"People need to wake up to the fact that government – any government – is their enemy.
"It should be tolerated only because the alternative of not having one is worse. Furthermore, the one we have should be kept tightly restrained, lest it slip its leash and take over our lives."
Richard North of EU Referendum.EU Referendum: The authors of our own misfortunes
Showing posts with label EU Referendum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EU Referendum. Show all posts
Friday, November 23, 2007
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Campaign Against Scandalous Treatment of Prince Eric of Monaco
The blog has refrained from commenting on Prince Albert II of Monaco and the son he finally had the grace to acknowledge as his. This was mainly because everyone knows the Grimaldis have always shagged pretty much anything that moves, and this story seemed designed to take attention away from the Prince's rumoured homosexuality and taste for unconventional amours in advance of his coronation.
As a German paper commented, the Monagesque people had been "stinksauer" (well pissed off) about the homosexuality rumours, and were relieved dass ihr Fürst endlich seine Manneskraft unter Beweis gestellt hat (that their prince had finally proven his manliness). Well, quite. No use having a pooftah on the throne, is it?
In fact, some of the rumours swirling around the prince's head were too disgusting to bear repeating in a family blog. Not for nothing did the EU Commissioner for Goats, Markos Kyprianou, pay especial attention to Monaco when he kicked off his policy of testing 200,000 European goats.
But now that the Monagesque people have rewarded the prince by acclaiming him as their ruler, the blog feels suddenly guilty and uncomfortable about the matter. Looking at Nicole Coste and her remarkably intelligent looking infant, Eric Alexandre, it is clear that a grave injustice has been perpetrated.
For one thing, there was the ludicrous statement saying that young Eric Alexandre will not be allowed to use his father's surname. Normally speaking this would not matter in the slightest as the Grimaldis (the divine Princess Caroline apart) are a by-word across Europe for fast living and loose morals, and the surname is so tainted with their moral squalor that even fishwives in Monte Carlo unfortunate enough to bear the Grimaldi moniker usually prefer to change it to something more uplifting, like "Esens" or "Capone."
But the charming and attractive-looking Eric Alexandre is clearly a special case, and this petty-minded ruling (which is in any case a dead letter as any child is fully allowed to use his father's family name, should he want to), combined with the equally fatuous decision by Prince Rainier to disbar illegitimate children from the line of succession, has finally tipped the blog over the edge and into a determination to see that justice is done.
Shame on the Princes Rainier and Albert - themselves descendants, through the female line, of an earlier Grimaldi's illegitimate coupling with a dancing girl! How dare such hypocrites deprive Prince Eric of the inheritance that is rightfully his!
The Curse of Von Esens is hereby invoked on Prince Albert for his meanminded actions, and we vow not to rest until the crown is placed firmly on Prince Eric of Monaco's head, where it belongs, and the Coste family succeeds to the Grimaldis as rightful rulers in Monte Carlo.
Nicole Coste - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
As a German paper commented, the Monagesque people had been "stinksauer" (well pissed off) about the homosexuality rumours, and were relieved dass ihr Fürst endlich seine Manneskraft unter Beweis gestellt hat (that their prince had finally proven his manliness). Well, quite. No use having a pooftah on the throne, is it?
In fact, some of the rumours swirling around the prince's head were too disgusting to bear repeating in a family blog. Not for nothing did the EU Commissioner for Goats, Markos Kyprianou, pay especial attention to Monaco when he kicked off his policy of testing 200,000 European goats.
But now that the Monagesque people have rewarded the prince by acclaiming him as their ruler, the blog feels suddenly guilty and uncomfortable about the matter. Looking at Nicole Coste and her remarkably intelligent looking infant, Eric Alexandre, it is clear that a grave injustice has been perpetrated.
For one thing, there was the ludicrous statement saying that young Eric Alexandre will not be allowed to use his father's surname. Normally speaking this would not matter in the slightest as the Grimaldis (the divine Princess Caroline apart) are a by-word across Europe for fast living and loose morals, and the surname is so tainted with their moral squalor that even fishwives in Monte Carlo unfortunate enough to bear the Grimaldi moniker usually prefer to change it to something more uplifting, like "Esens" or "Capone."
But the charming and attractive-looking Eric Alexandre is clearly a special case, and this petty-minded ruling (which is in any case a dead letter as any child is fully allowed to use his father's family name, should he want to), combined with the equally fatuous decision by Prince Rainier to disbar illegitimate children from the line of succession, has finally tipped the blog over the edge and into a determination to see that justice is done.
Shame on the Princes Rainier and Albert - themselves descendants, through the female line, of an earlier Grimaldi's illegitimate coupling with a dancing girl! How dare such hypocrites deprive Prince Eric of the inheritance that is rightfully his!
The Curse of Von Esens is hereby invoked on Prince Albert for his meanminded actions, and we vow not to rest until the crown is placed firmly on Prince Eric of Monaco's head, where it belongs, and the Coste family succeeds to the Grimaldis as rightful rulers in Monte Carlo.
Nicole Coste - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Holland' s Nee and the Aftermath: EU Constitutional Process
Many folk are saying that today's Dutch Nee vote will kick the EU's draft constitutional document into touch, and soon kill off the treaty, whilst others are saying, with equal conviction, that the "ratification process" will continue.
The point is that the document will never be "ratified" as it stands - it would need to be ratified by each EU country, and, no matter how cynical one's view of the EU's politicians, such high-handed and open contempt of the vox populi is highly unlikely to appeal even to them.
The more likely outcome is that, after the so-called "period of reflection" which follows on a "period of rejection", the upcoming Council of Ministers will gather for a stormy summit meeting on June 16th (where the EU's budget will also be on the agenda), and call for a wide-ranging review of the whole constitutional process, vowing to "consult the people" and all the rest of it.
If they are brave, they will conduct this in a proper and professional way, rather than letting a bungler like Giscard d'Estaing, or some other faded politician, run the show. A proper review leading to recommendations could easily be set up, using marketing communications techniques used for new product development in the commercial sector.
The constitutional project is essentially an NPD project, one which has been catastrophically badly managed. Giscard d'Estaing and his team screwed up on the content of the document (too wide-ranging and badly written) as well as on the process of formulating it and getting it approved within the EU and the nation states. It has been a story of astounding ineptness, compounded by the disengaged and cloth-eared way the Commission has since communicated what it sees as the benefits of the draft document.
The complexity attendant on developing a new consitution for Europe is not really one of content, but of process. It is not so much the number of countries involved (commercial companies regularly launch new products on a European or global basis), nor the inherent complexity of constitutional matters - but far more because so many different institutions and governments are involved, all of which need to be integrated into the process, each of them adding a new layer of complexity. That is what makes the process less one of answering the question: "What would be the best constitution for Europe?" than: "How can we find a compromise which keeps everyone quiet?"
The key to producing a better constitutional document would be to allow citizens to evaluate different constitutional models, from loose trading federation to centralised state - as opposed to confronting them with a fait accompli, which has been the case this time around. This is relatively unproblematic in itself. It wouldn't require a referendum for each aspect of the constitution, as representative samples of voters would be quizzed in focus group discussions. In this way, a "big constitutional picture" could be built up.
Whether the Council of Ministers and the Commission are prepared to opt for such a process will be clearer after the June 16th meeting.
At the same time, because the current draft document contains so many discrete measures, it is entirely likely that attempts will be made to process key elements into law on a separate basis. This is understandable, as, in rejecting increased centrally-led integration, voters have been forced to reject a host of other measures too, some of which might well have been entirely unexceptionable to them.
The difficulty is that it is almost impossible to separate, say, a technocratic measure designed to "streamline" decision-making in an enlarged EU, from the concomitant erosion of national powers against which voters have voted. Attempts will nevertheless be made to do so.
The best advice one can give the Council and the Commissioners now, especially Margot Wallström, who has the communications brief, is that they should admit that their voters have, completely unexpectedly, transformed the whole political landscape in Europe, but that this represents a fundamental opportunity for the EU to reconnect with voters. The voters, in fact, created a golden chance to remodel the EU's systems and institutions better to reflect and express their political will.
The devil will be in the detail, of course, but if a strong democratic framework is set up, there would be everything to play for.
Guardian Unlimited Special reports EU braced for big no vote in Dutch referendum
Uodate: This post was overly optimistic. In the end the draft constitution, having been declared dead, simply came back under the guise of "the Lisbon Treaty" and will now become law. Thus will end the era of national democracies in Europe.
The point is that the document will never be "ratified" as it stands - it would need to be ratified by each EU country, and, no matter how cynical one's view of the EU's politicians, such high-handed and open contempt of the vox populi is highly unlikely to appeal even to them.
The more likely outcome is that, after the so-called "period of reflection" which follows on a "period of rejection", the upcoming Council of Ministers will gather for a stormy summit meeting on June 16th (where the EU's budget will also be on the agenda), and call for a wide-ranging review of the whole constitutional process, vowing to "consult the people" and all the rest of it.
If they are brave, they will conduct this in a proper and professional way, rather than letting a bungler like Giscard d'Estaing, or some other faded politician, run the show. A proper review leading to recommendations could easily be set up, using marketing communications techniques used for new product development in the commercial sector.
The constitutional project is essentially an NPD project, one which has been catastrophically badly managed. Giscard d'Estaing and his team screwed up on the content of the document (too wide-ranging and badly written) as well as on the process of formulating it and getting it approved within the EU and the nation states. It has been a story of astounding ineptness, compounded by the disengaged and cloth-eared way the Commission has since communicated what it sees as the benefits of the draft document.
The complexity attendant on developing a new consitution for Europe is not really one of content, but of process. It is not so much the number of countries involved (commercial companies regularly launch new products on a European or global basis), nor the inherent complexity of constitutional matters - but far more because so many different institutions and governments are involved, all of which need to be integrated into the process, each of them adding a new layer of complexity. That is what makes the process less one of answering the question: "What would be the best constitution for Europe?" than: "How can we find a compromise which keeps everyone quiet?"
The key to producing a better constitutional document would be to allow citizens to evaluate different constitutional models, from loose trading federation to centralised state - as opposed to confronting them with a fait accompli, which has been the case this time around. This is relatively unproblematic in itself. It wouldn't require a referendum for each aspect of the constitution, as representative samples of voters would be quizzed in focus group discussions. In this way, a "big constitutional picture" could be built up.
Whether the Council of Ministers and the Commission are prepared to opt for such a process will be clearer after the June 16th meeting.
At the same time, because the current draft document contains so many discrete measures, it is entirely likely that attempts will be made to process key elements into law on a separate basis. This is understandable, as, in rejecting increased centrally-led integration, voters have been forced to reject a host of other measures too, some of which might well have been entirely unexceptionable to them.
The difficulty is that it is almost impossible to separate, say, a technocratic measure designed to "streamline" decision-making in an enlarged EU, from the concomitant erosion of national powers against which voters have voted. Attempts will nevertheless be made to do so.
The best advice one can give the Council and the Commissioners now, especially Margot Wallström, who has the communications brief, is that they should admit that their voters have, completely unexpectedly, transformed the whole political landscape in Europe, but that this represents a fundamental opportunity for the EU to reconnect with voters. The voters, in fact, created a golden chance to remodel the EU's systems and institutions better to reflect and express their political will.
The devil will be in the detail, of course, but if a strong democratic framework is set up, there would be everything to play for.
Guardian Unlimited Special reports EU braced for big no vote in Dutch referendum
Uodate: This post was overly optimistic. In the end the draft constitution, having been declared dead, simply came back under the guise of "the Lisbon Treaty" and will now become law. Thus will end the era of national democracies in Europe.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Dutch Constitutional Referendum
The Dutch government is considering cancelling the national refereundum on the EU's draft constitution should the French vote non.
On the one hand, the referendum was an initiative not of the Dutch government but of the Dutch parliament, so that it seems the government is meddling where it isn't wanted.
On the other, it is a commonsense idea. If the French vote non, the consitution is a dead letter. The opinions of other countries won't change that.
EUobserver.com
Update - In the event, of course, the referendum went ahead and the Dutch voted nee by an overwhelming margin. The outcome, far from making the constitution a "dead letter", has been beyond what even the most cynical observer could ever justify - the constitution, brought back under a different name ("The Lisbon Treaty") is simply being brought into law, by "governmental acclamation", against the express wishes of Dutch and French voters. In this way democracy is being fatally subverted in Europe. National democratic governemts are allowing their authority and authority to be taken over by the EU Commission whose members they nominate, on the whole, from the ranks of their most mediocre ministers.
For an interesting viewpoint on how government was managed in a gentler age, this links to an extract on local, squire-based governance, from Gilbert West's Journey Through Groningen and Frisia and the Frisian Isles. West is writing about the Oldambt, a county of the Ommelanden in the northern Netherlands, in the eighteenth century. How much more sensibly and locally things were run then. How much cooler and objective a view of government did people like West, Oomkens and Johnson have than most present-day comentators and policy wonks.
On the one hand, the referendum was an initiative not of the Dutch government but of the Dutch parliament, so that it seems the government is meddling where it isn't wanted.
On the other, it is a commonsense idea. If the French vote non, the consitution is a dead letter. The opinions of other countries won't change that.
EUobserver.com
Update - In the event, of course, the referendum went ahead and the Dutch voted nee by an overwhelming margin. The outcome, far from making the constitution a "dead letter", has been beyond what even the most cynical observer could ever justify - the constitution, brought back under a different name ("The Lisbon Treaty") is simply being brought into law, by "governmental acclamation", against the express wishes of Dutch and French voters. In this way democracy is being fatally subverted in Europe. National democratic governemts are allowing their authority and authority to be taken over by the EU Commission whose members they nominate, on the whole, from the ranks of their most mediocre ministers.
For an interesting viewpoint on how government was managed in a gentler age, this links to an extract on local, squire-based governance, from Gilbert West's Journey Through Groningen and Frisia and the Frisian Isles. West is writing about the Oldambt, a county of the Ommelanden in the northern Netherlands, in the eighteenth century. How much more sensibly and locally things were run then. How much cooler and objective a view of government did people like West, Oomkens and Johnson have than most present-day comentators and policy wonks.
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