"Persistant National Identities"

There you are trying to stuff your finger in the Utopia's dyke and won't you know it but something just gets in the way.

Finance officials and experts gathered in Italy mostly agreed Saturday that Europe needs deeper political union to preserve the troubled euro—even though persistent national identities made the prospect politically unlikely in the near future.

According to AP, Experts are telling us that

Europe needs more perfect union

It is just part of the European post-faith religion. Even the language drips of the litergy. Either that or tyhe arrogance of fluent Eurocrat,

Unless Europeans agree "to complete economic and monetary union ... with a fiscal union, with a strong governance, with a feeling that some political decision should be adopted in common by those who are sharing the single currency, we will not succeed," said Joaquin Almunia, the vice president of the EU commission, the closest thing to a central government in the union.

Who wiull not suceed? The poltical elite, those who dream technicolour integrationalist dreams? Becaiuse it certainly isn't the people of Europe who feel this way as Mario Monti almost admits,

the current structure depends on national governments acting in concert when needed. But instead, said Italian economist Mario Monti, governments are becoming increasingly "short-termist"—preferring to pander to voters even if the result is dysfunction on the European level.

Ye Gods No, you mean a couple of Governments (and Yes Finland, he means you) actually try to reflect the wishes of their people? Sorry pandering to the wishes of their people. Don't those thick necked unwashed bruisers, the hoiu polloi not know that we the elite know what is best for them?

The damned ungrateful curs.

The EU's choice, Murdoch or Cable

The EU today cleared Rupert Murdochs takeover of BSkyB. According to the Commission's Joaquin Almunia, EC vice-president and Komissar for competition,

"I am confident this merger will not weaken competition in the UK."

Vince Cable was reported as publically commenting,

"Whilst it has found there are no issues on competition grounds, the EC's decisions on this are independent from the outcome of the separate UK investigation into the merger's potential impact on the sufficiency of media plurality within the UK.
"Ofcom are due to report into this separate matter by the end of this month. I will review their findings once Parliament returns and I will then take the decision on whether this case needs to be referred to the Competition Commission for a full investigation."

Which is interesting as he appears to have told the Telegraph journalists, where the idea that his review will be fair minded is at very best trashed,

"I have declared war on Mr Murdoch, I think I'll win. I didn't politicise it because it is a legal situation.

"He is trying to take over BSkyB. He has a minority shareholding and he wants a majority - and majority control would give them a massive stake. I have blocked it using the powers that I have,

"For people who know what is happening, this is a big, big thing."

According to the BBC, Mr Cable goes on to say: "His (Mr Murdoch's) whole empire is now under attack... So there are things like that we do in government, that we can't do... all we can do in opposition is protest."

The EU has obviously decided that notwithstanding the LibDems support of the EU and all its doings, it would prefer to get the Murdoch press on their side. Sensible of them I would say.

Lets see if the Sun becomes a little less Eurosceptic - after all the Times has already moved in a pro-EU direction in recent months.
This morning I was sure that Cabel would survivre, after this I am no longer convionced. St Vince must be on his way out. Is it too early for David Laws (the con artist) to be brought back?

Update,
Guido asks a very pertinant question
Why Did the Telegraph Hide “War on Murdoch” Story?

Ask a stupid question.

Greece has shocked the European Union by adjusting its expected budget deficit for this year to 12.5 % of GDP, twice what was originally predicted. The announcement was made at the finance ministers meeting in Brussels yesterday by Greek Finance Minister, Papaconstantinou.

He 'fessed up about how the former government manipulated statistics and accidentally forgot to imclude include government debts in its figures.

Commissioner Almunia said the EU must investigate why and how Greece adjusted its statistical data.

He asked what?

As if we don't know. They did so in order to fraudulently join the Euro. We all know this, and the approach was more than tacitly supported by the European elite. Why? Simple. Because it was a political imperative.

I wonder how much the investigation is going to cost? And I am prepared to bet that the Commission's investigation will discover that nothing wrong happened at all desîte the Greeks admitting that it did.

Aside
Interestingly this story was brought to my attention by the Parliament's Czech press cuttings service, whereas the Greek service fails to mention it. I wonder why?