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 Index 
 Full text 
Verbatim report of proceedings
Wednesday, 11 September 2013 - Strasbourg

State of the Union (debate)
MPphoto
 

  Nigel Farage, on behalf of the EFD Group. – Mr President, the problem is not just Mr Barroso but the entire unelected government of Europe – and perhaps there is a chance for our citizens to reflect on where the real power lies in this Union.

I have listened to Mr Barroso for nearly 10 years and I give him full marks for consistency. He is a man who likes fixed ideology. He probably picked it up when he was a Communist or a Maoist, or whatever he was, and for the last 10 years he has pursued Euro-federalism combined with an increasing green obsession.

And yes, it has been good! For bureaucrats, big businessmen and landowners it has not been a bad decade, but it has been a disaster for poor people, unemployed people and those on low wages. The euro, which you, Mr Barroso, believed would give us monetary stability, has done the very opposite. It was a misconstruction from the start and it is pretty clear that youth unemployment, at nearly 50% across the Mediterranean, is probably nearly double what it would have been, as a direct result of the misconstruction that is the euro. The countries in question are in the wrong currency, but I know that you will never admit to that. I think the euro will die a slow and painful death, but you are all in denial about that.

However, it is the green agenda that I really find more interesting. You keep telling us, Mr Barroso, that climate change is an absolute top priority and you have been greeted with near-hysteria in this place over the last 10 years. Those of us who have been sceptical have been mocked, derided and called deniers. We argued from the start that the science was not settled, and we have argued very strongly that the measures we are taking to combat what may or not be a problem are damaging our citizens. We have been proved to be right. Tens of millions have been forced into fuel poverty; manufacturing industry is being driven away because our competitors in China and America are going for cheap fossil alternatives; and wind turbines are blighting the landscapes and seascapes of Europe. Yet still today you go on about green growth. Well, the consensus is breaking down behind you.

Commissioner Tajani said the other day that we face a systematic industrial massacre. It is time to stop this stupidity. To help you, there is the NASA photograph taken last August of the northern ice caps and there is the NASA photograph of the ice caps taken this year. The ice has increased by 60% in one year. Leading American scientists are now saying that we are going into a period of between 15 and 30 years of global cooling. We may have made one of the biggest and most stupid collective mistakes in history by getting so worried about global warming.

You can reverse this in the next seven or eight months. You can bring down people’s taxes. If you do not do so, they will vote on it in the European elections of next year.

(The speaker agreed to take a blue-card question under Rule 149(8))

 
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