© Facts4EU.Org 2018
EU USES UK DATA TO TRUMPET
TRADE TALKS WITH UK’S ALLIES
TRADE TALKS WITH UK’S ALLIES
Another exclusive analysis from the Brexit Facts4EU.Org Team
BREXIT FACTS4EU.ORG SUMMARY
EU TRADE ANNOUNCEMENT WITH AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND
EU TRADE ANNOUNCEMENT WITH AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND
- Deliberate mis-presentation of EU trade to include the UK
- Any deals will start years after the UK has left the EU
- UK is responsible for almost as much trade as EU27 put together
- Some of the figures from EU are double what they should be
Yesterday the EU gave one of its major trade announcements with accompanying
speeches, press releases and supporting documents.
“The Commission welcomes today's adoption by the Council of the negotiating
directives for free trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand.”
- EU Press Release, Brussels, 22 May 2018
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“This is great news. We look forward to adding Australia and New Zealand to
the EU's ever-growing circle of close trading partners.…. I am looking
forward to visiting Canberra and Wellington in the coming weeks to
officially launch our negotiations. Starting these talks between
like-minded partners sends a strong signal at a time where many are taking
the easy road of protectionism.”
- EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom, Brussels, 22 May 2018
Unelected bureaucrat, appointed by Jean-Claude Juncker with no trade experience |
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Yesterday the Council of the European Union authorised the opening of negotiations
for Free Trade Agreements between the EU and Australia and the EU and New Zealand.
The first rounds between the teams of negotiators are envisaged to take place in
Brussels in July. In practice this means little more than handshakes until
September, as Brussels is more or less closed down from Bastille Day (14 July) to
the end of August.
THE NATURE OF THE LIE
There are many words and phrases we could use for what the EU did yesterday.
‘Misinformed’, ‘mis-directed’, ‘were economical with the actualité’, etc.
The truth is that to all practical intents they lied to the peoples of Australia,
New Zealand, and the EU28 countries. Given the distances involved, one might say
they did this on a global scale.
In trumpeting the agreement to start negotiations with two of the UK’s oldest
allies, the EU proudly proclaimed the amount of trade that is already being done
between the EU and Australia and New Zealand.
This would be normal practice, but for one thing. The EU used data for the EU28 –
including the UK. We have argued many times that the EU should long ago have
stopped using EU28 data for future trade deals which will start long after Brexit.
This misrepresents the true picture and it is absolutely certain that when the
success or otherwise of these future trade deals is announced, the baseline figure
will not include the trade that was being done while the UK was still a member.
THE SIZE OF THE LIE
In this case, the lie is even more dramatic. Because of the close relationship
between the United Kingdom and its antipodean cousins – despite the UK government’s
treachery when it joined the EEC on 01 Jan 1973 – the UK is responsible for a large
part of the trade between ‘the EU’ and those two countries.
To include UK figures within the enormous set of figures provided by the EU is
quite extraordinary. Below we explain and illustrate why.
THE TRUTH – FROM BREXIT FACTS4EU.ORG
We have already looked in detail at the business Australia does with the EU – and
what proportion of that is in fact with the UK. We haven’t yet analysed New
Zealand’s trade in the same way, but we expect it to tell a similar story. The only
reason we haven’t looked at NZ in detail is because of lack of funding. (Please
donate if you can!)
BREXIT FACTS4EU.ORG SUMMARY – AUSTRALIA’S TRADE WITH EU
- 49% of Australia’s exports of goods & services to EU actually go to UK (A$15bn in 2016)
- Australia runs huge trade deficit (A$37bn) with EU
- 100% of this deficit is with EU27 – Australia runs a small surplus with UK
- UK invests more into Australia than all other EU countries combined
© Facts4EU.Org 2018
COULD THE EU HAVE TOLD THE TRUTH?
Of course they could. The EU knows exactly what each member state is responsible
for when it comes to EU accounting. Member states are forced to provide detailed
data on a monthly basis, in a format decided by the EU Commission.
In fact, in April the Commission’s statistical service, Eurostat, made an
announcement:
EU Commission
Note that this was done because of ‘strong demand’ – the EU clearly weren’t keen to
do this because they knew what it would show. We have made this point in many
dozens of research articles in the last two years alone.
“AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE? NON, PAS POSSIBLE, COBBER”
There is one other important factor which was barely mentioned by the EU in its
announcements yesterday.
With the vaunted new trade deals, Australia and New Zealand will both be keen to
increase their sales of agricultural produce to the EU. Unfortunately it looks like
they will continue to be disappointed by the EU's continuing protectionist attitude
towards its own inefficient agricultural sector. We dug deep and found the
following:
“The sensitivity of the EU's agricultural was reflected in the studies carried
while preparing the negotiations and in November 2016, the Commission also
released a study on the cumulative impact of future trade agreements on the
agricultural sector.
“It is clear that the EU does not envisage full liberalisation of trade in this
sector.”
- 'Factsheet on future negotiations with Australia and New Zealand', EU
Commission
OBSERVATIONS
Firstly we’ll make a quick point that we’ve made before. Yesterday’s big EU
announcement was made by the EU’s Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom. This is a
woman appointed by Jean-Claude Juncker to the EU trade job with no trade
experience.
Occasionally we ask readers to stop and think about something. Just think about
the statement above. Malmstrom isn’t a publicly-elected minister, she’s a
bureaucrat – a civil servant. How is it conceivable to have the EU’s trade
department led by a woman with no prior trade experience?
Now you know why the EU failed to secure free trade agreements with the major
economies of the world in the last 60 years. And before anyone tries to cite
agreements, get real. Do your research as we do. Very few are with major
economies and the latest post-Referendum scramble by a scared Commission
(attempted deals with USA, Canada, Japan) has resulted in one abject failure and
two deals that still haven’t been ratified.
THE EU MUST BE CALLED OUT
The level of deliberate misinformation and propaganda now being produced by the
EU is worthy of some of the worst totalitarian regimes in history. Members of our
team have experience of communist regimes, which is why we’re brutal in noting
the former Communists in the EU commission.
It is imperative that they be called out on it.
We now call upon all newspaper editors and all British politicians and
commentators to condemn the EU’s actions in the strongest terms.
We have reported on numerous examples of the EU’s warlike propaganda machine and
this can no longer be drifted over as if it doesn’t matter. This matters. People
everywhere in the EU and internationally are being brainwashed with
misinformation from the EU which is either patently and demonstrably false or
which is so misleading as to constitute deliberate fake news.
Please BBC, Sky News, ITV News, and print and online media, take up this cudgel.
On so many levels we’re now living in an Alice in Wonderland world where words
and meaning can and are being distorted beyond recognition and in a world where
reality… well, isn’t.
We hope that all media professionals and politicians who believe in the truth
will be interested in this.
WELCOME OPPORTUNITIES FOR AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
To end on a positive note, it is welcome that the EU is finally waking up to the
other economies of the world. We would be very happy if Australia and New Zealand
were finally able to achieve a free trade deal with the EU, after so many years
of trying. Based on the EU's past performance of agreeing trade deals we will
still be writing about this well into the next decade, alas.
In the meantime there is the fabulous opportunity represented by Brexit, provided
Mrs May is stopped from her absurd and damaging policies on new customs
arrangements with the EU. Provided that is resolved as quickly as possible, we
could be increasing trade with our antipodean cousins in no time.
We think this is a much more interesting opportunity than having to deal with the
EU....
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“What's that Skippy? The EU Commission have fallen into an old
mineshaft?”
“Okay, but I'm a bit busy right now, Skip.”
Brexit Facts4EU.Org
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[ Sources: EU Commission | Australian Government Trade Dept |
Australian Bureau of Statistics ] Journalists and
politicians can contact us for the full list of links, as usual.
07.30am, 23 May 2018
07.30am, 23 May 2018
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READERS' COMMENTS
Please send us your comments and we will publish them here. You can
of course use a pseudonym if you prefer, and it's always nice to know roughly
where you're writing from. Please always state the headline of
the article you're commenting on.
Name: Jon, Wales Date/Time: 23 May 2018, 8.44pm
Message: From the above article: "The EU knows exactly what each member
state is responsible for when it comes to EU accounting. Member states are forced
to provide detailed data on a monthly basis, in a format decided by the EU
Commission". Remoaners need to explain when they voted for foreign bureaucrats to
'rule' our sovereign nation? The dictatorial EU commission should be more
transparent with their accounting (including their "errors"), so they can't then
get away with trying to inflate accounting by using EU27 figures together with
those of the UK (the second highest NET contributor). The Commission have a habit
of making themselves look good - but only because UK taxpayers are forced into
propping up their majority member countries, whilst we go short in our
country.
Name: Brexiteer, Braintree, Essex,
UK Date/Time: 23 May
2018, 09.34am
Message: The EU can "be economical with the truth", to its 400 million
odd citizens who might be fooled by all this bluster. It will be a different
story when the trade negotiators from NZ and Australia get head to head with EU
negotiators, the EU will be unable to fudge their figures that include the UK
then. The EU will find that the Commonwealth countries know exactly where their
exports go, and the "market of 500 million consumers" mantra often spouted by the
EU is worth very little to them, minus the UK. Bringing in the Balkan countries
boosts the population numbers of the EU, but these mainly poor and undeveloped
countries are not going to be as good a market of buying power, as the UK
was.
Name: Paul A, East Sussex,
UK Date/Time: 23 May
2018, 09.32am
Message: 1.) I'm wondering how much the EU is expecting our antipodean
cousins to pay into the EU for access to the EU market?
2.) I wonder at the same time how our antipodean friends will welcome all the migrants they will be allocated under the free movement rules deemed essential by the Barniers and Junkers before trade can take place?
3.) I also wonder how many fingers our commonwealth friends might hold up to ECJ rulings?
I suspect participation in the Eurovision contest is as close to the EU as common sense (a normal state of affairs in Australasia) might want to be.
2.) I wonder at the same time how our antipodean friends will welcome all the migrants they will be allocated under the free movement rules deemed essential by the Barniers and Junkers before trade can take place?
3.) I also wonder how many fingers our commonwealth friends might hold up to ECJ rulings?
I suspect participation in the Eurovision contest is as close to the EU as common sense (a normal state of affairs in Australasia) might want to be.
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