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GERMAN POLITICIANS SEEK TO "EUROBULLY" FRENCH VOTERS ... For your information:
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" I have always found the word 'Europe' on the lips of people who wanted
something from others which they dared not demand under their own names."

-  German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck, Gedenken und Erinnerungen,1880

*   *   *

Former German Ambassador to France, Dr Immo Stabreit, summarised how he saw
European integration as follows: "It is only natural that the eastern part
of the continent will become our preoccupation for years to come, because
Germans see this as  a matter of historical destiny. The most fundamental
priority we have is trying to integrate all of Europe. But for France the
underlying issue is all about coming to terms with its loss of influence in
the world" (International Herald Tribune,11-12 September 1999).

In this assessment the retiring Ambassador echoed the views of his
superior, German Foreign Minister Johschka Fischer, whose speech of 12 May
2000 at Humboldt University, Berlin, launched  the process that led to  the
proposed  EU Constitution which French and Dutch citizens will vote on this
coming week.

"Creating a single European State bound by one European Constitution is the
decisive task of our time," said Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer (Daily
Telegraph,London, 27-12-1998).

The "Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe" would  achieve a
central goal of German Foreign policy by establishing a new European Union
in the constitutional form of a supranational EU Federation, of which 450
million Europeans would be made real citizens for the first time. If the
Constitution is ratified we would all owe this new European Union, now
founded on its own State Constitution, the prime duty of citizenship,
namely obedience and loyalty, over and above our own national citizenship.

As German Minister for Europe,  Hans Martin Bury, said in "Die Welt" on 25
February last:  "The EU Constitution is the birth certificate of the United
States of Europe."

A century and a quarter after Bismarck's remark quoted above, it is now
Germany's State interests and German political hegemony  over the European
continent that the proposed EU Constitution would primarily  advance - at
the expense of the national democracy of Germany's own people,and of the
peoples of France, the Netherlands, and all other EU Members. The EU
Constitution  would also serve the interests of a small but powerful
political, bureaucratic and ideological elite in Brussels and other
national capitals.

The completion of Germany's ratification of the EU Constitution by the
German Bundesrat on Friday next 27 May, following approval by the Bundestag
on 12 May last, has been timed to put maximum pressure on French voters to
vote Yes on Sunday next,and Dutch voters on Wednesday week.

It is ironical that German Chancellor Schröder should break the norms of
diplomatic protocol by intervening in France's referendum to call for a Yes
vote  on the eve of his own party being rejected by the voters of North
Rhein-Westphalia by 45% to 37% in favour of the CDU.

If the German people had had a referendum on on the euro-currency as France
had   in 1992, they would almost certainly have rejected it. Now having
denied a vote to the German people on giving the EU the constitutional form
of a supranational Federation, Germany's politicians expect French voters
to follow their lead by agreeing to subsume France's national democracy and
independence in a German-dominated Europe. That this is their ambition, the
sequence of quotations from leading German politicians below makes
clear(The quotations are listed in chronological order backwards):-

___________

"European monetary union has to be complemented by a political union - that
was always the presumption of Europeans including those who made active
politics before us. . .What we need to Europeanise is everything to do with
economic and financial policy. In this area we need much more, let's call
it co-ordination and  co-operation to suit British feelings, than we had
before. That hangs together with the success of the euro."

- German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, The Times, London, 22 February 2002

__________

"The currency union will fall apart if we don't follow through with the
consequences of such a union. I am convinced we will need a common tax
system."

- German Finance Minister Hans Eichel,The Sunday Times, London, 23 December
2001

________

"We need a European Constitution.  The European Constitution is not the
'final touch' of the European structure; it must become its foundation.
The European Constitution should prescribe that ... we are building a
Federation of Nation-States. . .The first part should be based on the
Charter of Fundamental Rights proclaimed at the European summit at Nice. .
. If we transform the EU into a Federation of Nation-States, we will
enhance the democratic legitimacy ... We should not prescribe what the EU
should never be allowed to ... I believe that the Parliament and the
Council of Ministers should be developed into a genuine bicameral
parliament."

- Dr Johannes Rau, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, European
Parliament, 4 April 2001

_________

"We already have a federation. The 11,soon to be 12, member States adopting
the euro have already given up part of their sovereignty, monetary
sovereignty,and formed a monetary union, and that is the first step towards
a federation."

- German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Financial Times, 7 July 2000,

___________

"The last step will then be the completion of integration in a European
Federation ... Such a group of States would conclude a new European
framework treaty, the nucleus of a constitution of the Federation. On the
basis of this treaty, the Federation would develop its own institutions,
establish a government which, within the EU, should speak with one voice
... a strong parliament and a directly elected president. Such a driving
force would have to be the avant-garde, the driving force for the
completion of political integration ... This latest stage of European Union
... will depend decisively on France and Germany."

- German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, speech at Humboldt University
Berlin, 12 May 2000

___________

"The introduction of the euro is probably the most important integrating
step since the beginning of the unification process. It is certain that the
times of individual national efforts regarding employment policies, social
and tax policies are definitely over. This will require to finally bury
some erroneous ideas of national sovereignty ... I am convinced our
standing in the world regarding foreign trade and international finance
policies will sooner or later force a Common Foreign and Security Polic
worthy of its name. . . National sovereignty in foreign and security policy
will soon prove itself to be a product of the imagination."

- German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on "New Foundations for European
Integration", The Hague, 19 Jan.1999

____________

"Our future begins on January 1 1999. The euro is Europe's key to the 21st
century. The era of solo national fiscal and economic policy is over."

- German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder,31 December 1998

___________

"The euro is a sickly premature infant, the result of an over-hasty
monetary union."

- German Opposition leader Gerhard Schröder, March 1998

___________

"Transforming the European Union into a single State with one army, one
constitution and one foreign policy is the critical challenge of the age,
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said yesterday."

- The Guardian, London, 26 November 1998

____________

"In Maastricht we laid the foundation-stone for the completion of the
European Union. The European Union Treaty introduces a new and decisive
stage in the process of European union, which within a few years will lead
to the creation of what the founding fathers dreamed of after the last war:
the United States of Europe."

- German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, April 1992

________

"There is no example in history of a lasting monetary union that was not
linked to one State."

- 0tmar Issing, Chief Economist, German Bundesbank, 1991; now with the
European Central Bank, Frankfort.

__________

"A European currency will lead to member-nations transferring their
sovereignty over financial and wage policies as well as in monetary
affairs. . . It is an illusion to think that States can hold on to their
autonomy over taxation policies."

- Bundesbank President Hans Tietmeyer, 1991

_________

"On the basis of repeated meetings with him and of an attentive observation
of his actions, I think that if in his own way W.Hallstein (ed:first
President of the European Commission) is a sincere 'European', this is only
because he is first of all an ambitious German. For the Europe that he
would like to see would contain a framework within which his country could
find once again and without cost the respectability and equality of rights
that Hitler's frenzy and defeat caused it to lose; then acquire the
overwhelming weight that will follow from its economic capacity; and,
finally, achieve a situation in which its quarrels concerning its
boundaries and its unification will be assumed by a powerful coalition."

- General Charles de Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope, 1970

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Compiled and disseminated for  the information of French and Netherlands
voters by Anthony Coughlan, Secretary, The National Platform EU Research
and Information Centre, 24 Crawford Avenue, Dublin 9, Ireland, and Senior
Lecturer Emeritus in Social Policy,Trinity College Dublin; +00-353-1-8305792

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Filed under: EU & Democracy, Quotes | Tagged: bully, france, Germany |