Jean-Claude Juncker in the Express:
EU FACES RUIN: Staggering admission from Juncker as he admits EU DOES meddle too much
VOTERS all over Europe have lost faith in the EU because of its meddling in their lives, the most senior Brussels bureaucrat admitted yesterday.
Jean-Claude Juncker said the dream of European integration could collapse “in ruins”.
Public support has collapsed right across the EU’s 28 member nations, said Mr Juncker, who is European Commission President.
In an astonishing confession of failure, he added: “We are no longer respected in our countries when we emphasise the need to give priority to the EU.”
His remarks, in a speech in Strasbourg, were being seen last night as recognition of public revulsion at the EU ahead of Britain’s in-or-out referendum on June 23…
Mr Juncker told a meeting of the Council of Europe: “The European project has lost parts of its attractiveness. One of the reasons EU citizens are stepping away from the European project is the fact that we are interfering in too many domains of their private lives.
“We were wrong to over-regulate and interfere too much in the lives of our citizens.”
Like, for example, the EU smoking ban (29 Jan 2010: EU declares war on smokers) approved by the European parliament in 2009? That’s really when I flipped from being pro-Europe to anti-Europe. This seemed to me to be totalitarian micro-management of people’s lives, and the EU ceased to seem benign, and started looking tyrannical. And how were Europe’s 150 million smokers going to respond to finding that they were no longer welcome in Europe? Could any state that demonises and excludes a third of its population have any hope of survival? It was political madness.
The odd thing about it all is that Jean-Claude Juncker is a smoker (right, Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg gets a light from Gerrit Zaim of the Netherlands). Shouldn’t he have realised smoking bans were examples over-regulation of people’s private lives, since he experienced it himself?
The most likely answer is that the rules didn’t apply to top people like him. They only applied to the “little people”. So he didn’t experience it himself.
Smokingscot asks whether Juncker will now do something about the 2016 Tobacco Products Directive.
Anyway, via ZeroHedge, what about THIS?
Europe is planning on recolonizing Libya, and so it will send in armed forces in the coming months to restore order and stem the flow of migrants coming from Africa. If this expedition army succeeds in securing parts of the country and restoring law and order, Italian and German engineers from ENI and Wintershall will follow suit to help resume the country’s oil production, which will add 1.3 million barrels per day (Libya produced 1.7 million barrels per day before Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011) to the world oil glut…
For a year, the Europeans have been trying in vain to create a unity government. In the meantime, the security situation is increasingly deteriorating. Libya has become a sanctuary for ISIS and other Jihadist groups and a transit country for millions of Africans that want to migrate to Europe. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in March that some 800,000 migrants are in Libya hoping to cross the Mediterranean this year.
The only way to prevent this from happening outside their jurisdiction i.e. neither on European soil nor using European law enforcement, is for the Europeans to regain control over the old Italian colony. It is no option for the Europeans to wait for the Libyans until they sort out their internal problems.
Much the same story here.
I simply can’t imagine a European invasion fleet sailing to Tripoli, and storming up the beaches. Think of all the triplicate forms that would have to be filled in before doing anything like that!
Frank Davis 
Yeah! translation…We’re getting a bit worried that the UK might vote ‘leave’ so I’ll start with this, it sounds like I understand what the idiots are thinking, then about a week before their referendum, I’ll go for…’We must look at repealing some of our over-regulation’…that should swing the UK remain vote, then on June 24th the UK are ‘toast’ we’ll really hit them with it.
Seriously I wouldn’t trust the rat AT ALL.
Is he smoking inside or outside, do you reckon? It’s difficult to tell from the photo.
I think outside…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3596661.stm
Also
‘Sources also described how Mr Juncker “chain-smoked” through a series of meetings on Thursday and disclosed that he is attempting to get rules changed so that he can smoke in buildings in Brussels’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10929427/Fears-over-Jean-Claude-Junckers-drinking.html
Bit of a piss head too…
Thanks Prog.
So Juncker can’t get the indoor smoking ban relaxed in Brussels. Just goes to show, you cannot reform the EU from inside.
There are indoor smoking rooms in Brussels, they got rid of their own ban six weeks after introducing it in 2007.
Read from here down.
Mind you, would you want to be photographed in a smoking pen.
I think that it’s outside. The give-away is that Juncker is cupping a hand around the Zaim’s lighter. You don’t need to cup your hand indoors.
It may well be outside, but I’m pretty sure that many of the MEPs are allowed to smoke in their offices, and also in the bars there.
And how, precisely, do they think that they will be able to get a foothold in the chaotic country which Libya currently is? If they aren’t intending to send in some battle-hardened soldiers (which they are clearly reluctant to do), how do they think they’ll have a hope in hell of getting a load of engineers and construction workers and oil workers in to start rebuilding the shattered country? Let alone all the electricians and carpenters and road workers and bankers and (of course) bureaucrats who would be needed to set up and run the infrastructure needed in order for the oil, once flowing, to be processed, refined, sold and transported? ISIS and the Libyans would be waiting, each one with their specially-designed head-removing axes at the ready, to greet them all at the airport the moment they stepped off the plane! No-one in their right mind would go anywhere near the country if they valued their lives, even if it was under the guise of “helping to rebuild” the country.
And, let’s be honest, the EU wouldn’t be doing it out of purely altruistic motivations to help Libya get back on its feet – it’d be doing it in order to guarantee a cheap supply of oil for their own greedy needs. Unlike European nations who, it seems (until now, perhaps), were only too willing to believe the EU’s slick rhetoric about unity, and equality for all and how wonderful the EU project would be for everyone, the Libyans, under the present circumstances would be highly unlikely to be convinced by flowery language and grand-sounding promises. I’m not sure that the any country in the state that Libya is currently in actually has the time or the inclination to “do” politics in the way that the EU do them. In their view (or at least, certainly the view of ISIS, who seem to exert much pressure there), these westerners would be doing nothing more and nothing less than invading “by the back door,” and there’s no way they’d stand for that. ISIS and their ilk would see straight through the politics and see this for what it is – a sneaky land-grab by a bunch of opportunist, thieving westerners. And in that respect, they’d be absolutely right.
Who’d have thought it? First we had dyed-in-the-wool Comrade Corbyn suggesting that we should re-colonise “our” unruly Commonwealth countries (I expect Australia in particular was delighted to hear that suggestion!!), and now we have the mainly left-leaning EU suggesting that they should effectively re-colonise Libya! How times (and the erstwhile traditional attitudes of left-wing v. right-wing politics) have changed!
I think that it’s probably militarily fairly straightforward. You send in the SAS to capture a small port somewhere*, establish a bridgehead, and use it to ship in more troops until you’ve captured an airport. Libya used to be an Italian colony, much like Algeria used to be a French colony, so there is plenty of experience in setting up colonies.
As for ISIS, it depends who is arming them. Most likely Saudi Arabia.
I just wonder if there’s the political will to do it. I hadn’t heard of Corbyn’s suggestion. Do you have a link for it? I quick search turned up nothing.
Update: *Here’s a nice little port: Zuwara, in the top left corner of Libya.
And there’s Zuwara International airport less than 10 km away.
“From the halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli…”
Sure, it can be done, but it’s called an invasion and, after that, an occupation. Europe (with America “leading from behind”) is partly responsible for creating the Libyan mess by intervening in a nasty Libyan civil war and, after that, by continually outsmarting themselves by arming the wrong rebels after Qadaffi fell.
However, whether more intervention could really work or would backfire more strongly is up to the gods of war, but at this point I don’t believe the motive is simply greed or the usual suspect, oil. With more hordes (of close to yet another million) refugees threatening to infiltrate an overwhelmed Europe (its own kind of invasion), getting them to somehow stay where they are could really be a matter of national security and national interest. The past, unfortunately, can’t be undone but it’s narrowed the future options to Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
I think that stemming the flow of migrants, which now pose an existential threat to Europe, is probably the primary motivation, with oil as a secondary concern. But not all the migrants are arriving in boats from Libya. The greater bulk are coming through Turkey, from Syria and elsewhere. And Turkey’s Erdogan is now blackmailing Europe, threatening to release a tide of migrants into Europe if they don’t pay him billions, and also allow visa-free travel for Turks.
And this Libyan proposal is for its re-colonialisation. It would entail the reversal of the historical trend of de-colonialisation over the past 70 years. Can you imagine the furore? The left would be up in arms. And the UN. And Russia and the rest of the world (including the USA).
I simply can’t see the terminally bureaucratic EU managing to organise the invasion and occupation of anywhere.
Nor can I see the first ever black US president agreeing to the European re-colonialisation of Africa.
I thought JCJ was priceless.
This is the sort of bull we hear every time a political party loses an election. The wee fella, Miliband and good old Nick Babe both said much the same thing when they got thumped last year. Of course Salmond didn’t when he got toasted with the referendum. He wanted the world to listen to the 44.5%.
Fact is, as others have pointed out, he can talk as much as he wants; it’s action we wanted – and there’s been sweet ferk all on that score. It’s not just that business about smoking, it’s the utter insanity about vaping devices. Oh and I did get so ticked off when the EU lot decided to unilaterally tax aircraft that use EU airspace – based on some rot about pollution and “global warming”. And yes I was deeply frustrated at their business of chucking back fish that were not within the correct dimensions, nor within quota’s.
But the aircraft business, that was a howler of a balls-up, as several Chinese airlines pointed out. They buy Airbus to use exclusively in the Far East and only fly them to the EU – without passengers – for service and maintenance. And the rules at the time hit them. Nuts, bonkers and did more to help Boeing than anything I’ve seen in yonks.
Beyond that we’ve been landed with hugely expensive light bulbs that deteriorate within months, paint stripper that don’t, lights on at all times in new vehicles, that irritating middle stop light in cars (silly when it’s a drop head), vacuum cleaners that don’t suck and something about kettles that take ages to boil. Oh and we’re not supposed to re-use old jars for village parties, if you want to flog your home made jam, then it’s gotta be in spanking new containers. And then there’s our Fire Safe Cigarettes.
The list is endless – and Mr. Puddlecote has his own pet beef’s that – correctly – point out that the EU favours only the big players in each field of commercial activity. It’s got to the point where even the most humble coffee shop has to invest thousands to comply with health and hygiene before they can even open their doors – then there are the sodding forms (that helps explain why we’re landed with the same shower of franchise coffee shops in each and every High Street).
If this is his attempt to help the “remain” lot, it’s about as much use as Blair telling us we’re too ignorant of the big issues in this world, and basically unless you know the world as intimately as Tony, then stay at home, or better still, die.
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Lets get OUT of the EU !
I see that the pop star Prince has died at the age of 57. He did some interesting stuff; I thought some of his music was very good, although I was never really a fan.
I seem to recollect that he was a health freak, Fanatically, almost pathologically anti-smoking; anti-drinking and anti-drugs, and a vegetarian to boot.
Which just goes to show that no matter what you think will make you live forever, when the grim reaper decides to call, all that self-denial and purity (my body is a temple etc) counts for naught.
So eat, drink (,smoke) and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
One thing Prince did was write “Nothing Compares to You”.
He gave it to Sinead O’Connor , who did an astonishing job in interpretation – and a brilliant video to go with it.
I loved it.
Sinead has not managed to come close to that level of popularity.
Comments indicate he died of AIDS, with the flu adding that extra level of stress.
So while he may have been all you state, he sure as heck didn’t give a toss about his sex life. (Bit like Diana, who got all pouty about land mines, but chose to sit in the back of a buggy driven at enormous speed by a drunkard while electing to not use her seat belt).
Doubtless we’ll get something official about Prince within a couple of hours.
The new rumor is that Prince may have died of a drug overdose, because new reports have surfaced claiming that his plane made an emergency landing last week in order for him to receive a “save shot” for an overdose. I also just heard a report that he held a party at his studio a few days ago (only a day or so after the emergency landing) to reassure fans that he was in good health, and that there were no drugs, alcohol or tobacco allowed at the party. Seems he might not have been practicing what he was preaching after all…
Comedian Victoria Wood has also died of cancer, aged 62. I read this morning that she’d given up smoking, and maybe alcohol and various other things as well. Didn’t deter the grim reaper, it seems.
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