From Peter Anthony Troy.
LAST, week unnoticed in Jersey, the UK Prime Minister returned from the European Council meeting having, he said, denied the EU the right to determine which financial institutions he, or his successors, would be able to bail out in any future financial crises.
The truth is he has not achieved this and we can thank the French President for giving us the correct information; in effect a warning of trouble ahead. President Nicolas Sarkozy was closer to the truth when he proclaimed that Anglo-Saxon capitalism has been altered by the establishment of new pan-European regulatory bodies.
The finance industry in the UK and in the Channel Islands will soon have to learn new agency titles: the European Banking Authority; the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority; the European Securities and Markets Authority; the European Systemic Risks Councils.
These new agencies will not only provide jobs for enthusiastic regulators, they will have extensive binding powers to investigate and oversee cross-border banking, insurance, pensions and securities and can issue binding orders to resolve disputes between member states and close trading partners.
Sarkozy has only scorn for Gordon Brown’s claim that these bodies have very limited power. ‘We have agreed a European system of supervision with binding powers. My conviction is that its scope will increase,’ the French leader tells us.
The implications of this are profound and will in time impact on Jersey’s financial world. In the few short months following the banking crisis, huge tranches of control over UK financial institutions have been passed to the EU, vested in hostile hands with agendas which will be entirely hostile to the Island’s long-term economic interests.
It needs to be understood that in the past few months the EU has made a power grab that will cost the UK economy billions, all without reference to the UK Parliament which has not yet debated the issue and never will. That there should have been so little attention to this issue is unsurprising. Bankers, whatever their contribution to the economy, have not made many friends recently.
Further, the whole issue of banking regulation is fiendishly complex. Apart from a few high-profile banking executives, the field is populated by anonymous, grey figures conducting back-room technical deals which frankly makes boring reading despite its huge significance to all of us.
Thus, in the corridors of the EU HQ in Brussels and beyond, one of the most important wealth generating activities in the UK has been stitched-up. The only thing certain is that all this extra regulation will shortly impact on Jersey and it won’t be good news when it does.
Bergendal,
Bon Air Lane,
St Saviour.
Article posted on 29th June, 2009 - 3.00pm
24 Article Comments
Excellent letter; one of the best ever posted. Though I doubt that Mr. Toad and the sleeping mushrooms in Crapaud Hall will ever be able to recognize the approaching threat from the Collectivized EU Beast that is currently approaching our own back door. So welcome to the European Police State Dictatorship – the Great Tyrannical Beast into whose hands and authority our British Sovereignty and Island Independence has been so traitorously sold by a bunch of multicultural politically correct idiots – otherwise known as the enemy within.
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Gosh this looks serious. Good old EU doing what they do best, regulating!
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I have already touched on this issue in previous comments but nevertheless a good letter.
As I have said before Britain will be faced with a stark choice before long, either continued EU membership or ceeding from the union to protect its own interests and especially that of its finance sector. What will the UK do? Turn inwards into isolationalism, turn westward and to the Far East to its Anglo-Saxon bretheren, or stay the course of the European Super State as it marches eatwards towards central Asia?
I believe that continued participation in an EU superstate will led to reduced sovriegnty of the UK’s own affairs. For example things like pensions will come under the EU’s control. I think the EU will want to standardise pensions across the board meaning UK pensions will be cut to give more to the other EU states that have little pension provision of their own. The UK I believe is going to lose a lot more as other countries are far better at making the EU work for themselves. I can also see UK’s forces being merged into one EU fighting force as the UK is almost a spent force from a manpower point of view in my opinion.
Where do you think the money is going to go now the likes of Romania and Bulgaria are properly in the EU? Then what happens when other European states like Albania join?
As the UK will be one amongst many, what chance will it have of protecting its own interests, if the rest’s interests are opposed to the UK’s interests. I believe the Franco-German alliance is poised to have an impact on the City Of London and when it does all the COL’s offshore centres will feel the reverberations of this.
I wonder if those in charge are aware, and up to the job of minimising the fallout from all this? Take finance out of Jersey and what have you got left? To quote Paul Daniels “not a lot”.
It also wouldn’t surprise me if before too long there are half a dozen or so super states covering virtually the whole planet in preparation for an attempt at one world government.
As the world becomes global this is a distinct possibility. Unless we are overrun by outside events that is. There are definately storm clouds gathering on the horizon as far as I am concerned, even WW3 is a distinct possibility if things keep getting worse between the west and other groups not keen on western ideals.
The global population issue is also looming to the fore, how long before either warfare, disease, or other outside factors come in to play? One thing is for sure things have got to change. They can’t stay the same as they are unsustainable aren’t they?
I must admit I await the end of 2012 interest.
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About time there was some proper regulation of financial services. The current arrangements whilst benefiting Jersey in the short term have been disastrous for the world at large.
Time now for responsible regulation
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Well done the EU in trying to impose some order on rampant greed.
Commentators like this seem to live in a prallel world where £1.3 trillion pounds of taxpayers money was just a means for them to receive higher bonuses.
This letter is frankly offensive to the billions that are suffering because of the few.
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that has always been the ultimate goal of the EU creating a superstate. uk has,nt got much say in the matter when they are not even allowed to vote on the issue.ireland is heading for the 3rd vote and britain not even one.after all the promises given by new labour that britain would get a referendum on europe they pulled out of this deal.
when ireland is bribed to vote yes to the lisburn treaty in the autumn this will result in the ratification of the new treaty leaving us in the total domination of the EU
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Arnald – If you are to read my comments posted elsewhere on this site you will see that I am critical of senior corporate bankers, indeed I discribe them as “greedy and incopmetent”.
The solution is not more control and regulation from the EU – perhaps the repatriation of financial regulation and an far better understanding of the implications of the Basel 2 regulaions on the recent banking crises is, at least in part, the answer.
Clearly as I am want to repeat on this site Jersey politicians and indeed the financial community in the Island need to be far less inward looking and understand the economic costs of the vast amout of EU regulation that is, mostly by stelth, about to impact on all of Jersey’s business comunity.
Peter Troy – St Saviour, Jersey.
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The irony and hypocrisy continues – Europe seeking to save the working mans hard earned savings through (what we all know will be) overkill bureaucracy whilst the Euro parliament and MEPs continue to was hundreds of millions of the Euro and UK tax payers’ money. You have to laugh.
Whilst I agree there something needs to be done to prevent short term profits and greed jeopardising the world economy, institutions do not like heavy handed regulation. If this regulation is country optional then business will up sticks and operate in countries where they have more freedom and better margins as they are not swallowed by red tape.
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Yes Joker indeed – it is called freedom of choice. Somthing that by and large corporatism (and the EU) does not like!
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The irony is that as part of this financial crisis, experts are generally agreed that hedge funds and private equity haven’t really contributed to the systematic risk that the proposed legislation is trying to avoid.
Having said that we were happy to facilitate the alphabet soup of opaque securitisations which certainly did contribute to this meltdown, the worst financial crisis for 80 years. So perhaps in the round our finance industry does deserve a kicking.
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Peter i agree with your comments.it seems this EU is non-stoppable.it,s now a case of do what we say,not what we do.ironicly the 2 last wars were started by the germans and the EU is now mostly run by germany(one of the biggest supporters)which almost started immediately after last war,called the common market.its crazy out of control and no benifit to britain the very country that pays billions into it every year and get nothing back but grief for their efforts.although many are making a fortune out of it,the majority are much worse off with these stealth taxes.
my last comment was lisbon not lisburn treaty.
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bella
Can you prove that “the majority are much worse off..” or did you read it in a Murdoch or Dacre outlet?
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Arnald of course the,re much worse off in uk.they pay the most money in all the EU zone countries.Where do you think this money comes from?joe public obviously with rising taxes,post offices shutting down all over(ordered by brussells)immigrants allowed to take jobs at half the rate.i have many friends in uk who say the same thing.Why do you think they won.t give britain a vote on the referrendom?they know very well they will get NO to the latest treaty.
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Well some very good points being made, but lets not forget some fundamentals here which are important though largely ignored except by some of us old bankers who started the job filing chequebooks, making the tea and filling the branch backup generator with diesel.In other words unlike almost all of these high profile individuals who have recently hit the headlines described as “Bankers” we learnt the job from the ground up with direct client contact experience,not in some university reading Egyptian Knitting and then five years as management accountant for some multi national during an economic boom learning the tricks of “Boardroom politics”!I have to say also that a “Banker” is not either “An accountant” or “A lawyer”, he is in fact a mixture of all three of these types a “Jack of all Trades” and should have a general practical experience and training in all three skills.The problem is that these days the focus in banks is entirely on the bottom line.A focus made worse by the short-termism encouraged by the annual bonus culture, and by the mixing of what used to be regarded as “High St Retail Banking” with the more glamourous (?) world of the “Investment” or what used to be called “Merchant Banking”, with it’s allure of large rewards and exotic working environments.A sort of Singapore Air verses Flybe career choice.And we all know given the choice which world we would rather inhabit if we believed all the hype!However in economic terms there is no one more important than the “High St Retail Banker” and I mean the people not a machine!(If they had had computers in 1884 they would have predicted that by 2000 Eros in Picaddilly Circus would be under thirty foot,not metres you’ll notice, of horse manure, and budgeted accordingly!)
To return to subject I have worked during my career for just about every major,and a few minor banks going!Am I alone in remembering the prediction that all the World’s Financial Business would move to Frankfurt because of the European Union? I probably am alone in knowing that right up until the end of the 1980’s Credit Agricole, then in asset terms the third largest bank in the world, only had two branches outside France!And that the great American Banking model, so lauded in the media over the past two decades, did not even have proper inter State banking until the 1980’s.So why is London so important in international banking terms? Well it’s a matter of History I’m afraid and the fact that the Meridian Line runs through Greenwich.It like the Channel Islands is in a perfect geographical location that is also backed up by the time zone location as well.Historically (I give you Napolean Bonaparte and two twentieth century World Wars) there has always been a resentment of GB’s connections with other regions of the world.Connections we have tended over recent years to belittle and ignore in favour of our “major trading partners in the EEC?” Says who?We and I mean GB have become so gullible and idiotic we actually believe this tripe and I take my hat off to the Germans and the French for selling it to us so well that for the whole of the last three decades the UK has been one of only two net contributing nations to the EEC budget (The other is Germany, but guess who contributed the most?)There has even been an attempt to get the time zone thing out of the way by persuading the UK (And the Channel Islands)to adopt European time.And as for the UK taking the blame for this recent economic crisis, I didn’t see Mr Madoff tried and sentanced at the Old Bailey this week (Which was bad luck for him as he might have only got probation!)and what about the cricketing Texan? Unfortunately for GB Ltd we have an unelected Prime Minister who has studied economics and whose political career is in the Tumble Drier (Used to be Ringer) at the moment and who can’t resist the ego boost of adulation as saviour of the World economically.Sadly this has given all the other parties an excuse to pillory the City of London and it’s “Bankers” whether guilty or not.
As for the ongoing role of the City and of the Channel Islands, when the dust settles everyone of any nouse will realise that nothing has really changed, the EC will still be an over-regulated protectionist club with exclusive membership terms, and the US will bring in for a time some over regulation which with the passing of time will be “Adjusted” or just plain ignored when it is realised it has had nothing but adverse economic impact despite locking up a few obvious crooks (Who should have been locked up anyway under existing regulations).There will still be a need for a world financial centre of excellence on the Meridian, geographically placed between two massive developed continents, and with historical connections going back centuries with almost all the rest of the world, and there will still be a need to have a well regulated and respected offshore low tax/no tax area where business can be done without having to take into account every little political and economic whim of the countries involved of no relevance to the transaction.Oh yes and in terms of location The Channel Islands wil still be a secure place to put “Some” of your assets.
And remember an Accountant makes every debit = a credit the result is 0. A lawyer is someone who listens very carefully to what you say then writes it down so it no longer makes sense and sends it back to you as an opinion, along with his bill!
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bella
You and your friends are wrong. Bluntly. There are many, many things wrong with the set up of the EU. The UK can leave when it wants. It will be able to once the Lisbon Treaty is ratified.
Post offices are closing because of bad management. As of yet no action has been taken due to EU competition rules.
The UK is a net contributor but is not the largest, and per capita we’re fifth or something. And they get a fat rebate. (CAP is an issue they really need to get sorted – that is an understandable gripe).
You cannot prove that the UK has suffered because of EU migration of workers. If certain companies want to rip off their workers, that is for the UK government to control. There is no discrimination against the English, just hard nosed capitalism that the UK population have voted for for the last thirty years.
Frankly the EU can do what it likes. If we want to be a part of the business opportunities that it creates then we must adapt. To perceive legislation in other countries to prevent capital leakage as a ‘threat’ to the channel islands shows how overgrown we have become for our boots.
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If you believe all the hype that is being feed to the uk then answer this.why won,t they let them have a vote on the lisbon treaty?Why do they make only ireland vote on it?
ireland voted no for the nice treaty only to have another vote a year after to get the “yes”vote same with the lisbon vote making them vote again till they get the answer they want.Where is the democracy here? why do you think most of the eu countries are practically bankrupt?not been able to move their interest rates individually but have to en-bloc is one reason among others.one size certainly doe,st fit all.as for the PO,s shutting it was all over the news a couple of weeks ago,and almost every-one blamed the EU.And they wan,t to make tony blair the president.
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.
The UK can indeed leave the EU but only if Parliament wills it to do so.
The process is for the UK Parliament to pass an Act to: ‘Repeal the European Communities Act (and all subsequent Acts)’ – there would also be some legal difficulties with the UKs EU treaty obligations but that could, in time with political effort be overcome.
With over thirty years of rule by the EU leaving the EU it is not just a question of passing an Act. The levers of political power in the UK are connected to EU institutions and it will take years to repatriate power back to Westminster. The UK’s civil and public servants love the status quo – it creates thousands of well (over) paid jobs where previously none existed.
However, the key point is that Parliament does not will that the UK leaves the EU, this despite an increasing shift in public opinion in the UK in recent years. All three of the UK’s principle political parties support the UK’s continued membership of the ever expanding EU. With no referendum on the UK’s EU membership likely (not even on the vexed Lisbon Treaty) the British people will continue to be ruled not from Westminster but in actuality from Brussels, until that is EU collapses – as inevitably it must.
The issue of cost is not just a matter of the UK’s payments into the EUs coffers but the total cost of membership, principally that of the financial cost of UK businesses complying with vast amounts of regulation that is imposed (undemocratically) on the British people. This is principally why the UKs largest business organisation (over 220,000 members) proposed that the UK leave the EU. I know this because I proposed the motion at the Federation of Small Businesses’ annual conference back in March 2001; a majority of over 2:1 supported my motion
The key point is that gradually whether it be by Social legislation, dressed up as best practice Employment Law, Health and Safety Law (which we are told is good for us), Banking and Finance Regulation (which we are told we have no choice other than to implement) or Environmental Laws (our part in global preventing global warming don’t you know) Jersey with only the most rudimentary of debates (and little understanding) is being drawn slowly and by stealth into the influence (effective rule) of the EU.
If Jersey like the UK wishes be ruled by Brussels and not by democratically elected States Members then it should carry on as it is, sleep walking in to EU rule.
The alternative is to wake up and understand that slice by slice Jersey is losing its independence to the EU. Perhaps a referendum on whether or not Jersey should join the EU is needed, lets have the issue out in the open – since that is I suspect the intention of Jersey’s imported senior civil servants.
Anyone fancy taking part in a public meeting on this important subject?
Peter Troy – St Saviour Jersey CI
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P.A.T. – I agree with you that we may be in danger of following the UK into the void but what can Jersey do to prevent this? A referendum might establish the publics mood but is otherwise pointless as we are powerless. The only alternative is complete independence which is hugely risky in itself.
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Answer – Elect States Members that understand the issue and will resist EU rule.
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Whilst the rest of Europe and even the UK pay only lip service to such regulations as demonstrated by the recent banking crises, we have army of quasi, apparently unaccountable civil servants at the Financial Services Commission who will jump on this opportunity to expand their empire at the expense of Jersey and our Finance industry. We are already creaking with regulations and it won’t take much more to close our finance industry down. Much of this regulation is penal against the employees and is based on the presumption of guilt that would not be tolerated in the wider community
It is about time the “human rights” lobby started looking more closely at the Financial Services Commission as it is not just our finance sector employees who work under the threat of regulations and orders which if examined properly would not be human rights compliant but also effects the wider community by preventing many from access to bank accounts or by forcing disclosure of private and confidential data to be published by banks in future mailing lists and marketing. Perhaps this is an indication of how shallow certain politicians are in their “human rights” attacks on the “establishment that they refuse to examine legislation that will not get them votes.
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20 Sanity:Whilst acknowledging that the Jersey Financial Services Commission has done a lot of good work and has contributed a great deal to the Island being on the famous “White List” (But who set the criteria for that list?),it can be said that in it’s early form it was inclined to over-react to some of the regulatory directives being enforced from outside the Island.One I remember particularly grey area concerned dealing with clients being introduced from newly “democratic” countries such as Russia where the direction from the JFSC tended to be generalist in it’s approach rather than on a case by case basis.As a result the Island missed out on quite a bit of perfectly legitimate new business, particularly in some of the oil and mineral rich (But lesser known) former Soviet States.Mysteriously, certain other offshore centres seemed to be able to adopt a far more constructive and liberal approach? From personal experience, I worked in the 1970’s for a European Consortium Bank in the City of London which received a directive from it’s European shareholders concerning the dairy and in particular the bacon industry. Apparently it had been generally decided(It did not say by who)that bacon in the EEC would be produced in Ireland and Denmark, on the basis (And I remember this most clearly as it made me laugh at the time)that the Danes had a well developed pig industry as in the UK but that “Every Irishman keeps a pig”!It was decided on that basis that Irish pig farmers would if they got themselves into cooperative groups qualify for EC grants to buy brand spanking new mobile slaughterhouses.These came on the back of a lorry, cost £5mn a piece, and where made in stainless steel in Germany.The reason given for that move was that there were going to be some very stringent EC directives issued concerning the slaughtering of animals and the upgrading of standards in existing member State slaughterhouses, and it was considered that Irish farmers unlike their UK neighbours would not be able to afford the costs of the upgrading required in order to remain (become) competitive.I remember at the time (The mid 70’s were not exactly particularly rosy for UK farmers economically)that that seemed rather underhand to limit the available grants in that way. It was no surprise therefore a couple of years later on driving through Calne in Wiltshire to notice the Harris Bacon Factory and abbatoir closing down!The reason given that it was too costly to update the facilities there to conform with new EC regulations, and that there had been an oversupply of product to the marketplace from other EC sources.
The JFSC needs to therefore assess carefully the politics behind some of the regulatory moves being made before just blindly introducing controls in the Island, particularly those concerning new business.
Another weapon used very effectively is merging of companies.This leads to centralisation of operations and the transfer of clients to “Other more appropriate jurisdictions” to reduce costs of administration. This can be counter productive for the client whose personal advisers may have gone to great lengths to spread geographical and political risk on behalf of their client among a number of offshore centres only to find the offshore centre operators selected have subsequently chosen to merge and centralise their administration back to just one geographical location (e.g.Switzerland in the case of Middle Eastern clients).
I am not saying that the reasons behind any of the above were done deliberately, but they did provide a means for someone to impose their political economic strategy and ideology through the backdoor without consulting the electorate of the “Economic region/s” adversely effected.
Part of my job as a country and political risk Credit Analyst in the City in the 1970’s was concerned with assessing areas of the world where Banks did business.I was constantly being over-ruled despite perfectly good IMF and UN statistics and political information on some countries by Credit Commities or Bank Boards where one or two members had “personal” preferences.
You have been warned!
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Peter, thank you!
Some people obviously do not realise that the UK is NOT the UK Government, it is the people of the UK. Having lived there for decades I am yet to find one person that would have voted ‘yes’ in a referendum to join the EU, in fact, we were champing at the bit to get a referendum so we could vote ‘no’.
And it’s nothing to do with Brown, or his apparently ‘unelected’ status (this isn’t Jersey, we have party politics in the UK!) The gradual heading towards EU unity has been in the offing as long as I can remember (no matter how well earlier Governments tried to hide it) and this is despite the fact that the world is actually moving towards consistently towards once self-ruling lands becoming self-ruling again. The evidence is that people want to be governed in smaller numbers not larger ones.
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Finally we have a forum of well informed comment by those who appear to see the larger picture – to those above, thank you.
For some time, the ugly form of a growing Police State has been steadily emerging throughout not only Jersey, but all of Britain.
It is being developed, run and controlled by an irresponsibly empowered army of unelected quangos and over paid, unaccountable, civil servants. Many of whom have graduated from ‘Common Purpose Training Courses’ (paid for out of the public purse – including ours) where they have been taught how to interdepartmentally network amongst themselves and then how to work and operate beyond their legal authority to stealthily create policy and create change wherever directed – God only knows what kind of moves, investigations and phone taps are going on within the depths of the Financial Services Commission – all in the name of…
This leaves the people of this Island with nothing more than an unelected, carefully concealed, hidden backroom Government run by an over-paid group of senior civil servants who have been stealthily dictating policy and orchestrating social change while recklessly spending us into what will become, if unchecked, unsustainable deficits. In other word we have a hidden CP influenced government secretly operating within our official Government – Listen to President JFK’s speech on the evil of secrecy – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnkdfFAqsHA
Most of our States Members simply haven’t got a clue as to what is actually going on within any of our States Departments Only a fool would stop for a moment to believe that it is our duly elected States Members who are actually governing this Island – they are not!
I ask everyone to click on the following two video links and take the time to see how ‘Common Purpose’ hides and operates within government.
http://cpexposed.com/archive
videos.php?video=edge_media_interview –
http://cpexposed.com/archive/videos.php?video=state_of_the_nation
Besides demanding inquires into who exactly ordered intelligence files to be compiled and held on our elected representatives – or anyone else for that matter, it is more important for all of us to stand up and demand the recovery and restitution of our stolen inalienable rights and freedoms. For surely, those who have undermined and surrendered our Freedoms, have committed Treason, not only against our own people, but against the world.
Many of the laws and statutes that our not so bright politicians have so sleepily passed through the states, URGENTLY NEED TO BE FORMALLY REPEALED AND CONSTITUTIONALLY READDRESSED. The PP&CE for example – might be a good place to start. One could begin by insuring that no warrant ever be issued without (showing evidence to support) PROBABLE CAUSE (because, regardless of what the AG has stated, ‘Reasonable cause’ just doesn’t cut it).
While our right to the free and unbounded exercise of reason and speech is being systematically eroded with each passing day, we may never get to nail this nasty piece of evil hiding within the local woodpile, but it is well worth a try – it’s either that or accept the rise of a growing police state under the current eye of the Collective European Union Dictatorship and then watch as history repeats itself.
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P.A.T looked and the videos,very good insight what is going on.i knew they were a bunch of self-serving power crazy politicians,and the hour long video goes to show they will stop at nothing to achieve their self delusionary dreams of an european super state.
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