DID YOU KNOW YOU LIVE IN AN EU ‘REGION’?

Find out where you live according to the EU

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2019 - full-size version is below

Preparations have been underway for the EU superstate for decades

Remain MPs are always playing down any talk of the EU becoming one over-arching superstate, with countries being divided up into regions of the ‘United States of Europe’ (USE). The reason they do this is political.

The British people do NOT want to be citizens of a superstate, ruled from Brussels.

Even many Remain voters do not want this.

Remain MPs and all the largest Remain campaigns know this, so they deny it will happen.

The EU’s intention is to become a superstate – the 'United States of Europe'

“Ever closer union” has forever been enshrined in the EU ideal, back from the first Treaty of Rome. Since then it has gone through minor changes of working, but the intent has always been clear.

Brexit Facts4EU.org Summary

The EU's intentions to become a superstate

Under the 1986 Single European Act, Member States were:

“MOVED by the will to … transform relations as a whole among their States into a European Union.”

Moving fast-forward to the Lisbon Treaty of 2009, this has the following in its Preamble:

“DETERMINED to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe”

How the EU has driven us all ‘NUTS’

Since the late 1980s the EU has been using its own system for dividing up the countries of the EU into regions. In 2003, this was made into a formal Regulation of the EU Parliament and the EU Council.

The highest level is called ‘NUTS 0’. This is its name. We kid you not. If you live in the UK dear reader, in fact you live in EU Region UK.

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2019

There are 104 regions at NUTS level 1 across the EU. The UK has been allocated 12 of these. See below for where you live in EU terms.

[ Source: ‘Regions in the European Union’, 2018 version, EU Commission - Eurostat ]

So let’s take an imaginary reader called Diane who thinks she lives in Chorley in Lancashire. In fact she lives in EU NUTS Region UKD, which includes Cumbria, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and Merseyside.

The EU has of course gone further, and sub-divided these regions for adminstrative purposes. Below is the map of these secondary classifications, known as ‘NUTS 2’.

[ Source: ‘Regions in the European Union’, 2018 version, EU Commission - Eurostat ]

The UK has 42 sub-regions at NUTS level 2.

But where does ‘Diane’ really live?

Let’s go back to Diane, our imaginary Lancastrian reader living in Chorley. Well, in EU terms Diane actually lives in EU NUTS 2 sub-region UKD4.

There is of course a third sub-division, called NUTS 3. There are hundreds of areas at EU NUTS level 3.

So if Diane really wants to place herself even more precisely, then she lives in EU NUTS 3 Area UKD47.

Why does the EU have this EU Regions system?

The official response from the EU is that it is necessary to breakdown countries into roughly equivalent blocks for statistical purposes.

However, here is what the EU itself says in the opening to its 2018 report :-

“The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) was drawn up by Eurostat decades ago in order to provide a breakdown of the economic territory of the European Union(1) into territorial units for the production of regional statistics and for targeting political interventions at a regional level.”

[ Source: ‘Regions in the European Union’, 2018 version, EU Commission - Eurostat ]

Observations

It is perfectly true that the EU currently uses its NUTS system for statistical purposes.

Nonetheless, we have never yet seen the EU do anything other than advance its objectives by stealth. In the end, their objectives are clear from the Treaties. They wish to create a United States of Europe, governed from Brussels. This system of breaking down countries into EU ‘units’ is a step along that road.

For our imaginary reader, (Diane from Chorley, Lancs), to find herself living in EU NUTS district UKD47, is a chilling step towards the kind of structures created by another empire which we had to fight and defeat in the Cold War.

If you found this article interesting, perhaps you could support our work – particularly our appeal to cover the costs of our lobbying of 639 MPs yesterday? Quick and secure payment methods are below. Thank you.

[ Sources : EU Commission | Official EU statistics agency Eurostat ]

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, 13 Apr 2019

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