The United States of Europe

By all accounts, the transition to the Euro went without too much of a hitch at the New Year. Guilders, Pesetas, Francs and Marks will vanish from history as quickly as they vanished from shopkeepers’ tills. A little welling up of the eyes, a fond indulgence in nostalgia ensued as various peoples keep their last small change as mementoes of former economies.

The dash from cash (old cash that is) seems complete as coins were dropped into charity boxes and larger amounts were spent on durable investments such as property and precious stones. Of course, the latter form of cash was hidden under mattresses from the Statist taxman and was not amenable to conversion into large quantities without kindling his wrath. The inflationary figures for the last quarter in Euroland may be a little higher as a result of this revised form of tax evasion.

The road to economic integration is nearing its end. Now they can concentrate on political integration for as night follows day that is surely the whole raison d’etre behind the conversion to a Europe-wide currency. Tax harmonisation policies will follow and in a more socialist-minded Europe that can only mean higher taxes for some countries and an inflexible approach to the free market and the economic liberty of the individual.

Meanwhile, Britain along with a couple of other EU member nations stands outside awaiting the result of a referendum yet to be announced. The opinion polls do not look too good for Tony Blair as he pushes his pro-Europe agenda; most people are against giving up the good old pound. It seems he has his work cut out, especially as Britain is faring better in this current recession than Euroland.

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I could well imagine Tony Blair engineering a massive rise in interest rates prior to the referendum and then pointing to the much lower rate of interest being set by the European Central Bank. I don’t believe that, but I can believe pro-Europe media only reporting that which is good about joining this huge and disparate Union and ignoring the rest of the perceived bad news.

So why am I against this integration of little states into a super-state? It is not so much a matter of geographic extension of a centralised power. After all, a State could be the size of Asia and still have a small government allowing free market principles to run unfettered (though that could be disputed).

What bothers me is the crackpot political correctness of the pronouncements we have seen coming from Brussels allied with the greater tax-and-spend regime of the traditional socialism of central Europe. The two in combination are a withering but potent force for the first pronounces and the second enforces with a vengeance.

The rather strange laws of the European Commission such as the legitimate curvature of bananas and cucumbers for packing purposes have now passed into the folklore of crackpot decrees.

But, one example legislation that worries me is the forced egalitarianism of employment opportunity as applied to religious organisations. Take the example of a lesbian professing to be a Christian who applies for the job of priest at some parish. Does the rejection of her application on the ethical and theological grounds of that church violate her individual rights?

According to European law, she may well have a case. However, the wording is a bit ambiguous at this point in the legislation. The law seems to allow for ministers of religion to be exempt from such discrimination but not others who may work for that organisation. In other words, the minister may be sexually and theologically sound, but his entire staff could be gay, lesbian or from other faiths!

Of course, what is more likely to happen is the organisation going into bankruptcy paying of the discrimination lawsuits. I can readily envisage gay groups going into interviews with hidden cameras and exposing the prejudiced way the affair was conducted. That is what anti-racist groups did to expose employers who told black applicants that a job had gone and then they sent in a white applicant who was told the job was still open; so it is a proven technique of entrapment.

Needless to say, libertarianism not only affirms the right of an individual to believe what he wants but also the right for like-minded individuals to form private groups which reinforce such beliefs (I may add that my Christian version of libertarianism allows God and not the EU a veto in who forms what groups).

How much common sense will prevail over political correctness remains to be seen but the incessant quest for multicultural homogeneity continues and I fear that an expanded European Union will only hasten this madness.

Allied to that would be the mantra of Europe-wide State Welfare policies as the poorer Eastern European countries seek membership. Once again, I fear these less stable economies would be net gainers whilst Britain would be a net contributor to such a welfare regime. No, the best way these former communist countries can develop is to allow internal free markets to prosper and minimise State taxation and interference. My message to them is to take a lead from China’s capitalist reforms and not move from Soviet socialism to EU socialism.

So, in conclusion, if Britain wants an example of the way to go then they need look no further than prosperous Switzerland. The running joke is that they only invented various forms of cheese and the cuckoo clock but that is a small price to pay for avoiding the bloody wars of our European past.

January 17, 2002