WE’VE only been back for a fortnight and already the European Parliament are voting on issues that will have such a wide reaching affect, tempers are becoming frayed and cracks are appearing.
This month the Commission has presented to Parliament its position on financial regulation. Since 2008, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Commission has sought to regulate the financial sector and seize control of the Union’s economy.
The credit crunch and global recession has granted Brussels just the chance to swoop in and sweep up the debris of a global financial collapse and reassemble the broken pieces in the way that best suits them.
Whilst many members of the public have called for greater control of the banking sector, few would envisage an economic government stationed in Brussels. But that, is it seems, what they will have.
Three new regulatory bodies will be developed covering banks, insurance companies and securities firms, namely the European Banking Authority, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, and the European Securities and Markets Authority. Please stay with me, as this is all quite big stuff.
These bodies will have the power to intervene in the affairs of individual states and will become operational as of January next year. There is also a proposed financial transactions tax, which has sadly received enough backing to mean that British opposition is unlikely to be enough to stop it.
Similarly, finance ministers from the 27 member states have agreed to submit national budget plans to the European Commission for vetting. What this effectively means is Europe can raise taxes, oversee each member state’s spending, control the banks and basically, be in total charge of your money.
This of course will leave us entirely in the grip of a now federal union in all but name.
It is hard to see what, if anything, Westminster will be left to decide on come another decade with more and more powers landing at the commission’s doorstep.
London will be hit the hardest as the financial capital of Europe. The new measures are unlikely to prove an irresistible draw for global investors, forcing the biggest names in the sector to seek moving operations elsewhere.
Not only will this steal the jewel in the UK’s economic crown, but the whole world could suffer. If financial institutions move to countries where they face absolutely no regulation at all, the amount of risk they can take would be uncontrolled yet we would all still be subject to their reckless activity.
The recession has clearly given way to a power grab by Brussels, who are using what was a global situation to justify further European centralisation of control. But what we need is our own governance.
Of course there is a need to reconsider borrowing and lending practices in the wake of the global recession but Brussels are not the people to do it. We still have our own currency and should seek to establish independent trade links free from the shackles of the Eurozone. With more and more countries looking to join the EU what is certain is a levelling off of wealth that will help countries with poor economies and high unemployment, but at the expense of the UK.
The EU is constantly trying to increase its hand yet we have to prop up the ambitious accumulation of member states.
Our contributions to the EU are set to treble by 2015. That’s according to the Office for Budget Responsibility. The £3bn we paid in to Brussels in 2009 will be £8.2bn by 2015, despite many Government departments making cuts of 40 per cent.
Statistics covering April and June 2010 show that in the UK four out of every five people hired were foreign workers, half of those EU citizens.
Yet currently unemployment stands at 7.8% and is set to rise to over 10% in Wales over the coming years.
It’s been a period of financial turmoil across the globe, causing public opinion to shift dramatically from internationalism to nationalism. Aid to Pakistan has only crept in, reinforcing the notion that increasingly people are living by the motto charity starts at home.
Here in the UK it’s our rebate we must fight to protect. Due to the disproportionate amount we pay in compared to the tiny slither we receive via Common Agricultural Policy, the UK has been entitled to a rebate.
However Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski recently told a German newspaper the UK rebate was now no longer justifiable. Already it has been halved from 6 billion to 3 billion euros under Blair.
Without it, the UK contribution would double that of France and be one-and-a-half times the size of Germany, meaning we would pay by far the most of all 27 member states.
When will the Palace of Westminster be sold off for luxury London flats? At the same time the people of Mid Wales have to consult mortgage advisors in the Cayman Islands.