The bEUROcratic Leviathan rising

Article published in French on Un Monde Libre.org and in the University of Portsmouth student newspaper, Pugwash News, anniversary issue No 50.
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During the recent Bielarussian presidential elections, the EU flag was flown as a symbol of freedom and democracy. In Europe, it is being burnt by angry demonstrators. With the sovereign debt crisis gathering pace on the bloc's periphery, austerity measures of payfreeze and other cuts starting to bite, EU civil servants and politicians enjoyed a very festive season indeed. Our supranational ruling class fêted on a bonanza of payrises and bonuses. What austerity at the centre of the “empire” as Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso referred to the EU... In the “promised Euroland” some have truly become “more equal than others”.
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The EU often complains that it is “unjustly” accused of being out of touch. Recent decisions can only reinforce the perception that the euro-elite is now in orbit. The Supreme Parliament of our post-democratic polity awarded itself a nice little Xmas present. In 2011, MEPs will pocket around €100,000 of tax free expenses (pay hike and perks). While promising more accountability and transparency to the Euro-toiling masses, they will not be required to provide any proof of expenditure! "Doublespeak" à la EU....
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More disconcerting news from the “fairy kingdom of Luxembourg where the European Court of Justice rules supreme without a ‘supremacy’ clause’” as American scholar E. Stein famously remarked. The judiciary annulled the Council decision curtailing the 3.7% pay-rise of EU civil servants. From a legal standpoint, the Court merely applied EU law. Struggling taxpayers across Europe will have to pay. 46,000 civil servants (including ECJ judges) are poised to receive their frozen pay-rise plus interests pending new rules. A Happy New year to them!
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We, citizens of Europe, are all equal but some are more equal than others. In the subsidized farm that the EU has become, one cannot help but think that the “pigs” are living in Brussels. Shocked by the Orwellian metaphor? Think again.
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At the centre of the EU empire, the neo-gosplanners are planning for more 10-year-plans (the 2020 Agenda) unable to review their failing integrationist momentum course. To save the Euro, the bloc nudges towards the establishment of a centralized economic government and to carry out this impossible mission, an economic governance Czar, Council president Herman Van Rompuy, is to be anointed. In the meantime, anger is pouring onto the streets and the governments of the PIGS are fighting for their political survival.
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In the late 1980s, the political vision of the single currency driven by Jacques Delors, a socialist now acting as a “wise man” of integration, prevailed. It is worth recalling that the final endorsement of the Delors Report by the member states took place against a background of extraordinary events: the fall of Communism. The quantum leap of integration (1991 Maastricht Treaty establishing the union) is therefore linked to the desintegration of the Soviet Empire. The old French fears of a powerful neighbour provided additional diplomatic momentum for the Monetary Union.
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Realists would argue that the Euro was the political price Germany had to pay for reunification. In 2010, its taxpayers are bearing the financial cost of the debt mess. The question is: for how long?
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Whatever form the rescue or control mechanism eventually takes, it will imply more bureaucracy to enforce convergence on 27 divergent economies. The parallel with the centrally planned economies of the former Soviet bloc and their eventual failure to deliver prosperity is pertinent. Grand centralizing bureaucratic schemes eventually fail and in the process dwarf individual freedoms. Have we not learnt the lesson? Evidently not.
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The quasi-authoritarian technocratic measures imposed by the troika (IMF-EC-ECB) are undermining popular sovereignty, i.e. who rules. As a recent survey revealed, 56% of Irish people believe that by accepting the bailouts, their country has surrendered political independence. Eurosceptics have long argued that the Brussels elite are actively seeking to replace sovereignty by bureaucracy, voters by experts. As the rejection and eventual adoption of the European Constitution in all but name amply demonstrated, popular sovereignty is deeply unpopular with the European leadership. To illustrate the arrogance of our new “vanguard”, suffice it to recall the comment made by former Labour Commissioner Neil Kinnock in the aftermaths the referendum in 2005. The French “non” said he, was “the triumph of ignorance"....
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How ironic that the European Union now fighting for its survival would owe so much to the demise of another supranational utopia; the Soviet Union with its own kind of highly centralized supranational state apparatus and privileged elite. In a thought-provoking essay, "The Soviet Roots of European integration” (2004), former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky explains how socialist ideas have gradually transformed a successful economic area (EEC) into a new bureaucratic hegemon. Food for thought.
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Of course, the “post-democratic” Union is constituted by democratic states enjoying high standards of political freedom. To Bielarussian democrats, the EU represents a beacon of freedom. But everything is relative. In fortress Europe, it is no longer possible to ignore the obvious. The on-going surrender of sovereign rights to a self-serving nomenklatura is a step towards the establishment of a supranational economic government, and a bEUROcratic Leviathan. In 1944, Austrian economist F.A. Hayek called it the “Road to Serfdom”.

Reforme des retraites: carton rouge pour la gauche.

Article published in UnMondeLibre (France), 3Hs (Turkiye). In la langue de Shakespeare(shortened version) in France's largest English language paper (November issue), called funnily enough, theFrenchPaper. Finally in the University of Portsmouth students newspaper, Pugwash News.
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English version, The French Paper.

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In the name of “solidarité”, a vocal minority of “grèvistes” (strikers) appears to be prepared to fight to the bitter end to prevent the government doing the right thing, namely reforming the pension system. While there was plenty of solidarity in evidence in Chile with the whole nation pulling together behind its “33”, what we are witnessing on French streets is a flurry of irresponsibility and selfishness. In a well-rehearsed action plan, two million or so of my compatriots are once again taking the country hostage in their latest attempt to save a floundering model of welfare state.

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Since the shameful fiasco of the national football team, you could be forgiven for thinking that the French love to wallow in endless strikes. But just as most fans were disgusted by the attitude of the striking players, private sector employees are unimpressed by the repeated strikes of public sector workers (1/5 of the labour force). The international media is predictably painting the French with a broad brush, a nation of demonstrators. The other side of the argument – let’s call it the “other France” - rarely features in programmes presumably because "l'autre France" rarely demonstrates. The stories of the hard-working entrepreneur-boulangers and artisans, innovating small family enterprises struggling to remain competitive despite one of the highest burden of taxation in the developed world do not have the same news appeal. But they are many untold tales of real solidarity between bosses and workers reaching compromises to try and save together their livelihood. Unions do not approve.

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Impervious to the fate of the “other France”, members of the unions (8% of the work force) have been joined by a minority of politicized high school students steeped in the same cult of job-for-life and “acquis sociaux” (none-reviewable social rights), the sacred cows of the Left. Ironically the teenagers' prospects of finding work are being curtailed by the very system their parents are trying to keep in place. With youth unemployment at a record 23%, a sizeable number of them after graduating will be seeking employment across the Channel in the more flexible British labour market. Until then, they add oil to the fire by mindlessly, and sometimes violently, protesting against all-things liberal (and Anglo-Saxon).

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The democratic choice of the people is inexorably vanishing in the commotion created by the latest wave of street protests. Polls can be made to say anything. The much quoted “support” to the strikers is probably more an expression of the people's belief in the right to protest as a cornerstone of democracy than anything else. Other polls have shown that a majority understand that action must be taken to avoid a Greek-like tragedy. For those who want to see, the right to strike is now blatantly being abused and used as an undemocratic tool for a few to reverse a democratic decision (pension reform law) with street coercion.

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Amazingly, Martine Aubry, the General Secretary of the Socialist Party seems unperturbed by the abyssal social security deficit and the mounting sovereign debt. Having recently celebrated her 60th birthday, she could lead by example and retire. But the great architect of the economically disastrous 35-hour-working-week fights on and continues to enjoy the privileges bequeathed on our politico-administrative nomenclature. The fact that politicians can hold several electoral mandates – and salaries – is an absolute scandal but it is a gravy train few, be it on the Left or the Right, would like to see stop at some “austerity” station. Needless to say, they are not bound by a compulsory retirement age.

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Are radical self-imposed austerity measures “à la Cameron” plausible? Not really. To the government's credit, reforms to change a damaging culture of welfare benefit-dependency have been introduced but it will take more than modest politically correct steps to have any real impact. As to meaningful cuts to France’s sprawling administration, dream on. Half of the members of the French Parliament are civil servants so serious reforms are more likely to be imposed by the EU - read Germany - or forced upon any government by the “evil” market and its credit rating agencies (looming downgrading).

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Oil shortages are looming too and violence could spread to the suburbs. While the Left backs the workers of state-owned refineries' against privatization, the “other France” can only hope that the government will stand firm and show the kind of resolve Margaret Thatcher exhibited in the 1980s when the coal miners' strike threatened the British economy. The behaviour of our “équipe nationale” was a disgrace and deeply hurt the nation's pride. The irresponsibility of union leaders and their political masters is no less disgraceful. The consequences for the fragile recovery and the future could be far-reaching.

Brussels Declaration, 28 August 2010 at the first European Libertarian Students Summit

From democratic deficit to “Avatar” Euro-democracy.

Published in Hürriyet Daily News, Un Monde Libre and EurActiv-ated.
Also published in a slightly different version in The Globe and Mail (Can.), The Providence Journal (USA) and The Australian (comme son nom l'indique).

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The summer period is always an ideal time for administrations and legislatures to introduce unpopular measures or launch ridiculous projects. Enter “Citzalia”, a simulation game or the European Parliament’s newest communication tool. When you thought things could not get more disconnected from reality, they literally got more “virtual”. Soon citizen-avatars will be able to experience “democracy in action” in virtual reality. The democratic deficit has not been seriously addressed but the EU may be about to enter a new dimension: virtual democracy.

After the failure of its on-line TV “Europarl” (C-span à la EU), the Parliament is preparing to launch “Citzalia”, an educational "platform" described as a “3D world that captures the essence of the European Parliament”. Thus through “role play” and “social networking”, citizen-avatars will have the opportunity to walk the corridors of the Brussels’ nebulous power, and interact with MEP-avatars [1]. British journalist Christopher Booker was quick to spot the irony and drew a parallel with the situation in the UK under the present coalition. “We walk around, network, debate issues of the day, even propose legislation. But as with that computer game, it is an empty charade”[2] (Daily Telegraph, 7/08/2010).

Presumably the point - at 275,000€ - is to shed some light on the terribly important role of the EU legislature without which there would be no democracy worth talking about. With record low participation in the last parliamentary elections (2009, 43%), things are getting desperate. Frankly, the thought of citizen-avatars unleashed in the virtual corridors of power to try and figure out the “co-decision” legislative process is dizzying. Good luck to them with the arcane complexity of consultations between the Commission, the Council, the Parliament and the culture of deals behind the proverbial “closed doors”. Under the Lisbon treaty, a new consultation procedure with the 27 national legislatures (the so-called “Barroso initiative”)[3] should add to the bureaucratic fun.

Exposing the boring, poorly attended and entirely “managed” nature of debates in the hemicycle would be in the interest of transparency. Not to mention the outrageous nomadicity of the Parliament’s “democratic” business with its epic shuttling between Strasbourg and Brussels (annual cost, €200 million). But too much “realism” might confuse citizen-avatars who once back in the real world, would be entirely justified to question their MEPs - if they can find them. So the virtual experience is most certainly “idealized”. For the Euro-élite, the line between information and propaganda is not just “thin”, it is more often than not virtually invisible. The report by the Swedish think tank Timbro, “the European Union’s burden”, accuses the EU of “creating a propaganda machine” (EU Observer, 29/07/2009)[4].

The Lisbon Treaty “Citizens’ Initiative” (Article 11) should feature prominently in a compensatory sort of way. On planet Europe, the initiative purporting to enhance citizens’ participation by enabling them to propose legislation is hopelessly bogged down in red tape and controversy. It is slowly but surely being, well, bureaucratized to the point of meaninglessness. The unelected Commission is the sole arbiter in determining what constitutes a valid or “silly” proposal. The truth is that elected representatives are confined to a “rubber-stamping” job with the right to throw occasional “delaying tantrums” to earn their credentials as the guardians of EU “democracy”. The German Financial Times described the screening process as an example of “managed democracy” [5] (03/04/2010), a term one normally associates with Russia.

Forget the citizen-avatar. To really learn how it works, there should be an option for using a lobbyist-avatar. After all, interest groups are ideally suited for the European multi-layered, consensus-driven polity. Take the environmental policy sphere. It is hardly the utopian Navi community of planet Pandora. Behind the official discourse of “greening our economy” and “saving future generations” (and closed doors), lobbies are very active. But not just to save us from eco-Armageddon. The friends of Gaia have many friends in Brussels who allocate funds to them. As the International Policy Network study “the Friends of the EU”[6] (8/03/2010) highlights, green advocacy groups are subsidized to lobby for more funds and provide expertise. This self-serving cycle undermines the democratic process.

“Managed” democracy, virtual or real, is a risky business. Citizens - like avatars - can be unpredictable and uncommonly ungrateful. In Europe, the propensity of the former to rebel by giving the wrong answer (No-votes or abstentions) to the unique brand of “yes-only-democracy” is amply demonstrated. The game designers insist that there will be no censorship [7] (The Guardian, 06/08/2010). So maybe a formula for a freer Europe might actually emerge from a silly idea because in the real EU, all we get is more of the same old democratic deficit.

[1] http://blog.citzalia.eu/about-citzalia/
[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7932343/We-are-given-virtual-democracy-in-exchange-for-real-power.html
[3] http://www.euractiv.com/en/future-eu/treaty-opens-eu-door-national-parliaments/article-187888
[4] http://euobserver.com/883/28505
[5] http://www.ftd.de/politik/europa/:lissabon-vertrag-gelenkte-demokratie-in-der-eu/50095937.html#utm_source=rss2&utm_medium=rss_feed&utm_campaign=/
[6] http://www.policynetwork.net/accountability/publication/friends-eu
[7] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/06/eu-parliament-role-playing-game-online

Rescuing Europe from its politicians

In 1993 Alan Milward posited the controversial thesis that the EU had rescued the nation state. To survive, he argued, Europe would need to integrate more. With Greece on the “brink of the abyss”, reviewing the integrationist assumptions is now an urgent necessity. Since the completion of the single market (early 1990s), the construction of the European social and economic model or “way” has been pursued by politicians and ideologues without regards to the cost. Sovereign debt now threatens the Union in an unprecedented way. Yet whether the unfolding crisis will act as a catalyst for change is the million-Euro question.
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Deriding the Anglo-Saxon model (limited government and free market economy) has been the favourite pastime of our élite on all sides. Nowadays, no-one is gloating. Bill Emmott (Times, April 30, 2010) puts it like it is: “Europe’s economy is the sick man of the world”. This year, “Schuman Day” was a more sombre occasion. Still, reflecting on the past is crucial to understand what went wrong. Indeed, Post-WWII integration into a single market was undeniably a success story. The basic economic assumption of the European model of regional economic integration was liberal (free trade, deregulation and small government), and it delivered what the peoples of the founding nations had expected of it; prosperity and peace.
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In 2010 alarm bells are ringing across Europe with sovereign debt threatening to unravel the success of the early decades. How did we get here? To cut a long story short, from the Maastricht Treaty (1992) onwards, the European political class could not resist the sirens of “social” Europe or to be more precise “socialist” Europe (growth of big government, the welfare state and statism). In the noughties, the establishment of the single currency with the ECB policy of “strong Euro” led politicians to succumb to the folly of growth and development through borrowing. Preaching the saviour, more protectionist welfare state has become the electoral mantra resulting in Europe being run à la socialiste, and on credit (future generations would pay the bill!).
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Since the first signs of scepticism appeared in the publics (late 1990s) culminating in the rejection of the Constitution in 2005, the EU leadership’s response has invariably been the same; more integration. This process has now fossilized into a dogma. Pushing for more centralised decision-making powers, a more social and overtly less liberal Europe has become the prevailing political discourse. The rise of the unsustainable welfare (member) state has been unstoppable. The Greek disaster should be seen in this context. While irresponsible and corrupt politicians should be held to account, it is evident that the mess has been enabled by the Post-Maastricht “European way” as framed by socialist-minded “éminence grises” (Jacques Delors, Tony Blair or philosophers like Juergen Habermas, to name but a few). Paradoxically, the idea of big-government has been embraced by right-wing politicians too.
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The EU “way” (which incidentally includes turning a blind eye on Greek deceptions and probably many others) has created havoc. Europe’s economy has lost its competitive edge and now faces tough competition from emerging countries. Growth is near-zero, unemployment is high and citizens disillusioned. Predictably, the European Commission’s plan for the future (2020 Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth) calls for the creation of a more “social market”. Like the previous one, it is destined to fail. The Lisbon Treaty is likely to act as a roadmap for this utopia as well as a straight-jacket preventing any flexibility. Gone is the pragmatism of the early years.
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French economist Guy Sorman warns that dealing with the Greek debt without addressing its fundamental cause will miss the mark. The author of “Economics Does Not Lie” opines that the rescue package can only be a palliative. In his opinion, the most pressing issue for politicians is to confront and end the current “strategy of decline”. More dogmatic integration (economic governance, regulation) would be counterproductive. However breaking out of the dominant socialist (statist) ideological mind-set which guides the élite to resort to more of the same policies, will require courage and leadership. In this regard, one can only welcome the resurgence of the British Conservative Party. At least, a healthy doze of scepticism will act like medicine for the "sick EU patient".
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If one needed a reminder of how completely alienated from society and its realities the Euro-political class is, the recent drama of the volcanic ash-cloud provides a perfect illustration. The rigid bureaucratic and chaotic political response which led to huge economic loss, was a striking example of poor leadership compounded by a paralyzing culture of risk-aversion. As journalist Yulia Latynina aptly observed, bureaucrats had proved "more harmful than volcanoes” (Moscow Times, April 20, 2010). While the EU political élite huffed and puffed, the Russian Presidential plane bringing Dmitri Medvedev for the funerals of the Polish President landed in Krakow without a glitch . The leadership of the Union was conspicuous by its absence.
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Right now, politicians could prove more dangerous than Greek economic woes. The painful truth for our élite is that their decisions have led Europe on a path to economic decline. It is high time to bite the bullet and change course. To start with, citizens must be engaged with more than personality cult of the founding father and “what-Europe-has-done-for-us” brochures and rhetoric. The pretence that the EU can afford the social(ist) model it is purporting to download across the continent must be dropped, or more disillusionment (and anger spilling on the streets) will be fostered.
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Verbose sermons of solidarity and unity professed in official receptions and academic circles are aloof words spoken on the deck of the ship battered by howling winds. The markets and the increasingly Euro-sceptic electorates are no longer listening. The EU needs to go back to its wealth-creation way, and it needs it fast.

The EU Easter egg....

The chicks are: the new President of the European Council and High Representative for foreign affairs...

Eco-cultishness and the petition threatening la liberté!

In France, the "debate" on climate change has taken a turn for the worse. A petition signed by 410 scientists (mostly involved in climate research) was presented to the Minister of Education and Research, Madame Pécresse, asking for more political support for the global warming thesis as postulated by the IPCC. And even more astonishingly, requesting the government to "take action" against two climate sceptic scientists; former minister Dr. Claude Allègre and Professeur Vincent Courtillot whose views were expressed in recently published books (see below).

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The signatories feel that these dissenting scientific opinions are discrediting the supreme seriousness of their own work. The mind boggles.
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What kind of "action" is not clear. Science by decree? Criminalization of the denial-dissent of IPCC climate truth ? Internment in psychiatric hospitals for those "deranged" scientists? Et pourquoi pas un goulag climatique? The methods used by Trofim Lyssenko to impose his scientific truth under Stalin spring to mind.... But je m'égare - I digress. La France is not ze Soviet Union.

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Of course not. But eco-intolerence amongst environment activists, scientists and greened politicians is becoming a real threat to freedom of speech and scholarship. After the former socialist minister Michel Rocard's comment, namely that the decision to scrap the carbon tax was a "crime against humanity" - oui, je répète un "crime contre l'humanité"! - we have now scientists requesting government's intervention against climate-sceptic thinking and research.

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What this is about is an attempt by a group of interested climatologists defending the thesis of man-made global warming, to discredit the work of scientists who dissent. The "niet" of the latter to climate alarmism hype does not go down well with the former, namely the self-appointed priesthood of Gaia .... Behind the carefully crafted text (accessible in article in Libération ), it appears that the objective of "alarmist scientists" (two are members of the IPCC-GIEC) is to see the UN "absolute climate truth" protected by the State, and the publication of dissenting research/opinions vetted.
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Why? Because these climatologists live from climate alarmism - massive public funds allocated to it - and in the wake of the various climate-gates, scepticism among the publics has risen hence potentially threatening their jobs and could undermine the "climate business" (See post on ze blog Objectif Liberté). Fearing that research budgets might melt away faster than polar ice-caps, our "endangered" climatologists strike back!
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For more on this latest twist français in the culte de Gaïa, climate alarmism et autres réchauffismes liberticides, read this excellent post by Jean-Michel Bélouve author of "La Servitude Climatique" (see below) in the Cri du Contribuable.: Petition against Allègre and Courtillot: French climatologists are losing it" (Les climatologues français perdent tout sens de la mesure). The author points notably to the fact that the two French "other thinker"-scientists are not alone. Many more have not endorsed the so-called IPCC "scientific consensus"! He notably recalls the 1992 Heidelberg Appeal signed by 4,000 scientists (including 70 nobel prize winners) who inter alia voiced concern about the intrusion of ideology in science (Earth Summit in Rio).
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Answering the accusations that his work is not peer-reviewed, Prof. Courtillot puts his record straight in Le Monde. and Le Figaro. He notes inter alia: "It is the mechanism of the IPCC I am criticical of. I maintain that even with many more scientists, such a system cannot possibly garantee to tell the 'scientific truth'.

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Also see the "lettre ouverte" by the mathematician Benoît Rittaud ("Le mythe climatique", see below). His critique hits the nail. The implications of this démarche for state intervention - if acted upon by public authorities - against two scientists are serious; introduction of political censorship of scientific work, infringement of freedom of speech and thought.

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Douce France, cher pays de mon enfance et des droits de l'Homme... Quid la liberté d'expression et de penser? Pauvre science! With Liberté pour l'Histoire historians have been fighting against state edicted historical truths (lois mémorielles). It now looks like minority view scientists might be forced to do the same "pour la Science".... Aux armes citoyens!
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That climatologists would resort to this kind of "trick" is deeply troubling. Frankly, this latest épisode climatique begs the question of whether the French "rechauffiste" brigade is not actually prepared to go down the road of green authoritarianism. It is a sad day for our democracy....

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"Pour rire it's tax free", enjoy the caricature très drôle of a French climate lesson created by Yann Goap for the blog "Pensée-unique" . In the front row, two GIEC-IPCC children-scientists (a Dr. Pachauri or le breton Hervé le Treut?) snitching on their dissenting classmate-scientists (Courtillot and Allègre). The teacher is Madame la Ministre and the leçon is - in franglais - "In réchauffisme we trust" (In warmism we trust). The language used in French is childish and would translate in something like "Mistress, they are pestering us...."
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Ce à quoi on pourrait répondre (answer) en français de cour de maternelle: Maîkresse, yaka lire queske les bonomes verts veules pas qu'on sêt!

Loosely translated in good franglais this means: read what les druides verts do not want you to know en français.

Dr. Claude Allègre: L'imposture climatique où la fausse écologie.

Benoît Rittaud : Le mythe climatique.

Professeur Vincent Courtillot: Notre voyage au centre de la Terre.

Jean-Michel Bélouve: La servitude climatique: changement climatique business et politique.

Dr. Emmanuel Martin: Un Monde Libre

Le blog de Vincent Bénard: Objectif Liberté, dossiers et gazette du "réchauffement" climatique.

Nananèèèère (so haha see)..