EU taxation without representation

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So I'm following a link to this article. and I can't help but wonder if this is accurate. I'm hoping some of the posters from the "old world" can fill in the details for me. I'm sure if this happened here in the states it would probably cause a revolution.

Spoiler

This could be yet another moment of national British humiliation. Brussels has made its move in the dead days of August, of course, in the hope it would pass unnoticed.
But some of us have noticed. And the British had better take notice. The European Commission has decided to fire up the powers of taxation given to the EU by the Lisbon Treaty. Thanks to David Cameron's refusal to fight the transfer of sovereignty the treaty makes, the British people can now be subject to taxation direct from Brussels, with the Commons -- indeed, with the Chancellor -- having no control over the tax at all.
Today Janusz Lewandowski, the commissioner in charge of the EU's £116bn budget, announced he intends to press for a new EU tax. The euro-elite want to be able to get their hands on your money without having to ask your Government even for a perfunctory agreement. All this talk about belt-tightening around Europe is making the euro-elite edgy: they have their luxurious pay and pensions and travel allowances, and all their empire-building to protect, after all.
Britain and every other member state is going through terrible budget turmoil, with spending cuts and citizens furious about increases in taxation -- yet now Brussels is getting ready to activate Art 311 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (part of the Lisbon bundle -- the euro-elite don't want to make it easy for you to find it).
It says, 'The Union shall provide itself with the means necessary to attain its objectives and carry through its policies.'
The 'means.' That means money. Your money. Taken away by an unelected single party government (the commission) enabled by politicians over whom the British voters have no political control (the council). The British will have to pay the tax these people demand, but can never vote them out. The commission wants to start with a tax on all bank transactions, or perhaps air travel. It doesn't really matter which. Their point now is to establish the power of Brussels to tax the populations of the countries of the EU without any control by national parliaments. Once that power is in place, the taxes can be ratcheted up.
There you have it, people forced to pay taxes by people they did not vote into office, and whom they cannot vote out of office, and over whom they have no control.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Paul Revere, a lot a determined men on board a tea ship in Boston Harbour, a lot of other brave men at a green in Lexington, and plenty other men with much to lose, all decided long ago they would not tolerate such a thing. They could not tolerate taxation without representation.
Question: will the British tolerate it? Or will they let themselves be humiliated in a way that even the small ragtag population of

 

Snook,
hehe, that headline must read outrageous for an American reader, with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Paul Revere and the reference to the Boston Tea Party but then - it's from the Daily Mail. Which suggests you better take it with a mountain of salt, or better two, or three, Everests. The Daily Mail is about the yellowest of the British yellow press. And they are rabidly outrageous, jingoistic and anti-EU. There's an overwhelming chance it is a wild distortion if not outright made up - or in brief ...

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On the merits, off the top of my head:

The EU does have representation - directly, since we (and that includes readers of the Daily Mail) elect our local parliamentarians into the EU parliament, an indirectly, through the national governments and their direct presence at the Council of the European Union. The Union (i.e. the executive branch) can initiate new taxes, yes, but they cannot impose them without the consent of the council (i.e. the EU member states) and not without consultation of the EU parliament. Also, the vote for taxes in the council has to be unanimous, so that if the UK doesn't like a particular EU tax, they'll vote no, and it won't happen.

Oh yes, and Art. 311 says all that very plainly, in the part the Daily Mail probably just coincidentally forgot to quote.

PS: The second boldened sentence adds a further condition that slipped the Daily Mail's attention: That to enter into force the tax has to be passed in the parliaments of the member states, for instance, in the British parliament - where there of course is 'representation'. The Daily Mail lives up to it's piss poor reputation. It's probably most useful for wrapping fish 'n' chips.

If anyone is interested, here is the full text of the consolidated version of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union [PDF].

 

Damn it! And I was hoping that this EU tax would set a precedent that would allow Canada to impose a tax on the US (or at least on Snook) under NAFTA.

 

@Ragusa

Thanks, I'll have to read up on that. It didn't seem to make a lot of sense to me that anyone would allow something like that.

First of all, I already pay way to much in taxes to support shiftless lazy people. The last thing I need to do is support some "hosers" from up north.

 

Crap. I tried to rep Snook for proper use of the term "hoser", but it wouldn't let me.

 

You're welcome, Snook.

 

its not even any good for that, the ink comes off

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10936767

In short the EU tax is not going to happen, I'm not sure what Lewandowski was thinking when he came up with that idea. An EU tax is bound to be horribly unpopular within the union and quite frankly a power grabbing maneuver from the commission which is already way too powerful for a body of non-elected officials.

 

The Daily Mail is mildly amusing for all the ******** it prints, but then again, so is The Sun, and the Daily Mail doesn't have jugs.

Edit: Damn swear filter.

 

If such taxes ever do happen (which they're bound to, given time and the right circumstances), it'll definitely be on a two-track path. I could never imagine the UK accepting such taxes.

 

ther UK would never accept such taxes, were already heavily taxed, the government would not sit by and watch another body take tax money which could be going in its pockets.

 

I doubt anyone else would accept it either, we all like our money . Mind you, the EU does get a share of the VAT in its member countries, share of some tariffs, as well as some additional contributions depending on GDP (with adjustments for some of the larger countries), but the procedure for imposing any significant change in its financing is, to put it mildly, very consensual. If the UK gets to pay more, it won't happen without the explicit assent of its own government - and then some other governments', just in case. I could see it happening only if the member states want to expand the EU's functions, but that isn't too likely at present either.

So yeah, new taxation - unlikely. No representation - bovine food exhausts .

In case anyone is interested, http://ec.europa.eu/budget/budget_detail/next_year_en.htm has a graph of how much EU member states pay into the total budget.

 

It's probably being put out so that they can compromise and drop it during the next budget round, when the member states are all going to be trying to reduce their contributions. Though EU heads do come out with some crazy stuff at times so it could equally be that.