Tag Archives: European Union

The Outlook for the New Year by Paul Craig Roberts

Reprint from: The Outlook for the New Year by Paul Craig Roberts

Washington has shaped 2015 to be a year of conflict.  The conflict could be intense.

Washington is the cause of the conflict, which has been brewing for some time. Russia was too weak to do anything about it when the Clinton regime pushed NATO to Russia’s borders and illegally attacked Yugoslavia, breaking the country into small easily controlled pieces.  Russia was also too weak to do anything about it when the George W. Bush regime withdrew from the ABM treaty and undertook to locate anti-ballistic missile bases on Russia’s borders.  Washington lied to Moscow that the purpose of the ABM bases is to protect Europe from non-existent Iranian nuclear ICBMs.  However, Moscow understood that the purpose of the ABM bases was to degrade Russia’s nuclear deterrent, thereby enhancing Washington’s ability to coerce Russia into agreements that compromise Russian sovereignty.

By summer 2008 Russian power had returned.  On Washington’s orders, the US and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian army attacked the breakaway republic of South Ossetia during the early hours of August 8, killing Russian peacekeepers and civilian population. Units of the Russian military instantly responded and within a few hours the American trained and equipped Georgian army was routed and defeated.  Georgia was in Russia’s hands again, where the province had resided during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Putin should have hung Mikheil Saakashvili, the American puppet installed as president of Georgia by the Washington-instigated “Rose Revolution”, and reincorporated Georgia into the Russian Federation.  Instead, in a strategic error, Russia withdrew its forces, leaving Washington’s puppet regime in place to cause future trouble for Russia.

Washington is pushing hard to incorporate Georgia into NATO, thus adding more US military bases on Russia’s border.  However, at the time, Moscow thought Europe to be more independent of Washington than it is and relied on good relations with Europe to keep American bases out of Georgia.

Today the Russian government no longer has any illusion that Europe is capable of an independent foreign policy. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated publicly that Russia has learned that diplomacy with Europe is pointless, because European politicians represent Washington’s… -->

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EU budget fraud steady at €7 billion

The European Court of Auditors published their audit report for 2013. EU budget  totaled €148.5 billion in 2013, or around €290 for every citizen. The average fraud level across all spending areas is estimated at 4.7%, or €7 billion total. In some areas, like energy, transport, fishing, environment and health, fraud level reaches nearly 7% of the budget.

Interestingly, the auditors claim that these numbers are “not a measure of fraud, inefficiency or waste.” What then? Ah, well, they do not say. They just call it an “error”. So no court cases are forthcoming, I guess.

The definition of fraud from the legal dictionary:

A false representation of a matter of fact—whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of what should have been disclosed—that deceives and is intended to deceive another so that the individual will act upon it to her or his legal injury.

That does not ring a bell? I think this is precisely what we are dealing with here and they just refuse to admit it.

Fraud must be proved by showing that the defendant’s actions involved five separate elements: (1) a false statement of a material fact,(2) knowledge on the part of the defendant that the statement is untrue, (3) intent on the part of the defendant to deceive the alleged victim, (4) justifiable reliance by the alleged victim on the statement, and (5) injury to the alleged victim as a result.

Let’s see. The officials and businessmen submitting false reports to EU are definitely making a false statement. They certainly know what they claim is untrue: how could a land owner not know that the land he is asking funds for the development of is officially identified as unsuitable for agricultural development? The intent to deceive is naturally there for they submit false reports for financial gain. The victim – the EU – relies on those false statements to send funds to the fraudsters resulting in a substantial financial injury to the EU and its citizens.

Just look at the types of “errors”: false cost claims, ineligible projects and beneficiary organizations, shady public procurement, false declarations… None of those hint at “just an honest error”, do they?

I think the case is quite clear. The fraud is widespread in EU. Most of those cases are likely to be criminal but they will … -->

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