Wednesday 14 December 2011

For what we are about to receive......

Once again courtesy of The Albion Alliance Presents comes news of some words by Staffan Nilsson, President of the EESC:
"After the last European Council of 8 and 9 December, the heads of state or government went home to talk to their parliaments. David Cameron told the British House of Commons that he had gone to Brussels with only one intention i.e. "to defend our own interests." But where, I wonder, were our common interests? Where was the European interest, where were the European objectives, the drive to find solutions to overcome the crisis together? The Swedish prime minister will also take the matter to the Swedish parliament, but he was at a loss to know how to proceed. Last week's Council talks and decisions and the national debates that followed have revealed a number of fears that appear to be underpinning the approach of certain Member States to EU governance. What are we actually afraid of losing by saving Europe...? (14/12/2011)
"Europe will be forged in crises and it will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises"Jean Monnet, Memoirs, 1976
In order to resolve this crisis, avert prolonged recession and create the conditions for growth and employment, more Europe is necessary, not less: more Europe to ensure fiscal responsibility and integration, more Europe for the mutualisation of sovereign risk, the restoration of long-term solvency and the leveraging of EU-wide investment in growth, competitiveness and jobs. All this requires strong leadership from the European Commission and the reassertion of the Community method. The Commission must exercise its right of initiative and make proposals commensurate with the dimension that the crisis has taken, in place of failed ad-hoc intergovernmental palliatives.

More Europe, a new Europe will require a fundamental pooling of resources and sharing of responsibilities. It is preferable to a situation in which individual national governments are no longer able to survive the pressures of their creditors and private rating agencies. A quantum leap in European integration is necessary, not only to create debt instruments and a growth model that investors can believe in, but also -and essentially - in order to reassert democratic governance. The institutional framework for this new Europe must therefore ensure proper representative and participatory forms of accountability towards the citizen. The European Economic and Social Committee has an active role to play in this framework, both as a bridge to civil society and as a proponent of innovation and change." (07/12/2011
As I said: for what we are about to receive...........may the good Lord not make us truly thankful!

2 comments:

john in cheshire said...

WfW, am I correct in concluding that on the basis of your posting, the EU will prolong the current turmoil until the hoi poloi have been essentially forced to accept the EU elite's solution because the pain is too much to bear? If so, then we need leaders who can teach us as a nation to bear the pain till the enemy is defeated.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

jic: To a certain extent, but also the EU will not rest until every member state is a subservient, dependent vassal region of their empire.

Ever closer union........?