Date: Wednesday, 20 August 2003, 11:45 a.m.
ESTONIANS WARY OF EUROPEAN UNION
By Christopher Bollyn
American Free Press
Estonia's largest political party has rejected joining the European Union and could block its enlargement to the border of Russia.
TALLINN, Estonia & The long-planned expansion of the European Union (EU) to the Russian border may be blocked by Estonia, where the largest political party voted recently against joining the EU, only 5 weeks before voters in the small Baltic republic decide their nation's fate in a referendum.
The day of the referendum, September 14, will be fateful for Estonia. On that day voters will decide if their nation of 1.5 million, which has been independent for only 12 years, will surrender its sovereignty by joining the Brussels-based EU.
The neighboring state of Latvia will have a similar referendum one week later. Support for joining the EU fell in Latvia in July to below 50 percent. The European Union's website says among the 10 candidate nations, the lowest levels of support were found in Estonia (31 percent) and Latvia (37 percent).
The EU referendum will also determine whether the first paragraph of the Estonian constitution, which specifically prohibits the republic of Estonia from joining any union of states, will be changed to allow accession.
Former Estonian Prime Minister Edgar Savisaar, and others, has compared the EU with the Soviet Union. "The forced propaganda of the European Union is reminiscent of the Soviet Union's methods and brainwashing," Rolf Parve, wrote in Kesknädal, the weekly paper of the Center Party.
"Moscow and Brussels differ only in one point," professor Igor Gräzin, one of the leading anti-EU voices in Estonia says: "The Soviet Union theoretically allowed nations to leave the union. Brussels is creating organs, however, which would kill that idea in the bud."
Savisaar compared the "big bureaucratic system" of the EU with that the Soviet Union. Another party opponent to the EU, Heimar Lenk, said, "In the European Union, we would be free like fish in an aquarium."
"Europe's future is not clear," Savisaar said recently. "It's natural resources are nearly depleted, economic growth is near zero, the nature is polluted Europe has lost its brain power and its cultures are losing their diversity. In the long term, are we joining the winners or the losers?" he asked.
Expansion into Eastern Europe will provide the EU with a large captive market, an abundant supply of cheap labor, and access to natural resources. Estonia has a higher educational level than the EU average with strong scientific potential. It is rich in fresh water, timber, oil shale, peat, and phosphorite. Estonia's oil shale is a valuable long-term energy resource.
Estonia's geographical position makes it important for the movement of transit goods, especially crude oil from Russia, to the west.
"Considering Estonia's geographical position, logistics and transport are fundamental to the growth of Estonia's economy," Aare Uustalu, professor of philosophy wrote. "Joining the European Union at this time is premature and dangerous.
"We don't need to be rushed into European Union like blind slaves," Uustalu says. "The problem is that the EU has a monopoly over foreign trade and the member states have no say."
"Our politicians and business leaders would give away our golden corridor to the euro-mafia monopolists for a few euros," Uustalu said. "As we know, 300 million tons of goods are transported yearly from Asia through the Suez Canal to Europe. A project to reconstruct the Trans-Siberian railroad is being put together by the big businessmen of Europe and Asia. This would mean that transport to Europe would be 2 times faster and cheaper compared to using the Suez Canal. This would increase the amount of transit goods passing through Estonia's harbors by at least 2 times.
"Estonia has much better alternatives than joining the EU," Uustalu says, "for example as a member of European Free Trade Association: being a free industrial zone, distribution center, and tax paradise. Unfortunately, the people in power are poor in spirit. It was a crime to privatize the Estonian railway. The Estonian people, as the holders of ultimate power, must not allow the financial oligarchs to privatize their independence and harbors. Stop the euro train!"
Throughout their history the Estonian people have experienced freedom and independence for only 32 years, from 1918-1938 and since August 20, 1991. According to a poll conducted in May, 45 percent of Estonians said they "had little knowledge of the EU."
Savisaar, a sociologist, played a decisive role during the tense days of August 1991 as Soviet troops stormed the central television tower and the seat of the government in Tallinn. Today, Savisaar is in a key position as leader of the only political party to have rejected joining the EU.
Savisaar is mayor of Tallinn, in which one-third of the population lives. He founded the Center Party in 1991 and was recently re-elected party chair for the eighth time. He is an experienced politician who cannot be ignored. The Center Party is supported by more than 25 percent of the electorate.
One of the key opponents to joining the EU is Savisaar's wife, Vilja, who is also a member of parliament. Mrs. Savisaar spoke with American Free Press about joining the EU: "Maybe in 10 years," she said, but not now. Estonian society has many problems that need to be addressed first, including high unemployment and the fact that "prices are going higher and higher," she said.
Asked why Estonians would forfeit their independence to join a non-democratic union that lacks a constitution, she said, "It's the propaganda." Regarding the politicians who support joining the EU, she said: "They are blind. They don't tell the truth."
"I, like most Estonians, want to know what kind of union, why, and under what conditions we are going to join," academic Anto Raukas says. "To these questions there is no answer today, since it depends on the structure and hierarchy, which are still all undetermined.
"By the time of the referendum, there will be no EU constitution, and there probably won't even be one by the time Estonia would join," Raukas says. "According to an Estonian proverb, one should not buy a pig in a bag."
AFP noted that the EU's blue flag flew over the party conference in Tartu and asked Mrs. Savisaar if she thought the EU was unfairly subverting Estonian sovereignty by waging a massive propaganda campaign in the country and distributing some $413 million to key government ministries during the past 10 years. "Of course they are," she said.
From Jan. 1993 through Dec. 2002, Estonia received more than $413 million from the EU, much of it spent on euro propaganda and on cultivating a new class of pro-EU bureaucrats within the Estonian government. "Of that money, two-thirds has been spent on bureaucrats and government apparatus," according to Tõnu Tõnso, of Tallinn Pedagogical University. During the same period, however, Estonia's trade deficit with the EU swelled to more than $7 billion.
Tõnso says that small and medium size farms are being put out of business by EU agricultural policies. "Finland is a warning," Tõnso says, "where since joining the EU, 50 percent of Finnish farms have gone out of business."
Every "candidate" country negotiates its own contract with the EU. AFP asked Trivimi Velliste, a pro-EU politician with the Fatherland Party, if he had read the 5,000-page contract negotiated between the EU and Estonia. "No," he said, but he had looked at it. Asked if he thought Estonian farmers and factories could prosper when competing with larger European firms, which receive more favorable subsidies, Velliste said, "Fair competition is what is needed." In the EU "open market" system an Estonian farmer will receive 4 times less support than a European farmer.
The Center Party's no-vote was hailed by Denmark's Euro-skeptics. Ole Krarup, a Danish member of the European parliament, praised the no-vote and urged Estonians to reject joining the EU on September 14. "From the Scandinavian point-of-view, Estonia's no-vote is understandable. Neither Danes, Swedes, nor Norwegians said yes to such a bad contract like Estonia has with the European Union." Norway has rejected joining the EU.
Sweden will hold a referendum on joining the euro common currency on Sept. 14. Danske Bank, the largest Danish bank, estimates the probability of a yes-vote at 3 percent, according to Dagens Industri (DI), Sweden's leading business paper.
"The best that could happen to your currency [Swedish krone] would be if you voted no to the euro," Steve Barrow of the London-based investment bank Bear Stearns told DI. "It might not stand to reason, but it is logical considering the euro-zone is beginning to look like a disaster-zone, while the countries outside are better off economically," he said.
A Russian-Estonian graduate of the Estonian Business School in Tallinn told AFP she had studied free trade in college but was against the EU because it is not based on free trade.
Manufactured goods from the EU have been imported into Estonia tariff-free since 2000. Estonian farmers have been forced to buy expensive "Euro tractors" rather than cheaper tractors from Byelorussia in order to fulfill required "Euro norms."
If Estonia joins the EU, trade with non-EU states such as Russia, Ukraine, the U.S.A. and Japan will be levied with a tariff of between 30-40 percent, according to Olev Raju, professor of economics. Estonia buys petroleum from Russia and has a free trade agreement with Ukraine worth about $500 million annually. While Estonians will have to absorb the higher costs, "The lion's share of these EU tariffs will go to the EU budget," Raju said. "Estonia will have no transition period," he said, "from the moment Estonia joins the EU the price of gas will go up." Estonian gas prices are currently about 40 percent lower than those in the EU.
EU taxes will also be added to tourism, newspapers, textbooks, buildings, land, burial services, etc., Raju said. While Estonian politicians promise European prosperity, "most likely what would rise to the European level are the taxes," Ilmar Mikiver, an Estonian professor living in Canada says.
THE GLOBAL VISION
Many Estonian critics of the EU view the European super-state as the non-democratic creation of Masonic and anti-Christian conspirators. Architects of Deception, a book by Jüri Lina, an Estonian author, exposes the role of Freemasonry in creating the EU and has been a bestseller in Estonia since May. Symbols and statements associated with the EU support Lina's thesis.
"The critical aim of our time is to change the European Union to one state, with one army, one constitution, and one foreign policy," German foreign minister Joschka Fischer, told The Guardian (UK) in 1998.
"It is of the utmost importance to keep in mind a global vision of the ultimate goal of European unification," Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt told the European Policy Center in September 2000. If the pace of integration is not maintained, "in the worst case, countries will start to plead for the restoration of their former sovereignty," he said.
President Bill Clinton said the EU should have at least 30 member states, including the nations of the Balkans, Turkey, and Russia. Clinton received the Charlemagne prize in Aachen, Germany, in June 2000 for promoting European unity.
THE SYMBOLS OF BABYLON
The EU flag consists of 12 stars on a field of blue. "It's the corona stellarum duodecim (the crown of 12 stars) of the woman of the Apocalypse," former secretary general of the Council of Europe, Leon Marchal, said in 1973, according to Dr. William Crampton of The Flag Institute in York, England.
The anthem of the EU is "Ode to Joy," the prelude to the last movement of Beethoven's ninth symphony. The lyrics to "Ode to Joy" were written by Friedrich von Schiller, and concern the entering into the shrine of a pagan goddess and the uniting of all men in brotherhood, by the power of magic, according to Adrian Hilton, author of The Principality and Power of Europe.
The European parliament building in Strasbourg, France, is "an enormous replica of the unfinished tower of Babel," called the "The Tower of Eurobabel" by the European press, Dr. David R. Reagan, wrote in the Dallas-based Lamplighter Magazine.
An EU poster shows the people of Europe rebuilding the Tower of Babel. The text on the poster says, "Europe: Many Tongues & One Voice." The stars on the poster are inverted into pentagrams, a recognized occult sign.
The symbol of a naked woman riding on the back of a beast represents the EU. Paintings and sculptures of a woman riding a beast are found at all EU buildings. Reagan said this is "another demonic biblical symbol" of a "great harlot" riding a beast from the Book of Revelation.
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