Since the May 1st 2004 Enlargement, the European Union has been operating something called a European Neighbourhood Policy.  This is its purpose:-

... we aim to avoid new dividing lines between the enlarged EU and our neighbours to the east and on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean.  We invite these neighbours, on the basis of a mutual commitment to common values, to move beyond existing cooperation to deeper economic and political, cultural and security cooperation - strengthening stability, security and well-being for all concerned.  The new feature is that we go beyond cooperation to include economic integration, for those ready and able.

Economic integration, no less.

The “neighbours” committed to common values with, of course, no dividing lines include Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine Authority, Syria and Tunisia, as well as a clutch of eastern European or at least Christian countries.  Each is allotted an ENP Action Plan that sets out how “cooperation” - meaning mutual manipulation - can be pursued.  To be honest, I cannot see what priceless gifts are to be mined from the Islamically-inclined on the list - nothing yet from some of them because they are still to be inducted into the cooperation process.  But Israel is past all that, of course, and is already making good use of the bureaucratic channels open to it.  And guess what:-

Experts from the European Union and Israel met Thursday in Brussels to exchange experiences on combating racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism.

The one-day seminar, which took place at the European Commission headquarters, was organized in the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).

Under the ENP EU-Israel Action Plan endorsed in 2005, the European Union and Israel agreed to work together to combat anti-Semitism as well as racism and xenophobia.

The seminar examined policies and best practice on combating racism in the European Union and in Israel.

It looked at how statistics are collected, how anti-discrimination policies are put in place and how mutual understanding can be fostered.

Sessions were also devoted to fighting racism through education, how penal legislation can be used to treat racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism as a crime and how to combat hate speech in the media.

The European experts came both from the European Commission and from the Member States of the European Union.

To give you a flavour of the thing, the Israeli experts included: Aviva Raz Shechter, Director of the Department for Antisemitism and Holocaust Studies at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Richelle Budd Caplan of the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, Professor Ze’ev Segal of Tel Aviv University, Prof. Sheizaf Rafaeli of Haifa University, media specialist Dr. Yuval Karniel, and Noga Shavit of the Centre for Educational Technology.

None of these learned individuals should be facilitated (by our taxes) to discuss affairs that are wholly internal to the EU.  What do they care for our freedoms?  “How penal legislation can be used to treat racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism as a crime” is a patent invitation to them to agitate for a heavier pair of shackles on us.  Not that the EU needs much encouragement in that direction.

The most staggering fact about the whole ENP exercise is its cost.  The 2007 budget is set at 12 billion Euros.

What price free speech?

Meanwhile, one gentle neighbour of the EU is actually seeking to free its people from bad law:-

The Democratic Union of the Centre, the right-wing party that won a majority in the last Swiss elections, has proposed to the abolishment of Switzerland’s anti-racist law, arguing it impedes freedom of speech.

The Federation of the Swiss Jewish communities has expressed concern after the declaration by Ueli Maurer, the Democratic Union’s leader and previously Switzerland’s justice minister, and members of his party, known as UDC.

The law was adopted on Jan. 1, 1995, and forbids any discrimination against a person or group on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion. It also mandates punishment for denying or attempting to justify a genocide or crime against humanity, especially the Holocaust.

The UDC holds that the law is too abstract and that Swiss do not understand what they can and cannot say in public. Maurer said his party was fighting for freedom of speech in Switzerland, and that everyone should have the right to express what they thought, even if it was not right.

Moreover, the UDC charges that the law has encouraged a passive form of racism. They say the penal law is not the best way to combat to revisionism, and that more faith should be placed in people’s ability to discern between right and wrong.

So let’s see.  Switzerland ... trust, freedom, legal integrity.  The EU ... bureaucratic control, stratospheric waste, the promotion of alien interests over European interests.

Obviously, those Swiss racists must be stopped.