EU will create “Africa in Europe”

Released on = July 1, 2005, 6:51 am

Press Release Author = THE NEW PARTY

Industry = Government

Press Release Summary = As Britain takes over the EU presidency and chairs the G8 summit at Gleneagles, the New Party warns that EU policies will create “Africa in Europe”.

Many Africans now realise that the only way to deal with their chronic problems is to break free of the dependency culture and increase private enterprise. What Africa really needs is not aid and debt relief but an end to trade restrictions and food dumping caused by measures such as the EU's Common Agricultural Policy.

The European Union meantime risks creating African style problems closer to home. Vested interests are preventing any meaningful reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and Europe is fast becoming a protectionist welfare bubble which ignores developments in the rest of the world. The EU seems intent in creating the kind of dependency culture that has been so damaging in Africa as it adds more and more intrusive social schemes paid for by higher taxes and additional burdens on private enterprise.

Press Release Body = THE NEW PARTY

Press Release:
Friday 1st July 2005 - immediate

EU will create “Africa in Europe” As Britain takes over the EU presidency and chairs the G8 summit at Gleneagles, the
New Party warns that EU policies will create “Africa in Europe”.

Many Africans now realise that the only way to deal with their chronic problems is to break free of the dependency culture and increase private enterprise. What Africa really needs is not aid and debt relief but an end to trade restrictions and food dumping caused by measures such as the EU's Common Agricultural Policy.

The European Union meantime risks creating African style problems closer to home. Vested interests are preventing any meaningful reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and Europe is fast becoming a protectionist welfare bubble which ignores developments in the rest of the world. The EU seems intent in creating the kind of dependency culture that has been so damaging in Africa as it adds more and more intrusive social schemes paid for by higher taxes and additional burdens on private enterprise.

New Party economist Dr Nigel Knight comments:
“EU policies will eventually create ‘Africa in Europe’. The growing state aided dependency culture in Europe only repeats the mistakes that have driven Africa ever further into the gutter since organised aid programmes began almost 50 years ago. Pouring cash into these countries is like fighting a fire with petrol as it merely expands the aid infrastructure and locks in the dependency culture.”

Mr Blair is notoriously weak on history but he would do well to reflect on what has happened in the African continent over the past half century before he decides how best to tackle EU with its growing subsidy culture, its cash-hungry approach to
business, its bloated welfare systems and its protectionist trade policies that do so much damage to third world producers and European consumers alike.
ENDS:
The New Party
Grown up Politics for Grown up People

Notes for editors:
1. The World Bank acknowledges that, particularly in Africa, aid efforts have often been "an unmitigated failure," facilitating "incompetence, corruption and misguided policies." Ian Vasquez, a scholar at the Cato Institute in Washington, looked at 73 nations that got development assistance between 1971 and 1995, and found that "neither aid per capita nor aid as a percentage of GDP was positively correlated with economic growth." (Steve Chapman, The third world needs trade not aid, 2002.)
2. The EU is not a free trade area but a customs union which sets up barriers against other countries. Britain is locked in, with the rest of the EU, to a regime of protectionist and discriminatory trade barriers and an agricultural pricing
system that does real damage to the developing world. The CAP alone is estimated to cause developing countries a welfare loss in the region of US$20 billion dollar annually, twice Kenya’s entire GDP. Scrapping the CAP would benefit developing countries and European consumers.
3. Britain does not benefit economically from EU membership. A recent authoritative study by Professor Patrick Minford and others found that the net cost of EU membership goes far beyond Britain’s budgetary contribution, amounting to
approximately 3.7% of GDP, or £40 billion per year, taking into account factors such as protectionism, lack of competition and invisible barriers. The harmonisation of UK labour market laws to EU standards would cost a further £70 billion per year and
the loss of 1.8 million jobs.
4. The EU is facing economic irrelevance and demographic collapse. The euro zone is expected to grow at only 1.2% this year when the rest of the world is expanding rapidly. Welfare, labour market and protectionist trade policies are entrenching
economic decline in Europe. Costly welfare and pension commitments will combine with population decline and an ageing population to drag Europe further into decline
over the next few decades.
5. The New Party has been formed to give the people of the UK a progressive alternative to the existing parties.
6. The Labour & Conservative parties have now held exclusive power for over 80 years
7. The New Party used the 2005 General Election as a platform to present its policies and announced three major policies each week over the election period.
See: http://www.newparty.co.uk/campaign2005/newsreleases.html
8. The New Party has the endorsement of Sir John Harvey-Jones. See
http://www.newparty.co.uk/viewpolicydocument.asp?iportdocid

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