EUROPEAN MONARCHIES AND EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: HOW MUCH DO THEY COST TO TAXPAYERS AND ARE THEY WORTH IT?

Source: stuff.com.nz

By Gundhramns Hammer
January 23, 2013


Royal balls are expensive to maintain. Buckingham Palace claims that the monarchy costs the taxpayers around £40 million each year and that this makes it an excellent "value for money".

Republic (republic.org.uk) has researched this matter and has found that the British monarchy is one of the "most expensive, wasteful and financially irresponsible institutions in the world".

According to Republic, the costs of keeping monarchies in Europe are:

TOTAL COST OF THE BRITISH MONARCHY 2009-2010
 
Item Cost (£ millions)

Queen's Civil List 14.2
Duke of Edinburgh 0.4
Property grant 15.4
Communications, media and public relations 0.4
Travel 3.9
Government departments and Crown Estate 3.9
Prince Charles and Camilla (additional costs) 0.5
Lost revenue from Duchy of Lancaster 13.2
Lost revenue from Duchy of Cornwall 24.5
Security 100
Cost to local councils for visits by Queen 26
Total 202.4

COSTS OF OTHER EUROPEAN MONARCHIES: 
 
Monarchy Total annual cost (£ millions)
 
Netherlands 88.3
Norway 23.9
Denmark 10.5
Sweden 10.2
Belgium 9.7
Luxembourg 7.8
Spain 7.4

It is also expensive to maintain this business of the European Union, a gathering of nations with certain animosity to one another but that under the constant surveillance of an outside power (USA) have been able to come together and live more or less in peace for the last 50 years after warring for more than 2000 years. The economics of the few outweighed the needs of the many. 

It cost the taxpayers €1,718 billion to maintain 754 members and 23 officials working languages in the European Parliament (EP) in 2012, of which 37% is for staff expenses, chiefly salaries for the 6000 officials working in the General Secretariat and in the political groups, as reported by the same EP.

This is a lot of money to keep a lot of politicians, some of them good, others so squalid and corrupt and some have never bothered to open their mouth to speak a single word at sessions but are only interested in cashing in their monthly checks. After all this is what "democracies" are all about. 

The European Union and its EP members have become a giant leech that sucks up the taxpayers´ money for greedy purposes and the benefit of big corporations. It ha become a racket (Video 1).

                                 Video 1. The European Union is a racket.



In these times of all kinds of crises, especially economic where a lot of people are having a hard time making ends meet or have nothing at all, perhaps it is time we should decentralised governments and let the people in every town have the control in their own hands and decide their own destinies in a true democratic sense. May be we have learned enough not to fall in the mistakes of the warring medieval Italian city states. Why not give it a try?

The "democratic" systems we have now are not really working as they should because we have profit- and business-minded people at the helm, humans who idolised money and power. People who look at their pocket first and afterwards the interests of the masses. It should be the other way around. 

And at the same time all humans, ruled and rulers, should never forget that whatever they do to make a living infringes and impacts directly upon the Biosphere and if Nature is not put as the first consideration we might never make past another century. 

The way we are going eventually we will never get anywhere. Everywhere we look at we see the signs that our present squandering system is bursting at its seams: poverty, pollution, climate change, deforestation, etc.

Someone once said that after the fall of communism the next one to come down would be capitalism. If man does not put an end to this criminal Nature certainly will.

What we call "democracies" in whatever shape they come, including constitutional monarchies, are nothing but circuses. They are there just as a farce to keep the public from revolting. They serve to maintain the public not so happy but unhappy either but in a state of constant fear of losing that which do not have and can never possess, for we are all here on Earth only for a very short while.

People thoughout the world are beginning to realise that governments are not there to protect the public´s interests but to watch for the interests of the rich classes. And this is quite unfair.

It is obvious that sooner or later we shall be confronted with the dilema: 

Is it worth it to have selfish kings and queens who are not willing to share their tonnes of bread with people in times of need?

Is it worth it to hang on to this sick system which we have been brainedwashed to cherished so dearly?
 
 

References

Gill G. (1994). The Collapse of the single-party system. The disintegration of the CPSU. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 258 p.

Hall P. (1992). Royal Fortune: Tax, Money and the Monarchy. Bloomsbury Publishing, Plc., London, UK. 320 p. 

Republic (2010). The "Value for Money Monarchy" Myth. www.repiblic.org.uk. London, UK. 15 p.

Ringe N. (2010). Who Decides, and How?: Preferences, Uncertainty, and Policy Choice in the European Parliament. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. 233 p.