The Merkozy Borg announce plan to save the €uro

Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy (collectively known as the "Merkozy Borg") have today announced how they are going to single handedly save the €uro.

A new treaty will be signed - preferably by all 27 member states of the EU but they may accept a compromise of just the 17 €urozone members - that will provide for fiscal union, oversight of national budgets by the EU (where have we heard this before?) and automatic fines for member states who don't keep their budget deficits down to 3%.

Before the aforementioned treaty has been drawn up, Cameron has decided there will be no need for a referendum.  In a speech in London today he said that if there was a transfer of powers to Brussels then there would be a referendum but if there wasn't then there would be a different set of circumstances.  A spokesman for Downing Street was slightly more blunt and simply said there isn't going to be a referendum.

Cameron was his usual disingenuous self on the impact of the protracted collapse of the €uro:

We want these countries to resolve the eurozone crisis. It is having this chilling effect on our economy and the longer this crisis goes on, the worse that effect is.

Which is right in a way but as usual it's only half the story.  The longer the crisis goes on and the more we are dragged into bailing it out or commit to tighter integration with the failing EU superstate, the worse the effect on our economy.  Cut the political union loose and go back to the free trade agreement we were supposed to have joined all those years ago and we will insulate ourselves to a certain extent from the collapse of the single currency.  Regulate UK banks' lending to the €urozone and buying €uro bonds to prevent them becoming over-exposed to toxic €uro investments and even better.

He then went on, rather curiously, to say:

I have always said that if there is treaty change in Europe then we will make sure that Britain gets something in order to enhance, protect, defend and promote our national interest in Europe. I think that is absolutely the key...

If there is treaty change at the level of 27, then Britain has its desires and requests to make sure our relationship with Europe is properly managed.

According to the law his government passed, if there is a treaty change that passes powers to the EU then we will have a referendum.  According to his party's policies, if there is a treaty change that requires the UK's signature, they will demand the "repatriation" of powers from the EU to the UK.  Yet here he says "Britain" has its desires and requests if a new treaty requires our signature.  Where is the Cast Iron Guarantee™ of a referendum?  Where are the demands to "repatriate" powers from the EU in return for grudgingly signing a new treaty?

The key priority is to get stability restored, to get a solution to the eurozone crisis. At the moment that is everyone’s priority. If treaty change is the means to that end, then we would recognise that as a necessity.
- Chris Grayling MP

Not just the key priority, the only priority.  Saving the €uro is more important than national interest!

I'm sure ConservativeHome won't mind me nicking their picture from earlier, especially as Tim Montgomerie seems to be getting quite agitated at his leader's quite appalling behaviour of late (although not agitated enough to bit the hand that feeds him) ...

The game is up for the €uro

Nicolas Sarkozy has called for the EU to be "refounded" around France and Germany, saying "We must confront those who doubt the stability of the euro and speculate on its break-up with total solidarity".

The people openly speculating about the imminent break-up of the €uro now includes the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, who has told UK banks to start stockpiling cash and prepare for the €uro's demise.  He also warned about the amount of debts money the UK's banks have owed to them by companies in €urozone countries which aren't enough to bankrupt them but enough to make a dent in their reserves.

Sarkozy wants to ban countries from defaulting on their debts but stopped short of agreeing with Angela Merkel's suggestion that the EU should approve and regulate national budgets.

Merkel and Sarkozy are talking up the €uro and saying they're going to "guarantee" its future but the game is up and I think they know it.  Reading the words brings to mind images of leaders in the process of being overthrown going on TV to tell people everything is ok while TVs around the world are showing footage of revolutionaries storming their palace.

France - the EU's second largest economy - is at risk of losing its AAA credit rating over concerns that it might not be able to pay its debts.  Italy - the third largest economy in the EU - is on the brink of disaster.  We've seen two government's overthrown by the EU and sockpuppets put in their place.  The end of the €uro is nigh and perhaps the EU too, it's just a matter of timing.  It might last to the end of the year, it might be gone by Christmas - I don't think there is any doubt now that the €uro is beyond salvation.  The EU finance commissioner, Ollie Rehn, said yesterday that they have 10 days to save the €uro and the EU ... well, make that 8 now.

Camoron is heading for France tomorrow to talk to Sarkozy, I hope to god he doesn't do something stupid and drag us into the €uro's collapse.

HM's forces at risk from the sausage soldiers

The National Interest, an American foreign policy quarterly (men such as the former secretary of state Henry Kissinger are at the top of it) has been having a look at the EU and the Lisbon Treaty. In particular, the journal has looked at the aspirations or, pretensions of European politicians such as Nicolas Sarkozy to build an EU military force. Here are the findings by a Washington defence specialist on the kind of euro-soldiers on whom British soldiers are expected to depend if Sarko's dream of a pan-European army comes to pass:

"German troops operating in Afghanistan have distinguished themselves by their beer drinking and sausage eating; 40 percent of German soldiers in the country are overweight and 10 percent are obese. America's past representative to NATO, Nicholas Burns, figured that just 3 to 5 percent of European military forces could be deployed overseas, compared to roughly 75 percent of American personnel. Bastian Giegerich of the International Institute for Strategic Studies reports that 'The majority of EU member states appear unable to deploy formations of even battalion size (500-800 troops) on a single mission...'"

"Europeans conduct a lot of peacekeeping missions but have little ability to prosecute a real war. During the war against Serbia analysts figured that the European members of NATO possessed just 10 to 15 percent of America's combat capabilities..."

"That means Europe has had to turn to Russia for logistical support in some peacekeeping operations."

"The European members of NATO consistently failed to fulfil their promises to increase military outlays during the cold war; the likelihood of them doing so today, especially in the midst of economic crisis, is nil."

"None of this means that a more unified Europe wouldn't have some influence internationally. But the continent's role will remain limited so long as it lacks the most basic assets of hard power. There isn't a lot of use having a 'High Representative' for the Union in foreign affairs and security policy if the EU has neither the ability nor the will to employ military force."

"Moscow isn't likely to care much what the Europeans think."

All true. But politicians such as Sarkozy want a 60,000-man Brussels directed expeditionary force anyway. If any British government ever sends out HM's forces to risk their lives alongside such an army of slackers and fatties, it won't be war. It will be murder.

Divided Europe ... again

When the world faced a global economic meltdown, several EU member states didn't give the EU a second thought before announcing their own unilateral "solutions" to their problems.

Now the world is facing a humanitarian disaster in Gaza following the Israeli invasion and the EU has fragmented again.

Nicolas Sarkozy has obviously got the world peace bug after single handedly solving the Russia-Georgia situation because he's decided to hop on a plane to Israel to solve the Israel-Palestine problem despite the fact the EU has already sent a delegation headed up by the Czech foreign minister. And let's not even go down the route of what's happening with President Bliar, he was supposed to have sorted it by now.

One-upmanship, imperialism and personal grudges are all there when you scratch the surface, guiding the decision making of the EU federal project. Sarkozy has an ego the size of Brittany but his decision to shun the EU delegation and go there himself is probably more to do with him throwing his toys out of the pram over the Czech president's outspoken euroscepticism.

Whatever the solution to the trouble in the Middle East ends up being, it sure as hell isn't going to come from the EU when it has failed to stop genocide, terrorism and illegal occupation happening on its own doorstep.

Mr Nasty

Nicolas Sarkozy is refusing to attend the ceremony in Prague at the New Year to mark the handing over of the EU Presidency from France to the Czech Republic.

His intention appears to be to make the Czechs look illegitimate as leaders of the EU. Sarkozy has just spent the last six months posing as some sort of elected full-term president of Europe. He even wanted the Czechs to let him continue in office after their turn in the EU Presidency came. But the Czechs refused to treat him as anything other than what he was: a politician whose country held the six-months EU Presidency only because its number came up in the take-a-ticket-and-wait queue.

Sarkozy won't forgive the Czechs for their insult to his pretensions. Such bad form from Sarkozy is of course entirely predictable. He is a Frenchman, not a Gentleman --which is something the Irish need to keep in mind when they are pondering what his word, what his 'guarantees' are worth over the Lisbon Treaty.

At the European summit earlier this month, the compliant Irish Government rigged up a list of 'concerns' which they presented to Sarkozy and the leaders of the other EU states as the reasons the Irish voted No to the treaty. Sarkozy assured the Irish that 'legally binding guarantees' would be given to cover the issues if they would vote again on the treaty, and vote Yes.

When members of the majority No vote in Ireland pointed out that declarations and political guarantees carry no legal weight, that the only thing legally binding is treaty law -- and the EU members were unwilling to write the guarantees into the Lisbon Treaty -- the Irish were told that the guarantees could be added instead to the accession treaty for Croatia, to be ratified in 2010.What Sarkozy, and his collaborators in the Irish Government, kept very quiet was how far off track the accession of Croatia has gone. Brussels knows 2010 is looking pretty unlikely now, but they are not saying much about it.

The problems go all the way back to the break-up of Yugoslavia: Slovenia, which is a member of the EU, is refusing to accept Croatia's version of just where their common border lies. Slovenia says Croatia must give in on the dispute, or it will block accession. Croatia says it will not give up national territory in order to join the EU. Then there are further disputes between the two on things from fishing rights to a nuclear power plant.

The European Voice points out that there is also the continuing trouble over Croatian cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal, and Croatian worries that membership of the EU will mean an end to state aid for their shipbuilding industry, a sector that counts for 15 percent of their exports. All these are reasons to delay accession, but if there are further delays, 'support for accession could evaporate, some fear. Only 29 percent of Croats give an unequivocal Yes to EU membership, the lowest figure in any former communist state that has sought membership.'

'This lack of enthusiasm runs deep. Croats are now tired of the integration narrative. They are relatively rich. For 15 years, they have travelled largely visa-free across Europe. They are not desperate enough to view EU membership as a panacea.' All of which means -- wonderfully - that the Croatians' own referendum on accession to the EU could result in a No vote. That would mean that the accession treaty, and the Irish guarantees attached to it, would tank.

Though by that time the Irish would have been fooled into a second referendum on Lisbon next autumn, and possibly bullied into a Yes vote. If that happens, they will find out just what it is worth when a man such as Sarkozy gives his word.