Eurotrash - The latest from Brussels
WORKERS, DEC 2006 ISSUE
All this, and expenses too...
Glenys Kinnock, champion of the Third World poor, is to lead 70 members of the European Parliament and 84 EU officials to a Barbados resort for a conference on deprivation. This assembly meets twice a year, and is famed for its lavish hospitality. The five-day trip will cost taxpayers more than £200,000.And the MEPs will still be entitled to claim a further £90 a day in expenses!
The EU, joblessness, and the young
A study by the City investment bank Barclays Capital suggests that the 600,000 migrants from Eastern Europe over the past two years may have contributed to the 2.7 per cent (or some 124,000) rise in unemployment among British 18- to 24-year-olds. This is a much sharper increase than in any other adult age group.
The report said, "it seems reasonably safe to say that a 124,000 rise in unemployment for 18- to 24-year-olds has been the result of the inflow of 183,000 migrants of this age."
Peasants revolt
Farmers in Burkina Faso are campaigning against the EU's controversial economic partnership agreements (EPAs). François Traore, head of the Burkina Peasant Farmers' Confederation, argues, "These agreements will just reduce the poor peasants of the south from being producers to being simple consumers suffocated by heavily-subsidised products from the rich countries."
Robbing the poor to pay the rich
Only the European Union could come up with a policy that takes money from the NHS and gives it to big oil companies. In January 2005 the government compelled all hospitals to join the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme, forcing hospitals to pay nearly £6 million, which would have paid for over 300 more nurses.
When the government launched the scheme, it claimed that carbon trading would curb the damage big business does to the environment. But Shell has made £49.9 million by selling its unused allocation and BP has made £43 million.