First Minister, Carwyn Jones, today marked Europe Day by emphasising the importance of the EU to the Welsh economy
The First Minister said: “Europe Day is an opportunity to reflect on Wales’s membership of the EU and the many benefits it has brought to businesses and communities in Wales.
“We share a strong focus with the EU on economic growth and have benefited from significant funding which is supporting a range of projects – including assisting farming and rural communities, skills development and research and innovation.
“The EU remains Wales’s largest trading partner, with more than 500 firms in Wales exporting nearly £5 billion annually to other Member States and with around 150,000 jobs in Wales, depending on that trade. Additionally, more than 450 firms from other Member States are located in Wales, employing over 50,000 people.
“I am firmly committed to Wales being an active and positive partner in the EU and to our shared vision of a prosperous and sustainable future.“
Finance Minister, Jane Hutt added: “Wales plays an active and positive role within the EU, showing leadership in the development of innovative projects, such as Farming Connect, our support service for farm and forestry businesses, which has influenced schemes elsewhere in the EU.
“EU Structural Funds have helped over 47,000 people in Wales into work and nearly 128,000 to gain qualifications. It has also helped to create over 5,000 new enterprises and 18,000 jobs. The EU funding Wales will continue to receive from 2014 to 2020 will help us to continue this good work.”
Wales trades with other European countries, it would still do so if we were not members of the EU, as indeed would with the other nations of these islands. The good news is that the whole EU edifice is showing signs of cracking and will, hopefully, soon be a thing of the past.
The final straw, for me, is the appropriation of money from the bank accounts of individuals in Cyprus by the EU. This is totalitarian behaviour and I cannot support an organisation capable of such theft. There is only one kind of treaty with Europe that our elected representatives should sign up to; an agreement to never go to war with on another and to trade freely within Europe. Roll on the dismemberment of the, German ruled, EU superstate.
I agree, it could be argued that the EU is the Fourth Reich, giving Germany domination over Europe, luckily, we stayed out of the Euro, but the EU determines most of our other economic and political life.