Nobel Peace Prize: ‘We will come out of crisis stronger than ever,’ says EU …

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Mr Van Rompuy

Mr Van Rompuy

Three days after picking up the peace prize, Mr Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, who chairs monthly EU summits, will table a plan for “complete economic and monetary union” to be discussed by Europe’s leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

Among proposals for new banking regulations is a “roadmap” to a political union where eurozone countries will lose the right to set their own budgets and end up surrendering economic sovereignty to the EU.

Included in the paper, to be discussed at the summit, are proposals to remove budgetary sovereignty from national parliaments because elected MPs cannot be trusted to financial stability for the eurozone before promises to voters.

“The common interest of the union must be duly taken into account; yet national parliaments are not in the best position to take it into account fully,” his proposal said.

Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, said: “His nasty words just show the utter contempt he has for national parliaments. He clearly wants to make them irrelevant. He is politically a very dangerous man.”

David Cameron has refused to attend the Nobel prize ceremony so Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, will be joining Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, Francois Hollande, the French President and up to 20 other EU leaders in Oslo over the next two days.

Oslo will on Monday be shut down for a massive security operation including a two-day flight ban over the city, armed police securing key sites with military helicopter backup and a border control clampdown to keep out “unwanted people”.

The bill for policing the ceremony alone will begin at £2million and the total cost of other measures is expected to run almost as high as the £15m spent on Barack Obama’s 2009 visit to collect the prize.

The overall cost of the ceremony, security, travel prize and five-star hotels for leaders and their entourages will dwarf the £750,000 Nobel peace prize money which be given to projects for children from war and conflict zones.

Protesters greeted European leaders as they arrived on Sunday because the prize is controversial in Norway, which has twice rejected membership of the EU during referendums.

“This is a provocation to the vast number of Norwegians,” said Heming Olaussen, leader of the “No to the EU” campaign group in Norway.

 

In : World News

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