Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart; The EU sees no reason to allow the Netherlands to change course, despite a resounding rejection of EU agriculture policies during recent elections.
BBB and VVD denounce ‘interference’ by Diederik Samsom, who advised the Netherlands to buy out farmers
The Netherlands has been advised by Diederik Samsom, who works for the European Commission, to oblige some of the farmers to be bought out because of the nitrogen crisis. Various parliamentarians want clarification about the ‘interference’ of the former PvdA leader. European Commissioner Frans Timmermans would then ‘like’ to talk to BBB leader Caroline van der Plas.
Interior editorial 22-03-23, 07:49 Last update: 3/22/23, 2:59 PM
The NOS and research platform Follow the Money revealed Samsom’s role after viewing documents. Caroline van der Plas (BBB), together with her colleagues from VVD and JA21, asks the minister for a response to this ‘strange interference’ by Diederik Samsom. “He’s not even an elected representative of the people,” she tweeted. PVV leader Geert Wilders is even more outspoken: ‘Unelected PvdA mastodon Diederik Samsom wants to tear the Netherlands down completely from the Brussels backrooms. How I long for a #nexit.’
Following the outrage, Commissioner Frans Timmermans is ‘pleasant’ to talk to BBB leader Caroline van der Plas about a solution to the nitrogen crisis. She is very welcome. I am very happy to receive it,” says the climate man of the European Commission. Timmermans is happy to explain the European rules to the BBB leader, he says. But he insists that the Netherlands must then make choices itself, for example whether farmers should be able to choose for themselves whether to be buy out or whether they can be forced to do so. That is not up to us.”
…
The European Commission is not concerned with how a country achieves its nitrogen targets, but it can advise on this. Samsom seems to have done the same in that conversation. He pointed out, among other things, that the European Commission is ‘quite strict’ when assessing whether voluntary buyout schemes are not prohibited state aid. One is now awaiting approval in Brussels. But with a mandatory buyout, the Commission is less strict, said Samsom. As a result, the Netherlands can offer higher amounts in a mandatory scheme or more favorable conditions for farmers to stop. According to Samsom, there is little room for delay or flexibility at the European Commission.
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Read more: https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/bbb-en-vvd-hekelen-bemoeienis-van-diederik-samsom-die-nederland-adviseerde-boeren-verplicht-uit-te-kopen~a56bc5f0/
What a racket. The EU demands unreasonable cuts to nitrate fertiliser use, to satisfy their ivory tower environmental and climate rules, with threats of severe financial punishments for nations which don’t comply.
When angry voters kick out the politicians attempting to impose these unpopular cuts, the EU claims their hands are clean, because it was the elected politicians who made the actual choices which led to the populist backlash. But the EU are still there in the background, demanding cuts which cannot be satisfied except by elected politicians passing unpopular measures.
Have elected Netherlands politicians been reduced to expendable scapegoats, puppets dancing to the bidding of unelected EU bureaucrats? No matter which politicians are elected, they quickly get a visit from the EU, the real leadership, and receive a long list of demands, attached to severe penalties for non-compliance.
I hope the BoerBurgerBeweging / Farmer-Citizen Movement has the balls to call the EU’s bluff. This disgusting charade, this green EU tyranny, can only continue so long as it operates from the shadows. If the BBB calls the EU’s bluff, and forces the EU to show their hand, to openly start ordering Netherlands politicians to comply, the situation would rapidly become untenable. Because if you think the Netherlands would put up with that kind of open contempt and abuse towards their sovereign and their nation, being openly ordered around like the help, you don’t know many Dutch people.
Brexit! Just because the UK messed it up doesn’t mean Brexit was not right.
From what I’ve been reading, the ones who messed it up, didn’t want it in the first place.
Pretty much. Brexit wasn’t supposed to happen. We were supposed to narrowly vote remain and cement the authority of the EU in perpetuity, otherwise Cameron wouldn’t have called the referendum in the first place. Then we got a negotiation process that was handled entirely by remainers like May, whose first decision was to set unrealistic deadlines for every step of the process and create the least workable “solution” to every issue raised. It took 40 or more years to tangle us up in the web of EU law and regulations. It should have required years of negotiation to untangle us again.
Instead we got a rushed botch-job that appears deliberately designed to punish the population for their temerity, while giving a bunch of disaster-capitalists carte-blanc to demolish whatever is left of the nation’s institutions and sell off everything to the highest bidder.
The “Blob” aka the UK Civil Service is acting like Diederik Samsom aka the EU in this Netherlands situation. The Blob’s job now is to undermine Brexit at every opportunity and we know that if Lego hair Sir Kier Starmer gets back into Number 10 his friend, ex-blob Sue Grey will assist the process of returning to the EU’s Soviet style sphere of influence.
Well, many on the left in Britain (and that includes much of the leadership of the Conservative Party) would still be delighted to reverse Brexit. In line with this, the nightmare that the Dutch are having with the EU is getting almost no coverage at all in the British mainstream media. Can’t show anything negative about the EU, dear me no.
Don’t look at the man behind the screen.
No coverage that I have seen in Australia either.
Regards
Climate Heretic
No coverage? All you have to do is look. The ABC gave their usual full coverage of this kind of issue – a search on abc.net.au for (unquoted) ‘2023 netherlands election result’ gives the following hits:
That’s the full list (ignoring results that are not about the Netherlands). So the ABC did give it their usual level of coverage.
I do not go searching the ABC website. I do listen to the ABC news but I did not see anything about the Netherlands election and the farmers plight.
So no coverage on the ABC news that I have seen.
Regards
Climate Heretic
Whos saying its messed up ?
the usual remainers who highlight every little issue as though there werent much bigger problems inside the EU which previously made headlines
The Irish border is a classic one . The wording of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement barely mentions the border at all. And the free movement of people remains as before, one of the reasons the Irish stay outside of the EU freedom of movement across borders.
Remember too the 3rd party to The UK-Irish agreement was the US , not the EU even though both countries were members at the time.
Regarding the Dutch provincial elections, the BBB only won 20% of the total seats. Its nothing like a victory for their cause even though they are on the right track.
The larger metropolitan based provinces the seats won were more like 12-15%, the smaller rural ones in the low 30s. The government still appoints the provincial Kommissaris who is like a Governor
Not true. The BBB victory is historical. It is now by far the largest party. It is for the first time ever in The Netherlands’s history the biggest party in all 12 provinces.
But much more important is the fact that the Provinces choose the higher chamber. The place to reflect and block/allow new laws.
That is the real earthquake. The current extreme green-left terrorist coalition is hanging in the ropes and getting an 8 count. This government will hand in their notice pretty quickly now.
And not a moment too soon!!
We didnt mess it up. The EU and its myrmidons in the UK political establishment did.
The EU has behaved toward Britain precisely as Russia has behaved towards Ukriane.
Its weaponry is different, thats all.
We had the strongest growth in the G7, now we have the weakest. We are still the only major economy to have not fully recovered from Covid, in terms of growth.
Boris bungled NI so badly we have had to go back to the EU, cap in hand, saying “Sorry, We are stupid. Can we please re-negotiate what we have already negotiated”. It is to the EU’s credit that they were willing to go round the loop again. We signed it. We claimed it was “oven ready”. We bungled Brexit.
We left all the science and education parnterships by our choice. But that wasn’t what Brexit was about. Academia doesn’t make our policies.
‘More Soylent Green!’ is right. We botched Brexit. But that doesn’t mean that Brexit had to be botched.
It was the execution, not the policy, that failed
Very true MCourtney!
Britain bungled Brexit because the establishment still wanted to be in the EU, so negotiated in bad faith to produce the current mess. Boris was as culpable as the rest of his dismal team, not only with Brexit, but also the general economy and especially Energy and Climate policy with the disastrous results of the Glasgow COP.
All of the major parties in the UK have been very stupid with Brexit and Climate, and have been pandering to the EU-UN dictates without any sensible cost-benefit analysis of where their policies were leading to. Does Britain still really want to be dictated to by EU bureaucrats about anything and everything? Isn’t that really why they left?
Whereas with the crazy climate policy of Net Zero, it has zero net benefits to the UK or the world in general, when are the compliant and complacent politicians going to wake up the economic and social mess they have created by their basic ignorance of climate science. Also, the way they have allowed so called ‘experts’ define what one should believe re Covid, vaccines, human caused climate change, and renewable energy. The worst of it is calling CO2 carbon pollution, when it is the foodstuff of all plant life, and therefore human diet. This is clearly anti-science propaganda dressed up as post-modern socialist garbage, or verbal pollution if you prefer. The whole lot stinks to high heaven!
Search “Tristate City Netherlands” to gain an understanding of how the use of “climate change” laws against farmers is being used in the long term for real estate development…..
Commenting from the other side of the world,this is a mess that was always going to happen .
The EU was set up to become a power house to balance the USA and Asian block countries but the underlying details were faulty .
European Commission are not elected but appointed so democracy has gone out the window .
Whether you like it or not this was always the plan just the same as the UN ,appointed members from governments around the world .
Agricultural protection is a major policy in the EU but now the bureaucrats have swallowed the global warming story so they are now attacking their farmers because they believe that nitrous oxide and methane are powerful green house gasses .
When a country or a group of countries allow unelected bureaucrats to take charge this farcical outcome is inevitable .
No, the EU was conceived after the First World War as a way of preventing another European war that might escalate globally. When it came to implementing it after the Second World War, the reasoning behind it was already dead as with the creation of NATO to confront the Soviet Union and Warpact there was no chance of one country – historically Germany – of starting a major war with another. In a nutshell it was a solution to a problem that no longer existed and in time has created its own problems due to it spreading like cancer through the member countries.
There is some truth in what you say Gezza, however, the UN helped the process of EU formation because it wanted a trial run of uniting the western democracies in a supranational state or government. So, this was a convenient method to see what works, and what diverse peoples will accept, and they will accept a lot if they believe the end is worth it or they are being saved from some disaster, real or confected like the climate ’emergency’.
Now the UN is using this fake emergency to corral democracies into giving them global power, by declaring fossil fuels as dangerous, though they are the very means together with nuclear power to further global prosperity.
Thus, Brexit is the thin end of the wedge that could disrupt both the UN’s and the EU’s power games, no more countries will be allowed to leave “hotel California”. So, go the Dutch, show them how it’s done properly.
Please do not underestimate the effect of mass immigration into Holland in recent decades – will they or have they voted for BBB? We know some Dutch folk who are 100% behind Rutte some of who are fiercely anti immigration – its complicated.
It’s been a long time since I visited Netherlands, I hope you’re wrong.
Most immigrants are from backwater countries, uneducated, analfabetics. They don’t vote.
Some of them are told by their Imam to vote a certain party. But still that does not amount to much.
The immigrants claim asylum and through willful ignorance of the overtly left-liberal civil servants are giving entry to the already most crowded country in the world.
Since this scam began it has already costed the taxpayer over 400 billion euro’s.
What they need is a good banking crisis to wake them up. That’s in addition to a land war in Europe.
Indeed – it does have a fiddling while Rome burns feel to it. I suspect the wakeup will come when the USA cuts off funding for Ukraine.
The USA would be extremely ill advised to abandon Ukraine. Europe under the EU would quickly become blatantly totalitarian and anti USA under Russias influence.
The USA is a failing country. One of its political parties is already cravenly cowering from the dictatorships of Russia and China.
The Democrats will wet themselves soon, too.
The EU and the UK should not look to the USA for help. It’s already surrendering.
We ought to look to working with the Commonwealth and the rising countries of the world.
Trump is going to give his first speech of the 2024 presidential campaign tonight in Waco, Texas.
Trump leads all Republican opponents by a substantial margin, and polls show in a vote today between Biden and Trump, that Trump wins.
So tune in to the next leader of the United States tonight and see if he thinks it is a failing country.
Joe Biden and the radical Democrats are the failures.
The US isn’t the only country that doesn’t know where its heading given the lack of quality politicians and obstructive media. The world needs better leaders than egomaniac Trump and spineless Biden, surely after the confrontation policies over the past 10 years, the US can produce a statesman who has the interest of democracy at heart, not sleazy business as usual, or woke socialist democrats.
Regarding Ukraine, the US needs to be engaged there to help flawed democracy win the battle with tolerationism represented by the billionaire mafia run Russia backed by communist China.
The rising countries of the world are China and Russia, as well as India, Iran, Syria… you know, everyone not participating in Energiewende and World War Trans.
The Trotskyite Union cannot “work with” anyone, because it cannot “work” as anything other than a destructive occupation administration by now. Should USA stop looming over Europe, it will either implode in a pan-European civil war or explode in a chain reaction of local coups. Draining NATO strength for the latest proxy war is likely to wither whatever chances the Brussel could have to hold the whole thing together by force.
…as opposed to the paradise of freedom it is now. Them Trotskyists spout the funniest things. 😹
That won’t happen as long as the ‘funding’ comes back to line U.S. pols’ pockets.
not gonna happen- under any administration
Correct. Despite Pacifist Republicans. They are starting to remind me of Joe Biden, who runs away when the going gets tough. He would run away from Ukraine, too, if he thought he could get away with it, but he can’t, so he slow-walks support to Ukriane instead, hoping that will be appeasement enough.
You can’t appease a winning murderous dictator. If he is working his will, he will continue to do so. Appeasers don’t seem to understand this.
Do quivering Republicans think Putin will stop at Ukraine if he is victorious there? Will quivering Republicans cutoff funding and support to Poland when Putin attacks them? Where will quivering Republicans draw the line with a murderous dictator? Will quivering Repubicans draw any line at all, or just sit there and quiver in fear?
Tucker’s Pacifist Ukraine war stance should be rejected by freedom-loving people. He’s not doing his viewers any favors, and he’s not doing innocent Ukrainians any favors, either. He is distorting reality, although I think he really believes what he says. A lot of what he says would make Putin smile if he heard it.
I think Tucker is letting his fears of nuclear war overcome his logical reasoning.
“he slow-walks support to Ukraine”
There is a strategic logic to the slow walk. Imagine if we gave Ukraine everything they wanted right away- that just wouldn’t have worked out. So we slowly build them up with better weapons and training- though it’s a costly/painful process for Ukraine. If Russia didn’t have several thousand nuclear weapons I think NATO would have smashed Russia after Biden warned Putin not to do it. We are simply not going to allow Russia to get its empire back. The Ukrainians have been wanting out of that empire for a century or more- let’s not forget the Holodomor where Stalin tried to wipe them out.
When it all started I recall Secretary of Defense. Lloyd J. Austin III saying openly that our goal is to weaken Russia and wear them down over time- something like that- that’s why I’m sure the “slow walk” was planned- while waiting to see what sort of fighting spirit the Ukrainians have in order to not give them our best stuff and see them lose quickly.
This topic interests me- I spend more time following it than the climate lunacy. There are several excellent YouTube channels focused on it. Also, I’ve had an interest in that part of the world. In college I took a grad course in the history of the Russian Revolution- not because I had sympathy with Marxism or revolution- but because it was a hugely important part of history that influenced all of the 20th century.
My theory is that the war will continue until Putin is overthrown or dies or falls out a window. He’s not going to quit or back down despite Russian losses. He is determined to win back the empire and go down in history as Putin The Great. I suspect there are a few people here already calling him that. 🙂
On 5 June 1568 Horn and Egmont, the first leaders of what became the Durch revolt against Spanish rule, were beheaded in Brussels. This started the 80 years war for Dutch independence.
As the war continued it merged into the 30 Years War in Germany, and all the European powers became participants.
Finally, after Lens and Rocroi, the Spanish had to admit defeat and proposed peace to the Dutch, among the others.
The Dutch agreed, with the condition that the peace would be signed by the Spanish on the same day of the year, at the same hour of the day, and in the same place, where Horn and Egmont had been executed 80 years earlier.
The Spanish swallowed hard, and complied, and the war ended in 1648.
And I still love Egmont’s overature!!!
Nice government you’ve got there.
Be a shame if something was to happen to it.
The EU, the UN, the German government, etc etc –
what’s in the water over there in Europe that’s sucking the sense out peoples’ brains?
Not everyone drinking that water is contaminated 😀
Its called the EU. Remember it was evolved out of Europan communism.
Specifically, “United States of Europe” was yet another grand idea of Trotsky. But if you want to dig for the roots, that probably would be good old British Whiggery.
climate emergency poison
Climate emergency poison isn’t the cause of uni-party fascism. Climate emergency poison is just one of the fascist uni-party’s tactics.
What I never didn’t understand is the fact that the never elected EC a) exists and b) got the power it has.
Btw. most of these people in the EC are there, because no one would have them in their respective country in what ever parliament.
EC while directly appointed the members have to be approved by a vote of the Parliament.
Its like the US executive, appointed by the President but conformation by elected Senate.
Nevertheless not elected, furthermore, the people in EU parliamant aren’t the brightest chandels on the cake, the “better” ones are not deligated to the EU parliament elections in their respective countries.
That is not true. ‘approved’ merely means ‘not voted against by 100%’
Same as Senate , approved or not.
Its how everything works , laws are approved or not by a majority
“What I never didn’t understand” ???
“… What I never didn’t understand is the fact that the never elected EC a) exists and b) got the power it has. …”
The EU has power because it offers a well paid political afterlife to elected national parliament politicians, so long as they give their allegiance to the EU while serving in elected offices.
“nitrogen crisis.”
A new crisis every year. Bureaucrats are so ingenious.
This has got sweet FA to do with nitrogen, they want the farmers land.
Well, there’s also disarmament angle in this. Likewise, no gasoline — no Molotov cocktail.
Next thing we know it will be an oxygen crisis.
Followed by the fluorine crisis I suppose.
Wait, we already did that one. Algore’s great ozone hole hoax, test run for the CO2 Climate Crisis hoax.
The BBB, VVD and JA21 need to be informed from web sites like WUWT and others like it. What the EU and the WEF are really up to. If they are not informed then they will end up just like Sri Lanka’s fertilizer crisis. Oh yes, let the BBB, VVD and JA221 call the EU’s bluff. If the EU retaliates then NEXIT!!!!!
Regards
Climate Heretic
We know, the Dutch are able to fight as they did the last years, let them have a look to actual France where millions fill the the streets.
Isn’t this what’s happening in France too? And Belgium?
It’s what happens when the government throws off the shackles of the people and exists only for it’s own perpetuation.
When in the Course of governmental affairs, it becomes possible for the ruling class to ignore the regulatory constraints which have limited them to being equals in common the rest of society, and that they assume among the powers of the earth a separate higher station, outside of the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that their deeds should be declared & recorded, such that they cannot avoid the future acts which cause their head and bodies a just separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident ….
Some years ago I told my son that the EU would likely break up by 2050 if it did not thoroughly reform – which is unlikely. Now I think I was wrong and it may well happen much sooner.
The EC seems to be assuming more power than it was ever meant to have. Only more states quitting the EU, as the UK did, will stop this madness (and, even then, maybe not). If nitrogen is to be demonized, as CO2 has been, will someone tell these idiots just what proportion of the atmosphere nitrogen represents…
Actually we have a matter crisis. It’s not just carbon or nitrogen…all the elements have to go!
Is this the beginning of the end for the EU?
we can but hope so. The West and indeed Russia is run by a bunch of shadowy vicious paranoid and power hungry elites whose apparatchiks control the political and commercial narrative. Outliers like Trump and Brexit are rapidly suppressed demonized and crushed.
But the people are getting sick of it.
There is a war on, in Ukraine it is fought with tanks. in the USA and the rest of Europe it is being fought with money, corruption and personal blackmail.
We think we have freedom and democracy. We don’t. Just not outright political repression and murder. Yet.
Or do we? Dr Kelly died in strange circumstances after trying to explain Iraq had no WMD…
“The West and indeed Russia is run by a bunch of shadowy vicious paranoid and power hungry elites”
That’s the way the world has ALWAYS been run. It’s all about tribes run by thugs- though some are less thuggish than others.
No, certainly not. You have to remember why there is such a strong commitment to it from the political class in Europe. One is the memory of the lessons of WWII. Its a constant underlying unspoken memory, but it influences everything. Deeply buried under it and never spoken of, but there, is the sense that the EU is the only conceivable way to make a world with a united Germany safe, but there’s also the feeling that they cannot conceivably go back to the Europe of fully independent nation states in any case.
I remember seeing a performance of Gorecki’s Third Symphony, attended on some EU occasion by the EU dignitaries (including the UK PM of the time, David Cameron). There was no doubt why it had been included.
The second reason it will definitely survive this is because it is surprisingly adaptable. It finds its way through by fudge and compromise. So this kind of thing is alarming, perhaps, difficult, but will be fudged and got through somehow.
The thing that may at some point break it up is an external shock of the right nature and scale. But you have to ask yourself what will replace it in such a case. They are not going back to the Europe of nations, boundaries, independent currencies. They may not be able to get to their promised land of a United States of Europe. And if they do it will not be a conventional democracy. But simple abolition, even from a profound external shock, is most unlikely.
I think, paradoxically, that the most durable aspect of the EU is probably the most problematic, and that is the Euro. Its problematic because they went to a common currency without any of the institutions which may such things workable. But its durable because there is no way back to the Belgian Franc, French Franc, Guilder, Deutschmark, Lira. They will pay almost any price to keep it going. And they are probably right.
Time for “Nethxit”?
Good grief. The EU needs a muzzle and a kick in the rear. Please, please, NE, Nexit.
Let’s see: drive all the industry out of your nations, stifle energy production, and destroy the ability to produce food efficiently. And of course the leftist here in the US want to copy this model. Oh and while they are at it let anybody come across your border, don’t do any security check and give them all the taxpayers hard earned money. I was going to through in Geopolitical threat of war China Russia , but we are destroying ourselves perfectly as it is. China won’t have to fire a shot.
I just watched Joe Bidens pathetic gaff ridden speech in Canada , we are in big trouble with a dementia president and ding batis Harris as VP as world military tensions escalate.
I’d like to see the next presidential election fought by 2 middle aged white men.
oops- does that make me sexist and age-ist? guilty as charged!
At least Greta has some awareness of her own mental illness…………..
Having grown up in a family of Dutch immigrants I recognize the response of the Dutch to the EU direction.
People seem puzzled about the EU and the Commission.
Its origins were in the post WWII recognition that the Franco-German rivalry and consequent repeated European wars of the past had to be brought to an end. They had become increasingly destructive culminating in WWII.
An equal motivation was the recognition that even in 1950 it made no sense to have a different currency and customs posts every 100 miles (or less in some places). Before the EU you would drive from Northern France through Belgium, Holland, Germany, and that was four currencies and three customs posts. It made no economic sense.
So the EU started out as a free trade area. But it also attracted activists dreaming of a United States of Europe. And this too was fairly reasonable to some extent. If you are going to have a free trade zone and a common currency, you have to have some level of political management of it.
The difficulty that occurred during implementation of this, was that the driving EU members, France and Germany, both had similar concepts of national organization which are very different from the UK. Roughly in the Bismarck or French models you have an appointed civil service, a powerful executive, a parliament which mostly rubber stamps, tariff borders and a closed market, and lots of regulations which inhibit new entries. If you are Philips or Renault or VW, you like it a lot. If you are a French farmer or large food producer you also like it a lot. You have a tariff wall around you, and you have regulations which make it very expensive for new entrants to compete.
The Bismarck model has trade unions and considerable welfare, health and social care. But it also regards the working people as just another factor of production. So you get what seems to outsiders as the strange combination of considerable welfare states coupled with measures (the ‘four freedoms”) which are designed to make it easy for internal migration and competition for jobs to happen. And you get freedom of trade in goods and services, free movement of capital, but implemented in a way which protects the large existing players.
You then need the central body to police all these things, so you have to have some kind of central governing structure.
So this is how the single market came to be implemented as we see it today. But when it came to oversight, the difficulty was reconciling nation states and the central structure. The way the activists chose was probably the only one, and it was to get there by one small step at a time, by entering into new treaties. But all the time adhering to the Bismarck or Napoleonic mode.
And so we end up with a Parliament which cannot initiate legislation, which cannot even decide where to locate itself (it commutes in a special train between Brussels and Strasbourg). It is basically a rubber stamp and talking shop. Meanwhile the Commission, which is nominated by the member state governments, has great power. Of the same kind as Macron just exercised when he implemented national pension reform without a vote in the Assembly. It can and does to a large extent rule by decree on the increasing number of subjects over which it has authority.
There are two generally admitted problems with the EU at this stage. One is, its half way to being a federal state, and its going to have to go forward or back. It has a common currency with no central tax authority, no transfer payment mechanism. Look up Target 2 balances for an explanation. Its been postponing a crisis on this for decades.
It also has none of the federal structures it needs to be a United States of Europe. No Defence department, for instance. Means inadequate spending on defence and a useless, vacillating and indecisive response to the Ukraine crisis. But also huge powers for heads of state. Merkel, as a for instance, could unilaterally decide to admit some millions of immigrants. No State Governor in the US could do this, its a federal matter. Not in Europe. No proper federal budget either.
The second problem is that the key players in EU governance are not elected but nominated, and not answerable to any electorate. In the UK model, you vote a government in or out, ministers sit in Parliament, and at any point Parliament can throw out the government by vote of confidence. In the US model you have an elected President and powerful Congressional checks on powers. In the EU you have a Commission, whose members have been appointed not elected, and a toothless parliament – one in name only.
This leads to occasions like the present one, where the Commission and the EU political establishment gets completely out of touch with the voting population on some hobby horse. You can see another example of the same thing in France at the moment. When this happens, the only recourse of the voting population is to take to the streets. Which they do. Or leave. As the UK did.
Brussels at the moment seems to have fallen prey to the green sickness, and is way ahead of most of the member states, even further ahead of the population. And there is no real mechanism for resolving this. Now, the UK, even with its much more accountable system, still passed the idiotic Climate Change Act. But at least it could repeal that idiocy tomorrow if Parliament so decided, and if the voters created a Parliament which would do it.
I hope this helps. The EU is an odd mixture of the idealistic, the ineffective and the authoritarian. Its full of pretences to be things many of its people don’t want, and also full of real powers many of them don’t want it to have. Its very much a ramshackle muddle through and fudge entity. And it has relied over the years on the US defence umbrella to make this viable.
Where will it end? It will end up fudging the Dutch farm issue, and the German automobile issue. But will it survive to 2050? Don’t know. Its a clash between its unreformable imperfections and the blind deep commitment of its key members. Probably will survive, as long as external shocks are not too great. But if they get too great, it could collapse like a house of cards.
The way it was summarised in a way that stuck with me was as follows.
English (/ Anglo-Saxon) “Common Law” : The default is that people have “permission” to do anything that isn’t specifically prohibited.
Napoleonic “Code Civil” : The default is that people can only do things they have a specific “permit” (/ or “license”, from the appropriate government-appointed bureaucracy) for.
This basic attitude was lampooned in the Pink Panther films, e.g. Peter Sellers saying “Do you have a license to sell those balloons ?” in his inimitable “French” accent.
Many people who grew up under either system are probably unaware of it, or that there might be an alternative set of “default” reactions to “authority / experts”.
Best precis of the EU that I have seen, Michel.
I agree.
nice! I was a history major for a semester until I realized how complicated it is- now it’s a hobby. Great explanation.
German grid firms put a price on their proposed nut zero spaghetti and meatballs grid-
German power grid firms list costs to meet zero-carbon targets (msn.com)
and that’s just the spaghetti part.
At least- the Polish prime minister has warned the EU to not attempt to become domineering over the nations. A few years ago the EU was pushing Poland to stop burning coal. Good thing that nation didn’t submit.
This does not mean they are not going to be a part of that mess. Poland now is in another game. Holding the neck of EU, Baltic Pipe… opened on the same day Nordstream was so “mysteriously” blown up.
https://johnhelmer.org/the-bornholm-blow-up-repeats-the-bornholm-bash-poland-attacks-germany-and-blames-russia/
To anyone who hasn’t been in a coma since 1992 (the Maastricht treaty), the answer to that (rhetorical ?) question is an unequivocal “Yes”.
Let’s hope the Dutch are able to set an example the rest of the world can follow, but I fear that the general populace of the western world is so dumbed down that few actually really know what is going on, and those that do get drowned out. The US is now well on the way to total demise now that the Inflation Acceleration Act has passed and virtually every major company in the country is on the dole to receive all kinds of “green” subsidies, and once that train is in motion, it is very difficult to stop – just like Obamacare.
A quote often attributed, almost certainly incorrectly, to Benjamin Franklin is :
“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
You can substitute “major companies” for “the people” and the end result will be the same.
The sentiment probably comes from the following quote by Alexander Fraser Tytler :
There are differing opinions on exactly which part of that cycle the USA is currently in.
Sri Lanka Part 2
Imagine what would happen to any nation that surrenders it’s sovereignty to the UN?
The solution is obvious. Stop sending food to any EU facilities. Blockade their doors and parking facilities (they can have bike racks if they like), Strip every garment and personal possession from EU functionaries that depends on fossil fuels for manufacture. Ban them all from travel. Remove all their electronic devices (again due to dependence on fossil fuels). Remove all heating and air conditioning from EU buildings. Turn out the lights and shut down the elevators. Reason will emerge very quickly.
The Eurofascist Kleptocracy isn’t commonly referred as the Fourth Reich for nothing!
The Dutch have to make a choice. They need to tell Brussels to take a hike and let them know that there is a limit to Brussels influence. Deciding who can and can’t own a farm is not part of the deal. Deciding how the Dutch farm is also not part of the deal. They need to put a face to the low down mongrels making life hard for them. Individuals need to be personally held responsible for their mischief. Every where they go they need to be reminded that they are not dictators or gods. If that makes them feel uncomfortable well that’s just tough. You single out a few of these trouble makers and things will change. No more hiding behind bureaucracy.
I posted above, and it (sort of) applies to your comment as well, and I liked enough to post it again, so …
When in the Course of governmental affairs, it becomes possible for the ruling class to ignore the regulatory constraints which have limited them to being equals in common the rest of society, and that they assume among the powers of the earth a separate higher station, outside of the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that their deeds should be declared & recorded, such that they cannot avoid the future acts which cause their head and bodies a just separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident ….