Daniel Hannan: Plenty of Workers' Rights, but Fewer and Fewer Workers

British EU MEP Daniel Hannan talks about how EU regulations has an adverse effect on jobs and therefore its ability to generate revenue that would pay for all its extravagant spending. February 19^th, 2013, European Parliament, Bruxelles.

video source from DanielHannanMEP YouTube channel

(see video at the bottom of transcript)

transcript:

Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. The money has run out! Our treasuries are empty, our credit is exhausted, and you don't have to look far to see the reason why. For fourty years this chamber and the other EU institutions have been passing more and more intrusive laws, depriciating the private sector. We have the most generous workers' rights, anywhere in the world. Plenty of rights, but fewer and fewer workers. Work is becoming a lifestyle choice, people stay in full time education for longer and longer. They retire earlier and earlier as a percentage of their total lifespan. And in the few years in between they are likely to be working for the government.

So who is generating the revenue that's to pay for all the things that we want to spend. Now, forced by the financial crisis, many of the member governments are looking to retrench. And yet we have the extraordinary situation where every penny they save at home and more is being swallowed up by these constant increases in the Bruxelles's budget. Private sector in Europe is shrinking, our demographic situation is dire, the only way to restore prosperity is to look beyond Europe to the parts of the world that are still growing. And if we can't do that within the common external tarriff, we should seek the wider horizons which our fathers took for granted.