Adam Smith Institute

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Wheat and chaff

1906
wheat-and-chaff

It is symptomatic of the EU that Irish MEP Avril Doyle is calling for a complete ban on smoking within Europe by 2025. Is it not now time for the people of Europe to unite, not in a formalized political or military alliance, but in their opposition to this cryptofascist organisation?

In truth getting a tobacco ban across the whole of Europe will never happen, but that such ideas are on the agenda is indicative of the nannying intellect that is common among those positioned within the Brussels system. A phenomenon that goes under the word: Brusselization.

So what is the future of Europe? Unless the institutions find a way of changing fundamentally, they are heading for more showdowns of the kind that led to the Irish no vote. Without change, the EU will continue to be dominated by who can understand why the creation of the ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community) was wise, but cannot now see how this logic has mushroomed into the current excess of centralized power. Things need to change; subsidies ("market related expenditure and direct aid" in Eurospeak) are not going down. As a consequence, France is still the greatest beneficiary of European taxpayer's money.

Thus, on the one side of the argument we have those who benefit from the centralized power (politicians and effective lobbyists), or those that agree with the policies that are being imposed. On the other side of the argument we have those that are intellectually and/or instinctively opposed to the powers that are being increasingly usurped over their lives by the European edifice.

The solution is to go back to go forward. Back to the idea that trade leads to peace between nations. The rest we can do without.