March 20, 2004

The Fourth Reich?

By Thomas Lifson
The European Union has a demonstrated record of corruption, most recently in its statistical agency. Even though it has a 'parliament' which sits in Strasbourg, its bureaucracy, based hundreds of miles away in Brussels, is notably endowed with arbitrary power.   The Brussels Eurocrats are in charge of the minutiae of rules affecting countless commercial interests. Merely by changing one element of a standard for a certain product, a Eurocrat can sway markets in favor of one firm or country, and the process will have no transparency. In other words, a recipe for corruption has been created.   Few Europeans could name the Euro—MP who represents them in Strasbourg, precisely because the European Parliament rarely does anything which directly affects them. Even fewer could name the Eurocrat in Brussels who changes a rule benefiting Company A to the tune of hundreds of millions of Euros, precisely because the Eurocrats operate in deliberate obscurity.   All of these...(Read Full Article)