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Brussels and beyond by Ole Ryborg

EUobserver

The Weakest Link

Judging from reactions in international media, the appointment of Herman van Rompuy as EU-president and Catherine Ashton as High Representative for external affairs will mean that Europe will not make its mark in any global matter of importance during the next five years. Bleak, unknown, bureaucrats that are nothing but the lowest common denominator, is a very common description of the Belgian who from the first of January will be presiding over all future meetings of the European Council and the Brit who for the next five years will be Europe’s foreign policy supremo.

It is true that both Herman van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton are unknown to a wider public, within the 27 member countries as well as outside of the EU. But European history is filled with examples of leaders that have surprised us, both ways.

When then French finance minister Jacques Delors was appointed Commission president over the favourite, the then foreign minister Claude Cheysson, the appointment was heavily criticised. Delors´ track record of European affairs was next to nothing. But he ended up becoming one of the architects of the internal market and the common currency, among other things.

In more recent times the East German chemist, Angela Merkel, did not inspire great expectations, still she ended up running a splendid EU-presidency and her influence over European affairs today are high. On the other hand, expectations were high of Romano Prodi when he was appointed Commission president in1999. On top of it he commanded one of the best colleges of commissioners that Brussels have seen for decades. Despite that, he succeeded in very little.

The lesson learned is simple: Judge people on what they do – not on what they say.

In fact it may well be the case that the European heads of state and government have appointed two persons that will grow to become both European and international personalities.

The role of Europe in international affairs is often criticised. The European Union is the worlds biggest market and wealthiest region but punches below its weight internationally.

Many critics argue that things would be different if only Europe would pick a charismatic and well-known personality, like for instance Tony Blair. But there is a great risk that a personality like Blair would achieve exactly the opposite.

When dealing with the United States, China, India, Brazil etc, Europe encounters highly skilled and intelligent counterparts that tend to try playing EU-countries against each other, in order to influence European politics.

We have seen it done over and over again. George W. Bush did it on Iraq, China on Tibet. It´s a strategy whether it concerns American missile shields, Russian pipelines or Turkish islands.

Even if the EU chose to be represented by Tony Blair, Nicolas Sarkozy or Angela Merkel as EU-president and Carl Bildt, Bernhard Kouchner or David Miliband as high representative, they might all end up as lame ducks in international negotiations. This is because the power and influence of the EU does not stem from the person that represents the European Union in any given negotiation. It stems from the unity behind the EU spokesperson.

EU countries were highly divided on how to deal with the conflict in Georgia and for that reason had difficulties influencing events. The opposite is true of trade issues where for example the Americans not only see the EU as an equal negotiating partner, they even fear a skilled EU-negotiator with a united position behind him (as Pascal Lamy demonstrated when he was EU commissioner for trade).

On the international scene the EU is never stronger than its weakest link. That link is usually a member country, very rarely an EU representative.

In that light the choice of both Herman van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton are extremely interesting. Both van Rompuy and Baroness Ashton stated at the press conference following their appointments, that they see as their most important task to secure common positions in the council. This attitude can prove more instrumental and more important than any statement you may think.

One example of this is the thorny question of financing the international climate deal we´re all hoping will come out of the UN summit in Copenhagen in December. EU-leaders did not succeed in agreeing on the details on how much each of the 27 EU countries should pay. The price tag can be anything between 22 and 50 billion euro a year and the EU could end up paying on third of that amount.

It does not endanger the climate leadership of the EU – simply for the reason that nobody else seems eager to step up and assume leadership. But the lack of EU unity weakens the EUs credibility in the COP15 negotiations in Copenhagen and its credibility on the international scene. This goes even when it is Reinfeldt, Barroso, Merkel, Sarkozy and a bunch of other EU leaders, that represents Europe.

Europe’s strength lies in its unity and its institutions. If Europe – by appointing Herman van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton succeeded in appointing two personalities that can work out common positions that unite the 27 member countries, they might yet surprise both European media and international actors from Washington to Beijing. They might even surprise the heads of state and government who appointed them. They will be judged on what they do – not on who they are.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
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No, no, no, no, no, no!  Has it really come to this? Is the selection of the two highest representatives of the European Union to be reduced to some shabby horse-trading to find a lowest common denominator?  Is the appointment of those who will now lead the Union into discussions with prime ministers and presidents across the world to be done in a way that would make even eighteenth century leaders wince?

Consider: at a special summit this coming Thursday evening – which may drag on into the next day – the leaders of the 27 member states of the EU will sit down to appoint their semi-permanent President.  Whoever is chosen will find themselves the focus of world media attention, whether the appointee (or anyone else) likes it or not.

They will also consider who should be the Union’s High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy – another post (in effect the Union’s Secretary of State) whose holder will be key in securing the EU’s position in negotiations with other states across the globe.

Member States will also appoint a Secretary-General of the European Council – a lesser post and one not in the international limelight – but nevertheless one with considerable influence.  These three positions will be considered jointly, as some sort of ‘team.’

Don’t underestimate the potential capacity of whoever is appointed to these posts to influence the development of the Union internally and to project its interests across the world.   On their shoulders will depend in large part whether the Union continues in its present status of economic giant and political pygmy, or whether at last it begins to exert real influence over the issues that matter to Europeans – climate change, human rights, democracy, terrorism, international development, a secure world order – in an otherwise new bipolar world of the USA and China.

To the world outside whoever is chosen will embody the European ideal. Like it or not, the President and the High Representative will become, in media eyes, Europe’s ‘shop window,’ even if they are not so regarded by Europe’s own citizens.

So let us look at how the Union is proposing to appoint these two key representatives.   The process appears to break every possible rule in the book.  And ‘appoint’ it is. Despite their political nature, any element of direct democracy – even consultative – is ruled out.

There isn’t even a clear understanding of what the jobs entail.  In the case of the High Representative various internal duties have been laid down, but his or her role on the world stage and relationship with the President of the Council has not been thought through.  Besides with one foot in the Commission and the other in the Council the High Representative will serve two masters – always a recipe for chaos.

The Presidency is equally blighted.  Some states want a low-key, backroom ‘fixer.’  Others want someone who can take a rightful place beside Presidents Obama and Hu.

An immediate fault line thus runs right through the selection process between those who want actors who will promote the EU across the world and those who want people who are focused downwards and inwards.

So member states will meet on Thursday to make appointments to positions whose fundamental requirements have not yet been determined.  At best this is a recipe for a complete impasse.  At worst for appointing someone who represents the lowest common denominator.

One might as well pick names randomly out of a hat.  Indeed the process is worse than that.  Names picked out of a hat would presumably not be subject to veto by a member state with an axe to grind.

And veto they will – even the best candidates will be vetoed if they do not fit with other members of  ‘the team,’ according to an arbitrary set of complex political criteria.

We are thus not looking to find the best people for the job, but for a slate, artificially ‘balanced’ between left-wing and right-wing; between large countries and small; between old member states and new; between male and female; between charismatic candidates and non-charismatic candidates and between federalists and inter-governmentalists.

Nor do we want, apparently, candidates with political ‘baggage’ (like being from a country not in the euro) even if this is completely irrelevant when it comes to doing the job.

Moreover, tradition dictates that candidates should not declare themselves. This makes the whole process appear even more arcane and secretive. Former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga (herself a candiadate for the Presidency) likened the process to embracing a ‘Soviet style contempt for the public.’

And she is right. The Swedish Presidency running this bizarre appointment process knows that we lecture less happier lands on good governance – on correct appointment procedures.  We send in consultants.  We try to ensure appointments on merit – or else, if they are political appointments, by free and fair election.

Yet at the heart of what Newsweek Magazine last week called ‘The Modest Superpower’ we are about to make three highly important political appointments, which we have yet to define properly, without a whiff of democracy and via an appointment process designed to make it impossible to select the best man or woman for the job on merit alone.  Worse, all will be wheeled and dealed behind closed doors. What a shameful and disgraceful position to find ourselves in!

So what can be done? Despite knowing about these appointments, literally for years, no attempt has been made to ascertain precisely what we want from these roles.  Nor has any real attention been given to the selection process.  That is an indictment both of member states and European Institutions.  We may be a modest superpower but at the moment we have much to be modest about.

Why rush these appointments? Would it not be better to take a little longer and to get them right?

What needs to be done?  First, reach agreement as to what the roles should entail and how the incumbents should relate to each other.  Secondly,  have declared candidates, prepared to offer a manifesto. Thirdly, there has to be an element of democracy involved – a consultative on-line referendum, perhaps.  Not ideal and not of course binding, but something to give a guide.   And fourthly, the final decision should be confirmed (as it will be for the High Representative) by the European Parliament.   Let’s not rush this.
Peter Sain ley Berry
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 2:02 pm and is filed under EU.

COMMENT:

1.) The political elite never truelly believed that Lisbon would not get passed. Ireland would have voted, once, twice, 3 times, 4 times, 5 times until we voted ‘yes’, that explains why they were so surprised about a No vote. The political elite had plenty of time to find someone for these positions, and do they honestly want us to believe that they only started looking after Ireland voted Yes (in a second vote).

These positions were created and argued for by the political elite to strengthen the voice of the EU abroad. The EU needed, they claimed, someone(a man, probably old, probably a career politican and expense account holder) would could rub shoulders with the US President, the Chinese Primer and whoever is more powerful in Russia(president or PM), who could gave Europe a strong voice. France, Germany (the drivers of the Lisbon treaty) all argued strongly we needed this, now ONCE the treaty is in place, they suddenly dont want a strong person in these positions for fear it might disadvanatage them.

How wonderful. The treaty will be the death of the EU, in time it will be shown.

2.) by Freeborn John on November 19th, 2009 - 4:50 pm

DOCM: Democracy means rule by the people (from ‘demos’ = people, kratos=rule). Democratic legitimacy of national political institutions is closely associated with electing representatives to majoritorian political institutions, but the important point to consider is that the people who are doing the voting at national level are a united group who agree to be bound by their majority. When this is not the case you always see pressure for a sub-community to break off and form their own nation-state with its own set of majoritorian political whose majority they will agree to live under.

The democratic legitimation of international organisatons is very different, and cannot be based on replicating the institutions of a nation-state. What is important in international organizations is not overruling any individual member-state because to do this means forcing a national majority to do what it does not want to do; which is the opposite of democracy. That is why all international organizations (with the exception of the EU) that make serious decisions binding on their membership use decision-making by unanimity. The EEC used a different method (the ‘community method’) involving qualified majority votes to make decisions binding on its membership from 1957, but until 1992 it did not do this when making ‘serious’ decisions. Since Maastricht it extended the use of this method (now renamed the ‘ordinary legislative procedure’) into more and more politically-contested policy fields, leading to more and more occasions when politically salient decisions are imposed on nations in violation of the majority opinion of their electorate, leading to the growing and accelerating crisis of democratic legitimacy that we have seen since Maastricht.

All the EU institutions have a weak democratic legitimacy.
The EU Council has perhaps the strongest claim to democratic legitimacy. Each of its members is a democratically head of government and they use decision-making by unanimity most of the time.

The EU Council of Ministers has a weaker claim. Each of its members is a member of a democratic national government, but no member has any legitimacy to govern outside their home country. It uses QMV a lot, and as the EU membership has increased, the voting weight of each member-state has been watered down, making it more likely they will not be able to block things their national majority is opposed to. The QMV voting rules could have been changed to counter-act this watering down by reducing the QMV blocking threshold. But the opposite has been done making it much more likely that nations will be coerced into accepting measures which their voters never agreed with. Therefore increased EU membership and voting rule changes have both undermined the democratic legitimacy of the EU Council of Ministers.

The EU Parliament looks like a democratic assembly until you remember the voters who elect are not part of one ‘demos’. Like the EU Councils none of its members has any democratic legitimacy outside their own national demos. Furthermore, elections to the EU Parliament are second-order affairs typically decided by voters judging the record of their national government so the EU Parliament has a lower democratic legitimacy than the EU Council of Ministers. That is why the attempts to increase EU legitimacy by increasing the powers of the EU parliament has consistently failed (for 30 years now). Extra powers for the EU Parliament mean reduced powers for other institutions with a higher legitimacy, leading to a net reduction in the legitimacy of the overall political process.

The EU Commission has the lowest democratic legitimacy of all. The chain of delegation by which Commissioners are appointed is so long that nobody going to the ballot box can have any idea how this will affect future legislative proposals from the EU Commission. This was actually desirable when the main purpose of the Commission was to insulate the common market from ‘populist’ pressures that might lead to protectionism. It is not OK at all now that the EU Commission has the monopoly on all legislative proposals for law that is superior to any other for 500 million people, in a vast range of politically-contested policy areas, and which none of those voters can have repealed by electing a new government in future.

Therefore, by any real definition of democracy (rule by the people) the EU is not democratic at all (no matter what is says in the treaty that was forced down our throats).

If you doubt my analysis then i ask that you do what you asked Peter to do, i.e. define democracy and explain why you think the EU is democratic. But if you take up this challenge then i warn you that i will expect your explanation to explain observed facts like:
1. The emergence of the EU crisis of democratic legitimacy only after Maastricht (when QMV was first introduced into politically salient decision-making).
2. That only the EU has experienced this legitimacy breakdown whereas other international organizations (WTO, NATO, etc.) that stuck to decision-making by unanimity did not (even with larger memberships).
3. That giving the EU parliament more power over 30 years has coincided with a growing feeling that the EU is undemocratic.

I look forward to your response.......

Clashes break out at Greek marches, 200 arrested
Tue, 17 Nov 2009

Greek police fired tear gas and arrested 200 people after clashes broke out at a march to honor a 1973 anti-junta student revolt in Athens.

The march began late in the afternoon on Tuesday at the Athens Polytechnic, where at least 44 people were killed in the 1973 student uprising. Around 6,500 police were deployed across Athens for the annual march to the US embassy, which is often marred by clashes between anarchists and riot police. Students and adolescents were among the tens of thousands marching across the Greek capital, criticizing capitalism and NATO and calling for the legalization of undocumented migrants.

Uniformed soldiers and sailors from the Greek military trade union marched behind a banner which read: “No soldiers beyond our borders. Dissolve NATO.” The protestors also called for the withdrawal of all US troops from Greece and the dismissal of certain police personnel, calling them traitors, murderers, and torturers.

Three police officers were injured in the clashes.

Another demonstration in Greece's second city Thessaloniki also produced clashes between youths and riot police, while rival student groups clashed at the city's Aristotelio University before the march even began.

The student wing of the conservative New Democracy party said 10 of its members were hospitalized with bruises after being attacked by leftists.

FTP/HGL PressTV

Shocking death toll at flagship hospital

October: NHS trust is rated 'good' in glowing report by watchdog
Now: Catalogue of failings in care and hygiene is revealed

By Jeremy Laurance health Editor The Independent UK

Friday, 27 November 2009

Poor standards of care at an accident and emergency unit in one of the country's flagship hospitals may have contributed to the unnecessary deaths of over 400 patients, an official NHS investigation has concluded. Dirty equipment and an absence of leadership contributed to a death rate almost 40 per cent above the national average among emergency admissions to the 770-bed Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, inspectors said.

The unit had blood stains on the floor, dirty curtains, stinking mattresses and soiled equipment; nurses who failed to monitor, feed and give drugs to patients correctly; and a rate of pressure sores almost twice the national average. Instead of the national four-hour maximum waiting time for A&E, the trust was operating a 10-hour waiting time.

The Care Quality Commission, the independent NHS inspectorate, which published the findings yesterday, said it had "lost confidence" in the management of the trust, after repeated requests to address the problems had failed to deliver results. It has referred the trust to Monitor, the foundation trust regulator, for action. It is the second time in six months that a foundation trust, a flagship NHS medical institution granted control of its own finances on the strength of its performance, has been found to be delivering sub-standard care suspected of causing hundreds of deaths.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Eastern Europe is chipping away at the secretive nomination process for new EU posts - created under the Lisbon Treaty, with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves formally throwing his name into the ring on Thursday (12 November).

The president, whose name was put forward by Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, joins a select few daring to be named as official candidates, as fears of failure and obligations to current jobs keep the process shrouded in secrecy.

Mr Ilves, a centrist Social Democrat and former MEP, says he is interested in both the European Council presidency post and that of the high representative for foreign affairs.

The former position will co-ordinate and 'drive forward' the work of the regular EU leaders' meetings, while the latter will become the EU's top diplomat and also a member of the European Commission – a beefed-up version of the job currently held by Javier Solana.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country holds the EU's six-month rotating presidency, is currently engaged in a sea of bilateral discussions with EU leaders in a frantic bid to find two candidates that all can agree on.

Announcing on Wednesday that leaders will choose the names over a dinner summit in Brussels on 19 November, Mr Reinfeldt said it was understandable that the current incumbents of national political jobs would want to keep their interest for the EU posts unofficial.

He likened an open job application to "sending the signal to the people of your country, I'm on my way to another job. On Monday I'm back again and I didn't get it but I still love you."

In a statement released by the office of Mr Ilves on Thursday, the president said: "As far as I am concerned, in the fall of 2006, I was elected president of the republic of Estonia for five years, and I will work to fulfill those duties."

But the statement later says that the election of the two new posts should be "based on the internal coherence of the European Union and the principle of equality," a thinly veiled hint that eastern Europe should get at least one of the positions.

Soviet-style secrecy

Former Lavian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga, also a declared candidate for the European Council presidency job, said on Thursday that the process was being conducted with Soviet-style secrecy and contempt for the public.

The Baltic state's former leader attacked the EU for operating in "darkness and behind closed doors" and said it should "stop working like the former Soviet Union."

Together with Mr Ilves, and former Irish Prime Minister John Bruton, the three form a small pocket of outliers from a larger group of former and current statesmen who wish to keep their names off the official candidates' list.

Current frontrunner for the presidency job, Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, along with his counterpart in the Netherlands, Peter Balkenende, and ex-UK prime minister Tony Blair have been mentioned as being in the running for the presidency post but have never formally declared an interest.

In a bid to add greater legitimacy to the whole process, Poland recently said that the candidates should hold job interviews in front of the 27 EU leaders.

"The approval procedure should be as transparent and democratic as possible. This will enhance the consensus surrounding those candidates who are eventually chosen," said a position paper put forward by the country.

Central and eastern European member states are also thought to have their eyes on a third post to be created under the Lisbon Treaty – the secretary general of the council – a bureaucratic but powerful post that will co-ordinate the day-to-day activities of member states in Brussels.

"When one thinks about lobbying, obviously if one country can occupy such an important role ... I think it could raise the image of such a country," Edit Rauh, the Hungarian under-secretary of state for social affairs, told EUobserver, referring to the bureaucratic post.

Press Articles

• AFP
• The Telegraph

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Defiant UK soldier faces new charges
Thu, 12 Nov 2009

A British soldier who refused to return to Afghanistan has been arrested and faces charges of speaking out against the Afghan mission which could put him in prison up to 10 years.


Lance Corporal Joe Glenton is accused of leading an anti-war demonstration and has been charged with failing to obey a lawful order and other disciplinary offences.

He allegedly led the protest in London last month against the continued presence of UK troops in Afghanistan.

The Stop the War Coalition, which organized the rally, called for the soldier's release and accused the Ministry of Defense of trying to stop the freedom of speech.

The charges carry a maximum of ten years in prison. Glenton could face another four-year term as he is already facing a court martial for alleged desertion after going absent without leave in 2007.

"This is not about a breach of military regulations. This is about the persecution of a soldier who believes in telling the truth in accordance with his conscience," said Lindsey German, convener of the Stop the War Coalition.

"He is saying what the majority of the population believe — that this war is unwinnable and immoral."

According to recent polls, a majority of Britons have called for withdrawal of UK forces from Afghanistan.

Britain has 9,000 troops in Afghanistan and Prime Minister Gordon Brown has authorized the deployment of another 500.

A total of 232 British troops have died since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

AGB/AKM

EU citizens' initiative raises political and legal headaches

HONOR MAHONY

Today @ 07:38 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Hailed as the EU's first real step towards direct democracy, a right contained in the new Lisbon Treaty allowing EU citizens to ask the European Commission to initiate a law is shaping up to be a political and legal minefield.

The wording of the 'citizens initiative' article requires one million signatures from EU citizens for the commission to consider a legislative proposal, but its implementation throws up practical problems. Saying the article will "add a new dimension to European democracy," the commission in a discussion paper to be published later today (11 November) sets out the issues that the "new institutional instrument" will raise.

Chief among the problems is setting the minimum number of member states from which the one million signature need to come, the proportion of the population the signatures should represent in each country and how to collect the signatures.The problems are compounded by the fact that member states range in size from a 410,000 strong population in Malta to 82 million Germans, have different voting ages and use different systems for verifying signatures. The democratic innovation, which Brussels hopes to have up and running by the end of next year, should see the threshold of states set at one third (nine), says the commission, rejecting one quarter as "too low" and a majority (14) as too high. The treaty itself simply says the signatures should come from a "significant" number of the 27 member states.

The commission urges that a population percentage threshold should be set (such as 0.2%, representing 160,000 people in Germany or 20,000 in Belgium) as a "flat rate" would penalise citizens from small countries.The paper also suggests a time period of one year be set for gathering the million signatures required, something that would mean that the "context" remains the same but allows for the "additional complexity" of getting a campaign noticed across the breadth of the Union with its long list of spoken languages.

'Disincentives'

The commission proposes giving itself wiggle room for repeated petitions on issues it does not want to follow up, noting that "disincentives or time limits" could prevent "successive presentations of the same request."

The citizens article also raises several other questions such as whether the instigators of an initiative may simply be individuals or organisations and the degree to which they have to provide information about their aims and funding.

Collecting Signatures

A big problem is how to collect and verify signatures with some member states having simpler rules on gathering signatures than others - with the practical effect that it may be easier to get the required number of signatures in one country than another.

Brussels suggests a degree of harmonisation which could include data privacy protection, and setting minimum requirements for authenticating signatures. It also remains unclear whether a person's signature should be counted in the member state where they were born or where they are happen to be living and what the minimum age should be.

A major question mark hangs over online initiatives, with all the potential security problems they involve, and whether they should be allowed at all while there is also concern that an initiative could be so convoluted that it is unclear what the signatories actually want - something that could be fixed by using a standard formula.

EU communications commissioner Margot Wallstrom has in the past predicted the tool will be "used immediately" by citizens, noting that it will be "the better if it causes some problems for the commission" as it will bring the institution more into contact with ordinary people and what they are looking for from the EU.

The discussion paper takes the form of a series of questions which stakeholders and the public may reply to until the end of January 2010.

Document

• European Parliament, Implementation of the Citizens' initiative

Related Article

• Wallstrom: EU needs a commissioner for citizens

Tropical storm hits Ashcroft

Prime Minister of Belize steps up campaign to unravel billionaire Tory donor's business interests

By Stephen Foley in Belize City

Lord Ashcroft is a well-known figure in Belize

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Michael Ashcroft, the Conservative peer who is funding a key part of David Cameron's election campaign, is caught in the middle of a legal and political storm in the Central American haven of Belize, where many of his businesses are based.

In an interview with The Independent the country's Prime Minister, Dean Barrow, has accused the billionaire Tory party deputy chairman of operating a monopoly and of trying to obscure his interests through a byzantine web of subsidiaries and trusts. Lord Ashcroft has rejected the claims, which he says are politically motivated. But Mr Barrow has vowed to pursue the peer and unpick a series of commercial deals that he claims he has used to "soak" the country in the manner of a colonial overlord.

In particular, he says Lord Ashcroft controlled both of the country's telecoms firms, and brokered deals that, in effect, left Belize's taxpayers subsidising his company's profits.

Related articles

• Ashcroft & Belize: 'The only thing he respects is dollars'
• Leading article: A troubling lack of transparency

And according to the Belize's foreign minister and mission staff, one of Lord Ashcroft's closest business associates, Mel Flores, has been thrown out of the Belize mission to the United Nations in New York, after the US authorities questioned whether he was a real diplomat.

Mr Barrow, a former lawyer for Lord Ashcroft and the recipient of his political contributions, says he turned on his former ally after discovering the existence of sweetheart deals that the peer negotiated with the previous administration.

"He is a colossus here," Mr Barrow told The Independent. "It's never been my understanding that because you contribute to a politician, you own that politician, and I will always do my best to defend the interests of the people of Belize. When that conflicts with any expectations that some political donor might have of me, well I'm sorry for that political donor."

Lord Ashcroft is one of the Conservative party's biggest donors and has used his money to fund a highly targeted campaign to win key marginal constituencies for the party.

His problems in Belize are an unwelcome distraction at a time when the peer – who is also the Conservative's deputy party chairman – is preparing for an election early next year.

The Prime minister of Belize specifically used Lord Ashcroft's high profile role in the UK to attack the peer: "You would think that government in the UK is so powerful and so diverse that he could not exercise the kind of influence he has been able to here. But there must be a warning in this: if he can he will. Based on my experience, he fully expects that he who pays the piper plays the tune."

In turn, Lord Ashcroft has turned on the Government of his adopted homeland, accusing the Prime Minister of lying to score party political points. He has no economic interest in telecoms in Belize, he says, and has not had any since selling out in 2003.

The row focuses on Belize's two telecoms companies – Telemedia, which once had a monopoly in the country, and SpeedNet, a newer rival. The ownership of both firms is obscured by a series of trusts, but in Parliament Mr Barrow claimed both are "ultimately controlled" by Mr Ashcroft.

An agreement in 2005 with a previous Belize government guaranteed Telemedia a certain level of profitability, and the ability to claw back tax if it didn't reach it. Mr Barrow alleges that since then SpeedNet has been undercharged for using Telemedia's cell towers and for routing calls through Telemedia's infrastructure.

In other words, according to the government, SpeedNet's profits were inflated at Telemedia's expense, safe in the knowledge that any reduction in profitability at Telemedia can be clawed back from the public purse.

Mr Barrow says he has followed a paper trail that shows that Lord Ashcroft ultimately controls SpeedNet: "77.38% of Speednet is owned by three companies – Callerbar Limited, Riddermark Ventures Limited, and Heaver Holdings Limited. These three companies are ... controlled by two of the now notorious Trusts owned by Michael Ashcroft.

The peer's spokesman, Alan Kilkenny, refused to answer questions about Lord Ashcroft's relationship with Telemedia and SpeedNet, except to say that Telemedia had been owned by trusts acting for the benefit of charities and its employees.

Last night he launched a personal attack on Mr Barrow. "Normal standards of behaviour, where you can believe what a prime minister says, have gone out the window in Belize," he said. "You should not believe that Lord Ashcroft is in any way connected. He has had no economic interest in telecoms in Belize for years. If you start from the assumption that Lord Ashcroft is inextricably involved, you are going to end up in completely the wrong place. The Prime Minister knows what the position is. This is a man who has put his son on the new board of the telecoms company. Nothing should be taken at face value."

The row over Lord Ashcroft's power in Belize has upended politics in the country. He has been a major figure there since the 1980s, having falling in love with it as a child, when his father, a diplomat, had been posted there by the Foreign Office. The peer made his fortune in the security business, through buying and selling companies, including selling the firm ADT to Tyco International of the US for $5.6bn.

He took citizenship in Belize and his businesses here include the most luxurious hotel complex in the financial capital, Belize City, and the country's largest bank.

Mr Flores, who has sat on corporate boards and been a trustee for Lord Ashcroft, was trying to renew his diplomatic passport in the spring but officials from the State department's office of foreign missions telephoned to query his status as an attaché. Mr Flores is described as a "financial consultant" in documents filed by Lord Ashcroft's companies at the London Stock Exchange.

Mr Barrow said Mr Flores' diplomatic status was "a fiction" and that he had been using the mission as a business office since Lord Ashcroft was the country's representative to the UN and funded the office himself. He ruled that the mission should not pursue the renewal of Mr Flores' diplomatic passport, and he departed in July. He did not return a message left for him in the Turks and Caicos islands yesterday.

Business Aims to Relax Bans on Products Made with Child & Slave Labor

By David Sirota

November 12, 2009 "Open Left" November 11, 2009 -- We've seen corporations use "free trade" agreements to quietly camouflage their push for exploitable labor in broader arguments about globalization. What we haven't seen is corporate special interests openly push for U.S. regulators to openly allow companies to sell goods made with child and slave labor...until now.

Check out this report from Inside U.S. Trade (no link- subscription required) - it's straight from the I Shit You Not File:

Business groups are worried by the potential effects of provisions banning the import of all goods made with convict labor, forced labor, or forced or indentured child labor that were included in a customs bill sponsored by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-IA)...

These groups are examining the ramifications of the bill's provisions, especially in light of the bill's requirements that a newly created office in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) annually report to Congress on the volume and value of goods made with child labor, forced labor or convict labor that have been stopped at the border.

Business sources say this reporting requirement could cause DHS to more actively seek out imported products made with child labor, forced labor or convict labor...

One source did expect a push from lobbyists closer to the Finance Committee markup of the bill, and speculated that U.S. industry groups and foreign governments could form ad hoc coalitions to help send a united message.

Those of us pushing for serious trade policy reform have argued for years that businesses are aiming to create global economic policies that allow them to troll the world for the most exploitable forms of labor. As General Electric CEO Jack Welch famously said, corporations want laws that allow them to "have every plant you own on a barge" - one that can move from country to country looking for the worst conditions to exploit. Such an international economic regime would (and now does) allow the world's worst governments to create artificial comparative economic advantages through bad/immoral policies.

This is an important concept: Whereas comparative advantage used to be about natural advantages (ie. one country has optimal soil for grapes, another country has optimal soil for corn), "free trade" encourages countries to create comparative advantage through man-made laws. Some countries, for instance, creates a comparative advantage by letting factories pollute as much as they want, thus encouraging companies to move their factories there from other countries where pollution controls are more serious. Other countries create a comparative advantage by permitting children to be enslaved, thus encouraging companies operating in countries with more expensive non-slave labor to shift operations to a place where they can make products with all but free labor.

The way to stop this is for the world's largest economies to establish basic rules which everyone else will inevitably follow as a price of admission to those economies' markets. If the United States says companies cannot sell products in our market made with child slave labor, most companies will cease making products with child slave labor fearing the loss of access to our market which would destroy their business.

Of course, that's why business has opposed every effort to put basic labor, environmental and human rights standards into our international trade agreements - and why business groups are now preparing to try to weaken the laws barring products made with child slave labor. They know that the less rules that exist in the American market, the more cost-cutting exploitation they can engage in.

That corporations' advocacy for deregulation has now become so brazen that they are effectively pushing the U.S. government to endorse child slave labor is predictable. This is what their globalization agenda has always been all about. The only thing surprising about it is that in a Washington so overtly dominated by Big Money, it has taken them this long to be this blatant about their objectives.