Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Tories from a German perspective

Fascinating, if a little scary viewpoint from Germany about national soveriegnty and the Tory Party.
German government advisors are insisting on concerted efforts to politically neutralize British EU-skeptics. As explained in a recent paper published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), the British Conservatives' attitude will have a "decisive influence on helping to set the EU's future radius of action," because the ambitious possibilities in EU foreign policy making, opened through the Lisbon Treaty's coming into force, will depend, to a certain extent, on London's cooperation.
Well that is true. Interestingly, like so much from the euro-fanatics this will be something promoted from the centre,
The fragile shoots of a burgeoning Conservative euro-pragmatism should therefore be nutured. They will from from the top down".
Genuinely democratic then I see. But you can see that the federasts have not given up hope. They go on about what they see as
"Cameron's secret appetite for constructive pragmatism on Europe shows even the pessimists that there is scope for action".

As this post makes clear when talking about this paper
The main reason for British EU-skepticism remains the fear that in the future the EU could usurp the sovereignty of the nation-states and blatantly rule the member states, even Great Britain from abroad, bypassing the elected national parliaments. That this fear is justifiable can be seen in the recent developments in Greece.

It goes on developing a theme mention by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in yesterday's Telegraph,
The German chancellor is demanding that Brussels should be granted new rights of intervention into central areas of national sovereignty, for such cases. If, for example, an elected parliament refuses to enact substantial cuts in wages, Brussels must have the power to order these cuts against their will. "National parliaments do not like to have things imposed," observes Angela Merkel and demands "we have to discuss this type of problem."







2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ok, so they can bend the Parliaments to their will ...but what about the national Courts? In Latvia, the constitutional Court has just ruled that the pension cuts which were passed by their Parliament are illegal. So that's the entire fiscal policy of the Government out of the window ...

Sorry Mme Merkel, but ein volk, ein Europa, ein economic policy won't ever work ...

Nick

Anonymous said...

Countries that use the Euro probably do need to be on tighter reigns regarding their budgets.
This isn't a problem for the UK which has no obligation to ever sign up for the Euro.

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