Monday - June 20, 2011

like arguments over state’s rights. If I recall, that led to civil war…

Oy Vey ....

Things indeed look black at black rock.  I’m not making lite of things. Oh alright. Light. I’m not making light of it. And actually it is serious. Maybe. I believe it might be.

This is a story of conflict and it has to do with the UK and the EU.

Now then, there seems to be a serious dispute between a couple of folks one of them being a non entity who is Baroness Catherine Ashton. She was at one time a very mediocre bureaucrat who nobody ever heard of. She made no enemies because nobody had ever heard of her. She was also pretty inoffensive as she hardly ever said anything and kept pretty quiet. A brand new position opened up in the EU.  FOREIGN MINISTER.  The EU hadn’t any before. So they went looking for someone to fill the position. Well, all the other names put forward Europe wide, had problems. For example, the French didn’t approve of the German name put forward, the Germans for their part did not approve of the Italian, the Italians didn’t care for the French nominee etc. You get the picture.  So, last one standing who offended no one cos no one knew who she was, a woman who speaks NO foreign language and isn’t interested in learning one, AND does not answer phones on weekends and leaves her office early on Fridays. In other words, a typical bureaucrat. AND ... while everyone is cutting budgets (or say they are) she has increased her budget to expand her office. Well, apparently she has won a major victory against her own country.  Have I mentioned that she’s a Labourite? No?
Ah well ... she is one of those.  She is also: High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the EU.

The other is a man named William Hague, who just happens to be England’s Foreign Secretary.  The equiv. of the job Mrs Clinton holds for the USA. See the conflict?

Well, today it was found that the government had accidentally published a classified briefing in which it was said that the Baroness was not experienced enough to become the Eu’s Foreign Minister.  That briefing was in 2009.  Too late now boys. She’s in like Flynn and she ain’t goin’ nowhere but up that golden money tree.

Ok, please pay attention cos this does tend to get a mite involved, and I may need you to explain it to me.  But I’m workin’ on it.
Take a look. 

Baroness Ashton defeats William Hague in EU’s UN battle

Baroness Ashton has inflicted a major defeat on William Hague in his battle to stop the EU usurping British foreign policy after increasing her rights to speak for Europe as a whole at the UN

By Bruno Waterfield, Brussels

The latest “reverse” came despite the government’s creation last year of a top-level war room within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to stop a new EU diplomatic service winning the right to speak for Britain on international bodies.

Lady Ashton and her EU foreign service have overridden British protests to increase its representation and speaking rights at the UN from its New York general assembly to 61 other bodies, including a politically sensitive human rights council.

Lawyers in Brussels and New York have interpreted a move to give the EU special status in the UN’s general assembly (UNGA) last month as also applying to 35 committees, five councils or panels, seven commissions and 14 working groups.

The development is embarrassing for Mr Hague, the foreign secretary, because he promised the MPs last year that EU influence would be “strictly limited” to the UN general assembly and “does not imply agreement to seek additional rights in any other forum”.
Bill Cash, the chairman of the House Commons European scrutiny committee, which holds the government to account on EU matters, said the move was “quite clearly a humiliation”.

“Extending the EU’s status to all these other UN bodies is in flagrant breach of the assurances made to us,” he said. “It is a very severe reverse and has profound implications for the Foreign Office.”
David Lidington, the Europe minister, insisted that the latest UN development would not threaten British foreign policy.

“It is a simple technical change,” he said. “The resolution does not change the status of the EU in the UN or elsewhere in the international system. And it does not challenge the UK’s sovereignty, ability to act independently, or our seat on the UN Security Council. It is on this basis that we support it.”
A May 3 UN resolution gave the EU “the right to speak in a timely manner, the right of reply, the right to circulate documents, the right to make proposals and submit amendments, the right to raise points of order and more seats” for Lady Ashton and her officials.

Since then, Lady Ashton has addressed the UN general assembly as the single voice of European foreign policy and EU officials have already taken up seats and participated on two committees, including a body that oversees international peacekeeping operations.
British officials are fighting a rearguard action to keep the EU out of a powerful UN council for the protection of human rights but according to Brussels diplomats and officials the battle is lost.
“It is 26 EU member states versus one,” said a European diplomat. “This is what the Lisbon Treaty meant. Mr Hague might not like it but that’s the way it is.”

Secret instructions were sent by Mr Hague to all overseas posts last July, when the UN general assembly was tabled, to warn British diplomats to be on their guard against a new EU foreign service.

The Daily Telegraph understands that the classified “egram” instructed all overseas officials to be “vigilant” against “competence creep” by the EU, which has 136 delegations and missions across the world including key embassies in Washington, New York, Beijing and Moscow.

It expresses frustration that the Lisbon Treaty entered into force without any written agreements spelling out the “competences” for the EU foreign service and that the lack of rules has allowed Brussels officials to grab power at the expense of national governments.

All overseas British officials are placed on a standing alert to ensure that the EU does not use routine, existing meetings, such as UN structures, to extend its power and that European diplomats do not try to seek extra representation at the expense of national governments.

To monitor developments the Foreign Office has set up a special structure of senior officials and committees to report back directly to Mr Hague on developments.

TELEGRAPH

In closing this page I would like to invite you to please see more below the fold. And even more from that party at their link. Which you will get by merely clicking on the WANTED POSTER.

Posted by peiper     on 06/20/2011 at 10:15 AM   
Filed Under: • EUro-peons • UK •  
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