the Community wanted to increase the budget (the community own resource) and to do that, unanimity was necessary. Thatcher simply linked agreement on the rebate with the budget increase, and refuse to agree to a settlement until she had agreement on her rebate. In other words, she had the whip hand.

But in a renegotiation situation, the "colleagues" – as Farage pointed out – must all agree, and the British have nothing to offer. As has been pointed out in an earlier Blog, can get what they want through enhanced cooperation or other stratagems. Therefore, the "handbag ploy" as it is called, will not work.

David Cameron, of course, is Howard’s policy coordinator. He should know this. Parris should know this as well. He was in politics at the time. What does it take to get these simple facts through their thick skulls?

Nothing to hide… except my subsidies

So much for a free-market commission. At her "interrogation" by the EU parliament, agriculture commissioner designate, Mariann Fischer Boel told MEPs that she fully supported the CAP.

Speaking to MEPs. She boldly declared "Let me be quite clear on this", she said, "There is no alternative to the CAP… On their own, the markets would not provide the desired public goods which the citizens expect."

Warming to her theme, she added, "A re-nationalisation of the agricultural policy is not an option either. In the context of the single market re-nationalisation simply makes no sense… I am against -- to put it bluntly."

Of course, this had nothing to do with her later comments to the committee of MEPs: "I am married to a farmer but never considered it as a disadvantage to the post," she said, adding, "I am not hiding anything."

After the meeting, some centre-left MEPs said they had "serious reservations" about Boel’s nomination. They are concerned over what they see as her "liberal approach" to farming policy.

Were they interviewing the same woman?

RSVP

An invitation by the EU commission to a conference in Brussels, passed to us by Owen Paterson MP, Tory shadow agriculture spokesman, has left the puzzled invitee wondering whether to accept.

This may have something to do with the declared purpose of the conference:

The decision of DG Research to organise a Forum on these matters is to be seen in relation to both the in-built provision of the Action Plan which foresees its interim review by the end of 2004, and the renewal of the policy landscape of the enlarged Union in a time when policy makers concentrate on a consistent effort towards meeting the objectives of Lisbon and Goteborg (competitiveness and sustainability).

In order to assist this poor, tortured man, we have decided to offer a prize of a pristine copy of The Great Deception to the reader who can offer the most imaginative translation.

Small print

The prize-winner will be announced next Monday or some time thereafter and the decision of the editors will be final. In keeping with the tradition of the EU, the rules of the competition are secret and may be changed at any time, including retrospectively. Respecting the diversity of member states, the gender distribution of prospective contestants, and the needs of minority groups, the rules are not available in twenty languages. If your language is not included, please advise us and we will not include that one as well. Any accusations of rigging and corruption will be ignored and the complainant(s) punished - after a completely impartial investigation by the editors.

Bring on the grown-ups

The is almost something childish in the current developments in the ongoing dispute between the US and the EU over the Airbus-Boeing subsidies.

Having put a reasoned – if not reasonable - case to the EU about unfair subsidies for Airbus projects, US negotiators have met with a child-like barrage of "yah-boo-sucks – you do as well" retorts from EU negotiators, with not even the remotest attempt to resolve the underlying dispute.

Given this response, the US had little choice but to lodge a formal complaint with the WTO, which it did yesterday, terminating the bilateral 1992 civil aircraft agreement.

In classic tit-for-tat mode, the EU then filed its own complaint with the WTO, claiming that Boeing had received unfair subsidies from the US government, and now the whole case is bogged down in a welter of acrimony.

Outgoing trade commissioner Pascal Lamy condemns the US complaint with a studied insult, claiming it is "obviously an attempt to divert attention from Boeing's self-inflicted decline", while US trade negotiator Robert Zoellick is sticking to his guns, arguing that "Since its creation thirty-five years ago, some Europeans have justified subsidies to Airbus as necessary to support an 'infant' industry. If that rationalization were ever valid, its time has long passed."

Under WTO rules, the two sides now have 60 days to try to reach an agreement before an independent panel is set up to examine the dispute. But, as it stands, it looks like the dispute will go all the way, the result of which, at this stage, is impossible to determine. Either way, though, it would be nice to have some grown-ups on board.

Of power and responsibility

Inevitably, the events of the Conservative Party conference have overshadowed the oral hearings of the commissioners designate in the European parliament – although my colleague has promised to do a round up, once she has recovered from having to mix with so many Tories in Bournemouth.

In the interim, however, a Press Association report of the "interrogation" of the Irish commissioner designate, Charlie McCreevy, caught my notice – he who is to be in charge of running the Single Market.

According to McCreevy, the EU’s poor image, especially in relation to the Single Market that he will administer, is down to the member states, who are "failing to take enough responsibility for public indifference and hostility towards the EU". There was a "lack of ownership" in EU capitals of the challenges facing the Union – not least its image problems."

"If we are to overcome indifference or even hostility to the EU among our citizens," he told MEPs, "then not only does what we do here in Brussels have to be relevant, but also the political leaders in member states must take on a greater responsibility in explaining to their citizens what it is we are trying to achieve."

What McCreevy possibly does not realise (or perhaps he does – you never know with these people) it that "Brussels" is the perfect fall-guy for inept and lazy national politicians, who can hide behind the smokescreen of EU unpopularity in order to disguise their own lack of action. Expecting them to take responsibility for the poor image of the EU would rather give the game away.

But McCreevy might also have taken on the media, which also evades its responsibility. On Tuesday, Joe Borg, the Maltese commissioner who is to take charge of British fisheries, was interviewed for his job. For sure, the interview got loads of publicity – in the Malta Independent and other Maltese journals. The British papers? Forget it! Baldwin’s harlots come to mind – all power and no responsibility.

The doubts continue

I have attended UKIP fringe meetings before, when we could not fill the front seats with our own members and not even the local press turned up. Even the speakers had to dig in their pockets to pay for the room hire.

It has to be significant, therefore, when UKIP holds a packed fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference and the event is covered by the BBC - which then broadcasts significant chunks of it on the 10 pm news – and when a longish account appears on the wires a few hours later. This cannot just be the Kilroy effect.

The purpose of the meeting was to tell the world that Howard was "deluding" himself if he believed Britain could repatriate some powers from the EU. That was the message delivered by Nigel Farage MEP, who said nothing that Mr Howard had said in his speech on European policy was "believable in any way at all".

That much you would expect Farage to say and – speaking strictly personally - if Farage told me it was raining, I would look out of the window to check, and get a second opinion.

But there was another speaker there, who carried far more authority than Farage, far more weight and conviction. He was Lord Willoughby de Broke, the Conservative peer who broke with his own party in June, writing a letter to recommend voters to go for UKIP in the Euro-elections.

David Willoughby de Broke is no ordinary peer. He is the 21st Baron, heir to an unbroken line which stretches back to 1491, son of a war hero and a Tory through and through. If you cut him in half and split his bones, he would have "Tory" etched through them like a stick of rock. He is the embodiment of the Tory establishment, and, despite that, a thoroughly nice and truly caring man. He even looks like a Tory.

And it was this man, this High Tory, who carried the conviction. What he had hoped to hear from Mr Howard was that he would have wished to repatriate many more powers than just fishing, the Social Chapter and aid, and, if negotiations failed, then he would "consider all our options… including withdrawal", warning that his party was "dead meat" if it did not listen to public concern over greater European integration.

But it is not only the toffs and the "Tory killers" who have their concerns. One of our readers, Christian Suciu, today copied us into an exchange he had had with John Redwood over the self-same issue of renegotiation, with his permission to reproduce the letters. He writes:

Dear Mr Redwood,

As a constituent of yours, I have long appreciated the tireless work you have put in on behalf of Wokinghan in Parliament, and on the national stage. Furthermore, I am a longtime Conservative voter. However, the Tory position on the European Union leaves something to be desired, and it is with great reluctance that I and doubtless many others are considering transferring our allegiance to UKIP at the next General Election.

This is because we sense discomfort and opportunism in the manner whereby the party voices its opposition to further EU integration, rather than a deep-seated ideological commitment such as that of Ukip. While I may not be able to expect you and other MPs to openly advocate withdrawal at this point, Ihave a straightforward question, and I expect an honest, clear answer. If the Conservatives win, they have promised to negotiate with our EU colleagues for the repatriation of certain areas of competence, such as the Common Fisheries Policy. Well and good.

However, this would have to be approved by all the other 24 member states. I wish the prospective Government the best of luck in achieving this. But if - just supposing - if this strategy should fail, what next? What is the fail-safe strategy?

Rest assured, this very question is on the minds of many electors, and, if satisfactorily answered, we shall gladly support the Tories. But if the obfuscation continues, we shall have no recourse but to vote UKIP, teach the Conservatives a bitter lesson, and hand Labour a third consecutive victory. Surely none of us want that, but enough is enough, so please do us a favour and be candid before it is too late.

Sincerely.

To give him credit, Redwood - or his office – did reply. The response in his name was as follows:

Dear Christian,

Thank you for your email. If we win the election we will rapidly hold a referendum on the constitution. Once we have won this the PM will go to Brussels armed with a double mandate to renegotiate.

They will have to negotiate with us, as the existing Treaties will be replaced by the Constitution which we will not join. Once we have negotiated the best deal we can get the British people can decide whether they like the deal or not, as we made clear in our European election manifesto.

If too many people vote UKIP you will have more federalist MPs elected. No one thinks any UKIP MP can be elected, but it is possible in marginal seats for the UKIP intervention to stop Eurosceptic Conservatives being elected. That is why Paul Sykes has removed his money from UKIP.

Yours sincerely

I like Redwood, admire and even respect him. But I am very sorry that this letter went out in his name. I do not want to say so but I would not be honest if I said anything other that it is nonsense.

"They will have to negotiate with us, as the existing Treaties will be replaced by the Constitution which we will not join," he writes. That cannot be the case. If we do not join the constitution, it is dead in the water. The existing treaties continue in force.

"Once we have negotiated the best deal we can get", he then writes. What does he mean by this? What is "the best deal". And this I do not understand: "…the British people can decide whether they like the deal or not, as we made clear in our European election manifesto." Does he mean another referendum? I saw no mention of that in the manifesto.

But the central point is that, like his boss, he does not address the key point: "if this strategy should fail, what next? What is the fail-safe strategy?". Christian wants an answer to that. We don't mean to be difficult, but so do I and my colleague. All of us do. And, as I have remarked in an earlier Blog, until you answer it properly, your European policy lacks credibility.

Report from Bournemouth No 1

Because of various technological problems though I went to Bornemouth, to the Conservative Party conference, it was my colleague who produced the trenchant analysis of the main speeches. My role was to attend some of the more interesting (from this blog’s point of view) fringe meetings, the only part of the conference where any debate or discussion takes place.

So my first report could be entitled Mr Paice promises Conservative legislation that will, if needs be, break EU rules on labelling. Something of a mouthful, that title, but the statement could be quite important. (If, that is, Mr Paice knew what he was talking about.)

And who is Mr Paice, I hear our readers ask, that his words should be of such great import? James Paice MP is the recently appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The occasion of this momentous announcement was at a Rural Seminar, organized by the Conservative Rural Action Group (CRAG), which is chaired by Owen Paterson MP, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.

Other participants in the seminar were Meurig Raymond NFU Vice-President, David Fursdong, Deputy President of the Country Land & Business Association(CLA) and Simon Hart, Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance.

Much of the discussion, when it was not about right of access, rural planning and other issues of that kind was about country sports (for the benefit of our non-British readers I should add that country sports are hunting, shooting and fishing, all of which are under threat from the endlessly interfering control-obsessed government and dysfunctional MPs who dislike to see anyone enjoy themselves) and CAP reform.

We need not go in any detail into CAP reform except to say that its reforming credentials leave something to be desired but it does change the basis on which payments will be made to farmers. The problem with payment through subsidy rather than through the market is that it is dependent on political decisions and political moods. The political mood of thirty years ago has changed and new rules apply. Naturally, this produces feelings of uncertainty that are far worse than the uncertainty of the market, something many farmers feel they should be exempt from.

There was a great deal of discussion of what can and should be done to protect farmers, that is primary food producers from the exigencies of the market and normal economic forces, accompanied by the usual lack of understanding of economic laws and forces that one has come to expect at occasions like this.

In response to one question about what a Conservative government will do to help farmers and rural communities, Mr Paice promised all kinds of new legislation and repeal of legislation as well as laws about clear and useful labelling. He was then reminded, also from the floor that most of what he was promising was not actually in his power to deliver as almost everything to do with agriculture and food production was EU competence. In particular, labelling was not something any British government could have any rules about. Why mislead the public?
Mr Paice did what all politicians and civil servants do when they are forced to admit to the unpalatable truth. He hemmed and he hawed. Eventually he told the audience that a Conservative government will do whatever it could within the framework of EU rules.

He obviously realized that he was no longer sounding quite so swashbuckling and added rather portentously:

“You heard what Michael Howard said, you heard what Tim Yeo said. The British producer and the British consumer come first. We shall put in rules on labelling that wil, if needs be, break EU rules. If needs be we shall challenge them in the courts.”

Well, there you have it and you may believe it or not. Actually, it is not quite clear which courts Mr Pace had in mind for challenging EU legislation on labelling but it sounded good.

Soon afterwards Meurig Raymond of the NFU managed to slip in the usual economical with the truth statement about the Little Red Tractor label on foods. This label, much promoted by the NFU and one or two other organizations purports to show that the food is produced to British farming standards, whatever that may mean. There are various way of assessing this, I am told. What it does not mean and cannot mean according to Single Market rules is that it is produced in the UK. Any food producer or grower anywhere in the EU can apply for the logo, though as it does not mean much to anyone, they do not bother, if they can prove to the various assessors that they produce to British farming standard. However, Mr Raymond has chosen to repeat that particular canard, so anxious was he to disavow any suggestion that food growing and food production in this country is regulated by the European Union and, beyond lobbying, there is precious little to be done about that.

Except for Mr Paice. He is promising to do something, should he ever find himself in government.

Turkey trots

In an entirely predictable move – especially after Tayyip Erdogan clever manoeuvring - the EU commission today decided to recommend that accession negotiations with Turkey should begin. The final decision rests with the European Council on 17 December but the result is a foregone conclusion and the talks are expected to start in the second half of 2005, under the UK presidency.

However, as always with the EU, nothing is ever what it seems and this is very much the case here. It is expected that the "negotiations" will take 10-15 years and, of course, they can be suspended at any time if Turkey is thought to have drifted too far away from the "European values" to which she is supposed to subscribe in order to join the club.

The commission’s response, therefore, is "yes" but, in the words of Prodi, who announced the decision to the European parliament in Strasbourg, "it is a qualified yes."

Even then, if Turkey is eventually allowed to join, the talk is that there will be prolonged transition period, with restrictions on the free movement of labour and delays on integration into the CAP and structural funds – if they still exist by then.

Nevertheless, the commission’s decision was not unanimous, being opposed by Frits Bolkestein and Pascal Lamy, the latter reflecting his government’s concern at Turkish entry, where Chirac has already announced his intention to hold a referendum before he agrees to allowing Turkey to join.

The UK is one of the countries enthusiastically supporting entry, an enthusiasm which has cross-party support. Tory foreign affairs spokesman, Michael Ancram, on BBC lunch time news observed that the opposition to Turkey’s entry came from those countries which favoured deeper political integration. The UK, on the other hand, saw Turkish entry as more likely to force the transition of the EU to a looser trading block.

Certainly, in taking on a 70 million, mainly Moslem population – becoming the second-largest country after Germany - the EU would be fundamentally changed. Many doubt that the EU could, in fact, survive in its present form, even if it survives the current round of enlargement, with Rumania and Bulgaria also expected to join in 2007.

No wonder some senior politicians in Europe are suffering from a prolonged bout of Turkey trots.