• European Parliament, Strasbourg, 17 April 2013
• Speaker: Nigel Farage MEP, Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Co-President of the 'Europe of Freedom and Democracy' (EFD) Group in the European Parliament -
Transcript:
Years ago, Mrs Thatcher recognised the truth behind the European Project. She saw that it was about taking away democracy from nation states and handing that power to largely unaccountable people.
Knowing as she did that the euro would not work she saw that this was a very dangerous design. Now we in UKIP take that same view and I tried over the years in this parliament to predict what the next moves would be as the euro disaster unfolded.
But not even me, in my most pessimistic of speeches would have imagined, Mr Rehn, that you and others in the Troika would resort to the level of common criminals and steal money from peoples' bank accounts in order to keep propped up this total failure that is the euro.
You even tried to take money away from the small investors in direct breach of the promise you made back in 2008.
Well the precedent has been set, and if we look at countries like Spain where business bankruptcies are up 45% year on year, we can see what your plan is to deal with the other bailouts as they come.
I must say, the message this sends out to investors is very loud and clear: Get your money out of the Eurozone before they come for you.
What you have done in Cyprus is you actually sounded the death knell of the euro. Nobody in the international community will have confidence in leaving their money there.
And how ironic to see the Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev compare your actions and say, ' I can only compare it to some of the decisions taken by the Soviet authorities.'
And then we have a new German proposal that says that actually what we ought to do is confiscate some of the value of peoples' properties in the southern Mediterranean eurozone states.
This European Union is the new communism. It is power without limits. It is creating a tide of human misery and the sooner it is swept away the better.
But what of this place, what of the parliament? This parliament has the ability to hold the Commission to account. I have put down a motion of censure debate on the table. I wonder whether any of you have the courage to recognise it and to support it. I very much doubt that.
And I am minded that there is a new Mrs Thatcher in Europe and he is called Frits Bolkenstein. And he has said of this parliament - remember he is a former Commissioner: 'It is not representative anymore for the Dutch or European citizen. The European Parliament is living out a federal fantasy which is no longer sustainable.'
How right he is.
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• EU Member States:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom
5 years ago