Our EU Digest Poll in relation to this weeks EU Parliamentary Elections which was closed today showed the following results.

The Poll shows a potential strong showing by the so-called Eurosceptic parties while traditional pro-EU political  parties will remain in power.

Our new poll which runs through June 22 asks the question:  

"Do Corporations Have Too Much Influence On Global Governance?"

EU-Digest

European Parliamentary Elections - Eurosceptics: Netherlands' Geert Wilders cuts up EU flag in Bruxelles - by Nikolaj Nielsen

The Mouse which roared

Scissors in hand, anti-EU nationalist Geert Wilders of the Netherlands on Tuesday (20 May) vandalised the European Union flag in front of the European Parliament in Brussels.

In a publicity stunt amid the dozen or so cafes at Place Luxembourg, overlooked by the parliament’s tall glass structures, Wilders cut out a yellow star before unfolding the Dutch flag in its place.

The nationalist, who runs the Dutch Freedom Party, is convinced he will be able to form a new group of eurosceptic MEPs following the upcoming European Parliament elections. He wants the Netherlands to leave the Union, regain its sovereignty, and shut down its borders to asylum seekers.

His other goal - to pull apart the EU from within by forming the anti-EU faction in parliament - will require at least 25 MEPs from seven EU member states.Wilders says he will be meeting with other eurosceptic politicians next week in Brussels to work out a deal.

“It is our task to try to work together to overstep our differences, to not get into fights about our leadership, to overstep ‘our shadows’ as we say in the Netherlands,” he said.

He was short on details.

Note EU-Digest: Europe gets a taste of the type of politicians which represent the Eurosceptic group running in the elections for the European Parliament.

Read more: EUobserver / Netherlands' Geert Wilders cuts up EU flag

De Europese Verkiezingen: Wat dacht Pim Fortuyn over de EU? - RM

Pim Fortuyn - "at your service"

Het tv-programma Altijd Wat van KRO-NCRV zendt vanavond een nooit eerder uitgezonden interview uit met Pim Fortuyn. Het gesprek werd begin mei 2002, vier dagen voor de moord op Fortuyn, opgenomen; de NCRV besloot destijds om het niet uit te zenden.

In het vraaggesprek zei Fortuyn dat hij voor uitbreiding van de Europese Unie was. Hij zei letterlijk: "als premier zal ik vurig voor uitbreiding van Europa pleiten, vooral vanwege de veiligheid en stabiliteit."

Hij noemde Europa een uniek politiek project dat door de Europese bevolking moet worden gedragen. "Als dat niet gebeurt, zal alles uiteenvallen wat is opgebouwd."

En gelijk had Pim Fortuyn, zelf tot op de dag van vandaag.

 Als we ooit mochten teruggaan naar "eigen landje, eigen muntje, eigen zegje" worden we niet alleen levend "opgegeslokt" door de "grote machten"  - maar dan krijgen de multi-nationals zoals Monsanto, Dow, CitiBank, Google, Facebook, etc. in dat geval zeker een nog grotere greep op alles wat we kopen, eten en drinken en nog veel meer. Je moet er niet aan denken..

Gelukkig kunnen wij nu nog steeds via de EU tenminste gezamenlijk wat "tegen-gas" geven aan al die invloeden van buitenaf.

Stem daarom deze week tijdens de Europese verkiezingen vooral met uw gezond verstand en laat u niet beinvloeden door populistische uitlatingen van politici die niet verder kunnen of willen kijken dan hun neus lang is.

Jammer dat Pim er niet meer is om het ons nog eens een keer op zijn altijd scherpe en intelligente wijze goed en duidelijk uit te leggen.

EU-Digest

EUROPE – What makes the EU tick?

The EU was not always as big  as it is today. When European countries started to cooperate economically in 1951, only Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands participated.

Over time, more and more countries decided to join. The union reached its current size of 28 member countries with the accession of Croatia on 1 July 2013.

The creation of the single market and the corresponding increase in trade and general economic activit transformed the EU into a major trading power. The EU is trying to sustain economic growth by investing in transport, energy and research, while also seeking to minimize the environmental impact of further economic development.

The EU's economy — measured in terms of the goods and services it produces (GDP) — is now bigger than the US's: EU GDP in 2012: €12 945 402 million.

With just 7% of the world’s population, the EU's trade with the rest of the world accounts for around 20% of global exports and imports.

Around two-thirds of EU countries’ total trade is done with other EU countries.

Trade has been hit by the  global recession, but the EU remains the world’s largest player accounting for 16.4% of global imports in 2011. The EU is followed by the United States with 15.5% of all imports, and China with 11.9%. The  EU was also the biggest exporter, accounting for 15.4% of all exports -  compared with 13.4% for China and the 10.5% for the United States.

The EU's also has a unique institutional set-up:

• the EU's broad priorities are set by the European Council, which brings together national and EU-level leaders
• directly elected MEPs represent European citizens in the European Parliament
• the interests of the EU as a whole are promoted by the European Commission, whose members are appointed by national governments
• governments defend their own country's national interests in the Council of the European Union.

The European Council sets the EU's overall political direction – but has no powers to pass laws.

Led by its President – currently Herman Van Rompuy – and comprising national heads of state or government and the President of the Commission, it meets for a few days at a time at least every 6 months.

Law making: There are 3 main institutions involved in EU legislation:

• the European Parliament, which represents the EU’s citizens and is directly elected by them;
• the Council of the European Union, which represents the governments of the individual member countries. 
• The Presidency of the Council is shared by the member states on a  rotating basis.
• the European Commission, which represents the interests of the Union as a whole.

Together, these three institutions produce through the "Ordinary Legislative Procedure" (ex "co-decision") the policies and laws that apply throughout the EU.

In principle, the Commission proposes new laws, and the Parliament and Council adopt them. The Commission and the member countries then implement them, and the Commission ensures that the laws are properly applied and implemented.

Read more: EUROPA and the European project

EU Elections: "An EU of multinationals, of harmonization – makes people uneasy. People like difference and identity." - by Jon Henley

EU:  Multinational Lobbyists have taken over

The Foire aux Fromages et aux Vins in Coulommiers, an attractive town on the undulating Brie plateau an hour east of Paris, is a fabulously French affair: a monumental marquee, hordes of happy visitors and more than 350 stalls laden with Gallic bounty.

Among the cheeses are tomme from Savoie, crottins de chèvre from Aveyron, and great roundels of brie from nearby Meaux, alongside case upon case of chablis, Pouilly-Fumé, Nuits-Saint-Georges. And today, in amiable conversation with a local cheesemaker, there is Aymeric Chauprade, academic, author, consultant, and leading candidate in the European elections for Marine Le Pen's freshly fumigated Front National.

Here's the problem, explains an immaculately suited Chauprade, who besides degrees in maths and international law has a doctorate in political science from the Sorbonne: all this – he gestures around him as the throng prods, nibbles, squeezes, swills and swallows – is at risk.

"American farmers and 'big food' will rule; our regulations and standards will count for nothing," Chauprade continues. "This is an EU that has no respect for national specificities; it's an EU of bureaucrats, of ever greater normalisation, in the service of big banks and corporations. It is not the EU we want."
Understandably, this message plays well here. But not only here.

Across the EU, insurgent parties from right and left are poised to cause major upset, finishing at or near the top of their respective national votes. As a result, rejectionist parties look set to send their largest contingent of anti-European MEPs ever to the European parliament: perhaps 25% of the assembly's 751 members. (Down from 766 in the current parliament.)

Disillusion with the EU, certainly, is at record highs across the continent. The surveys are unequivocal: 60% of Europeans "tend not to trust" the EU now, against 32% in 2007; in 20 of the 28 member states a clear majority feels the EU is going "in the wrong direction"; for the first time, Eurosceptics outnumber supporters by 43% to 40%.

"In our analysis, the real turning point came in the late 1980s, when the big industrialists started laying down the plans for the future of Europe," says Dennis de Jong, a leading MEP from the impeccably leftwing but fiercely Euro-critical Dutch Socialist party. "Until that moment, the EU seemed like a logical post-war development. But industry, not ordinary people, has driven much of what's happened since, from opening internal borders to the euro.

This EU – the EU of multinationals, of harmonisation – makes people uneasy. People like difference. They like identity."

Read more: The enemy invasion: Brussels braced for influx of Eurosceptics in EU polls | World news | The Guardian

European Elections: Candidates spar in live EU TV debate

With flashes of wit, much earnestness and a certain reluctance to go for the jugular of their opponents, four candidates for the European Commission presidency broke new ground on Monday night by holding a live televised debate designed to drum up public interest in the May 22-25 elections for the European parliament.

If social media are one measure of that interest, the debate may have worked. Halfway through the 90-minute programme, broadcast from the Dutch city of Maastricht, an organiser announced that 10,000 tweets a minute were coming in.

The harder question to answer is whether any candidate did enough to convince potential voters that the elections will truly make a difference in a EU blighted by a long recession, mass unemployment and a squeezed welfare state.

Although the debate never turned nasty, Ska Keller, the Greens candidate, got in a sharp jab at Jean-Claude Juncker, the centre-right candidate, when she accused him of “presiding over a tax haven” during his time as prime minister of Luxembourg. An indignant Mr Juncker rejected the charge and managed later to slip in the image-softening remark that one reason why he favoured a EU-wide minimum wage was that he remembered his father’s tough life as a steelworker.

Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister who is the centrist, liberal candidate, turned his fire on José Manuel Barroso, the outgoing Commission president, saying Mr Barroso had never taken a decision without first flying to Berlin and Paris to get the green light. “The Commission needs to lead,” he thundered.

He also put Mr Juncker on the spot by challenging him to explain why his centre-right group still included Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister, who caused outrage last weekend by suggesting Germans denied the existence of Nazi concentration camps. But Mr Juncker hit back with the succinct sentence: “I was sickened by the statements of Mr Berlusconi.”

Martin Schulz, the centre-left candidate, made a valiant effort to distinguish himself from the other three by repeating on several occasions that he was against a Europe of “banks and speculators”.

When the debate moved on to Europe’s insurgent far-right parties, he spoke with some passion in saying he found it “unimaginable” as a German that “a Nazi party could sit in the European parliament and make propaganda for the party of Adolf Hitler”.

Read more: Candidates spar in live EU TV debate | Brussels blog

European Financial Industry: Germany, France back EU tax on derivatives - by Jean-Baptiste Vey

France and Germany agreed that a planned pan-European tax on financial transactions should cover all derivatives products, a source close to French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said on Wednesday.

President Francois Hollande and Chancellor Angela Merkel said after a joint meeting of their two cabinets in Paris that they wanted other EU partners to agree on such a levy by European Parliament elections in May.

France and its banks have in the past warned that imposing a transactions tax across the board of financial products could damage Europe's financial sector. But Germany has in recent days suggested a compromise under which different components of the tax could be phased in over time.

While Hollande and Merkel signalled their will for the 11 countries who back the tax to conclude a deal on it by the European elections, it was still not clear how high the final tax would be and when it would be applied to specific products.

Asked whether he favoured a phase-in of the tax as suggested by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble - starting with share trades first - Hollande said such details would be worked out in minister-level discussions.

"The main thing is that it happens. If we seek the perfect product, I know there are some people who will go so deep into details that there will never be a financial transactions tax. I prefer an imperfect tax to no tax at all," he said.

Note EU-Digest: every politician in the European Union should keep in mind that we elected them to defend the interests of the voters and not only the interests of  the financial, banking industry, or specific corporate interest groups. 
 
Read more: Germany, France back EU tax on derivatives - French source | Reuters

The European Social Model Can And Must Survive The Crisis - Anthony Giddens

What does the Eurozone crisis mean for the future of Europe? In an interview with EUROPP’s Managing Editor Stuart Brown, Anthony Giddens discusses the content of his new book, Turbulent and Mighty Continent: What Future for Europe? He outlines the structural factors underpinning the crisis, the benefits of EU membership, and why maintaining the European social model as a social investment state is of crucial importance for European countries.

"Europe has become a community of fate in another sense, which is that for the first time we have a European public and political space. In every European country, European issues are now covered extensively in the media. I was amazed at the amount of coverage given in the UK to Angela Merkel’s re-election. You would never have found that previously, and that’s recognition that we’re all in this together, even if many in the UK want us to leave the European Union."

"So for me, as a pro-European, the key issue is whether we can make this negative public space more of a positive one. For this reason, I feel that pro-Europeans should state their case and network across Europe in the run up to the 2014 European elections. We should not let the populists and the Eurosceptics dominate the debate politically, or emotionally."

Read more: The European Social Model Can And Must Survive The Crisis - Social Europe Journal