Private Companies in Iceland rush to use Euro: What's that British Euroscpetics say about the EU as USSR II? How disgusting is that anyway.

A story in today's Financial Times refers to companies in Iceland that are rushing to adopt the Euro as an internal accounting device. The central bank there is putting on the brakes to avoid an unthoughtout lurch into a dual currency economy. Icelandic companies do so much business in the Eurozone that internal accounting is more conveniently conducted in Euros than krona.

So much for the claim of many prominent Eurosceptics that the European Union is like the old USSR. I don't recall companies in Iceland, or any other nation, rushing to adopt the old rouble as an accounting currency. According to other reports, there is now a greater volume of Euros held in the world than US dollars. The Euro is the official currency of a greater population than the population of the United States, the total economic output of the Eurozone is greater than the United States, though the average income is somewhat less. What is happening in Iceland confirms that the development of the European Union, including the instrument of the EuroEuro is not the USSR II.

Exactly how can anyone make such grotesque comparisons. How many people are political prisoners in the EU? Where is the Euro-Gulag? Which newspapers have been closed by the Commission? The EU needs many reforms, but how can a commentator of sound mind and mature years compare the political union of an increasing number of European democracies with Soviet totalitarianism? Criticism of the EU is fine, like any institution it needs to be held up to continuous harsh criticism, but the Britsh Eurosceptics are not harshly criticising, they are letting European leaders of the hook with their ravings. If they stuck to promoting the free market policies they claim to put at the centre of their political beliefs, they could make a difference in pushing the EU in that direction. But why engage when you can live in a fantasy bubble land of British nationalism in which all problems come from outside targeting immigrants and Eurocrats. These people usually like to wrap themselves in the garments of Libertarianism and Classical Liberalism. Funny how 'Libertarianism' and 'Classical Liberalism' turn out to mean social conservatism and nationalism. I just cannot remember the relevant passages in Locke and Smith, Tocqueville and Mill, Paine and Kant. Maybe that's because they do not exist.

Political Notebook. Saturday 20th January 2007. Leading Adocate of Privatisation Backs Moves towards EU Energy Policy

Dieter Helm, veteran of the Privatisation of the British Energy Industry and Major Academic in the Field Argues for EU Energy Policy

A major expert on privatisation at Oxford University, Dieter Helm (described to me by a business friend as a privatisation guru), has recently posted a website article favouring EU moves towards an energy policy. Much confirmation that British Eurosceptic national-conservatives posing as Classical Liberals or Libertarians are contradicting themselves. It is the EU which provides the political and legal framework for continent wide competition, and opening up world markets.

Political News Notebook. Tuesday 16th Jannuary.

Despite Eurosceptic Propaganda in Britain the EU is Promoting Competition in the Provision of Public Services
Today the Financial Times reports that European Union law will require the National Health service in Britain to open more services to bids from private companies across the EU, and that 'sweet heart' contracts between the NHS and former employees will have to open to competition. I happen to think this is a good thing as a point of economic policy and political principle. Whether or not you agree, it certainly makes a nonsense out of the incessant ranting from predominantly right-wing Eurosceptics that the EU is forcing socialism on Britain, and the EU can even be compared with the old Soviet Union. These people have no sense of reality or proportion. It all goes to show that Classical Liberalism benefits from transnational institutions, including the quasi-federal European Union, despite rantings to the contrary from conservative nationalists posturing as Classical Liberals.