Day one of the Open Europe / Fresh Start #EUreform conference covered an enormous amount of ground - kicking off with UK Chancellor George Osborne's widely cited "reform or decline" speech.
300 reformers eager to get on with it, and it was all about substance.
Below are some pictures from the first day.
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| The Rt Hon. George Osborne giving the opening keynote speech |
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| Reform Lesson from Central and Eastern Europe: Open Europe Berlin's Nora Hesse, Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin, Estonia's Foreign Minister Urmas Paet, and former Slovakian PM Iveta Radičová |
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| The Fresh Start MPs giving a press conference |
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| The breakout sessions discussed a range of ideas for how to make the EU more competitive. |
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| The Rt Hon. William Hague addressing the "Reformers' Reception" in the evening |
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William Hague talking to a group of Swedish MPs
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7 comments:
Rg==The Beeb on its "6 o'clock Porn show" spent the first half of its bulletin about child abuse in the Phillipines and all the sensationalist grime from the British courts 3- 3 media-peoples' cases and one rape gang in Cambridge. There was a brief mention of Osborne's speech but omitting his central argument , If even the wishy-washy Fresh Start'/Open Europe platform can't make any headway with this corrupt organisation I hate to think how the "Out": side in any referendum wouland uioZfad get treated!
I agree with Christina.
Since 2008 the BBC has not presented a balanced argument when it comes to the EU.
On the BBC News web-site only positive news on the EU is presented as well as articles rubbishing comments from anyone who dares to speak out.
The BBC has lost the plot and it, too, needs radical reform and re-balancing.
SC
All about substance? Don't make me laugh! Its spin, hokum, make-believe, wishful thinking all rolled up into one.
Hague has just said that there is no way the EU will allow countries to pick and choose what they like, others have said they will block the treaty changes Cameron pretends to aim for.
But regardless of what happens from now on, as Ambrose Evans Pritchard recently wrote, UKIP have already won, it is no longer possible for the EU to become the single State is has been aiming for these 70 years, because if they carry on along that path it will self-destruct. As it might well do anyway.
As someone asked on another blog - are there any Outers at this debate? UKIP, Better Off Out, Freedom Association, CIB etc? And if not, why not?
Perhaps you all prefer to debate only with those who agree with you?
Christina
Our once glorious public broadcaster definitely needs a change of personnel and approach before it can rightly claim to be non-biased as it once was but that is unlikely to happen under Patten and his crew. More work is urgently needed there to get some proper independent broadcasting on our screens and radios.
However, notwithstanding the rather poor and apparently biased approach of the Beeb when it comes to all things Europe these days, I suspect that their news people also didn't give this event much air time because they did not consider it very newsworthy. We've heard it all before one way or another and on the whole are very unimpressed with such continual yacking on about Europe to no practical effect. The flood gates remain open to any Tom, Dick and Harry from the EU who wishes to cross our shores, UK taxpayers' cash still flows out to fund the commissars' Merc's on a daily basis, the dotty regulations still pile up, etc., etc.
If something newsworthy were to happen such as Dave pressing the button on Article 15 of the Lisbon Treaty to start the leaving process for the UK then perhaps even the BBC would report it properly. Until then it's just more hot air, more smoke and mirrors and more spin so far as I am concerned (yawn, yawn) and I suspect also 99% of the British public as well, lovers of the EUSSR and otherwise.
@Christina
Beeb is never going to give Osborne a positive media coverage if they can avoid it.
The good thing for people like yourself is that they probably saw that this would be one and came up with their usual 1970's third world, poor children stuff to keep it out of the news.
Anyway this was a message for several stakeholders in the discussion. I would think mainly to put it on the agenda in Europe itself.
Looking there it got real attention in eg Germany where more than half of the relevant media paid real attention to it.
Handellsblatt and Die Welt (next to FAZ and Zeit, the rest is basically irrelevant there) and all the EU blogs I checked paid attention to it. That is a pretty good result. It is a process you are in you never get the change as a one time event. And the process is cut into basically several sub-processes of which getting it properly on the map is one of the first one. So where it mainly matters imho a bit better than expected and at home a bit less. Overall still pretty decent and (slightly) better than I at least expected.
Clearly more is needed, but every long yourney starts with a first step. And this simply looks like a good one.
Also a clear indication (if we needed one more) that Cameron should stop acting purely ad hoc (or should we say ad hague) here. There should be more of these kind of media events and most of them should be created by Cameron & Co themselves and not by thinktanks like OE. Cameron should simply get of his lazy backside and start to work on it. He wants to be PM and get reelected as such on top of that. Better step up to the challenge.
At this same moment they again messing up the imigration dossier. It is beyond pathetic that nobody can come up with a report that shows that any mass third world immigration even if from inside the EU is not in the benefit of the UK. Especially as the other side seems to be cherrypicking (and is not punished for that). There are probably 50 areas or more, one could look at, of which probably more than half are simply negatives and most of the rest could be made such. Nearly all stuff on top of that, has already been done in countries like Germany and Holland and some already almost 2 decades ago.
At the end of the day it is bloody simple. When Ahmed came in 1960 to Germany there were plenty of jobs and he really came to work and he came alone. Now Ahmed has brought his children and the rest of the family and there are now only 1 in 5 paying in for the welfarestate and if they do they not even pay half of the average. Next to that has Ahmed's children are dysproportinately more likely to be involved in crime and seem unable to make socially the next step.
It is not rocketscience, look what is there in Western Europe and probably in your own country as well and replace Turks or whatever with Bulgarians (Windows eeven has a function for that, I think it called F-moronic Immigrationminister).
Next to that all seem to forget that whatever the (lousy) stats might say as far as public opinion goes it simply doesnot matter. If people end up with Roma begging etc in central square in towns and cities stats can say all they want, but ballotboxes won't change even for 1%. This discussion is way beyond so called facts. People will not change their vote unless there is credible proof otherwise (and crap heavily biased facts will not be seen that way). And seen the polls and not only in the UK the process is that far that they already basically have changed their vote. You cannot completely ignore the issue and call people who ask your attention for it bigots for 2 or 3 decades and expect to pick it up again when you like and think nothing has changed in the meantime. Traditional politics is the main reason why immigration has become this emotional mess, live with it. Or ignore it and up in the garbage bin of history, time is running out for traditional politics and not only on immigration. It is in fact one big mess.
Very good post....
Pro-EU versus Pro-EU.
and the Winners are.....?
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