Daniel Hannan: Strange EU Migrations

Daniel Hannan - member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England (Conservative) - has written a magnificient piece in Germany's daily WELT on migration movements within the European Union that border on the absurd. Daniel was kind enough to grant permission to present the original English version of his article in Davids Medienkritik.

Please note the part on the German MEP's innovative income policies...

Strange EU Migrations

The European Parliament, it seems, has been swindled. We MEPs – or, rather, you taxpayers – have been paying €1 million a year over the odds to the city of Strasbourg.

It is, of course, quite normal to over-invoice when dealing with the EU. Contractors know that Eurocrats are not spending their own money. They are like builders asking “Insurance job, this, is it?” – only on a far, far grander scale.

What distinguishes this little scam, though, is that it reignites the argument about the location of the European Parliament. MEPs generally meet in Brussels; but, once a month, we travel Strasbourg. (We also maintain a permanent seat in Luxembourg, for reasons which are too complicated to go into now.) The expense of migrating between these places is awesome. Even when we factor out the cost of interpretation and translation, each MEP costs the taxpayer nearly €2.5 million a year. It’s not just the 732 MEPs who make the monthly peregrination, you see: it’s the chauffeurs, the committee clerks, the man who advises your secretary about her pension rights – oh, and some twelve tons of papers, shuttling back and forth in a dedicated train.

The question of whether we should continue to meet in the chief town of Alsace tends to divide MEPs on grounds of nationality rather than political leaning. The British are sick of the place, largely because they hate having to put themselves into the inept hands of Air France every month. German MEPs, on the other hand, love it – apparently because they can travel for free within Germany, which allows them to take the train to Offenburg, be picked up there by a parliamentary chauffeur, and then claim a full fare for the journey.

The trouble is that there is no mechanism for ending the Strasbourg sessions. At the beginning of the 1990s, sneaky French negotiators managed to insert a

clause into the European Treaties specifying that the Parliament must meet there at least twelve times a year. This cannot now be removed without the unanimous approval of all 25 Governments, and there is no way that France will agree to it. Interestingly, though, the Treaties do not mention Brussels. So there is a way in which we could end this ridiculous waste: we could cut out Brussels and meet permanently in Strasbourg. It is, after all, a far prettier town than Brussels, combining the best of its French and German inheritances.

Moving away from the grey and soulless streets of Brussels would horrify the Euro-fanatics: they see the city as Europe’s federal capital. But meeting permanently in Strasbourg would bolster the old idea that the EU is an association of states, its institutions spread among its members. Whenever I suggest this idea to other MEPs, they say: “But we have to be at the centre of power. If we were separated from the Commission, it would be harder to pass legislation.” Yes, it would. As the French say: “Et alors?” (emphasis added)

DANIEL HANNAN MEP 29 April 2006

(Note from David: Having received this English version from Daniel's office without a headline we added one at our choosing.)

Comments

[Pamela]

Dear Mr. Hannon

The European Parliament, it seems, has been swindled.
We MEPs – or, rather, you taxpayers – have been paying
€1 million a year over the odds to the city of
Strasbourg.

Cry me a fucking river. Where were you when Hans-Martin Tillace was arrested?

What's going on with OLAF?

Tillack was arrested in March of 2004. Where the fuck where you?

And why won't the auditors in the EU sign off on the books?

Don't expect any cheap kudos from me.

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

OT via chicagoBoyz.net:

Call for Scam Hunters

TM Lutas
A new scam is running around. A bank account is cracked, real checks are printed, sent out in large numbers, the checks are deposited by people thinking they are for payment of "taxes" for a lottery and the "tax payment" is sent via Western Union / Moneygram to the "tax agent", in other words, the scam artist. The name, bank information, routing number, security features on the check are all entirely legitimate. This way the group gets money sent to them without ever actually having to touch the bank.

I just got the 2nd one of these in a month and it's ticking me off. My local police are too lazy to follow up on reporting this sort of scam (the route I took in the first case) so I'm throwing this out for a bit of international justice. Is there a coalition of the willing out there willing to bust scammers?

The "agent" gives a number of 011-491-60-91-92-39-92 which seems to be Germany. If anybody could trace this to a locality and get the police to act, I will press charges.

[Scout]

@Sandy: Sorry I can't help, but that is a pre-paid cell phone number. It could be anywhere. If someone here filed a complaint, and if the police acted on it (two big ifs), then the records of the original registration could be obtained to see the address of the purchaser of the pre-paid number. However, I suspect the address is ficticious. It's not that difficult.

[Pamela]

Sandy P - forget the local yokels. You've got two big sources - the bank(s) AND the Post Office. Try using the mail to commit fraud and it becomes a federal offense (that neat little crime called 'mail fraud'). So, you can also call the local FBI.

[LouMinatti]

Crooked, wasteful politicians are a dime a dozen everywhere. Sometimes, voters get fed up enough to do something about it. It requires a great deal of organization. It also requires candidates to formulate a list of promises, a "contract with the voters." We saw this in the US in 1994, and for the first few years the newly-elected politicians actually kept their word for the most part. (Of course, now we're faced with Congress no different from the crooked Congress that was in charge back then, and they will pay for their indifference in November.)

Perhaps fed-up Europeans should do something similar.

[TM Lutas]

Thank you Sandy. I was the original poster of the article. It's the 2nd one of these things I've gotten the past month and it's morally pernicious because you have a real check with a good chance of getting it cashed if you move fast. What's worse is that with only a few small adjustments (individually varying the amounts of the checks so that banks don't catch on so quickly) this scam can be made much more dangerous.

I tried reporting it the first time I got one of these and had zero follow up on the matter. The next variant had a German angle. Thank you all for posting what information you have. I know that it is possible to trace a cell call and I am certainly willing to play the semi-suspicious US boob willing to talk for the time needed to make a trace down to a physical location. The only question is whether people in law enforcement anywhere are willing to actually put these people behind bars?

Where's the vaunted german respect for law and order when you need it?
B-)

[pigilito]

Hilarious article. Little wonder the EU is held in such low esteem.