British Billions to be Squandered on Euro-Defence
by Christopher Booker

It was front-page news last week that the "cash-strapped" Ministry of Defence plans to charge members of the public £1,750 a head to meet the Queen, to help defray the cost of the Trafalgar anniversary celebrations.

But in real terms this pales into insignificance compared with the billions the MoD is chucking away in the name of European defence integration, by buying defence equipment from our EU partners rather than the US. The cost so far of the MoD's "buy European" policy, according to an analysis of dozens of defence projects by Dr Richard North, is over £5 billion.

Dr North's study has identified three main categories of project where UK taxpayers are losing out. In the first category are projects where we are choosing not to buy US-made equipment in favour of an inferior substitute. This is typified by the saga of the Navy's Type-45 destroyers, six of which are now on order, at £1 billion each. One reason why the price is so high is that the MoD is determined to use a French-made anti-aircraft missile system.

This has ruled out the UK following the Australian Navy's lead and buying US-designed ships equipped with a multi-purpose missile system, at only £600 million apiece. The MoD could thus have bought their destroyers, ready to fire not just anti-aircraft missiles but cruise missiles and anti-submarine weapons as well, at a saving of £2.4 billon.

The second category includes projects where, having spent millions on a failed joint project with EU partners, we are then forced to buy from the US after all. Earlier this month the MoD boasted that its new Javelin anti-tank missile is entering service four months early. What it did not mention was that the missile has been in service with the US Army since 1996. We have only had to buy it since the failure of the "Euromissile" project, in which Britain, France and Germany were attempting to develop the medium-range Trigat.

In 1999, the MoD announced that Trigat demonstrated "our determination to promote the restructuring of the European defence industry". The following year, as the Army ran dangerously short of missiles, Britain withdrew, having wasted £109 million. We also wasted £205 million on a similar joint project to equip Apache helicopters with long-range missiles, before buying the US's Hellfire system, designed specifically for that purpose, which had been available all along.

France continued with the "Euromissile" project and will now be equipping the French and German armies with the Trigan missile, a modification of Trigat. The MoD, having sqandered £314 million in development costs, has in each case had to go back to the US for replacements.

A third category includes those projects which duplicate something the US is providing anyway. The supreme example of this is the EU's Galileo satellite system, to provide its own counterpart to the American GPS system. This has already cost UK taxpayers £400 million.

Numerous other procurement decisions add to the list, including the £166 million we are to spend on obsolescent Italian-made reconnaissance vehicles, when we could have bought US equivalents at a quarter of the price. The MoD also chose to spend £1.6 billion on German-made trucks, in preference to cheaper bids for superior vehicles from two British-US consortia, simply because these had a US component.

But all this pales beside the proposed £14 billion cost of the 3,500 Swedish-made vehicles equipped with French-made guns we are buying to equip three brigades of the British Army as part of FRES (Future Rapid Effect System), at a cost of £4.6 billion per brigade. The US Army, meanwhile, will equip 36 of its brigades with the comparable but vastly superior FCS (Future Combat System) at a cost of only £1.8 billion each.

Yet until 1999 we were equal partners with the US in developing this project. We withdrew to participate in yet another EU project which will end up giving us inferior equipment at more than twice the cost. Is it surprising the MoD must now scrabble around, charging people £1,750 for the privilege of enjoying cocktails with the Queen?
The Sunday Telegraph, 21st August, 2005

Mandelson Frowns on Blouses, Bras and
T-shirts, as Well as Trousers
by Christopher Booker

Even the BBC has deigned to notice the extraordinary shambles developing over the EU's attempt to ban huge quantities of clothing imports from China. Already Peter Mandelson, the EU's trade commissioner, has barred 55 million jumpers and 14 million pairs of trousers from entering the EU. It now seems that hundreds of millions of blouses, bras and T-shirts are also about to fall foul of the same "anti-dumping" rules.

These garments were all paid for and shipped before July 20, when the EU imposed its ban. The result is that they are piling up in ports and warehouses while thousands of retailers across Europe will be left with bare shelves this autumn. On Friday, ministers from Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Holland warned, in the Financial Times, that this may lead to job losses and bankruptcies.

What the makers of BBC programmes such as You and Yours naturally don't explain is how neatly this exemplifies the way that the EU works. Although it is a protectionist bloc, dedicated to protecting its citizens' interests against competition from the outside world, just which citizens' interests are protected depends upon which lobby has the best access to officials.

In this case, as often before, the textile industries of five countries, led by France, lobbied successfully for their interests to come first. This left out in the cold all those shopkeepers who knew nothing of the ban until goods they had paid for were already on their way from China.
The point about protectionism is that it is always a racket, favouring some at the expense of others. In this instance we should not be surprised, because the EU was designed to be nothing other than a protectionist racket in the first place.
The Sunday Telegraph, 21st August, 2005

Further Resources
Ten Minutes to Midnight by Phillip Day
The Real Face of the European Union, a 45-minute PAL documentary by the Campaign for Truth in Europe on the dangers of the Euro-state and the best way forward.