This poster hung in European Commission HQ until the Lithuanian ambassador complained about multiple hammer-and-sickles.
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In January 2010, the United Kingdom Independence Party's (UKIP) Gerard Batten called on his fellow members of European Parliament to reject the proposed European Commission, the top executives of the European Parliament, on the grounds that so many of them began their political careers in Communist parties or related entities. This included, as Batten wrote in 2010, "Commission President Barroso's Maoist past, Spanish commissioner Almunia's Marxist connections, former communist apparatchiks from the former Soviet bloc and the past communist sympathies of the new EU foreign minister, Baroness Ashton."
Batten's analysis appears in American Betrayal as a concrete example of the extent to which the West failed to reject Communism and its many manifestations in the post-Soviet era. Further evidence of this same vaporous phenomenon of "convergence" between liberty and collectivism, a pet theory of many leading Western figures at least since FDR, is the non-reaction Batten received from his hundreds of parliamentary colleagues. There was hardly a collective "ho-hum" as Comrades and fellow-travelers of yore became the EU's rulers for 2010-2014 term.
Now, a new European Commission now takes power and Batten has again identified strong Communist roots in at least six of the new commissioners -- again, to no avail, no comment, seemingly no consciousness. Little wonder danger-red links between the EU and Russia can be forged, also without concern, such as between the EU's shadowy Europol service and Russia's security services, which Batten recently reported on for Breitbart here.
Convergence is a vaporous thing. There are precious few politicians like Batten who can keep the fog from their eyes.
Here is the letter Batten sent around on October 22, 2014:
Dear Fellow MEPs,
Communists in the Juncker Commission
This morning we voted on the new European Commission – what is effectively the latest anti-democratic government of the European Union and all its Member States.
The Parliament voted them in with 423 votes for, 209 against, and 67 abstentions. UKIP MEPs voted against; whilst the 'reformist' UK Tory MEPs split three ways, some for, some against, and some abstaining.
In 2009 I pointed out that a third of the Commission appointed then had been either card-carrying communists or had close associations with the communist parties of their countries.
You might be interested to know that at least six of the new Commissioners have had close associations with their countries' communist parties. I list these below with the relevant information and sources.
Few people in the UK would be likely to think them suitable people to form part of what is now their effective government. The British electorate to do not historically elect communists to office – which is why they often join the Labour Party and sail under false colours, but that is another story.
Meanwhile you might be interested in the following information:
Vice-Presidents:
Federica Mogherini (Italy - nominated to succeed Baroness Ashton as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy): member of Italian Communist Youth Federation from 1988. After the Italian Communist Party was transformed into ‘New Democratic Left’ in 1991 and then into the Democratic Party, her entire political career was in those successor parties. She is believed to be pro-Putin, and many East Europeans have objected to her appointment.
Kristalina Georgieva (Bulgaria, EPP). Her CV outlines an academic career as an Associate Professor of Economics at the ‘University of National and World Economy’ in Sofia in 1977-1993, but fails to mention that for most of that period, the university was known as ‘Karl Marx Higher Institute of Economics’ (from 1953 to 1990). In parallel, she was a research fellow at London School of Economics in 1987-1988; in communist Bulgaria, she would be unlikely to have been be allowed to take that position unless she was highly trusted by the Party. As a Marxist economist, she then naturally made a brilliant career in the World Bank: from the Director of its Environment Department (2000-2004) to WB’s Resident Representative in Russia (2004-2007) to the Sustainable Development Director (2007-2008); and finally ended up as the EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response in Barroso Commission.
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/georgieva/files/about/georgieva-cv_en.pdf
Andrus Ansip (Estonia) was an Instructor in the Industry Department and Head of the Organisational Department of the Tartu District Committee of the Estonian Communist Party from 1986 to 1988. Importantly, he was not merely a communist party member, but a full-time apparatchik. He then made quite a career as a liberal politician in post-communist Estonia and has been its prime minister from 2005 to 2014.
http://www.reform.ee/en/chairman
Maroš Šefčovič (Slovakia) former member of Czechoslovak communist party, and studied in Moscow State Institute of International Relations (which was known to be practically controlled by the KGB) in 1985-1990.
Other Commissioners:
Neven Mimica (Croatia) was a high-ranking foreign-trade apparatchik in communist Yugoslavia. Richard Kay writes in the Daily Mail on 10 June 2013:
"In 1977, Mimica joined ASTRA, a Yugoslav foreign-trade enterprise regarded by some as a nest of Belgrade spies. Then came the Socialist Republic of Croatia Committee for Foreign Relations, where he rose to be ‘Comrade Deputy President’. In 1987, he became a ‘trade attache’ at the Yugoslav embassy in Cairo where he was described as a ‘diligent’ servant of the communist regime. Now he will be swishing round Brussels with a motorcade, telling us all what to do".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2338699/RICHARD-KAY-Why-Andrew-Lloyd-Webber-gone-quiet.html
Pierre Moscovici (France, Socialist) – former member of the Trotskyite ‘Revolutionary Communist League’ (Ligue communiste révolutionnaire) (defected to Socialist Party in 1984).
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/world/europe/pierre-moscovici-finance-minister-under-fire.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Strong representation of ex-communists has already become a tradition of the European Commission. Presumably, these people's expertise in anti-democratic government is something the EU considers both respectable and useful.
Regards,
Gerard Batten MEP
UK Independence Party
London