I thought knew the UK presidency of the EU was bad, but it’s opnly going to get worse with the Austrians in charge. Or so it looks to me, anyway.

Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel has called for a form of European Union tax to help end regular disagreements over the Union’s budget.
…
He said it was no longer possible for member states to provide all EU funds.

You know, there are two ways to ensure that sufficient money is available. Either, as Herr Schuessel suggests, increase the income. Or, as I would suggest, decrease the outgoings. As it is, only the regular fight over national contributions stands in the way of unlimited expansion of the EU budget. Give the EU an income completely under it’s own control and the organisation will move beyond anyone’s control.

For the benefit of the class, I should probably point out that that is a bad thing. National governments can be voted out if they fuck about; so they still have a nominal measure of control over them (even if it is time delayed). The EU does not have an elected government to get rid of, it has an appointed executive which is pretty much only answerable to itself.

Herr Schuessel also suggests thinks that the good people of France and the Netherlands were daft. Normally, I’d say he was right (in the first case, anyway), but this time he’s all wrong.

Mr Schuessel also repeated that the Austrian presidency wanted to re-open the debate on the European constitution, which was rejected by French and Dutch voters last year.

This wasn’t just a text, he said, but a question of European identity.

I have a question of European identity for you:

Q: Is there a ‘European identity’?
A: No. There are a multitude of differing identities, drawing upon everything from locality, country, religion, political beliefs, language, sporting preference, sexual preference, hair colour and the result of the 2.15 at Ascot.

The peoples of Europe are too diverse in everything from alphabet to gastric tendencies to be united with some form of common identity. If, at some point, a single uniting identity appears, it can only come from the bottom up, it cannot be enforced from the top down.

The French rejected this ‘European identity’, for their own reasons.
The Dutch rejected this ‘European identity’, for their own reasons.
The British would have rejected this ‘European identity’, for their own reasons.

Three different ‘peoples’. Three differing sets of reasons. The peoples of Europe are so dissimilar that they can’t even agree on the reasons that they are dissimilar. Take that and shove it up your European identity.