Icelanders are often told that Norway is on the way into the European Union. They have been getting this message for a very long time now, for decades – of course without it ever coming true. Pretty much the same has been going on in Norway, only there the story is that Iceland is on the way into the EU. In both cases, however, it is highly unlikely that either country will join the EU in the foreseeable future.

Norway has rejected EU membership twice in referendums, first in 1972 and again in 1994. As a consequence the EU is not very eager to enter into new negotiations with the Norwegians. The pro-EU movement in Norway, too, has conceded that it is pointless even to consider new negotiations before there is a stable and vast majority for membership among the Norwegian people. At least 60% has been mentioned in that context.

Andreas Renner, the Christian-Democrat minister of Social Affairs in the German state of Baden-Wuertemberg, wants George W. Bush to be “shot down” for his handling of the crisis in New Orleans. Herr Renner is opposed to the death penalty but would obviously make an exception for the American President. He later retracted the remark (thus admitting that he had shot himself in the foot), explaining he meant Bush should be “shot in a political sense.”

The European Court yesterday turned down a complaint by Eurosceptic politicians which argued that the European institutions do not have the right to bar political parties from state funds, paid by the taxpayers, when these parties do not “accept the values of the EU, as set out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms.” As Daniel Hannan noted here yesterday “democracy means being allowed to vote for whomever you please. Once we start disqualifying parties on grounds of their opinions, we are on a very dangerous road.”

Unfortunately, that is the road we are on. A second proof of this occurred yesterday when a court in the Netherlands ruled that the Dutch state should stop funding the Reformed Political Party (SGP).  All political parties in the Netherlands receive state funding in accordance with the number of votes they receive. The judges in The Hague, however, ruled that the state is violating the UN Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women by funding the SGP because this party does not put forward women candidates for election. The court said the Dutch state does not fulfil its obligations to the UN Convention because it funds the SGP. The small Calvinist party with only two members in the Dutch Parliament and one in the European Parliament, will lose about one million euros per year because it believes that positions of leadership in politics and society should be occupied by men.

This time next month Angela Merkel will probably be Germany’s eighth Chancellor since the Second World War. Merkel is currently the leader of the Christian-Democrat opposition party CDU, a centrist party which (together with its more conservative Bavarian counterpart CSU) is generally expected to become the biggest party in the September 18 elections.

It depends on how large the loss of the governing Socialist SPD will be and how huge the gains of the post-Communist “Left Party” in the eastern Länder whether Merkel will be able to govern with the free-market Liberal FDP. If the FDP fails to gain the 5% threshold or if CDU/CSU and FDP do not get half the seats in the Bundestag, Germany will get a so-called “grand coalition” of Christian-Democrats and Socialists.

Eighteen months ago, I was one of 25 MEPs (members of the European Parliament) to launch a legal challenge against the proposal to establish state-funded European political parties. The legislation provided for trans-national parties, to be supported by the taxpayer, contesting elections on a common and binding manifesto across the EU. In order to qualify, a party would need to “accept the values of the EU, as set out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms” – a clause evidently designed to bar Euro-sceptics from recognition.

One way or another, we shall end up with the European Constitution—or, at any rate, something very like it. This may seem an extraordinary thing to say. After all, the French and the Dutch rejected the constitution. Opinion polls in Poland, Denmark and the Czech Republic show public opinion is against ratification. In Britain, almost no serious analyst believes that the referendum can be carried. Why, then, am I so confident that the constitution will be implemented? Because that is how the EU works. When Denmark voted against Maastricht, when Ireland voted against Nice—and, for that matter, when the markets voted against the Exchange Rate Mechanism—the EU’s response was to carry on regardless. There is no Plan B in Brussels; Plan A is simply resubmitted over and over again until it is accepted.

America has been hit by a major natural disaster, the likes of which are simply unimaginable in Europe. Imagine a category 5 hurricane (the highest possible category) wrecking an area half the size of France (or Germany), thereby submerging and completely destroying a city the size of Marseille (or Cologne) including many, many other towns and villages. I wonder whether this would not lead to a temporary breakdown of law and order in France (or Germany) and whether unprecedented large scale rioting by the so-called “underpriviliged” would not follow. Imagine the international media subsequently focusing on “the poor,” implicitly suggesting that the government in Paris (or Berlin) has not responded adequately during the first days following the disaster because it consists of “racists” who “do not care” about the poor and prefer to wage war in Iraq. That, however, is the general impression being conveyed in Europe.

An ever growing group of non-western immigrants in Norway is dependent on welfare. This is the conclusion of a study
by Tyra Ekhaugen of the Frisch Centre for Economic Research and the University of Oslo.

“Non-western immigrants in Norway are shown to rely heavily on welfare transfers for several years after immigration. While refugee immigrants assimilate slightly out of welfare, other non-western immigrants assimilate rapidly into welfare.”

According to the polls the general elections in Norway on September 12 are likely to lead to a so-called “red-green” government coalition of the Workers’ Party (Arbeiterpartiet, Ap), the Socialist Left Party, (Sosialistisk Venstreparti, SV) and the environmentalist Centre Party (Senterpartiet, Sp). If this happens it may lead to a stridently anti-American foreign policy in Norway.

Chapter 13 of the SV party programme, entitled “Peace and Solidarity,” provides ample proof of the party’s anti-Americanism and its appeasement policy towards Muslim extremists.

Europe’s socialist (and America’s liberal) media cannot suppress a hint of gloating over what is happening today in New Orleans. Observing the scenes from the Big Easy, where looters are shooting at policemen, commentators remark: “And this is not the thirld world, but the richest country in the world.” Indeed, they imply, the arrogance of the Americans has boomeranged back upon them: “Looters are turning New Orleans into ‘downtown Baghdad’” and “the army has not enough helicopters as they have all been sent to Iraq.”

The European public are being reminded that welfare state Europe is a so much better place to live in than capitalist America where one looter, a certain Mike Franklin, told Associated Press: “To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it’s an opportunity to get back at society.”