So much for unity! EU in disarray as MEPs threaten to start their OWN Brexit talks with UK

Express UK 

 

Guy Verhofstadt, the EU Parliament’s chief negotiator, savaged representatives from the European Council and threatened to start up his own talks with the UK if MEPs are not given a leading role in the Brexit process.

His astonishingly blunt ultimatum will alarm European leaders and signals the start of a long and acrimonious war between the Council, which represents the interests of the individual member states, and the Parliament which speaks for the euro elite in Brussels. 

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said the proposal showed that the EU had become “so unworkable” that Britain should ditch triggering Article 50 and instead just walk away from the troubled bloc. 

The row erupted after Mr Verhofstadt accused EU Council chiefs of trying to sideline the EU parliament and hand MEPs only the most minimal role in the Brexit negotiations. 

Martin Schulz said MEPs and member states are heading for a period of conflict over Brexit

European leaders fear that the talks with Britain will become too bitter and politicised if MEPs are allowed a significant input, and have moved to shut them out. 

But speaking at a plenary session of the EU Parliament today, Mr Verhofstadt blasted: "What they are proposing is simply to say we go forward with the Brexit negotiations without the parliament." 

He then rounded on stunned EU Council official Ivan Korcok, asking him: "Are you not aware that we have to approve these arrangements?

"Do you want that we open separate negotiations with the British authorities? You can get it - if that’s what you want we’ll do it. It’s time that you also involved the parliament from day one." 

Mr Verhofstadt then repeated a famous Lyndon B Johnson quote - that "it's probably better to have him inside the tent p****** out, than outside the tent p****** in" - telling Mr Korcok: "Maybe that’s a good reality that you can recall to the European Council."

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¡Basta ya, Brussels! British voters give EU corporate slavestate the shaft

Mike Whitney
Counterpunch

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

— Thomas Paine

British voters delivered a savage deathblow to the EU corporate superstate on Thursday sending global markets tumbling and forcing Prime Minister David Cameron to announce his resignation. The narrow victory, which caught the prognosticators by surprise, is the strongest sign yet that working people across the continent are awakening to economic and political disaster that has been created in the name of European integration. Not only has the EU failed to live up to its promise of lifting all boats and widening prosperity, it has also transformed the region into a low-growth, high unemployment charnel house where bankers and their corporate allies siphon off the wealth of the weaker states to enrich high-flying speculators and voracious bondholders. And while the referendum's outcome will surely be challenged in the months to come, it represents a critical turning point in the public's attitude towards a thoroughly reactionary and odious institution that is solely responsible for the abysmal state of the economy, the progressive erosion of living standards, and steady rise of right wing extremism. Here's a short clip from Raul Ilargi Meijer explaining what Brexit really means:

"Nobody seems to understand it's not about Cameron or Nigel Farage, or Michael Gove vs Boris Johnson, it's about voting for or against the EU, for or against Juncker and Tusk and five other unelected presidents having a say in one's life.

And that's not all either. It's about voting to leave, or remain in, a Union that is already dead and preserved only in a zombie state. Brexit is just one vote and many more will inevitably follow. Brexit is not the first, Grexit had that 'honor' last year. Later this month, elections in Italy and Spain have the potential to turn into preliminary Italix and Spexit votes. And then there will be more.

The reason why these things are taking place, and will be, going forward, is that the economies of all these countries are fast deteriorating. The sole reason why people have accepted the rule of Brussels coming from far away over their daily lives, is the promise that it would make those lives better and more comfortable. That promise has been shattered. The EU has made things worse for most Europeans, not improved them. And when seen in that light, why should people agree to continue to be told what to do by those who've made them poorer? There's no democratic model in which that remotely makes sense. There are only undemocratic models left....

An economy in decline means the end of centralization and the end of existing political power structures. This is inevitable." ("Murder, Lifeboats, an Iceberg and an Orchestra", Automatic Earth)

The Brexit referendum represents a fundamental rejection of austerity for working people and subsidies (QE) for the markets. It is an indictment of the destructive policies that have thrust a broad swathe of southern Europe into a permanent depression while bankers in Paris and Berlin make out like bandits. Even now the loathsome European Central Bank continues to run up massive debts (ECB-QE is $80 billion per month) just to line the pockets of corporate CEOs who offload their toxic bonds with the clear intention of using the money to buyback their own shares further enriching themselves and their swinish shareholders at the expense of ordinary investors. This Ponzi-rip off is what passes as economic policy in the EU. Brexit threatens put an end to this huckster's swindle. Here's a little more background from the World Socialist Web Site: 


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Brussels to embark on radical plans to create joint EMU treasury and euro parliament

Comment: You couldn't get anything more blatantly fascist...

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The Telegraph

The survival of economic and monetary union will require the creation of new supra-national institutions, including a joint eurozone treasury and a separate euro parliament, according to the single currency's bail-out chief. 

Klaus Regling, head of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), joined a clamour of voices in Brussels who are pushing for member states to cede sovereignty in bid to establish a full-blown fiscal union on the Continent. 

The first step will be the creation of a eurozone finance ministry, backed by a separate chamber for the currency's 19 member states in the European parliament, said Mr Regling, who oversees the euro's €500bn rescue fund. 

The move is necessary to "increase the robustness and minimise the vulnerabilities of the currency union", said Mr Regling.

He added it would "imply a significant transfer of sovereignty, requiring democratic legitimacy", which could be provided by a "special chamber of the European Parliament composed of deputies solely from euro area Member States". 

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James Petras: The assassination of Greece

"The European economic crash of 2008/09 resounded worst on its weakest links – Southern Europe and Ireland. The true nature of the European Union as a hierarchical empire, in which the powerful states – Germany and France – could openly and directly control investment, trade, monetary and financial policy was revealed. The much vaunted EU “bailout” of Greece was in fact the pretext for the imposition of deep structural changes. These included the denationalization and privatization of all strategic economic sectors; perpetual debt payments; foreign dictates of incomes and investment policy. Greece ceased to be an independent state: it was totally and absolutely colonized."

James Petras
Voltaire Network

The Greek government is currently locked in a life and death struggle with the elite which dominate the banks and political decision-making centers of the European Union. What are at stake are the livelihoods of 11 million Greek workers, employees and small business people and the viability of the European Union. If the ruling Syriza government capitulates to the demands of the EU bankers and agrees to continue the austerity programs, Greece will be condemned to decades of regression, destitution and colonial rule. If Greece decides to resist, and is forced to exit the EU, it will need to repudiate its 270 billion Euro foreign debts, sending the international financial markets crashing and causing the EU to collapse.

The leadership of the EU is counting on Syriza leaders abandoning their commitments to the Greek electorate, which as of early February 2015, is overwhelmingly (over 70%) in favor of ending austerity and debt payments and moving forward toward state investment in national economic and social development [1]. The choices are stark; the consequences have world-historical significance. The issues go far beyond local or even regional, time-bound, impacts. The entire global financial system will be affected [2].

The default will ripple to all creditors and debtors, far beyond Europe; investor confidence in the entire western financial empire will be shaken. First and foremost all western banks have direct and indirect ties to the Greek banks [3]. When the latter collapse, they will be profoundly affected beyond what their governments can sustain. Massive state intervention will be the order of the day. The Greek government will have no choice but to take over the entire financial system . . . the domino effect will first and foremost effect Southern Europe and spread to the 'dominant regions' in the North and then across to England and North America [4]. 

To understand the origins of this crises and alternatives facing Greece and the EU, it is necessary to briefly survey the political and economic developments of the past three decades. We will proceed by examining Greek and EU relations between 1980 - 2000 and then proceed to the current collapse and EU intervention in the Greek economy. In the final section we will discuss the rise and election of Syriza, and its growing submissiveness in the context of EU dominance, and intransigence, highlighting the need for a radical break with the past relationship of 'lord and vassal'.

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