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EU elections: DINOsaurs duck first meteorite

Patrick L Young is expert in global f inancial markets working in multiple disciplines, ranging f romtrading independently to running exchanges.

Published time: May 26, 2014 08:14

A man walks past a board displaying provisional results of the European Parliament election at the EUParliament in Brussels May 25, 2014. May 25, 2014. (Reuters/Francois Lenoir)

With the EU in economic decline, voters have demonstrated broad anger at the institutions and their aloof ,incompetent stewards, ‘Democrats in Name Only’ (DINOs).

However, rest assured, mere voters are not worthy of consideration when the Brussels elite knows better.

Back in the good old days, the West used to look smugly at the gerontocracy in the Warsaw pact, where oldmen did everything within their powers to control an increasingly restive population. Times have changed.

In the past decade it has become increasingly clear that the Brussels apparatus seeks not to endorseliberty but rather propagate an outmoded f orm of centralized control. Private enterprise is being strangledunless it can af f ord to comply with an ever multiplying quantity of rules, regulations and red tape whichcreate a distorted protectionist zone. As the world economy pivots east, Europe is being lef t behind.

The votes have been cast and the polls counted. The verdict is in: a mixture of damning indictment of EUf ailings married with a collective apathy towards the Brussels bubble.

However, this collective distaste f or ‘more Europe’ will not trif le the mass ranks of presidents,commissioners and apparatchiks. Hypocrisy thrives at the epicenter of Brussels: democracy is essential f orothers, but unnecessary f or an EU where the ‘great unwashed’ have an annoying habit of voting against thetreaties the Eurocrats desire. Thus the EU developed a remarkable habit of insisting that ref erenda arererun until the ‘right’ result is occasioned.

The Lisbon Treaty was an even greater sleight of hand. When Dutch and French voters rejected a Europeanconstitution in 2005, a ‘new’ treaty was rammed through, regardless of the will of the people. Thanks tothis democratic def icit and lack of accountability at EU level, Europe is now rooted in long-term economicdecline. Meanwhile the euro currency is held together by duct tape and the sheer bloody mindedness of anelite valuing deluded dogma above the economic welf are of the people.

Members of the electoral table count the ballots af ter the European Parliament elections at a pollingstation in Ronda, near Malaga, southern Spain, May 25, 2014. (Reuters/Jon Nazca)

No ‘more Europe’

The latest European elections ought to mark a turning point in the increasingly unaccountable Europeanproject but outgoing President Van Rompuy has already made it clear the misgivings of the Euroskepticminority will be ignored. Thus the two f aces of the EU are apparent - democratic platitudes on one sidewhile on the other: dictating an outmoded big government top down approach (which is clearly f ailing thepeople).

The EU is now the preserve of the 21st century’s DINOsaurs: Brussels’ oligarchs who are ‘Democrats inName Only’, with a distinctly archaic approach to growth, as demonstrated by their desire to expand the‘empire’ east (into Ukraine and beyond), despite being unable to deliver coherent prosperity in their ownback yard.

Thus the European People’s Party (EPP) alongside the Socialist and Democrat (S&D) parties will maintaintheir longstanding grand coalit ion agreement despite the upsurge in Euroskeptic votes. Their ‘grandcoalition’ is a variant of electoral dictatorship: ramming through more regulations and above all, ‘moreEurope’, at every turn.

That the people of Europe are clearly losing their enthusiasm f or the EU is irrelevant to the rather archaicstructure of the European politburo, busy dictating daf t centralized approaches to tractor production while

competing economies are driven by high tech innovation. (In a marvelously absurd outburst last week at aBrussels conf erence, President Barroso gave a speech on the topic of developing a more entrepreneurialEurope, wondering aloud why so many Europeans emigrants are developing new technology in siliconvalley, without bothering to consider that his Jurassic Park of central planning cannot replicate the dynamicf reedom f rom bottom up technological innovation dominant around Palo Alto.)

Adding insult to injury in their contempt f or European voters’ concerns, the DINOsaurs will soon f urtherendorse their self - imposed democratic def icit. Af ter lavish dinners’ at taxpayers’ expense, EU leaders’summits will f udge candidates f or the various presidencies and commissioner posts. Voters will, as always,be an af terthought in a process where only those pledging blind allegiance to the Europhile mania can beconsidered f or high of f ice.

Welcome to business as usual in the European Union. A once-mighty continent is regulating itself intoirrelevance, demoting a once proud trading bloc to being a global also ran. Europe is stagnating under thethumb of a blind dictatorship of dinosaurs. Extremist polit ics the EU promised to expunge are returning.While the 2014 electoral meteorite has not rendered Europhile dinosaurs extinct, another f ive years blithelytreating voters with contempt will seriously endanger the European project.

It is t ime f or no ‘more Europe’.

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