I tried, I tried but I couldn’t help myself, Caroline Jackson, Tory Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Cornwall, if the flags in her office are anything to go by, is one self important fool. She may have once been described as the “most powerful Conservative woman in the UK” but she seems to have lost her once significant marbles. I cannot believe I am saying that because for all the years I have known her she has been a committed and hardworking MEP. OK a bit of a wet when it comes to Europe, but hard working and at times very funny. However her Thunderer piece in Wednesday’s Times was appalling:

Cameron's first big bloomer

“A SECOND-ORDER issue”: thus the Tory leadership grandly brushes aside objections from its own MEPs to David Cameron’s plan to pull them out of their alliance in the European Parliament with the centre-right European People’s Party grouping. But if this is only second-order business, why bother? And can anything to do with Europe be a second-order issue for the Tories?

France, Germany and Russia. What a lovely place Europe would be without them. Throughout history they have constantly been bullying their neighbours. When the big ones team up, the little nations of continental Europe better beware or they will be gang raped, like Poland in 1939. This explains why it is imperative that Europe be Atlanticist. If it turns continental the three big ones will extort the little ones. The latest proof of this has just been provided in a new German-Russian deal that resembles the pact between Adolf Hitler and Joe Stalin to squeeze Eastern Europe.

Apart from Adolf Hitler, Gerhard Schröder is Germany’s most repulsive chancellor ever. During his seven years in office – which ended last month – the Socialist politician forged Berlin into an alliance with France, where his friend, the French crook Jack Chirac, is in charge, and with Russia, through his friendship with former KGB chief Vladimir Putin. A compulsive America-basher, Schröder did tremendous harm to the Atlantic Alliance. We now know why. Barely three weeks after his resignation on November 22 it turns out that Herr Schröder’s private pension scheme is a lucrative job on the Kremlin’s payroll. Last Friday the former German chancellor was appointed foreign policy advisor of Gazprom, the Russian state-owned oil and gas company, and chairman of the board of commissioners of NEGP, the Russian-controlled consortium that is building a gas pipeline from Siberia to Germany.

In the series of healthcare price controls the Netherlands comes up with new ideas. Hans Hoogervorst, the Dutch minister of Health, who is a member of the Liberal Party and supposedly innovation-supporting, has agreed to new pharmaceuticals covenants for 2006 and 2007. Budget setting seems to be the structural solution now.

There have been many ways to cost containment in healthcare in Europe. To give a ‘short’ overview:

You may have read Elaib Harvey’s coverage concerning the British Conservative MEPs’ relationship with the ultra-federalist European People’s Party. David Cameron has been attacked by several Euro-enthusiasts for promising to end this unhappy link.

It is usually the way in politics that, when a change is proposed, its opponents become hyper-active while its supporters sit back and take things for granted. I hope, though, that, on this issue, those who support Cameron’s line will give him public backing. If you are a British Conservative who would like to restore honour and consistency to our position in Brussels, please tell our new Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague. His email is [email protected]. You might also like to copy in the leader of the Conservative MEPs, Timothy Kirkhope ([email protected]), and David himself: [email protected]. I am sure they will appreciate your support.

Herman De Bode

Herman De Bode, McKinsey’s CEO in the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg) was forced to resign last week. The 52-year old Mr De Bode, who is also the president of the Harvard Club of Belgium, is a Fleming. He had signed the so-called “Warande manifesto,” a text authored by a group of 50 businessmen and academics from Flanders, calling for Flemish independence from the multinational federal Kingdom of Belgium. The latter is an artificial state, which prides itself on being the model of a federal Europe.  It consists of 6 million Dutch-speakers in Flanders, its northern half that borders on the Netherlands, 4 million French-speakers in Wallonia, its southern half that borders on France, and almost 100,000 Germans along its eastern border with Germany.
Its capital Brussels, which is also the capital of Flanders and of the
European Union, has a French-Dutch bilingual status. The Warande
manifesto calls for the transformation of Brussels into a European
district, after the example of Washington DC.

This week the European Parliament is in session in Strassburg. Last night two Parliamentary Committees met simultaneously. The MEP attendance at these committees was revealing in the way in which our so called representatives prioritise their work.

The first Committee Meeting was the Committee on Budgetary Control (COCOBU). This meeting was discussing the EU Budget discharge for 2004. Attending this meeting were José Manuel Barroso, the Commission President, the Court of Auditors who famously refuse to sign off the accounts, and 18 MEPs, out of 70 who have membership of the Committee. Hence, less than a quarter turned up to what is essentially the job of the Parliament: to act as the budgetary control function in the EU. This was the first time that Barroso had appeared in front of a Parliamentary Committee ever, and he was there to attempt to explain how the EU budget was so riddled with fraud.

David Cameron, the new leader of the British Conservatives, has repeated his plans to cut the links between his party and the Christian-Democratic group in the European Parliament, the European People’s Party-European Democrats (EPP-ED). Cameron is, however, facing a revolt by a large number of his party’s 27 MEPs who do not want to leave the EPP-ED, the largest bloc in the European Parliament. They say this would entail that they end up in the group of the non-inscrits (NI), together with the extreme-right.

Yesterday, Straun Stevenson, Scotland’s senior Tory MEP, who paints himself as a Eurosceptic so as to ensure a high placement on the Tory list in Scotland, entered the crowded lists of the EPP debate. He issued an ultimatum, saying he would refuse to go along with his leader’s plans. “We would have to sit round the table on a weekly basis with these fascists and nutters that nobody else will sit with. I tell you now that I refuse to do that. I don’t care who’s ordering me to do that. I won’t come back and stand for election as a Conservative in Scotland when I’m sitting in a group with Le Pen. I’m sorry, but I’m just not prepared to do it,” Stevenson said in the Sunday Herald.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The 36 year old Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the most famous member of the Dutch Parliament. She is not only a Naomi Campbell lookalike, but is an outspoken and courageous critic of Muslim extremists, who have consequently threatened to kill her. One can only admire her resolve. Two weeks ago, however, Hirsi Ali became controversial within her own party, the Dutch center-right Liberal Party VVD, with her proposal to abolish Article 23 of the Dutch constitution. This article guarantees freedom of education. Ayaan Hirsi Ali wants all religious schools banned.

Is Islam dangerous because it is a religion? Do Muslim values differ from European values because the latter are rooted in Christianity or because they are secular? These questions are at the heart of the debate in Europe today. Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch moviemaker who was murdered by a Muslim fanatic last year believed that religion was what made people intolerant. Van Gogh was anti-religious rather than anti-Islamic, as he had previously shown by insulting Christians and Jews and attacking traditional morality before shifting his attention to the growing segment of Muslims in Dutch society.

Two years ago, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen commissioned a study which was supposed to come up with welfare reform ideas. Rasmussen, the author of a book entitled From Welfare State to Minimal State came to power in 2001 and was reelected this year. He has conceded for some time that the welfare state needs reforms.

This week the commission published its final report. The result is – to put it mildly – a disaster. Very few of the reform proposals depart from the basic premises of the flawed Scandinavian model. In fact the Commission itself has stated that it aimed to present a reform proposal based on the core values of the Danish society – these values apparently being the preservation of the welfare state.

The Norwegian government of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, an extreme-left coalition of Stoltenberg’s Workers’ Party (Ap), the Socialist Left Party (SV) and the green Center Party (Sp), wants to ban Cuban democrats from attending Norway’s national holiday festivities. The SV is also calling for a boycot of Israel.

On Monday Jonas Gahr Støre (Ap), the Norwegian Foreign Minister, announced that he is considering to no longer invite opponents of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro to the Norwegian embassy’s party in Havana on May 17, Norway’s national holiday. Gahr Støre is doing this at the request of Gerd-Liv Valla, the chairperson of the Norwegian Socialist Trade Union (LO), who considers herself to be the godmother of Stoltenberg’s party.