by Eric Zuesse
April 2, 2015
from Infowars Website

Spanish version

Italian version


 

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

 

 

 

 


Image Credits: Aleph, Wiki Commons
 

 

 

Europeans fear Russian gas

could stop and thus drive Europe

to give up considerable resistance

against fracking
 

 

 

On Wednesday, April 1st, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet approved a measure to bring fracking (the patents for which are owned mainly by "large American companies, including Halliburton, Baker Hughes and Schlumberger") into Germany.
 
This is a prelude not only to U.S. President Obama's secret Trans-Atlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) pact with Europe to subordinate national laws and regulations to trans-national mega-corporate panels that will be dominated by U.S. firms and that will override the participating nations' environmental and labor regulations and consumer protections (and harm European economies generally), but it is also a major step toward removing Europe from Russia's energy-market, and bringing U.S. and European oil companies to dominate there instead.

 

German Economic News headlined on April 1st, "Precursor to TTIP - Federal Government brings Fracking to Germany," and reported that:

The controversial shale gas extraction (fracking) process is coming to Germany: In order not to provoke excessively large protests at home, the federal government highlighted that fracking is initially allowed only for testing purposes.

 

But in fact, the draft law of the Federal Environment and the Federal Ministry of Economics, approved today by the the Cabinet, also allows subsequent large-scale extraction of shale gas….

The American interest in a continuing conflict simmering in Ukraine also causes Europeans to fear that Russian gas could stop and thus drive Europe to give up our still considerable resistance against fracking. 

 

Some US politicians have personal interests, such as the US Vice President Biden, whose son works for a Ukrainian fracking company.

 

Last year, U.S. agent, friend of Angela Merkel, and EU Council President, Donald Tusk, wrote in a commentary in the Financial Times that,

'excessive dependence on Russian energy' is an EU weakness. 

Currently, the EU countries derive 44 percent of our natural gas from Russia and 33 percent from Norway… 

 

Objectively, there is no reason to be afraid of the Russians:

Even Angela Merkel acknowledged a few months ago that Russians have always accurately fulfilled their gas contracts and therefore are a reliable partner.

Halliburton and Baker-Hughes have merged, and are the two major owners of fracking patents. Schlumberger is third. ExxonMobil is a distant fourth. So, this could produce a huge boost to those stocks.

 

The fact that the only independent economic analysis of the impact of the TTIP finds that, without a doubt, it will harm European economies and especially will increase the inequality of wealth in both the U.S. and EU, suggests that the U.S. aristocracy's control over European aristocracies must be rather strong in order for the TTIP to be moving forward toward approval by, apparently, people such as Merkel and Tusk.

 

Merkel has already shown that she is the EU's enforcer of austerity ("the Washington Consensus") upon the residents in Greece and Spain in order to guarantee payments to the bondholders of those countries; but in the present instance, the aristocrats whom she is serving are specifically, if not only, American ones.

 

And, in particular, the oil companies that will be primary beneficiaries of her pro-fracking maneuver are mainly American ones. She comes from the former East Germany, and, apparently, hates Russia just as the CIA-connectedBarack Obama does.

 

After the Cabinet meeting, a joint press conference was held with Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, in which he said and she seconded, that Ukraine was ready to join the EU and was making the required progress toward rooting out corruption, and toward other matters.

 

He said that the only barriers against that are Russian aggression, and a shortage of money from Germany and from other Western nations. The two leaders stated that the front-line against the threat from Russia is Ukraine, and Merkel promised to do what is needed in order to help.

 

As a Russian news report put it:

"Reassuring each other in their heartfelt friendship, mutual hatred of Russia, and the bright prospects of Ukraine being on the way into Europe, the heads of Government remembered their shared history. 

 

Yatseniuk again accused Russia of trying to 'privatize the history of Ukraine', referring to the debate on the participation of Ukrainians in the victory over Nazi Germany. 

 

The Prime Minister of Ukraine proposed to celebrate 8 May as a day of reconciliation and European solidarity."

 

 

Additional Information

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Obama Blocks Making...

TTIP Trade-Deal Terms Public
by Eric Zuesse
23 February 2015
from Countercurrents Website

 

 


TTIP is a secretly negotiated trade deal between the U.S. and the EU, and all indications are that it will replace each nation's,

  • drug-safety

  • product-safety

  • food-safety

  • environmental and worker-protection

  • regulations and laws,

...placing them into the hands of panels composed of appointees of large international corporations, no longer in the hands of publicly elected officials, no longer in the hands of elected politicians, who need to face voters periodically in order to stay in power.

 

Basically:

U.S. President Barack Obama is demanding that European nations weaken their regulations, but has been encountering stiff resistance from some, which has dragged out negotiations.

German Economic News headlined, on 4 February 2015, "TTIP: civil rights complaint alleging secret negotiations," and reported that Europe's Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, said:

"American objection to the publication of certain TTIP documents is not a sufficient reason, alone on its own, to withhold information from the European public.

 

The Commission will at all times ensure that exceptions to the basic rights of EU citizens are justified and reasonable whenever there is a limitation on access to documents."

But, she didn't do anything to enforce her statement; the non-disclosure continued.

Furthermore,

"In July, the European Court had to decide whether the public should have access to institutional documents. The conclusion: Only in exceptional cases would a refusal be possible.

 

The judges ruled at that time that documents of international scope (such as TTIP) are not automatically excluded from the European Transparency Requirements."

Obama lost on that one too.

However, still, nothing has yet been made public about the TTIP terms; and the many consumer, worker, and other organizations, that have demanded to see what is in the agreement, have faced a stone wall of inaction, even after court decisions in their favor.

Despite this secrecy and foot-dragging against the public, Europe's public seem to want whatever is inside that black box, regardless of whether it's lowering their product-safety standards, lowering their worker-protections, lowering their environmental protections, or whatever.

 

In fact, on 20 February 2015, German Economic News bannered, "EU survey: European citizens are enthusiastic about TTIP," and reported:

"The EU has published a survey according to which citizens are downright euphoric about the free trade agreement TTIP.

 

In all, 25 Member States [of the 28] there will pour sheer enthusiasm over the completely secretly negotiated agreement, but for one small exception: Germans are mostly against the TTIP."

Actually, however, tiny Austria was even more strongly against it, and was the only nation to be majority-opposed to TTIP.

The only English-language publication of the results of that EU poll has been the 6 January 2015, "Eurobarometer - Who's for and against TTIP in EU"; and here were the national breakdowns, as published there:

 
"Eurobarometer - who's for and against TTIP in EU"
06 January, 2015

 

No Comments [that's how obscure this publication was: 0 comments].

Question:

"What is your opinion on each of the following statements? Please tell me for each statement, whether you are for it or against it. (ONE ANSWER PER LINE). A free trade and investment agreement between the EU and the USA":

 

 

 

FOR

AGAINST

DON'T KNOW

EU average

58

25

17

Austria

39

53

8

Belgium

66

26

8

Bulgaria

64

14

22

Croatia

67

23

10

Cyprus

59

25

16

Czech Republic

62

25

13

Denmark

71

17

12

Estonia

72

11

17

Finland

62

21

17

France

50

33

18

Germany

39

41

20

Greece

61

32

7

Hungary

62

28

10

Ireland

71

15

14

Italy

58

22

20

Latvia

66

18

16

Lithuania

79

9

12

Luxembourg

40

43

17

Malta

75

11

14

Netherlands

74

18

8

Poland

73

11

16

Portugal

60

23

17

Romania

75

11

14

Slovakia

62

26

12

Slovenia

57

31

12

Spain

63

19

18

Sweden

59

26

15

United Kingdom

65

19

16

 

Now that you know that the survey's question was actually referring to "A free trade and investment agreement between the EU and the USA," and that it made no mention at all of TTIP, nor of Obama's demand that it be approved in secret, does this change your mind about what is, and has been, actually going on here?

 

The poll-findings were misreported to the press by the (pro-deal) EU, which (to the extent that the press reported them, which was little) misreported them to the public.
 

 

(NOTE: The only independent economic analysis that has been done of TTIP concluded that, even without considering the lowered safety-standards for drugs and other products, and for the environment, etc., it would very much harm European economies, and that it would probably even harm people in the lower 99% of America's economy; but this economic analysis was never publicized.)
 


The EU itself (its "European Commission") wrote each one of the poll-questions.

  • What do you think of their having written a poll-question about "A free trade and investment agreement between the EU and the USA," and then publicized the findings as if they had instead been about TTIP, which wasn't even mentioned in the question (and there was also no mention in it about Obama's demand for secrecy)?
     

  • What does all of this information suggest to you, then, about whether the U.S. Congress will likely give President Obama "fast-track" approval of this treaty, instead of debate and discuss it in public and in the open, prior to granting any such approval of it?
     

  • If this deal wins approval in both Europe and America without any authentic democratic process, on either side of the Atlantic, then what would that indicate about the meaning of the term 'democracy' as applied in and to Europe, and in and to America?
     

  • How serious a concern should this be; and is the TTIP matter receiving in the 'news' media an appropriate degree of concern and corresponding attention in the press?
     

  • If it's not receiving the public attention in your country, that it deserves, then what does this fact itself say about the meaning of 'democracy,' as being applied to your country?
     

  • Has the term 'democracy' become then merely a sham? Is it now purely for propaganda - no longer actually descriptive of your country?
     

  • Where is this world heading? Are huge international corporations, and their leading stockholders, replacing nation-states and their citizens, so as to turn those citizens into no longer citizens but mere subjects of a huge new international aristocracy, the U.S. aristocracy and its affiliated and dependent subordinate aristocracies in all U.S.-allied nations - a return of feudalism, but on an international scale, via a modern form of feudalism: internationalized fascism, America's Empire?
     

  • Are you concerned about this? Should your children be?
     

  • If so: What can be done against it? Who will start it, and how? And when?
     

  • Should it start now, by all Presidential candidates being asked their view of TTIP? Would that perhaps defeat Obama - and Hillary Clinton, and Jeb Bush, and… all the boosters of American Empire? Would that defeat the international aristocracy, and their political agents (such as those) for the very first time, and so start our world back on the road toward democracy, and away from the very dangerous imperial path it's now on?
     

  • And should all 'news' people who refuse to drill down on this (perhaps because their bosses won't allow it) become tuned-out (and their 'news' organizations turned off) by the public?
     

  • And, should this same demand be made on Obama's similar proposed TPP trade-deal with Asia, and his similar proposed global TISA trade-deal on banks and other financial companies, the latter of which deal aims to facilitate financial fraud by lowering reporting-standards etc.?

 


NOTE:

The euphemisms for all of these proposed U.S.-pushed trade-deals are "trade liberalization," "free trade," and "getting rid of bureaucracy."

 

With phraseologies like that, we're heading toward a paradise for mega-crooks, if Obama and other champions of the American aristocracy win.