-Caveat Lector-
3/9/01
There should be no uncertainty about it. Each country's Globalist
Elites have no time to indulge popular whims such as Democracy.
Joshua2
========================================================================
European Foundation Intelligence Digest
Issue No. 114
22nd February – 8th March 2001
I. Western European Developments
Democracy in Switzerland
By a huge majority, the Swiss have rejected a proposal to begin
negotiations to join the European Union. 76.7%
of voters, in the biggest turnout for 8 years, voted against the "Yes to
Europe!" initiative. Even in the
traditionally pro-European French-speaking parts of the country, there
was a clear majority in favour of a No.
Not one single canton, indeed, voted for Europe. To this extent, the
Swiss have once again shown their
extraordinary spirit of independence and love of freedom.
Their government, however, is a different matter. Even before the voting
had finished, the federal government
in Bern issued a statement saying that the expected No result would in
no way deflect it from it pro-European
course. It reaffirmed its desire to seek EU membership in due course.
With quite breathtaking cheek, it said that
the No vote could in no way be interpreted as meaning a rejection of EU
membership as such. Instead, the
government said, the result merely indicated that the Swiss did not
think the time was right now to start
negotiations. Quite how the government has arrived at this conclusion is
not clear: it seems more likely to be
evidence of the government’s simple contempt for its voters’
settled opinion that the EU is a bad
idea. The Foreign Minister and other ministers thus confirmed that they
would seek to decide on EU
negotiations during the next legislature, i.e. between 2003 and 2007.
Moreover, in confirming that the
government was sticking to its plans, the Foreign Minister said that a
new Europe was arising and that it was
essential for Switzerland to play its role – in other words, he
used the very same arguments which the
roundly defeated pro-Europeans had used in their campaign. [Neue Z?rcher
Zeitung, 5th March 2001] By the same token,
the Commission’s spokesman had evidently co-ordinated its line
with the Swiss government, for he too
said that the Swiss vote did not mean that the Swiss were opposed to EU
membership, rather that they did not
want to begin negotiations now.
These events should cause the Swiss to reflect seriously on the
soundness of their political system. The Swiss are
very rightly proud of their ancient democracy. When matters of cantonal
or national importance are put to
referendum, as they frequently are, this is democracy at its most
direct. There is, however, one potentially very
important weak link: the Swiss retain a proportional system for their
federal government. This effectively means
that the same parties remain in power at federal level whatever the
outcome of the elections. The Swiss
parliament’s web site actually boasts of the fact that the
parliament looks pretty much the same as it did
in 1919 and that the national government has not changed its composition
since 1960! Under such a system, it is
virtually impossible to vote into power a party which will obey the will
of the electorate on the single most
important political matter of all, the country’s future
sovereignty.
[ http://www.parlament.ch/poly/Framesets/E/Frame-E.htm ]
More spokes in the wheels of enlargement
Following Commissar Verheugen’s admission (reported in the last
Digest) that Poland and the other
candidate countries cannot join the EU because the present EU members
cannot withstand the effect it will
have on their unemployment levels, German trade unions have protested
strongly at a position paper published
by the Commission which says that the transition period before Poles and
other citizens of new member states
can enjoy freedom of movement to go and work in other EU states should
be only four years. One leading trade
unionist said that the period should be seven or eight years, while the
leading representative of the construction
industry in Germany said it should be even longer. The German Chancellor
and the French president, who
ultimately will decide the matter, have said that they regard a
transitional period of seven years as necessary.
[Handelsblatt, 1st March 2001] The Poles will no doubt find this very
tiresome; on the other hand, they are holding out
for a fifteen year transition period before the Germans can come and
start buying back their old homes in Silesia.
In which case, one might ask, what is the point of joining the EU at
all?
EU ticks off Hungary
It is the time of year when the EU produces school reports for the eager
young students east of the Elbe.
Teacher is not very happy with any members of the class this year: the
Poles are too numerous, the Czechs are
too democratic and the Hungarians are too right wing. "Could do betters"
have thus been handed round to all.
Where Hungary is concerned, the EU – speaking through its
"ambassador", Michael Lake – is
worried that the elections in 2002 might bring into government the
Hungarian Justice and Life Party of Istv?n
Csurka. The EU, as we know, is in the habit of trying to dictate the
outcome of elections both for its own
member states and also for candidate countries. He therefore had no
compunction about saying that if
Csurka’s party ever got into power, Hungary could more or less
forget about EU membership. He also
emphasised that there was one rule for existing EU members and another
for aspiring ones: asked to comment
on the fact that the EU had abandoned its boycott against Austria, Lake
replied, "Let us not confuse the
position of a member state with that of a country that is still
negotiating admission … It is a completely
different issue if a candidate member country believes that it could
involve a similar party [i.e. similar to the
Austrian Freedom Party] in power without any consequences."
As with Poland, there are also outstanding questions to be resolved
about freedom of movement for workers and
land ownership – i.e. horsetrading between how many Austrian
dentists will be forced out of work and
how much land Germans or Dutch agri-businesses can buy up. It is also
clear that the all-important agricultural
question has been simply swept under the carpet.
Finally, Mr. Lake also dictated to the Hungarians how they need to
reform their media law: "Public service
media," he said, "are only credible and can only be a guarantee for
democracy if they are supervised by
politically neutral organizations." In other words, Hungary will have to
abrogate its present law, according to
which government and opposition have equal representation on the state
radio and TV councils. Strangely
enough, the EU never raised the issue of media freedom when there was a
post-communist government in
Hungary under the former Communist apparatchik, Gyula Horn, even though
during this period there were no
media outlets whatever for the then conservative opposition. [BBC
Monitoring, 1st March 2001; an interview with Lake can be
read in full at
http://www.centraleurope.com/hungarytoday/news.php3?id=300178]
Commission proposes to abolish freedom of movement
As part of the ongoing tractations over the admission of new member
states, indeed, the Commission has put
forward a proposal to remove one of the "four freedoms" on which the
whole European project is based: the
freedom of people to move and work wherever they like within the EU.
(The other freedoms of movement are
for capital, goods and services.) The Commission’s idea is now to
change the right to work for all citizens
of member states of the EU in order to find a way out from the bilateral
confrontation which currently exists
between Germany and Poland. The Commission has said that while
transitional periods are one solution
(although Poland currently rejects this idea) another solution would be
to impose a system of quotas for the
movement of workers, or a more flexible system which would apply to
specific border areas or for certain areas
of the economy. The Commission is proposing, in other words, to regulate
the labour market to favour regions
and favoured industries, a suggestion which is completely incompatible
with the (in any case bogus) claim that
the EU is all about promoting a free market. For the time being, the
Germans are sticking to their idea of a
transitional period, such as was used for Spain and Portugal in 1986,
when their workers had to wait six years
before they could move freely. But the very fact that the Commission has
even made this suggestion shows that
it is not fulfilling its primary task as guardian of the treaties but is
instead a power unto itself. [Handelsblatt, 8th March
2001]
Germany "not ready enough" for war
The head of the German Free Democrats has said that the German armed
forces are "not reliable".
Wolfgang Gerhardt pointed to claims made by senior German military
officers that the armed forces
budget in Germany needed to be increased by at least DM 1 billion
(£300,000). Gerhardt said that it was
therefore no surprise if the United States did not have sufficient
confidence in its German ally. He accused
the government of undermining Germany’s role as a reliable Nato
member. He said that the fact
that Berlin was not informed about the US-UK attacks on Iraq was itself
proof that Germany was not doing
enough to ingratiate itself with Washington. "It is a sign that our
American friends do not have full trust in
us," he said. He called on Joschka Fischer to re-establish the
partnership – in the very week when
Fischer came under attack from the former Communists for being an
American lackey. Gerhardt welcomed
the fact that the Chancellor had abandoned his initial hostility to the
US plan to build a National Missile
Defence system and said that he expected Mr. Fischer to fall into line
as well. "The federal
government’s task," he said, "must be to ensure that Germany
enjoys technological participation in
the project" – i.e. that German firms get their hands on some of
the money. [Die Welt, 7th March 2001]
The cost of changing money
Three hundred days before euro notes and coins are due to be introduced
in the Euroland countries, all
parties in the German Bundestag have called on the banking industry to
agree to change unlimited
quantities of cash for free. "It would be an essential contribution to
the success of the euro," said the
Chairman of the Bundestag finance committee, Christine Scheel. For the
time being, only state banks like
the Sparkassen (savings banks), Landesbanken (state regional banks) and
the Post Office bank have
agreed to do this. Other banks have said that they will agree to
exchange for free only sums which are
"usual for households". Consumers associations have criticised these
varying arrangements, saying that
all DM – euro exchanges should be cost free, especially in view of
the fact that 500,000 German
citizens have no bank account. Mrs Scheel also pointed out that many
Germans keep large amounts of
cash at home: the total amount, according to the Bundesbank, is over DM
100 billion (£30bn). [Handelsblatt, 8th
May 2001] What Frau Scheel failed to mention is that there will also be
millions or billions of DM in cash held in
Central and Eastern European countries, where the DM operates as a
parallel currency. In Montenegro and
Kosovo, indeed, the DM is the official currency already, so that by the
end of the year these two Mafia states
will also have the euro. How the holders of DM cash there get to
exchange their money for euros is
anyone’s guess.
The mouse that roared
The Belgian Foreign Minister, Louis Michel, has said that the European
Union should boycott Italy if, as
expected, the right-wing coalition wins the elections this spring. Mr.
Michel is particularly exercised, as are many
euros, by the fact that this means that the leader of the Northern
League, Umberto Bossi, would enter the
government. Mr. Michel describes Mr. Bossi as a fascist, although oddly
enough Mr. Bossi believes in a Europe
of the regions just like Mr. Michel does, and so he says that the same
treatment should be meted out to Italy as
was given to Austria last year – even though that caused the Danes
to vote against the euro and the Swiss
to vote against the EU altogether. Mr. Michel said that the EU’s
new "early warning system," laid down
in the Nice treaty to provide for when "a clear danger exists of a
member state committing a serious breach of
human rights". "I would like to put the new early warning system into
operation now," Mr. Michel told an
Austrian weekly. Belgium takes over the EU presidency in July. Mr. Bossi
is widely deemed a fascist in euro
circles because he opposes the adoption of children by homosexual
couples and supports traditional family
values. [Agence France Presse, 4th March 2001]
Fischer in deep water
The German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, is getting into ever
deeper trouble with the law following
his appearance as a witness for the defence in the trial of his old
friend, the terrorist Hans-Joachim Klein.
He gave false information to the court on that occasion, and is now
being investigated for perjury; it seems
that he may also have told an outright lie. For when questioned about
his role in throwing Molotov
cocktails, Fischer said, "I can answer this question with a simple No. I
cannot recall a situation in which,
during any demonstration in front of buildings with people in them, that
any fire-bombs were thrown."
Fischer made this claim as part of his general statement that he had
always opposed violence. As with his
statement that he had never shared a house with Magrit Schiller, this
has now turned out to be false.
Evidence has now emerged that Fischer indeed planned a violent
demonstration outside the Spanish
consulate in 1975, during which Molotov cocktails were thrown at police
cars. While the preparations were
being discussed, the Molotov cocktails were being made in the
neighbouring room and these were later
distributed to the demonstrators. Daniel Cohn-Bendit was also involved
in the minutiae of the planning for
the violent demonstration, going into such details as how many minutes
it would take the police to arrive
and thus when reinforcements would be required. [Die Welt am Sonntag,
4th March 2001]
Fischer and V?drine meet to settle common position on Europe
The German and French foreign ministers have met to work towards ironing
out any remaining differences
between their two countries on the future of European integration. Such
attempts have usually proved
unfortunately very successful in the past. Differences arose between the
two countries at Nice and so now
they have decided to discuss them "point by point" and thereby to deepen
the Franco-German
relationship. They were discussing not only the next summit (to be held
in Stockholm) but also more
pressing issues like BSE, foot and mouth disease and Eastern
enlargement. These monthly meetings were
decreed by Chancellor Schr?der and President Chirac shortly after Nice
precisely to avoid in future the
kind of differences which had arisen there. The next Franco-German
summit meeting is planned for 20th
March. [Handelsblatt, 6th March 2001]
Kohl let off the hook
Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has been let off the hook as
criminal proceedings against him for
corruption have been called off in exchange for the payment of a fine of
£100,000. Half of this will go to the
state and half to a charity, donations which Kohl has already agreed to
make anyway. In all likelihood, therefore,
Kohl will get off without any prosecution into the system of secret bank
accounts he created in order to receive
anonymous donations to the party he headed for 20 years. [Die Welt, 2nd
March 2001]
Sch?uble says EU should not have too much power
In one of those periodic outbursts which pro-European Christian
Democrats make to prove their conservative
credentials to their sceptical electorate, the former leader of the
German Christian Democrats, Wolfgang
Sch?uble, has said that the nation state remains the primary focus for
identity and political legitimacy. In a
speech to the Bavarian "embassy" in Berlin, he added that there should
be no rush of new powers for Brussels
– while at the same time saying that the EU should have its own
tax-raising powers. Sch?uble said, "The
nation (das Nationale) remains an important identification for people
and thus for the foreseeable future, the
nation state will remain the most important level of integration. The
European Union must rely on the cohesive
forces which come from the nation if it is to succeed." People’s
understanding of themselves, he said,
was influenced far more by their nationality than by Europe. Needless to
say, he then hedged around his remarks
with the usual stuff about how nation states could not do things on
their own and needed the EU to stand up in
the modern world. He even said that the EU had to draw up a
"constitution treaty" which would give it greater
democratic legitimacy and would divide competences between the EU and
the nation state. He called for a
bicameral European Parliament, just as Joschka Fischer and numerous
other federalists have done. The EU
should be competent only for those things the nation-state "cannot do"
– like foreign policy, the single
market, and immigration policy. He did not explain why foreign policy
and immigration cannot be conducted by
nation-states. [Die Welt, 8th March 2001]
II.News from the Balkans
The rules of the Serb judicial system in full
Numerous journalists have flooded to Belgrade on rumours that the former
Yugoslav president, Slobodan
Miloševic was about to be arrested. When he was not, they had to
file endless
“the-streets-were-tense-but-quiet” stories instead. But the
issue of Slobbo’s showed up the
contradictions in the new “democratic” government in Serbia.
On 1st March, the Yugoslav Interior
Minister, Zoran ?ivkovic, when asked about rumours that the arrest would
occur by 10th March, said, "In this
country, arrests will not be based on political decisions any more - the
judiciary will be in charge of these issues. Any comments
related to arrests are not legally valid, even if made by my colleagues
from DOS [the governing party].”
Yet on the very same say, the Serbian Interior Minister, Dušan
Mihajlovic told the BBC that legal action
would “soon be taken” against Miloševic. Less
progress has been made, Mihajlovic said,
in the investigation against Miloševic for embezzling state money
and taking it out of the country. He
added that there was no proof so far about Miloševic’s
involvement in political murders and
kidnappings, or in the attempted assassination of prominent opposition
leader Vuk Draškovic. [Tanjug, 1st
March 2001]
Fool’s gold
One of the reasons why “less progress” had been made in the
investigations into
Miloševic’s alleged shipment of gold and money out of the
country is that a leading Swiss metals
trader has flatly denied that it ever happened. The Geneva-based MKS
Finance SA has said that it was "actively
involved in the investigation conducted in Switzerland to assess the
exact origin of the gold deliveries made to
Switzerland by a Yugoslavian metallurgical complex
producing gold as a by-product.” These checks “did not
establish any link between the gold that
has transited through the MKS refinery and
Miloševic or any individuals or companies related to
Miloševic.” Geneva investigators and Swiss federal
authorities have now lifted a freeze on funds
involved in the case. Interestingly, Swiss customs have confirmed the
arrival of four shipments of unrefined gold
from Yugoslavia's Bor mines - one of 42 kilograms on 21st September,
another 42 kilograms on 22nd September
, 59 kilograms on 27th October and 30 kilograms on 2nd November
[Reuters, 2nd March 2001]. In other words, the
bulk of these gold operations was conducted after the new democratic
government was installed in power.
Published by The European Foundation, 61, Pall Mall, London
SW1Y 5HZ, tel 020 7930 7319
The Digest is available free by e-mail from
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