From: Anthony Coughlan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2001 15:44:58 +0100 WHY ABOLISHING NATIONAL C URRENCIES AND REPLACING THEM WITH THE EURO IS A BAD THING + A PUZZLE + SOME QUOTATIONS The National Platform 24 Crawford Avenue Dublin 9 Ireland Monday 31 December 2001 Dear Friends and Fellow Democrats Across Europe, Below are the reasons why it is folly for the Republic of Ireland to abolish its national currency and adopt the euro, at the behest of its local euro-fanatics and euro-bullies. You may find some of these points relevant to the situation in your own country. This organisation is affiliated to The European Alliance of EU-Critical Movements(TEAM). TEAM links together in a pan-European information network some 45 political party and non-party organisations inside and outside the EU, in defence of democracy and in opposition to the centralisers and Euro-Empire builders of Brussels and of Frankfort. Yours etc. Anthony Coughlan Secretary ********************************************************************* 19 REASONS WHY JOINING THE EURO IS A BAD MISTAKE FOR THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND. . . . PLUS AN ANSWER TO A PUZZLE... AND SOME QUOTATIONS - "There's an end to a guid auld sang," as a Scots laird said when the Scottish Parliament was abolished in 1707. Thursday 27 December 2001 1. MOST IRISH ECONOMISTS AND ECONOMIC COMMENTATORS WERE AGAINST IRELAND JOINING THE EURO. Yet 160 of the 166 members of the Irish Parliament went ahead regardless, impelled by the momentum of years of uncritical europhilia, toeing the party line unquestioningly, and levelling in the process one of what Romano Prodi has termed "the two pillars of the Nation State." 2. IRISH FINANCE MINISTER CHARLES McCREEVY TOLD A NATIONAL PLATFORM DELEGATION THAT JOINING THE EURO WOULD BE BAD FOR THE COUNTRY. Before the last Irish general election in 1997 the National Platform had asked to see the future Finance Minister in his parliamentary office. It was just before the present socialist government came to power in France. The French socialists were making noises at the time suggesting that they would clobber the euro. "That would be the best thing ever," said Mr McCreevy, or words to that effect. His political party was elected to government soon after and McCreevy was made Minister for Finance. People heard no further criticisms from him of the euro. 3. THE EURO WILL MAKE PEOPLE STRANGERS IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY. ONE OF ITS OBJECTIVES IS TO MAKE THEM FEEL MEMBERS INSTEAD OF A NEW COUNTRY CALLED "EUROPE." This political purpose is probably more important than the economic. "We need this united Europe. . .We must never forget that the euro is an instrument of this project," said Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez on the eve of the locking the eurozone exchange together in 1998. "The two pillars of the Nation State are the sword and the currency,and we changed that," said EU Commission President Romano Prodi. Having got its own currency with the euro, the EU is now pushing ahead with its own army, the 60,000-man "Rapid Reaction Force," which Ireland's politicians have also signed us up for. And at Laeken recently they decided in effect to move towards an EU Constitution and quasi-Federal EU Government. 4. ALL INDEPENDENT STATES HAVE CURRENCIES OF THEIR OWN AND ALL CURRENCIES BELONG TO INDEPENDENT STATES. By acquiring its own currency the EU takes a giant step towards becoming a superpower or quasi-Superstate, under the direction of an inner group of EU Members led by Germany and France. These Big States want this directorate formally recognised in the "two-club- EU" provisions of the Treaty of Nice, which Irish voters refused to ratify in their June 2001 referendum. At the same time, within the eurozone formerly independent States like Ireland become like economic provinces, with no control any longer over the rate of interest, credit or currency exchange rate appropriate to their economic circumstances. 5. THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND DOES TWO-THIRDS OF ITS TRADE OUTSIDE THE EUROZONE. The average for the other 11 continental eurozone countries is some 15%. Basically Ireland does one-third of its trade with the eurozone, one-third with the UK, and one-third with the USA and the rest of the world. We get 75% of our imports from outside the eurozone and send 60% of our exports to countries outside it. The USA and Britain, both outside the eurozone, are the Republic's two biggest and strongest markets, whereas the continental eurozone market has stagnated for years. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Mary Harney was telling the truth when she said that, in trade terms, Dublin is closer to Boston than Berlin. But she did not act on what she said. By signing us up for the eurozone the politicians of the main Irish political parties, Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, the PDs and Labour have decided to tie the Republic's currency, in principle for all future time, with countries with which it does only one-third of its trade. Meanwhile the countries with which we do the remaining two-thirds retain the freedom to pursue their own exchange rate and interest rate policies and to use these essential policy instruments of any sovereign government to boost their economic competitiveness if necessary, powers that Ireland's politicians have blithely abandoned. 6. THE EURO ERODES THE BASIS OF THE "CELTIC TIGER" ECONOMY. The intelligent use of an independent currency is the principal single reason for the Irish economic boom, which has attracted international attention in recent years. The key question regarding the "Celtic Tiger" is why did the Republic's annual rate of economic growth, which averaged 3-4% a year during the 1970s and 1980s, double to 7-8% in 1993-4� and remain doubled since? The principal reason is that the years 1993-99 were the only period in the history of the Irish State that it pursued an independent currency policy and allowed the exchange rate to float, following our 1993 devaluation. The Irish economy took off on the back of the resulting highly competitive exchange rate. The p�nt depreciated in value from 110 pence sterling in January 1993 to 79 pence sterling today. It devalued heavily also against the dollar. This boosted exports to the US and UK, our two principal markets, and reduced competitive imports from these countries. In the light of that it is folly for Ireland's uncritically europhile politicians to agree to abandon our independent national currency and hand over control of our exchange rate, in principle for ever, to the European Central Bank in Frankfort. The unexpected weakness of the euro vis-�-vis the dollar since the Republic joined the eurozone in 1999 has added to Irish competitiveness in that time; but that will not last. From now on it is the EU, not the Irish Government or Irish Central Bank, which will decide Ireland's exchange rate - naturally in the interest primarily of Germany and France, which contain half the eurozone's population, rather than Ireland, which has only 1%. 7. THE 1992 MAASTRICHT TREATY REFERENDUM, IN WHICH THE PEOPLE GAVE PERMISSION FOR THE REPUBLIC TO JOIN THE EURO, WAS PUSHED THROUGH BY UNCONSTITUTIONAL MEANS, as the Irish Supreme Court later decided. The Government spent huge sums of public money on one-sided advertisments advocating a Yes vote. One of them actually read: "A NO Vote disempowers women" ! Most of the public debate was on the abortion protocol rather than the abolition of the national currency. The people were deceived by an utterly false prospectus, put before them by the leaders of the Republic's principal political parties, Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Progressive Democrat and Labour. 8. THE EURO GIVES A NEW DIMENSION TO THE NORTH-SOUTH IRISH BORDER. >From now on any Irish nationalist advocating a united Ireland is saying in effect that they want the people of Belfast and Northern Ireland to put themselves under the economic rule of the European Central Bank. It is already clear that the Big EU States will make a big push inside the eurozone to harmonize indirect taxes and public spending policies for smaller States like Ireland. That is likely to add further new economic dimensions to the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. 9. THE SHORT-TERM COSTS OF INTRODUCING THE EURO ARE SIGNIFICANT� Personal inconvenience as people have to learn a whole new scale of money values for goods, services and property� Harassed shopping staff during the two-month changeover�Consumer rip-offs as retailers round prices upward instead of downward�Cash dispensing machines, taxi-meters etc. having to be altered at a cost of millions�All costs that will inevitably be passed on to consumers. 10.THE ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES OF BEING ABLE TO TRAVEL WITHIN THE EUROZONE WITHOUT HAVING TO CHANGE CURRENCY, AND BEING ABLE TO COMPARE PRICES MORE EASILY BETWEEN EUROZONE COUNTRIES, ARE SMALL COMPARED TO THE ECONOMIC DISADVANTAGES. People may be on holiday in other eurozone countries for 2/3 weeks a year,but they could be working for the remaining 48/49 in an economy that is burdened by an unsuitable exchange rate, with consequent uncompetitiveness, unemployment, inflation or low economic growth. That was very much Ireland's 19th century experience, when it shared a single currency with Britain as part of the United Kingdom, then the "workshop of the world," while Ireland, apart from its North-East corner, was reduced to an agricultural backwater. 11.THE RIGIDITY OF ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL INTEREST RATES INSIDE THE EUROZONE DOES NOT SUIT IRELAND OR OTHER SMALL ECONOMIES It makes no economic sense to have the same money, and hence the same interest rate and exchange rate, for the economies of 12 eurozone countries, some of which are significantly different from others. Thus Germany, the largest EU country, is now in recession and has 4 million unemployed. Germany needs low interest rates to encourage investment and consumption and stimulate its economy. Ireland has had an 8-year boom. We need higher interest rates to prevent inflation and bring down house prices. But ECB interest rate policy is geared to what suits Germany, not Ireland. The result is that at present we have unsuitably lower interest rates than we would have if we had kept the Irish pound and the Irish Central Bank were still able to give priority to the needs and circumstances of the Irish economy. Hence we see people in the Irish Republic borrowing as if there were no tomorrow, massive credit expansion, interest rates since 1999 that have pushed soaring house prices higher still, an Irish inflation rate that is nearly treble the EU average and positive disincentives to savers and saving. Yet at any one time savers and pensioners, who want higher interest rates, outnumber borrowers, who want lower ones. In a few years time things may be reversed. Ireland may need looser credit, while Germany needtighter. But in the eurozone it will again be Franco-German interests, not Ireland's, that will determine ECB interest-rate policy. 12. THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK, WHICH DECIDES INTEREST RATES IN THE EUROZONE, IS NOT SUBJECT TO ANY DEMOCRATIC CONTROL. Article 107 of the Maastricht Treaty states that the ECB shall not seek or take instructions from any national Government or from any European institution. By signing us up to the euro our politicians have put us under the economic control of a group of independent, irremoveable, non-elected central bankers in Frankfort for the indefinite future. 13. THE MAASTRICHT TREATY REQUIRES THE ECB TO FOLLOW AN INTEREST RATE POLICY THAT HAS AN INHERENTLY DEFLATIONARY, ANTI-EXPANSIONARY ECONOMIC BIAS. It is pointless to criticise the ECB for this. The euro-bankers are only carrying out their Treaty obligations by insisting on it. Their sole duty under the Maastricht Treaty is to keep inflation low in the eurozone overall. This inhibits economic expansion, discourages employment and makes the 12 countries of the eurozone a low-growth area compared to the USA. The Treaty does not require the ECB to adopt policies that would encourage economic growth, expansion of output and employment, or reduction of economic imbalances between different eurozone regions or countries. 14.ADOPTING THE EURO MEANS ABANDONING THE ECONOMIC "SAFETY-VALVES" OF AN INTEREST RATE AND EXCHANGE RATE POLICY THAT IS IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST. A national currency is essential for every independent democratic State because it enables its government to control or influence its rate of interest or exchange rate in a manner that can serve the interests of its own citizens. Article 45 of the Irish Constitution lays down as one of the key principles of good public policy: "That in what pertains to the control of credit the constant and predominant aim shall be the welfare of the people as a whole." This is now impossible with the euro, for control of credit in the Irish economy has been shifted from the Irish Central Bank to the ECB. The interest rate is the domestic price of a currency. The exchange rate is its price for citizens of other countries. The latter governs the terms on which a country exchanges goods and services with its trading partners. By altering its currency exchange rate a country can affect the competitiveness of its trade with others. If a country has an unsuitable exchange rate for a long period, as Ireland had in the 19th century, it can suffer a permanent competitive disadvantage, resulting in low growth, unemployment and emigration. Without the safety valve of either the interest rate or the exchange rate, national economies are also more vulnerable to economic shocks that may affect them more than others, such as an energy crisis. Or different countries may require significantly different interest rates because they have housing systems reliant to varying degrees on variable rather than fixed-interest mortages, or retirement pension systems more reliant on funded than unfunded pension schemes. . .Ireland for example. 15. MEMBERSHIP OF THE EUROZONE REQUIRES FLEXIBILITY IN WAGES, MIGRATION OR EMPLOYMENT, IF NATIONAL POLICY FLEXIBILITY AS REGARDS INTEREST RATES AND EXCHANGE RATES IS RULED OUT. . . AND IRISH PEOPLE ARE NOT PREPARED FOR THAT. With the safety valves of interest rate and exchange rate changes abandoned, the only economic policy flexibility still left to governments in the eurozone is their ability to vary taxes and public spending. The Stability and Growth Pact which accompanied the Maastricht Treaty seeks to limit this as well. This Pact licenses the EU to impose heavy fines on eurozone States that run budget deficits greater than 3% of their GDPs. Such deficits may be the only way to counter an economic recession like the present one, which calls for higher public spending at a time of falling tax revenue for governments. The EU's clearly stated ambition to obtain the power to "harmonise" national taxes inside the eurozone, if successful, would eliminate the ability of national governments to adopt virtually any independent measure to advance their people's economic welfare. With policy flexibility hugely reduced for eurozone member governments, the only response possible for people in an economic recession would be flexibility through wage-cuts and profit-cuts, or else workers and businesses having to choose between unemployment at home or migration of labour and capital abroad, as they move from poorer to richer countries or regions inside the eurozone. 16.WHY THE EURO WILL NOT LAST. . .THE PROBLEM OF THE EUROZONE BEING A MONETARY, NOT A FISCAL, UNION, AND THE ABSENCE OF THE NECESSARY SOLIDARITY TO UNDERPIN THE LATTER "There is no example in history of a lasting monetary union that was not linked with one State," said Otmar Issing, German governor of the European Central Bank. History is full of examples of abandoned currency unions. Where now is the Austro-Hungarian taler, the USSR rouble, the Czechoslovak crown, the Yugoslav dinar? Yet these currencies belonged to real States, multinational political unions that were also fiscal unions, bound together by common taxes and services, which is something the EU is not and never can be. All sovereign States are fiscal as well as monetary unions. They have common taxes and public services throughout their territories, which means that their poorer areas and regions pay on average lower taxes and receive more public services than their richer areas and regions. These expressions of national solidarity mean that resource transfers from richer regions within a country compensate poorer regions to some extent for the drawback of their not having their own currency, interest rate and exchange rate with which to balance their payments with the rest of the national economy. Despite this poorer areas suffer from migration of capital and labour to richer areas, but less than would happen in the absence of these national transfers. There is no such solidarity at EU level, however, whereby richer EU countries are willing to compensate poorer ones for loss of key economic powers. Of course some international solidarities exist between EU members, but nothing that compares to the solidarity which binds national states together and makes their citizens willing to pay taxes to a common government because it is THEIR government, with the authority and legitimacy deriving from that. EU monetary union is not a fiscal union. Taxes and public spending are overwhelmingly national in the EU, and likely to remain so. Brussels funds amount to a mere 1.3% of the EU's annual gross product, whereas national taxes and spending typically amount to 35% or more of national products. There is thus no realistic likelihood of the richer EU countries being willing to pay vastly greater sums to Brussels in the name of a common "Europeanism," to compensate the poorer EU countries for surrendering their ability to use exchange rate and interest rate policy to balance their national payments. The only way countries threatened with such imbalance can do this inside the eurozone is by accepting lower wages and interest rates compared to their competitors, or, if people are not prepared to do that, remaining unemployed at home or emigrating abroad. The EU does not have the solidarity that marks a nation or people. There is no EU "demos," no EU national community with which citizens identify and for which in some circumstances they are willing to die. Rather there are the EU's many nations and peoples. This is the fundamental reason why the single currency is bound to generate tensions and antagonisms between different EU countries in the eurozone, as the common interest and exchange rates that suit some do not suit others, and people gradually realise that their governments have surrendered key policy instruments for advancing the national welfare. For this reason the euro project is doomed to fail, although it could last years or even decades as the rouble and thaler did, while generating policy conflicts and significant international tension while it does last. The euro is likely to make the national question, the right of nations and peoples to self-rule and self-determination, the principal issue of EU politics for years to come. This will happen as countries which in the past ran empires and which through them suppressed the national independence of others, discover the drawbacks of being ruled by foreigners, that is, by people they do not elect and who are not responsible to them. 17. WILL THE EURO COUNTER GLOBALISATION? The euro is a key instrument for eroding national defences against the dangerous effects of economic globalisation, which transmit downturns in some major economies rapidly to others. Free movement of capital is the locomotive of globalisation. Article 56 of the EC Treaty forbids all restrictions on the movement of capital either within the EU or between the EU and the rest of the world. The Maastricht Treaty is a constitution for undemocratic rule by Central Bankers. It is a freedom charter for private capital, whereas progressive movements have always sought to impose rules and social controls on capital, to tame "the furies of private interest" through the only instrument that history has evolved for that purpose, namely independent national States that are responsive to democratic electorates. 18. IS THE EURO A PEACE PROJECT, AIMED AT ENDING CONFLICT IN EUROPE? There is no such evidence. A common currency is no guarantee of national cohesion or peace. The USSR and Yugoslavia broke apart, despite having common currencies in the rouble and the dinar. There are still conflicts in Chechnya, Kosovo, Macedonia. When Czechoslovakia divided, a common currency was kept for some time, but it did not work and two currencies were instituted for the Czech and Slovak Republics. In 1999, the year the euro was established, there were 25 wars waging in the world, 24 of them in countries with a common currency. Between 1989 and 1999 there were 108 armed conflicts in the world, 101 of them within States that had a common currency. Three-quarters of these conflicts took place within democratic States or States with democratic forms, like India (Kashmir),Algeria(Islamic guerillas), Morocco(Western Sahara), the UK(Northern Ireland), Spain(the Basque country), Turkey(Kurdistan). The euro will bring permanent peace to Europe, say the eurofanatics. Have they ever heard of civil wars? 19. WILL CURRENCY SPECULATION DECREASE WITH A BIG CURRENCY LIKE THE EURO? There are numerous examples where big currencies like the dollar, the pound sterling, the yen and the deutschemark have fluctuated markedly within short periods of time in response to supply and demand for them. If currency exchange rates are fixed for political reasons - which is virtually always the motive for doing this - then the real economy of people engaged in making and exchanging things must fluctuate to fit in with the exchange rate, rather than the exchange rate fluctuating to accommodate the real economy. Globalisation does not eliminate small currencies. The number of new currencies increases all the time as new States come into being. The number of States in the world has trebled from some 60 in 1945 to around 200 now. So has the number of currencies. The number of States - and currencies - in Europe went from 34 in 1989 to 50 ten years later. There is no relation between the size of a State or its population and the strength of its currency, its economic prosperity or level of income per head. Some of the smallest countries in the world are the richest - e.g. Norway, Switzerland, Singapore - and some of the biggest are the poorest. This matter has nothing to do with size of currency. ____________ AND A PUZZLE? . . . WHY DO NATIONAL POLITICIANS WELCOME THE CONTINUAL SHIFT OF GOVERNMENTAL POWER FROM THE NATIONAL TO THE SUPRANATIONAL EU LEVEL,AS EXEMPLIFIED BY THE EURO? This question is a continual puzzle regarding the development of the EU. The most plausible answer seems to be that at national level Ministers and national politicians can get something done only if they obtain the backing of their national Prime Ministers and Ministers of Finance and, above all, of a majority of elected representatives in their national parliaments. That parliament in turn must be supported by a majority of its country's citizens. At national level Ministers are not legislators, but executives dependent on a parliamentary majority. On the EU Council of Ministers however, national Ministers themselves become the legislators - for 350 million "Europeans." They spend their time issuing a continual stream of laws and edicts with which to govern the latter. The more policy areas national parliaments surrender their powers of veto over, the more things are shifted to decision by majority vote on the EU Council of Ministers, the more legislative power accrues to the Ministers acting there. This means a huge increase in the personal power of the individuals concerned, even if it is power operative at EU rather than national level. On the EU Council of Ministers they are on first-name terms with their fellow Ministers from the other EU States, arranging continual legislative package deals behind closed doors. For Bertie, Brian, Gerhardt, Jacques, Tony and the rest, it is powerfully seductive, even if it means a reduction in the power of their national parliaments and peoples, and a continual erosion of national democracy. This process is fundamental to understanding the appeal of EU supranationalism to national political elites, especially in smaller countries. Of course it results in the growing gulf between those elites and ordinary citizens in all the EU countries, something exemplified whenever citizens themselves get a chance of voting in EU referendums, as in Denmark and Ireland. It is at the root of the EU's irremediable crisis of legitimacy, authority and democracy. ____________________________________________________ AND SOME QUOTATIONS: WHAT EU LEADERS SAY THE REAL PURPOSE OF THE EURO IS (The quotations below are in chronological order backwards) "The currency union will fall apart if we don't follow through with the consequences of such a union. I am convinced we will need a common tax system." - German Finance Minister Hans Eichel, The Sunday Times, 23-12-2001 ________ "Thanks to the euro, our pockets will soon hold solid evidence of a European identity. We need to build on this, and make the euro more than a currency and Europe more than a territory . . . In the next six months, we will talk a lot about political union, and rightly so. Political union is inseparable from economic union." - French Finance Minister Laurent Fabius, Financial Times, 24 July 2000 _________ "We already have a Federation. The 11 - soon to be 12 - member States adopting the euro have already given up part of their sovereignty, monetary sovereignty, and formed a monetary union, and that is the first step towards a Federation." - German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Financial Times, 7 July 2000 _________ "We must now face the difficult task of moving towards a single economy, a single political entity . . . For the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire we have the opportunity to unite Europe." - EU Commission President Romano Prodi, European Parliament,13 October 1999 __________ "The euro was not just a bankers' decision or a technical decision. It was a decision which completely changed the nature of the nation states. The pillars of the nation state are the sword and the currency, and we changed that. The euro decision changed the concept of the nation state and we have to go beyond that." - EU Commission President Romano Prodi, Financial Times, 9 April 1999 __________ "The introduction of the euro is probably the most important integrating step since the beginning of the unification process. It is certain that the times of individual national efforts regarding employment policies, social and tax policies are definitely over. This will require to finally bury some erroneous ideas of national sovereignty. . . I am convinced our standing in the world regarding foreign trade and international finance policies will sooner or later force a Common Foreign and Security Policy worthy of its name. . . National sovereignty in foreign and security policy will soon prove itself to be a product of the imagination." - German Chancellor Gerhard Schr�der, The Hague, 19 Jan.1999 ___________ "The euro is far more than a medium of exchange. . .It is part of the identity of a people. It reflects what they have in common now and in the future." - European Central Bank Governor Wim Duisenberg, 31 December 1998 ___________ "Our future begins on January 1 1999. The euro is Europe's key to the 21st century. The era of solo national fiscal and economic policy is over." - German Chancellor Gerhard Schr�der, 31 December 1998 ___________ "The euro is a sickly premature infant, the result of an over-hasty monetary union." - German Opposition leader Gerhard Schr�der, March 1998 ___________ "The single currency is the greatest abandonment of sovereignty since the foundation of the European Community . . . It is a decision of an essentially political character. . . We need this united Europe . . .We must never forget that the euro is an instrument for this project." - Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, May 1998 ____________ "Federalism might make eurosceptics laugh but, with the creation of the euro, the halfway stage would be reached. Four key organisms would have a federal or quasi-federal status: the Central Bank, the Court of Justice, the Commission and the Parliament. Only one institution is missing: a federal government." - M.Jacques Lang, Foreign Affairs Spokesman, French National Assembly, The Guardian, 22 July 1997 __________ "I am very unhappy with the current level of debate about whether we should join the EMU without Britain. My own view is that we should be very careful about joining any monetary regime where the fundamental currency is over-valued in relation to the rest of the world - particularly the US - because the mantra of the future will be, in a sense, measured competitive devaluation. . . No Chancellor of the Exchequer or Minister for Finance anywhere in the world will admit this, but competitive devaluations are facts that apply to any business. It is impossible to sell your product, unless utterly unique, if you manufacture it in a high cost economy; and the record of unemployment in both France and Germany should give us cause for reflection. We can take great pride in our achievements to date, but that should not be the determinant of whether it is in the long term interests of this country to give control of our currency, with the consequent loss of sovereignty, into others' hands...' - Dr A.J.F. O'Reilly, Irish Independent, 17 January 1997 _____________ "In Maastricht we laid the foundation-stone for the completion of the European Union. The European Union Treaty introduces a new and decisive stage in the process of European union, which within a few years will lead to the creation of what the founding fathers dreamed of after the last war: the United States of Europe." - German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, April 1992 ___________ "There is no example in history of a lasting monetary union that was not linked to one State." - 0tmar Issing, Chief Economist, German Bundesbank, 1991 ___________ "A European currency will lead to member-nations transferring their sovereignty over financial and wage policies as well as in monetary affairs. . . It is an illusion to think that States can hold on to their autonomy over taxation policies." - Bundesbank President Hans Tietmeyer, 1991 ___________ "The fusion (of economic functions) would compel nations to fuse their sovereignty into that of a single European State." - Jean Monnet, founder of the European Movement, 3 April 1952 ___________ "I have always found the word 'Europe' on the lips of those who wanted something from others which they dared not demand in their own names." - German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, 1880 ********************************************************************* Disseminated for public information by The National Platform, 24 Crawford Ave., Dublin 9, Ireland . . Tel.: +353-1-8305792; . . . Web-site: <www.nationalplatform.org> 31/12/2001
