Skip to main content

Juncker-Verhofstadt: Lobbies and groups of interests in the EU are unavoidable!

A good example of neoliberal “rationalism”

EU ELECTIONS

by system failure

This was probably the final conclusion that came from the debate for the presidency of the EU at the end through the question from the moderator Monica Maggioni. The answer by the head of the European Greens, Ska Keller, who seems to have a special sensitivity on this matter, was also quite revealing.

Keller said clearly that the lobbies in EU are so deeply involved in various decisions that there are times when their representatives forget to remove the headlines with the names of the companies on the amendments in Brussels' corridors! She also said that lobbies spend millions in order to influence lawmakers and commissioners. This is the picture of Europe today, further details are obviously unnecessary.

For the rest, the debate was something that more or less someone should expect. Even the positions of the candidates were signaling that the people who organized this debate, knew from the start what the candidates would say according to their political agenda.

Starting from the left of the panel, Alexis Tsipras, representative of the European Left, most intensively criticized the destructive policies of the European neoliberal economic empire. He made straight questions to Juncker related to the austerity policies, the recent revelations for the backstage of the Greek crisis, the substitution of the PMs in Greece and Italy with the banking puppets Papadimos and Monti, and, the dark role of banks and their enormous responsibilities.

Tsipras didn't receive any substantial answer, as expected, but it seems that he gained popularity with his straight speech. He also correctly criticized the new plan for the banks, the bail-in - which Verhofstadt defended with passion - since those who will be called to pay for the banking crises first, are the depositors: http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2013/07/why-banksters-laugh-with-recent-ecofins.html

Next to Tsipras was Ska Keller. She clearly stood against the transatlantic agreement between EU-US (in contrast with Verhofstadt who defended it warmly). She also said that Europe should end banking speculation. She stood against Putin and the annexation of Crimea, claiming that Europe should stop selling weapons to Russia and that should stop depend on Russia for energy supply. Her most successful statement, of course, was that concerning the lobbies in Brussels.

In the middle of the panel, the head of the European Socialists and current president of the European parliament, Martin Schulz, spoke generally, using a neutral rhetoric, saying for example that we need a combination of fiscal discipline and development-fighting tax fraud. This kind of rhetoric is frequently used by Socialists in Europe, although due to their long presence in power, they completely serve lobbies and vote for laws to serve specific interests against the majority, mostly in periods of crises.

At the right of Martin Schulz, Jean-Claude Juncker, from the European People's Party, who strongly supports the neoliberal agenda, he defended fiscal discipline in constant denial concerning the destructive policies in Greece and European South. He stated openly that, despite that corruption must be dealt in member-states and in European level, no one can forbid specific teams to act according to their interests! Someone should tell Juncker that these things are going together. When you allow specific groups (mainly banking lobbies) to act free and impose their interests to European organizations, then you will get corruption.

He also supported that Europe does not invest enough because the budgets of the countries do not allow this, due to the high debts and deficits. Someone should also tell him that, the Greek debt and deficit are in worse position than in 2010, when Greece was excluded from markets, and this is due to the policies as well as the banks' bailout with billions - according to recent data from the Hellenic Statistical Authority (http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/04/greece-deficit-at-127-and-public-debt.html) - which he supported.

Finally, at the right edge of the panel, next to Juncker, Guy Verhofstadt, from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party, he appeared as the purest representative of the neoliberal Right, as he supported with passion the European completion and unified market by purely economic terms in favor of the big companies. In essence, he defended monopolies and the transatlantic trade agreement between the EU and US. Like Juncker, he admitted that, no one can avoid lobbyists!

He insisted too on fiscal discipline and he said that the political parties in Greece were supported by the banks because they were under the Greek Public control. It seems that he doesn't know very well the Greek situation as even the Bank of Greece is not under the Greek Public control. Unless that he made such a shallow statement in order to hide the fact that private banks and local big businesses in Greece were doing "business" with the Greek political class of the past decades, in order to blame the "bad" Greek Public, which is responsible for all this situation in Greece, a position promoted by the neoliberal propaganda since the beginning of the current crisis.

He stood clearly against Putin and read a statement from the famous former chess player, Garry Kasparov, in which Kasparov called Putin a dictator, but as expected, he didn't say a word for the support of neo-nazis in Ukraine by the EU/US.

An additional interesting fact from the debate was that the two candidates at the left of the panel, Tsipras and Keller, were the youngest and those who spoke with passion against interests, banks' speculation and supported a Europe of solidarity putting people at the center of the political decisions, while at the right of the panel, the older Juncker and Verhofstadt, appeared more conservative and "rationalists", defending "underground" the neoliberal agenda. However, no one from the panel dared to speak about the support of neo-nazis in Ukraine and to point the huge hypocrisy of the West which supposedly deeply "concerns" about the rise of the fascism.

  The whole debate here:

Comments

  1. Anonymous6/8/15 08:33

    Recent history : Honduras > the Maldives > Paraguay > Ukraine > Greece

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Oct. 7 Reports Implode: Beheaded Babies, NY Times Scandal, & More

Glenn Greenwald    

Israel’s Descent Into Madness & the Holocaust Comparison

BreakThrough News   Rania Khalek was joined by Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany and associate professor at Koc University in Istanbul, to discuss Israel’s descent into genocidal fascism. Prof. Amar addresses whether it’s useful to make Holocaust and Nazi comparisons and the real reason behind the West’s unshakeable loyalty attitude when it comes to Israel’s barbarism.   

Zionist and US imperialist criminals are about to grab the natural gas off shore Gaza

globinfo freexchange   As the genocide against Palestinians of Gaza is about to be completed with an act of unprecedented brutality by the Zionists and butcher Netanyahu through the bombardment of about 1.4 million civilians in Rafah, it seems that they have already set their next primary goal. Which, in short, is to grab the natural gas resources off shore Gaza, together with their US imperialist buddies whose contribution to the genocide has been undoubtedly critical.     As already reported , in 2007, Hamas came to power and Israel launched an offensive on Gaza Strip, leaving behind 1,400 dead Palestinians, but taking with it the gas fields. Within a year, Israel announced the discovery of the Leviathan natural gas field, which did include Gaza's riches, valued at 453 billion dollars. But Gazans have been denied around 47 billion dollars in revenue. As for Tel Aviv, it's gunning to become a new hub. At that moment in time, that is 2022, Russian oil and gas were sanctioned.

Neocon Queen Victoria Nuland Ends Her Reign: Exposing a Catastrophic Career

Glenn Greenwald    

Τυχαία γεγονότα στην τριτοκοσμική μπανανία των Βαλκανίων

failed evolution   1) Συμβαίνει το μεγαλύτερο σιδηροδρομικό δυστύχημα στην ιστορία της χώρας. 2) Γίνεται αστραπιαία επιχείρηση μοντάζ των συνομιλιών του σταθμάρχη από μηχανισμό του καθεστώτος, πριν ακόμα φτάσει στα χέρια των αρχών, προκειμένου να αποδοθεί η τραγωδία αποκλειστικά σε ανθρώπινο λάθος και να βγουν από το κάδρο οι πολιτικές ευθύνες ανώτατων κυβερνητικών αξιωματούχων. 3) Αναπαράγεται το παραποιημένο υλικό αστραπιαία από ναυαρχίδα της καθεστωτικής προπαγάνδας. 4) Τοποθετείται επικεφαλής στην επιτροπή-παρωδία πρωτοπαλίκαρο του καθεστώτος Μητσοτάκη που εργάζονταν παλιά στην ίδια αυτή ναυαρχίδα. 5) Η επιτροπή κλείνει άρον-άρον την υπόθεση αποκλείοντας ουσιώδεις μάρτυρες που είχαν προειδοποιήσει επανειλημμένα τον αρμόδιο υπουργό για τον κίνδυνο μεγάλου δυστυχήματος. Σταματάει έτσι και η όποια σε βάθος διερεύνηση για την τσιμεντοποίηση του χώρου και την απόπειρα συγκάλυψης της τραγωδίας.  

Το σκάσιμο της φούσκας Μητσοτάκη με νέα επίσημη χρεοκοπία και οριστικό τέλος της μεταπολίτευσης

του system failure   Τα αποτελέσματα των εκλογών της 25ης Ιουνίου ήταν λίγο-πολύ αναμενόμενα όσον αφορά τις πρώτες θέσεις με βάση και τα αποτελέσματα της πρώτης κάλπης του Μαίου. Αν συμπεριλάβουμε και το ποσοστό της αναμενόμενης αποχής, δεν μας έδωσαν κάποια ιδιαίτερη έκπληξη. Αυτό όμως που φαίνεται να αιφνιδίασε ακόμα και το συστημικό κατεστημένο, είναι η είσοδος των δύο υπερσυντηρητικών, ακροδεξιών κομμάτων Νίκη και Σπαρτιάτες, με το τελευταίο να έχει ξεκάθαρες διασυνδέσεις με τον πρώην Χρυσαυγίτη, Ηλία Κασιδιάρη. Παρά τη μεγάλη νίκη Μητσοτάκη, οι μιντιακοί ινστρούχτορες της καθεστωτικής προπαγάνδας εμφανίστηκαν σε γενικές γραμμές "μουδιασμένοι" και αυτό οφείλεται στο γεγονός ότι το συστημικό κατεστημένο (δηλαδή τα μεγάλα οικονομικά συμφέροντα που ελέγχουν και το σύνολο των μεγάλων ΜΜΕ πανελλαδικής εμβέλειας), πέτυχε μόνο έναν από τους τέσσερις μεγάλους στόχους που είχε θέσει εξ'αρχής. Μιλώντας με ποδοσφαιρικούς όρους, ουσιαστικά έχασε με σκορ 3-1.   Ο μεγάλος στόχος πο

The Shadowy, Intelligence-Linked Group Driving the US Towards War With Iran

"United Against Nuclear Iran does not miss an opportunity to try to bring the United States closer to a military conflict with Iran. And on the other side of the equation, they also have worked very hard to oppose efforts to de-escalate the U.S.-Iran relationship."   by Alan Macleod   Part 7 - A Lesson From History   The history of Iran has been intimately intertwined with the United States since at least 1953 when Washington orchestrated a successful coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had refused U.S. demands to stamp out Communist influences in his country and had nationalized the nation’s oil. The U.S. installed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a puppet ruler. An unpopular and authoritarian ruler, the Shah was overthrown in the Revolution of 1979. Since then, it has become a target for regime change, and its nuclear program is something of an obsession in the West. Often orchestrated by UANI officials while they were in government, the U.S. has carried

Israel Carries Out Most Sadistic Massacre, Opens Fire On Gaza Aid Convoy

Richard Medhurst  

How the CIA oversees the Ukraine proxy war on Russia

Geopolitical Economy Report   Several reports in mainstream US media outlets show how the CIA has helped to direct the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and played a role in causing the conflict in the first place. Ben Norton examines the evidence.   Related: Confirmed: US imperialists wanted to drag Russia into a war with Ukraine since at least 2019

The real reason behind TikTok ban

Glenn Greenwald /  Richard Medhurst