From ... in Alternative News — Nov 3, 2018

Brexit: What We’re Not Being Told About The European Union Referendum

In the EU referendum about whether or not the UK should remain in the European Union, the UK government warned that leaving the EU could mean 10 years of uncertainty as new trade deals are formed, and even a collapse of the UK economy with a year of recession. Meanwhile, the news media and anti-EU politicians concentrated on the topic of immigration, leaving the general public in fear of increasing migrants who will drain the economy and swarm their towns (source). This same fear mongering happened in Norway when they held a referendum in 1994 (source); yet Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland, as non-EU members within Europe, enjoy some of the highest living standards in the world. Iceland was also the only country to put bankers in prison instead of bail them out (source) and Norway will ban the sale of all fossil fuel-based cars in the next decade (source). But inside the EU, a member country has the ability to influence the laws of 507 million people. Surely it makes sense to be part of a group of nations working together for a shared common good? Let’s have a look at how the EU works: First, there is the European Parliament, where MEPs are elected by the general public to represent them; their job is to vote for or against proposed new EU laws. Next there is the European Council, where the nations’ leaders meet; yet their job is also not to propose new legislation. That is the role of the European Commission, which consists of 28 commissioners — one for each member country.

These people are not elected but chosen by each country’s current leader. It is these unelected commissioners who create the laws, not the leaders or MEPs we vote in. It is also important to note that the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon replaced all previous treaties as the new EU constitution; in this treaty, it is also almost impossible for any country to petition a law once it has been put in force (source). So where are these Commissioners getting their ideas for the laws? They come from the The European Round Table of Industrialists.

The ERT consists of “around 50 Chief Executives and Chairmen of major multinational companies” and the ERT was formed with the express intention of shaping and furthering EU integration (source). For example, in January 1985, the ERT presented “Europe 1990 – an agenda for action,” an action plan for the single market; 10 days later Jacques Delors, the new President of the Commission, gave his speech about the single market in parliament, and in June 1985, the Single Market White Paper was published, which was a copy and paste from the ERT action plan (source). Today the ERT have a website, but in the 1990s they were extremely secretive, and in 1991 they quietly published their report called “Reshaping Europe.” In 1997 they negotiated a trade agreement at the OECD called the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), which allowed corporations to sue governments if EU laws increasing environmental protection, improving labor standards, securing equal treatment for women, or taxing capital impeded on their profits (source).

The proposal was leaked and the agreement fell through, so the ERT put the agreement forward again under the name MIA at the WTO, but this time the commissioners resigned due to several counts of fraud and the MIA was also never passed (source). Maybe you have heard about TTIP or CETA? These are new versions of this same trade agreement which now incorporate the USA and Canada, as corporations push harder than ever for their monopoly over governments to be enforced for the greater good. Greenpeace Netherlands leaked copies of TTIP, stating, “Whether you care about environmental issues, animal welfare, labour rights or internet privacy, you should be concerned about what is in these leaked documents” (source). Europe, Inc. is another non-profit report showing the dangerous liaisons between industry and EU institutions as well as other international institutions, such as the OECD, WTO, and the United Nations. But surely none of this really matters because we can trust the EU to ultimately make decisions that are best for the people, right? In 2002, Marta Andreasen was employed by the European Commission as Chief Accountant, but when she approached the Commission because huge sums of EU monies were unaccounted for, the Commission fired her for “failure to show sufficient loyalty and respect.” When Marta took this to the EU court, she was found guilty of refusing to sign accounts that she believed were unreliable, and she lost her pension (source). One month after the economy collapsed in 2008, the then President of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso, appointed The Independent High Level Group on Financial Supervision. But this was not a group of independent economic experts; it was a group of eight men linked to Lehman Brothers, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs — three of the US banks that caused the crisis in the first place. For Greece, the decision was made to have the general public’s bank accounts frozen (source), withdrawals limited (source), and deposits taxed (source), and when the people of Greece voted on rejecting further loans from the EU in 2015 (source), the EU threatened to punish Greece further (source). If corporations and banks are deciding what laws the commissioners should create, if politicians are cooperating with these corporations and banks, and if the decision-making processes by these corporations, banks, and politicians are deliberately being carried out in secret, is it enough for us to just say that this is the world we live in today? Where is the EU heading? Within the EU itself, it is no secret that the goal is to build a superstate renamed the United States of Europe (1, 2, 3), with its own central government (source) and an EU army (source), as well as EU border and coast guards and a European CIA (source).

The EU’s CIA does now exist, Eurojust is also being given power to start criminal investigations and prosecutions, and Europol is the European Union’s police force. Meanwhile, the EU is blocking its borders to the humanitarian crisis caused by wars that it is supporting, and it is increasingly being called “Fortress Europe” (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). The USA is also sending in a wave of military assistance to provide “a visible symbol of U.S. commitment to the region and our European allies” (1, 2, 3, 4). Have we not learned from history that when the economic situation gets increasingly worse for the general public (1, 2, 3, 4), and people start to act out of fear towards others (1, 2), they turn a blind eye to their own government’s role in the treatment of others around the world (source), they accept the removal of all their civil rights (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), and they sign up for war (source), which only increases hatred and propagates more violence (source)? We also know from history that this situation is a potential recipe for fascism, dictatorship, and a police state (1, 2, 3, 4, 5); yet we still cling on to the notion that democracy means letting these people run things on our behalf. A recent study by Princeton University has statistically proven that the USA is now covertly ruled by a small group of people in government, big business, media, and the intelligence services. Does the evidence presented here not suggest that this is also the case in Europe? People say there is nothing we can do, but this system only functions because we cooperate. We blame society, but we are society.

The question is: when are we going to speak out — at work, in public, on social media — and proudly say “no more!”? .

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Brexit: What We’re Not Being Told About The European Union Referendum

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