Imagine a case of a trillion dollar business fraud coming before a court. Then the judge is seen spending three days in a luxury hotel behind closed doors with this same group of global businessmen. Previously they had been fined billions of dollars for different criminal activities. What would people think of the judge’s impartiality?
Take, for example, a luxury hotel like the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, DC in USA, June 2022. Among the 120 invitees to the Bilderberg meeting are executives of such multinationals and also government ministers, bankers and top agency spies.
Then surprise, surprise! Realise that two European Commissioners designated to defend European democracy from fraud are attending as invitees.
If a politician spent three days at the same hotel with a group that included the top spies of a foreign country, would the public have suspicions that he was less than patriotic and might betray them?
What if the people’s arbitrator in a sensitive case was known to have been holed up incommunicado with the boss of a giant pharmaceutical company (previously fined billions of dollars). If he was residing with that firm chief executive behind closed doors for three days, would anyone have faith in his impartiality? What if the arbitrator was also responsible for negotiating further contracts worth billions of euros? If a flood of cases were being registered by the public that the drugs were causing serious injuries and thousands of deaths, what would that say?
The major oil companies have influenced the European economy more than few other sectors. In the 1970s the OPEC cartel brought the entire European economy to a grinding halt by quadrupling the price of oil from $2 a barrel and then quadrupling it again. What would the average consumer think of the advice given by a top civil servant who spent three days in a luxury hotels with a group of chief executives of oil and gas multinationals like Shell, BP, Total and also a Ukrainian Gas company? Oil is now bursting over $120 a barrel. Some people, somewhere, have coffers of dollars.
Adam Smith’s warning
The economist Adam Smith warned against industrialists forming cartels to defraud the public.
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." (Wealth of Nations, 1776)
Imagine what he would have said if a European anti-cartel regulator existed and was enjoying a three-day secret meeting with such people. Today this ‘regulator’ is meeting ‘for merriment and diversion’ with businesspeople liable to form cartels. Government ministers with their own interests or national interests that differ from the European interest meet him in private. What subtle soft talk or brazen blackmail is being applied?
And what are the great experts in persuasion, the spy organisations of foreign countries, up to?
All in secret!
Anti-cartel power
The European Commission was designed as the Honest Broker of the European system. It is there to defend the interests of all Europeans, rich and poor, mansion-dwellers and homeless, yacht-owners and the unemployed flotsam of society. The Commission has to see no one is given special privileges. Its decisions have legal weight. If you have enough money they can be challenged in the European Court.
Impartial arbitration is vital for the whole European economy and justice for all. The European Commission is also the holder of powers to intervene against cartels. Cartels exploit the Single Market gouging excessive profits from the public with high prices. How come? Cartels are secret agreements between companies to ensure no real competition exists.
Cartel businessmen meet together in secret to fix the market, fix legislation in their favour, and fix permanent high prices. With trillions at their disposal, they can even fix the whole economy so they can control the budget, get cheap loans, set interest rates and manipulate monetary policy.
That is why an independent, impartial, non-party political, non-ideological European Commission is a vital institution for all Europeans.
The Oath
Commissioners are required by legal oath before the European Court of Justice to be independent and impartial and to be seen to be so. They pledge:
I solemnly undertake:
to respect the Treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union in the fulfilment of all my duties;
to be completely independent in carrying out my responsibilities, in the general interest of the Union;
in the performance of my tasks, neither to seek nor to take instructions from any Government or from any other institution, body, office or entity;
to refrain from any action incompatible with my duties or the performance of my tasks.
“I formally note the undertaking of each Member State to respect this principle and not to seek to influence Members of the Commission in the performance of their tasks.
“I further undertake to respect, both during and after my term of office, the obligation arising therefrom, and in particular the duty to behave with integrity and discretion as regards the acceptance, after I have ceased to hold office, of certain appointments or benefits.”
The Cost
Commissioners are given large salaries with the hope they will not be covetous or yield to temptation.
A Vice-president of the European Commission earns around €23,000 a month or €276,000 yearly of taxpayers’ money. An ordinary Commissioner receives a bit less.
In the luxury hotel the two Commissioners may have looked in envy at the former EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso who was also present at the Bilderberg meeting. He moved on in short order from Brussels to Goldman Sachs, the global finance house.
In the early European Community, Commissioners were not allowed to have a further paying job — or any activity paying or not — until after three years from leaving their post. (Treaty of Paris, article 9). They were assured of more than adequate retirement money. The 3-year pause was to discourage corrupt practice.
Then in 2002, politicians made sure the European Coal and Steel Community was not prolonged for a further 50 years, and so this restriction was removed. The two other Communities did not have this specification. It was taken as read.
No article 9, no more waiting three years! Mr Barroso was criticised about rapidly exploiting his previous experience, based on this legal lacuna. The Commission is designated to defend natural justice, not supposedly to be a highway to super-riches. It is not there to provide a contact list for business operations after ‘retirement’.
A €400,000 salary is not bad for a former Portuguese Maoist.
But wait! That’s €400,000 per month. €5million per year. That’s a bit more than the average wage of a citizen in the EU.
Who else was at the three day conference? What were they up to?
Find out in the next episodes.