Post-Brexit EU Reform

Two groups of EU countries are banding together to call for stricter internal and external border controls and an end to austerity at the first full post-Brexit EU meeting in Bratislava on Friday.

Club Med

Last Friday in Athens, the Club Med Countries told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that austerity is killing the EU and that they want stronger border control to deal with the ‘Migrant Crisis’.

French President Francois Hollande has joined the grouping but despite also facing severe austerity, Ireland isn’t in it.

I wonder why.

Tax-Avoidance-As-A-Service

Tax-avoidance-as-a-service (TAAAS) is Dublin’s most famous export.

The Irish government long ago designed Irish law to allow global corporations to split, funnel,and park their profits to avoid paying tax on most of their global profits.

Whoever pays the bills around Dublin likes things as they are.

Arbitration-as-a-Service

Holland aren’t in the group either.

Holland styles itself as a centre for global arbitration — often ruling in disputes between corporations and countries.

Yes, a country — as a customer — can be sued by a company.

In that sense Holland — like London — are a bit like a global bailiff.

They want corporations to go ‘treaty shopping’ and arrange their legal affairs to be able to sue countries from Amsterdam.

Visegrad Group

Meanwhile, the Visegrad Group are calling for further recognition of distinct national identities, borders, and Christianity in the face of the ‘migrant crisis’.

The very same neo-liberal rules under which citizens of Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia were allowed to leave their countries and work abroad are now being rebelled against by their own nationalist governments.

Having transitioned from Communism to the neo-liberal market state it looks like many are interested in revisiting the age before communism in which countries were grouped together as empires under a strong leader.

Andrew Marr wrote a piece about the Visegrad Group in the Sunday Times yesterday. All a bit scary!

www.thetimes.co.uk

EU but not as we know it

Where will all this lead? Neo-Liberalism is entering a new scary post-truth, post-Brexit, post-Trump, phase.