Brussels Powergrab

Monday, June 26, 2006

Transport sector the next rollover for lobbyists

EU Observer has an article about the EU transport policy. The Greens and environmental groups criticize a the new transport policy of the European Commission because it abandons the political aim of shifting long-distance transport to the rails.

The shift seems to be a result of lobbying by truck companies. And this is exactly why I am against further European centralisation. Europe is too far from the voter to have much influence. As a result rich lobbyists become too dominant.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

National parliaments get a little say on EU laws

EUobserver notes that national parliaments will get insight in new EU proposals. When parliaments make comments the commission will "duly consider" them. Given that this was watered down from "take into account" one shouldn't expect a revolution. But it is a start.

Monday, June 12, 2006

The creep towards an EU health policy

EU Observer has an article how even healthcare is slowly Europeanized.

Some of the handles that Brussel is using according to the article are:
- Crisis management (HIV/AIDS, SARS and bird flu)
- tobacco advertising (EU wants to forbid it; Germany believes it doeesn't have the authority; the case is now at the Luxemburg court)
- European Court of Justice in Luxembourg: has ruled that health insurers have to pay in some cases for treatment in other countries
- European "reference centres" for (the treatment of) rare diseases.

Welcome on this new blog

This blog is meant to keep track of how Brussel is taking over more and more power from the member states.

It happens stealthy: one by one the memberstates are giving up their competencies to Brussel. There is no open discussion and newspapers usually only report it after it has happened.

This blog is mainly meant to be record what is happening. Unlike at my Balkan Outlooks blog this blog will mainly consist of links and short summaries.

I am an Euro sceptic. I believe that the arguments for Europe are very similar to those for communism: bigger is better and more efficient. Yet in practice it didn't work that way for Russia and instead we saw lots of inefficiencies and corruption. I see similar tendencies in Europe.

Also I am a believer in nation states. I believe that if the main level of government comes on the European level the influence of the citizens on the government will inevitably decline. This is partly a matter of scale (you can see similat tendencies in the US), partly a matter of the language barriers.