Dear readers. Hi.
The Eurozone and the Eu are just going as all is meant to be, Mody in India is going to be for more time, Trump or Biden, the same coin , for more time, China for ever,and the junk plastic and the entropy is floating and will submerge all, Business as usual.
The waste and the Time Waste…
As you have seen, the three questions make one an outcast.
Here they are, again ,they are very naive;
What is your opinion ,as whoever, of the European Central Bank becoming the Lender of the Last resort? (as is the FED or UK or Japan Central Bank)?
What is your opinion on investments (broadly ) about debt -burden- (deficit spending)?
What is your opinion on Green new deal and where the money will come from?
Well, until today only Yanis Varufakis and the DIEM25 have a positive answer,they are the only ones to have some answer, but they have no chance in the EU elections.
To vote or not to vote is irrelevant in this time in space, it all goes unavoidably on the designed tracks of history crash.
Witchdoctor will vote , and this will be the last time.A kind of Pavlov reflex.
To understand what are you voting for, and what will happen- nothing except the bust of history from outside- and to understand the malevolent structure one votes and a no way out,
Witchdoctor has decided to translate in english an article by the prof. Paolo Barnard, one of the first MMT proponents and activists in whole Europe and, business as usual,him being forcefully defenestrated from the media, professional life and mainstream history.
Witchdoctor apologizes to prof Paolo Barnard for not having his permission to translate this work in english, but it is made for non profit reasons and all the credits go to prof Paolo Barnard.
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Voting for a Parliament whose legislators cannot make laws, and whose legislators must fight as murderers if they want to oppose powerful laws made by people whom no one elects – that is the vote in the elections for the European Parliament – is to become intentional accomplices of a dictatorship. If you didn’t know, now you will know by reading these lines. Then the apologies are zero.
It must be said immediately why, and it starts here: the European Parliament is the most farcical shack ever conceived by human political history. Believing that from within a bogged-up wagon like this, an eventual anti-Brussels front could start firing deadly cannonballs from the morning of May 27th, it’s for fools, or for counterfeiters like Salvini, Bannon, the 5Stelle ……and their partners in the EU .
1.Vote for cowards.
The European parliamentarians who delegate the drafting of supranational laws – that is, more powerful than those written by individual countries and often unconstitutional for them – to the unelected bureaucrats of the European Commission in Brussels, are not only anti-democratic by definition, they are also cowards. The “principle of comfort” is what guides them. It is convenient to sit in Strasbourg, take a fat salary, and then to blame Brussels for the deadly damage that some of its laws do to us. This principle was described in black and white by two academics (Epstein and O’Halloaran) in a 1999 study by Cambridge University: “Legislators have well known incentives to delegate all power to bureaucrats … including the crucial fact of (non accountability table tennis between the ghost parties involved in decision making, added by Witchdoctor ) to avoid being called to respond to citizens for hard and unpopular choices (translated: for the infamous ‘reforms’ of work and pensions, and spending cuts a` la Juncker, nda) ”. Need I say more?
2.From being able to do nothing, to being able to do almost nothing!
From 1979 to 2007 European parliamentarians were so powerless before the EU Commission that one wonders what they did all day. The thing became so obscene and grotesque that in the end the super bureaucrats of Brussels decided in 2006, and then the year after with the Lisbon Treaty, to put in play cosmetic remodels that gave the impression that Parliament could block the laws. With the cool names of Regulatory Procedure With Scrutiny and Art. 290 TFEU (cosmetics makeup must always sound very cool), Parliament was given the power to oppose the laws of the Commission, just as the Council of Ministers could. But it’s a total farce, as I’ll explain below. So the EU Parliament has gone from being able to do anything to be able to do almost nothing.
3.First farce: The parliamentarians want a dispute ot to challenge a law? It costs a fortune, and the procedural times are enemies till the end of time
The Lisbon Treaty, which in fact regulates the entire functioning of the EU, has made the cost in terms of money and in means of a dispute with the Parliament against the Commission almost impossible to deal with. The laws of the Commission are deliberately written by over 300 technocrats with suffocating legal entanglements, so if the EU parliamentarian wants to understand the minimum, he should pay a staff of technicians at very high costs, but not only. He must then have additional means to “instruct” a whole Parliamentary Commission on the subject he wants to criticize, and all this just to start acting. Finally he must still find means to form a coalition that agrees with him / her, and not enough: he must also convince the Conference of Presidents of the Commissions.
Then there are the times: 4 months for 1) organizing everything said before 2) making an exhausting lobbying job against all the parties of the EU Parliament 3) and doing it all over again in the Council of Ministers, which by law must agree to after all. Once the 4 months are up, the EU parliamentarian can hang himself …
“The weight, the costs and the obstacles of a dispute against a law of the Commission are almost always greater than the benefits … better for the parliamentary is to do a form of barter in private with Brussels”, wrote in 2017 the College of Europe, Bruges, reported then on The Economist. In other words: better give it to yours as an EU Parliament, and try the private chicken market. (see also below)
4.
Here are the results of this demented and democratically obscene mechanism by which an elected member of parliament must overpay with his own means the whole procedure to challenge the unelected bureaucrats: from 2009 to 2017, out of 545 laws proposed by the Commission, the EU Parliament effectively contested 1.1%. The rest, and they are all laws more powerful than the Italian ones, have passed smoothly as oil. Let’s also say that the Eurosceptic Populists will take good numbers in May: it is very obvious from what was said above that they will have a hellish life to even keep a fraction of what they rant today to the voters of the series “In May we will make them pack off !We will break everything! “.
5. Second farce: The MPs want to Contest, challenge criticize? Here is the list of permits it takes to do it.
Therefore, the brave EU parliamentarian who would like to block a super-law of the Commission must have a boat of money, crazy technicians, convince a sea of other parliamentarians and parties and commissions just to start acting. But to reach a successful conclusion it must also defeat the following vetoes: the possible veto of the Parliamentary Commission concerned; a possible veto that comes from conflicts of jurisdiction between the Commissions, that is to say they say “this stuff is not legally within your competence and you better piss off”; a veto if, after all, it is gimcana, the parliamentarian does not obtain the absolute majority of the entire EU Parliament and does not even get the ok of 55% of the Council of Ministers (that is of all the EU States). I swear, it’s not the Pirandellian theater, it’s like a sideshow called the EU Parliament.
6 Third farce: The EU parliamentarians forced to be lobbyists, and often in secret.
Michael Kaeding is ‘Professor Jean Monnet’ of European politics (for those who have read my The Biggest Crime the name Monnet says it all, ed) at the Duisburg-Essen university, in addition to holding another ten assignments in the major Think Tanks of Europe. Yes, he is an EU super technocrat,a real mc coy. I would say, just the opposite of a Eurosceptic, ok? We have recently written about this subject, and he has been incredibly transparent: “Look, Barnard, I publicly declared all in several studies, and I quote from my texts. Due to the fact that the European Commission, which makes all the laws, is aware of having a rather attenuated democratic legitimacy, it always tries not to come to the clash with the European parliamentarians … “-” There is a de facto power where the single parliamentarian trades with Commission on certain laws, rather than attempting a confrontation. The problem is that these negotiations are not always transparent, or even difficult to discover “.
In other words: the EU parliamentarian has in practice zero powers to realistically block the laws made by the autocrats of Brussels, as amply proved above, and then as the only choice he can always try to act as a lobbyist in the shadows. But even a super technocrat like Kaeding comes to ask himself: “How do informal negotiations between EU parliamentarians and the Commission work? And do they really have an effect? Do they make the Commission more democratic in the eyes of the citizens? “.
6.Another dance of bullshitting: the EU Parliament can reject both the Commission and its President.
This is surreal: the EU Parliament may indeed reject both the nomination of the President of the EU Commission and the list of EU Commissioners. Then what happens? That – as in fact happened behind the scenes also with Jean Claude Juncker – President and Commissioners are presented again almost identical, or, at best, with cosmetic corrections to save the face of the protesting parliamentarians.And, Then, what happens? If a hypothetical EU Parliament “machined” by the “Nationalists” does not accepts the face-saver of the cosmetic make up reshuffle, they would reject it all back. So what happens? It happens that we enter the labyrinth called the Constitutional Crisis according to the Lisbon Treaty, which as I said years ago is actually the new EU Constitution introduced in secret in 2007, after the French and Dutch rejection of the first proposed Constitution (rejected because “socially frigid “).
So who resolves the constitutional crisis described above? The EU Parliament? But let’s not laugh. The European Council? But let’s not laugh, it has dedicated to disputes of this kind more than 2,800 pages of indecipherable codicils written by technocrats in 2007 (Treaty of Lisbon), and from which, according to scholars such as Jens Peter Bonde et al., It appears that the crisis at that pointis moved and put into the hands of the European Court of Justice, which is even less elected than the EU Commission. Result: the rejection of the EU Parliament of the Commission in question is worth, if indeed we come to the wall against the wall, as much as the Bolivar banknotes of Maduro today. Do I have to explain?
7.Finally, the point of all points. And also in this the EU Parliament is at zero point.
The laws of the EU Commission poke their nose everywhere, from homogenized food to access rules to satellite communications; from how the neon lamps should be made, to what chocolate is; up to your privacy and how to irrigate a field, etc. But this Europe has brought (to Italians) the devastation of the most beautiful and democratic Constitution in the world, ours (The Italian Constitution, op WD),and this devastation are the EU Treaties. So far in this article we have been talking about the (de facto) grotesque / non-existent power of the EU Parliament to oppose the supranational laws of the Commission. They are called “Secondary Laws”.
The “Primary Law” in Europe are those Treaties, like Maastricht, Lisbon, or the devastating Fiscal Compact (the one that imposed on us in the Constitution of Calamandrei the destruction of its deepest sense, that of the social equity, together with the abolition of the sovereign spending powers of the Parliament of Rome, you think this is peanuts?).
Struggling for, as they say, to be elected and ‘going to Europe’, that is, taking numbers in the EU Parliament, is also in this case, and especially in this case, a colossal grip for the public’s bottoms, because the European parliamentarian has the same power to change or eliminate the devastating European neoliberal treaties – that is, the economic ones that count, because we are talking about state spending on our lives, illnesses, work, pensions or youth and our constitution – has the same power, I said, that has tachypirine- aspirin- in a stroke treatment.
Here’s how things are. The Lisbon Treaty, with Art. 48 TEU, states that to change a European treaty there are four procedures. In all four the role of the EU Parliament is very limited. There are three fundamentals: the Ordinary Procedure, the Simplified, and the Passerelle (in French). I guarantee that there is no Premier-President, Prime Minister in all of Europe who knows what they are, because they are more complex procedures than Theoretical Physics (read them to believe). Suffice it to say how many actors at EU level must all be involved, multi-consulted, coordinated, informed and finally convinced to change a Treaty:
– All 28 national governments, and even ONLY one can veto everything
– The Brussels Commission
– The European Council
– The Council of Ministers
– the so-called European Convention
– the Intergovernmental Conference
– the European Central Bank
– and finally the EU Parliament
And does anyone still believe that the future Salvinici or Orban heroes in Strasbourg will be able to say “what is this fuss” about the Treaties?
I summarize the procedures, and I do it desperately, because, really, only for a decent summary it would take 25 pages of this article:
The Ordinary Procedure: the proposal to modify a Treaty can start from EU states, Commission or Parliament, and must be addressed to the European Council. At that point a European Convention should be put together where they should be called: representatives of all governments, with representatives of national parliaments, with the Commission, and with the EU Parliament. Then a Conference of European Governments will be convened which will decide on the proposals to change the Treaty in question. If the Convention fails, the whole procedure fails. In the end it all comes back to the national parliaments that will have to vote a yes or no, but just the veto of one is enough to block everything. Now tell me where the hell the power of the macho parliamentary populist Eurosceptic (if any) appears in the slaughterhouse.
The Simplified Procedure: the proposal to modify a Treaty can start from the single EU states, Commission or Parliament, and must be addressed to the European Council. European Council and Council of Ministers consult with the Commission, with the European Central Bank and with the EU Parliament, but there is nothing binding on the part of the latter. Then the Council approves the change, but again you have to go back to every single Member State for a yes or no, and just the veto of one will block everything. Now tell me where ,hell, is the power of the macho parliamentary populist Eurosceptic (eventual) which stands and presents himself in this simplified slaughterhouse.
The Walkway Procedure. It’s a kind of super-technical shortcut in treating a treaty. For example, it allows the European Council to authorize the Council of Ministers to ignore the Treaties by modifying the majority vote that is required for certain decisions (from unanimity to a qualified majority). Or it authorizes him to change the way of legislating in the EU from “special” to “ordinary” even when the Treaties would have imposed the “special” method. However, to adopt the shortcut Passerelle, the European Council must reach a unanimous vote. But as always you have to go back to every single Member State for a yes or no to the Passerelle, and just the veto of one just to block everything. Now tell me where the hell the power of the macho parliamentary populist Eurosceptic (if any) appears here to be big enough for all this???.
Clear , it is ALL CLEAR? Is it Especially easy to understand, just go to Strasbourg, read Wikipedia and change the history, eh?
9.Conclusions.
Salvini, with his two economist ‘Eurosceptics’ in a manner of speaking, with 10kg of Vinavil between seat and armchair, and Di Maio with Casaleggio, lied to you about everything. They lowered their pants in Brussels in 5 minutes with a public expense that is an insult to Italian history. The Padanians have gone back to the Eurexit because “eh, we only caught 17% of votes and then forget the electoral promises, but we hold the chair”, while Salvini sent anonymous emissaries from Bloomberg to tell “reassure the Markets! we will stay in the ranks “(I published it on Twitter with photos of the documents).
Today, these scoundrels tell you that in May they will be unloading all Europe … going with their backs, Vinavil and armchairs precisely in the most ignoble Europe, the one with its farce Parliament.
But, leaving these scoundrels aside, it remains true for all of you as I wrote at the beginning, and I repeat it:
Vote for a parliament whose legislators cannot make laws, and whose legislators have to fight as murderers if they want to oppose powerful laws made by people whom no one elects – that is, to vote in the elections for the European Parliament – is to become intentional accomplices of a dictatorship. If you didn’t know, now you know why you read these lines. So the apologies are zero.
Prof. Paolo Barnard ”
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Translated by Witchdoctor, as good as it goes