News Brief – November 21, 2009
Herman Van Rompuy, named as the European Union’s first president, wants an EU-wide tax that would further advance moves toward a European super state.
The Belgium Prime Minister revealed this just days before he was named E.U. president, at a private meeting of the secretive Bilderberg group of top politicians, bankers and businessmen.
His appointment follows a familiar pattern where formerly low profile politicians meet with the Bilderberg group before rising in the political heirarchy.
In the early nineties both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair attended Bilderberg meetings before ascending to the positions of president and prime minister.
Similarly, Pedro Santana Lopes and Jose Socrates attended the 2004 Bilderberg meeting in Stresa, Italy before both went on to become Prime Minster of Portugal.
Mr Van Rompuy’s disclosure was made during a speech before Bilderbergers at the Castle of the Valley of the Duchess near Brussels. The very same venue for the talks on the Treaty of Rome that launched the European Union in 1957.
Van Rompuy reportedly said the EU needed
new taxes that might include airline tax, fuel duty tax, value added tax and others that could be seen as “green”.
The position of what will in effect be Von Rompuy’s foreign minister was given to another relatively low profile candidate. Catherine Ashton was officially named as the European Union’s
High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Catherine Ashton
Although she will be the E.U.’s first, Catherine Ashton’s appointment has one thing in common with all the other posts she held. Ever since she was made a life peer in the
House of Lords as Baroness Ashton of Upholland Catherine Ashton has never had to court public favour.
All the positions she has held since, either as a junior minister, in the House of Lords, or as the UK’s European Commissioner in Brussels and now the E.U.’s first foreign minister have been through appointment not election.
Just as Herman Van Rompuy arrived at his post as European Union President.
If nothing else Catherine Ashton, Baroness of Upholland is European nobility though, which may explain why she’s been given the post over others more experienced.
Her appointment prompted UKIP's Nigel Farage to tell to the
Times newspaper: "Baroness Ashton is ideal for the role. She's never had a proper job, and never been elected to public office."
Nonetheless she has the right measure of political correctness having been recognised as a gay rights advocate and winning a gay rights group’s “
politician of the year” in 2006.
And maybe that is what counts. Not experience or public trust but the right connections and a willingness to do the bidding of Europe’s elite – and by extension the global elite – regardless of what ordinary folk may think.
Because when all is said and done, ordinary Europeans aren’t voting for their leaders in the European Union. Some shadowy, faceless, unnaccountable committee in a labyrinth bureaucracy is doing that.
Ordinary folk just have to abide by their decisions – whether they like it or not.
Last updated 23/11/2009
Homepage