Bulldozing and bullying?
The road from Dublin to Lisbon is strewn with obstacles. The Irish government has begun reconnoitring the terrain and examining the nature of those obstructions. In the coming months, we will see a lot of huffing and puffing, pushing and pulling as Irish politicians and those in other countries try to pass the blockage that has stopped the Lisbon treaty becoming law. But to me they still seem insurmountable.
I wonder if the foreign secretary agrees. Speaking on a visit to Dublin, David Miliband said," There can be no question of bulldozing or bullying the Irish people. There is respect for the integrity of their vote. The situation over Lisbon creates an opportunity - an opportunity to clarify and define the role of the EU in the modern world."
He then talked about the need to build a global role for the EU in combating climate change, promoting democracy and security beyond its own borders. He ends up saying, "We must put function and purpose before institutions. We must take the opportunity to define the function and purpose of the EU with clarity and drive."
Which doesn't sound to me like he's backing the majority view among EU leaders that, somehow the Irish must vote again.
The Irish government is doing its homework before its head-scratching. It has just published the result of a big opinion poll, which was backed up by focus groups. It found that the Irish on the whole thought the EU a good thing (70 %, and even 63 % of no voters) and that the young and the less well off were most strongly against the treaty.
There was a strong frustration at the difficulty of understanding the document. While 78% of those voted correctly knew that Ireland, along with other countries, would lose a commissioner for five years out of every 15, 38% thought that the treaty would introduce conscription into an EU army, which is fantasy.
A team of Irish civil servants has been to Denmark to talk to officials about their opt-outs following a No to the Maastricht treaty. The survey gently hints at the areas where the Irish government might fruitfully seek opt-outs or statements of clarification. They are:
- Retaining military neutrality
- Preventing excessive EU regulation
- Retaining full control over abortion laws
- Retaining the commissioner.
There is no doubt other EU leaders would happily sign up to warm words on the first three, and many wouldn't mind back-tracking and keeping their own commissioner even if it means an inelegantly swollen commission.
But I seriously wonder if this would be enough to tempt the Irish government into a second referendum.
Perhaps the report's most interesting observation is that "In the focus groups there was a very general feeling that the Irish people were going to be asked to vote again, sooner or later, whether on the same or on a revised document. Although many had voted 'No' simply through lack of understanding, and some were prepared to consider changing their minds if the same document were presented with clearer explanations, the general consensus at the time, was that if presented unchanged, it could result in an even more negative result. 'No' voters in particular often expressed offence at the idea that their decision would not be respected."
I’m Mark Mardell, the BBC's North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~08~RS~)
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NO to the inbeciles constitution.
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sorry it should be - * 'imbeciles' treaty
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It must be doubted if the Constitutional project could survive a 2nd NO in Ireland. There would have to be an unprecedented propaganda campaign designed to ensure that fear stalks the Emerald isle on Lisbon’s 2nd day of judgement. I have no doubt that the Irish government will do that if they think it necessary and feel they would win, but can they be confident enough in December 2008 to tell the EU Council that they will take such a gamble one year hence?
Milliband should know that whatever happens to Ireland now will set a precedence that will likely be applied to Britain should an incoming Conservative government commence negotiations to return powers from Brussels in 2010. If he sanctions use of the bulldozer against the Irish, he may be at the wheel of the same bulldozer over the British as leader of the Opposition post-2010.
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i notice the world has not ended without this constitution!
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"There is respect for the integrity of their vote"
No there's not!
Before AND since voting, Ireland has been told a No vote would spell the end of Europe, that we would be subject to sanctions and that we were ruining the game for all the other kids...
I'm fairly sure 'No means No'. According to a number of European ministers, this is more like 'No means Well, if you twist our arm hard enough'.
Second referendums should require a change to the document submitted, not to the propaganda surrounding it... Unfortunately, I sincerely doubt that this is the case here.
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none of this is in the least surprising.
from the point of view of the other 26 governments, they have all ratified or are certain to ratify the treaty (even the czech president klaus will sign off, provided the irish do first). given the main finding of the eurobarometer poll was that people voted no because they did not understand the treaty, sarkozy et al will just tell the irish government to do a better job of explaining the second time round. to change the treaty would mean reopening the negotiation on other points and restarting the ratification process in all of the other 26 countries.
on the other hand, if i was irish, i would feel like my intelligence was being insulted and my opinion ignored if i was just asked to vote again on exactly the same document. in a way i do hope that they vote no, even though i actually think the treaty is a worthwhile document.
what is really going on here? as i have stated several times in the last thread, i think the real issue is democratic accountability of the entire european project. i think the solution to this crisis is to make the european commission directly elected by the public - either a directly elected commission president, or one that is appointed by and dismissible by the european parliament.
i am not suggesting that irish voters said no because they objected to the treaty on the grounds that it did nothing to address the democratic deficit in europe. the eurobarometer poll clearly shows that irish voters did not even understand what the treaty was about. the reason they voted no is because they did not trust something they were incapable of understanding. by voting no, they voted for the status quo (i.e. to stay in the eu in its present form).
in my opinion, introducing direct democratic accountability of the commission will however address the underlying problem behind the irish no vote (and behind all the other recent no votes), which is the total disconnect between brussels and the european public, and the consequent misunderstanding and distrust felt by the public.
how would it do this?
- the public would know it could kick out any commission president it did not like
- european elections would be meaningful as the people elected would actually do something useful
- the commission president would by necessity be someone recognisable and likable (think the london mayor)
- the commission would be incentivised to limit its works to areas where the public actually wants it, and would have to explain its work in laymans terms
please note that this suggestion does not involve the transfer of any more powers to brussels, merely that brussels should be democratically accountable for the powers it already has.
i challenge anyone on this blog to give a good reason why this is not a good idea.
if it is such a great idea, why might you ask is nobody suggesting it already? very simple - everything that happens in brussels is really controlled by the national governments behind closed doors. to give a democratic mandate to the commission would be to create someone that kicks those doors open. the last thing the national governments want is to lose control to the public over a project they have been working of for the past 50 years.
i strongly suggest mark takes this up with miliband or whoever else in europe next time he has a chance. ask them why they don't want democracy in europe and see how much they squirm!
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Mark
You yourself say that the general feeling of the focus groups is tha tif the Irish people were asked to vote again, they would produce an even more negative result.
The Treaty, like the parrot in the Monty Python sketch, is dead. It is only the Commission that refuse to recognise this. The longer this goes on, the more and more idiotic they appear.
No amount of tinkering with the Treaty can make it more understandable and the Irish, being sensible people, would continue to reject an incomprehensible treaty which offers the voters no benefits.
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They may have voted by majority for "No" to the Lisbon Treaty but the practical truth is that, if the Irish are given specific options and conditions that, to any degree, assuage individual concerns - whether real or imaginary - then the chances are that a second referendum vote will be "Yes" to the Lisbon Treaty.
I have two concerns if that happens:
One issue would be that any concessions given to the Irish, e.g. being able to permanently retain their Irish Commissioner, would be tantamount to a bribe and would be extremely unfair on any member state that has ratified the treaty and who will not get that benefit, e.g. they will still lose their permanent Commissioner.
My second issue is that the Irish should be asked to hold a second referendum at all. Analysis of why the Irish voted "No" is something that happened because they voted "No". It would be laughable to suggest that any such analysis would have occurred if the Irish had voted ""Yes" by majority.
I am not so sure as Mark that the hopes of the French, in particular, to get the Irish to commit to a second referendum are that "insurmountable" - EU (French?) officials have stated that they expect another Referendum in the Autumn of 2009 and with Sarkozy visiting Dublin and a full-scale French Charm Offensive in the offing against the Irish, I am not so sure that the Irish Government will not accede to the French pressure and commit to a second referendum.
History tells us that second referenda are considered favourably by the EU where the first referendum gives the "wrong" result as far as the EU are concerned. This repetition of referenda until the "right result" is achieved will ultimately devalue the use of referenda to having no greater value than opinion polls but, more regrettably, just perpetuate the view that the EU has a democratic deficit and has no real wish to address that issue.
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Every household in Ireland received a booklet from the, government funded, Referendum Commission. Government ministers constantly advised people to read the handbook. We did! Page 3 tells us what would happen if we voted NO and I quote "If the majority of the voters vote NO then the Constitution (Irish) will not be changed and Ireland may not ratify the Treaty. The Treaty will come into effect only if it is ratified by all Member States. The EU would continue under its present rules"
The NO vote was not anti EU. We were just saying "thanks but no thanks". Lets just get on as before and do what Mr Milliband is saying "put function and purpose before institutions.
Our Constitution protects us from politicians who think we are too stupid to understand.
The Referendum Commission handbook can be downloaded at www.lisbontreaty2008.ie
I wonder will we get a lisbontreaty2009 handbook
lasso23205
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
i disagree that the same document will not be put to the Irish people, i think it will and it should. If they did not understand the document then a second referendum is necessary to inform the electorate on the full implications of voting Yes and, more importantly of voting No. The No votes who find offence were going to vote no anyway, the key people that must be reached are young votes and the mothers who thought Lisbon would lead to conscription.
This is an incredibly important document, and one that must be passed if Ireland is remain part of Europe. The question in a referendum may request a Yes or No but in fact it is a question of In or Out.
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When I first red Marks take on situation Ireland and the reasons why Irish voted No to the Lisbon Treaty and when my eyes saw that 38% thought that the treaty would mean introduction of conscription to EU army, my first reaction was "oh my god! how ignorant", but after a while and after reading suggestions to change the treaty, it came to my mind that these are just symptoms that are showing up.
I think the reason why Irish voted No to the Lisbon treaty was and is that the Irish government and people haven't had a discussion on Ireland and its place in the world. I think the questions are more or less 1) Ireland's position relative to the rest of the world, 2) Ireland's position relative to Europe and 3) Europe's position relative to the rest of the world.
Now the reality is that the world is heading into a age where large power blocks like US, EU, China and India wield increasing power in the global stage and compete actively in politics, economics, science and military power. Sooner or later this competition will lead to conflicts, proxy wars, full blown trade war or in worst case scenario to full frontal military conflict. Now the thing is that Ireland is situated near continental Europe and what ever happens to Europe will happen to Ireland too. If war would star between Russia and EU it's 100% certain that Dublin would get hit whether military neutral or not.
Now, if Ireland feels that its destiny lies with Europe, then an adequate question that Irish should ask themselves is should they too take part fully to the cost of building and defending Europe? If the answer is that Ireland is independent and neutral and relied on Europe, then shouldn't Ireland be prepared to take full care of its defense?
A good example of the current situation is that Irish air force doesn't have any fighter jets. None. Now lets compare Irish to other same sized neutral countries: Swiss (33 F-18 Hornets, 55 F-5 Tigers), Austria (15 Eurofighters purchased, 8 F-5 Tigers) and Finland (63 F-18 Hornets). To me it seems that the Irish to this date have somehow convinced that as they are neutral they are not affected by what happens in the rest of the Europe.
If Irish government wants to have yes vote for the Lisbon Treaty at least to me they should first address Ireland's place in the world. As long as Irish won't do this discussion and positioning, they will to that day be uncertain about their position regarding Europe and what do with it.
Austria which is neutral
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Benagyerek (6): You ask to know why directly electing EU officials would not solve the problem of EU democratic legitimacy. The reason is that the peoples of Europe do not constitute a single polity that would agree to be bound by a pan-European majority. The principle that the majority decides is only accepted within nations. This is why we have nation-states. If the Irish were willing to be ruled by institutions elected along the lines you suggest they would have remained under Westminster rule and there would have been no need to create the Irish state in 1921.
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totally undemocratic eu pushing until they get a answer they want bunch of muppets
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foreign minister for the EU but arnt the foreign different language country nationality culture etc
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roll on 2010 get david in , take the powers back from the EU
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to the Freeborn, but Made Slave:
the treaty will do you just this.
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I don't know much about Mr Milliband but, to me, he has it exactly right. Apart from agreeing with him that there is - and should remain - a respect for the integrity of the Irish vote, I would underline his view that tinkering with the institutions of the EU is of no value.
Yes, we must put function and function before institutions. Until the EU leaders - presidents and PMs all - sort out and state clearly what the EU is for and how it is expected to go about achieving that, then everything else is hot air.
The problem is that no head of government is going to admit that the EU works because it does not, OVERALL, take the view of any single nation. That sort of admission makes bad press at home.
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jwwhite021 wrote at # 11 that the Lisbon Treaty "is an incredibly important document, and one that must be passed if Ireland is remain part of Europe. The question in a referendum may request a Yes or No but in fact it is a question of In or Out".
This a prime example of the bullying tactics of the pro Treaty brigade. It is also utter rubbish.
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Jukka Rohilla: Different types of political animal believe in different ultimate goals, the liberal prioritises liberty (the right to do what we want, subject to the equal right of others); the socialist prizes equality; the democrat the ‘greatest happiness for the greatest number’. The doctrine that prioritises power above all else is called fascism. Can you not find another way to argue for the EU?
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There is an article on the Times Online that epitomises the nature of debate within the EU as to what is important:
MEPs find recipe for happy European citizen
The Lisbon Treaty was different to the Constitutional Treaty in several ways. One of the distinct differences was that The Constitutional Treaty required all the trappings of Statehood to be clearly displayed in all member states almost to the point of superseding the nation state own trappings - The Lisbon Treaty quite rightly dispensed with this frippery.
Now, despite there being no Constitution nor Lisbon Treaty, the MEPs think the EU should have an Anthem "Ode to Joy" and every citizen should be waving flags and all the trappings of statehood should be displayed very openly so that the EU Citizens become more happy with the EU and being part of the EU.
Are they missing the point about what it is that worries the average citizen of Europe who lives within the EU member states. I suspect so.
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To Freeborn-John (20):
In reality where we live, you have to first have the power to be able to do any kind of decisions. Is it really that long that you don't remember the threat of Soviet Union or the threat of Nazis? All those threats were won by wielding a superior power. In the end freedom is bought and protected by the use of power.
My argument for the EU is very good and solid. You can't just deny the reality and where the global politics are going. Individual European nation states can't anymore act in global stage or protect their interests. If we want to retain our democratic governments, our belief in human rights, to fair society and being responsible for the wellbeing of the whole planet we have first have the power to attain those goals.
Like the Americans say: United we stand, Divided we fall.
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freeborn john @ 13 and (i think) jaws1912 @ 15
you both raise a very valid point. clearly the eu comprises 27 different countries speaking different languages with a very weak if any common identity or sense of common purpose.
however, please consider the following points:
just because there is no common identity does not mean there aren't very powerful; common values and common interests. it is simply that the public is not so aware of these because their national policy discussions rarely touch on these issues because at the end of the day national policy discussions are about electing national governments.
the whole european project was created by our national governments to address these common problems. originally, the issues were technocratic in nature (trade liberalisation, regulatory standardisation, coordinating monetary policy, etc). however, the world today requires ever closer cooperation on much more political issues such as international organised crime, illegal migration, energy security vis-a-vis russia, etc. if you disagree that these issues need to be dealt with at the european level, you are frankly living in the wrong century.
a necessary evil of any system of international cooperation is a supranational body that will implement the agreements that have been made and make sure that the countries involved stick to what they agreed. this role is performed by the european commission (and the ecj from a narrower legal perspective). in the past, this role has been very technocratic / apolitical and akin to that of a central bank. increasingly this is not the case, and given the necessarily more political nature of the eu's remit, i think some kind of democratic accountability has to be introduced.
the policy debates about these more "political" issues are quite rightly decided at the intergovernmental summits. however, there is very often a common european interest that goes beyond any individual national interest but which is not properly represented at these summits. for example, in the case of energy policy, it is in europe's interests to create an integrated market and to collectively negotiate import prices with russia, but until now france and germany have resisted the necessary breaking up of their national champion energy companies. there are many other examples i could list (e.g. continued existence of the unreformed cap at chirac's absolute insistence). if the european commission had a democratic mandate it would have a strong voice to stand up for this common interest over the petty squabbles and interests of individual nations.
freeborn john mentions that the minority nation would not be willing to be ruled by the majority, and cites ireland's secession from the uk as a case in point. however, it is a bad comparison. the uk was dominated by a single nation that had treated ireland horrendously throughout its history. ireland seceded because it was PERMANENTLY in a minority and its specific identity and interests, shaped by history, religion and geography, was NEVER seriously included by the ruling majority. in the eu today, no single country or even coalition of countries dominates. this is one of the main causes of the current crisis: the franco-german partnership is no longer able to dominate the eu because there are too many other countries. in a functioning democracy, the minority accepts their temporary exclusion from power because they have the realistic expectation of returning to power at the next election. so would it be in the eu.
moreover, ruling majorities in european democracy would not be built on coalitions of nations. national governments in effect exercise a block vote for their nation at eu summits. but the reality is that no nation operates on the basis of a national consensus. as is the case now, political interests in the european parliament would be represented by parties that cut across national boundaries. to form or vote for a party that only appeals to one nationality would be stupid, as no nationality could ever hope to dominate today's europe. instead, i think parties would form along the traditional left vs right axis and/or the pro-integration vs pro-sovereignty axis.
the language problem is also far from insurmountable. 51% of europeans speak english, and 89% of schoolchildren are learning english. in the commission, english is replacing french as the main operating language. i predict that one generation from now, every european head of government (even france's) will be fluent in english. i think we are already very close to a situation where europe-wide policy debates can be conducted in english, as indeed they are on this blog.
finally, i would like to draw a comparison with the london mayoralty. london is a very diverse city with in my opinion no strong sense of identity akin to national identity. however, nobody in london objected to the creation of the mayoralty because of a "lack of london polity". since its creation the mayoralty has greatly raised awareness of common london issues and produced someone that can speak up for them. since its creation i think there definitely IS a london polity forming that did not really exist before.
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Jukka (22): Military power is necessary to deter despotic states, but for this we have defensive alliances like NATO. Democratic nation-states do not rage war against one another like in the apocalyptic vision you paint in your post #12. There is no chance of conflict with the USA or India so long as they and we retain democratic forms of governance answerable to the people who would be first to suffer in such conflicts.
The West European states are not so powerless as you say either. The larger ones could on their own easily outweigh any autocratic state in the world, except China. Russia for example has an economy the size of S.E. England and the world’s fastest declining population. The lust for collective power to fight non-existent enemies is no reason to overthrow the Irish referendum result. If you were truly interested in preventing the apocalyptic scenarios you paint then you would be encouraging the spread of democracy to Russia and China rather than calling for it to be overthrown in Ireland.
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'Speaking on a visit to Dublin, David Miliband said," There can be no question of bulldozing or bullying the Irish people. There is respect for the integrity of their vote...."
Well how about some respect for the British people and the promises that were made to them about a referendum and the known wish of about 80% to have a referendum and the known intention of about 70% to vote "NO" ...?
We pay his wages. I resent every penny.
Mark Mardel:
"...38% thought that the treaty would introduce conscription into an EU army, which is fantasy. "
Mark's assurance that this is fantasy is worth nothing. We have had assurances again and again and again.
It's a long, long time ago, but as I remember it, concerns of Enoch Powell and Tony Benn were dismissed as fantasy before we joined the Common Market. I thought they were fantasy until I went to live in Germany in 1972 and found that ideas that appeared to be so mad that must be fantasy were the norm.
Name dropping:
In about 1978 I held an anti-"EU" "Referat" at the University of Duisburg. The lecturer, one Klaus Haensch, later President of the so-called European Parliament, assured me that I need not worry about a united Europe. Nobody really wanted one.
He told me this in the car park when there were no witnesses. He has since claimed not to remember my Referat.
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The Norwegians just don't have all this constant aggro. Oh to be Norwegian!
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Benagyerek (23): You make serious points worthy of response. (At least I prefer them to Jukka's lust for power).
1. Civilisational values, e.g. European values, Western values, Anglo-Saxon values, etc. are the weakest form of identity we have and are not sufficient to generate the solidarities required to hold a democratic state together (i.e. to support the weight of decision-making by majority). There will not be any EU wide democracy in the lifetime of anyone reading this and probably not later either because globalisation has already overtaken Europeanization of the economy.
2. Londoners do form a polity which is a subset of the British one. London has a higher proportion of residents from overseas than many other cities but remains a British city. If London had a significantly different identity from the rest of the UK there would be pressure for it to separate off as Singapore did from Malaysia but this is definitely not the case. The only reason for a special mayoral election in London is the specific issues unique to the city such as transport and policing.
3. The language issue is an important factor in holding a state together, but even if all Europe spoke English as a native language this would not be sufficient to hold an EU state together. The example of the creation of the Irish state in 1921 shows a common language is not enough, as does the existence today of separate English-speaking states in North America and in Australia and New Zealand and the numerous separate Spanish-speaking states of South America.
4. Your point as to the political weight of the English in the pre-1921 United Kingdom being greater than that of any single country in the EU today has validity and no doubt contributes to the much higher level of satisfaction that the Irish feel with being part of the EU than they did 100 years ago as part of the UK. However the issue of the democratic legitimacy of being outvoted as a nation in the EU still remains (indeed is very large in the case of Ireland that has less than 1% of the votes in the EU Council of Ministers). The issue has previously been masked by the triviality of the issues decided in Brussels. As the EU has acquired power in more politically sensitive areas and as blocking thresholds in QMV votes have been reduced (meaning more occasions when nations are outvoted) the previously hidden issue of the lack of democratic legitimacy of the community method is revealed more and more. This is the main reason the EU is becoming more unpopular. Since European identity is actually getting weaker there is no alternative to seriously trimming back EU powers until its decision-making competences no longer exceed its legitimacy base.
There can therefore be no justification for giving the EU yet more powers and certainly not on the fabricated claims that this would solve organised crime, illegal migration, energy security vis a vis Russia, etc. The threat that the EU poses to democracy is the #1 problem that we face in Europe today and one that the political leaders have within their power to address by declaring that the Constitutional project / Lisbon Treaty is finally, totally and for ever dead.
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How do you convince nation after nation to give up its sovereignty to one organization, sovereignty that its citizens fought and died for for so many hundreds, even over a thousand years? By telling them that it is nothing more than a trade agreement, a common market and that they won't be forced into anything against their will because all major decisions will have to be made unanimously. That's the last chance Brits got to have any say in it. And the French having rejected the Constitution even once means that they will never have another referendum again either. The European instinct is for centralization of power enforcing a uniformity of laws over every aspect of life with ever expanding jurisdiction. (It backfired when some of them tried to impose it on the Americans at the UN 5 years ago.)
How stubborn of some people to stand in the way of the "European Project" by putting the instruments of its implementation to a public vote and allowing citizens to decide what's best for themselves. Why can't Ireland just have their Parliament or better yet their Prime Minister impose it by fiat the way other sensible governments like the UK's has. Now a way has to be found around the unwillingness of the majority of Irish voters to cooperate or surrender depending on how you look at it. I'm sure one way or another, it will come to pass, there will be an EU superstate. I can hardly wait to see what its policies will be and how its subjects react to it.
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If I was the Irish PM I would be suggesting that other countries have a referendum. France and Holland come to mind, as they have already voted against this treaty once. With a guanteed UK rejection he would soon have quite a few friends in the playground.
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I've got to agree with all those who pointed out that UK really should have been given a referendum on this issue.
That said, I wonder just how many people would take the trouble to really find out what's in the document - take a look at the range of views expressed above and you could hardly beleive that we're all talking about the same thing.
The hardest thing for people in the UK is to get an unbiased view of the EU. There seems to be a view that it's out to get us without any explanation of why this might be.
MAII at no28 as usual provides a good example this kind of irrational fear. Who are the people forcing these nations into the 'EU project', what have they got to gain from it?
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To Freeborn-John (24):
This discussion is on wrong tracks.
You are missing my original point. My original point was that the Irish haven't discussed seriously on what their place is in this world, what their place is on Europe and what is Europe's place in the world.
My claim is that Irish objections and worries like staying military neutral and conscription to Euro army and their unprepared military are symptoms of not knowing where their place is. If they are truly neutral then they should have a army with credible defense and preparedness: they don't have. If they are not neutral and see themselves part of Europe, then the question is what is their fair share. The Irish are now in the state of limbo where they have convinced more or less that nothing bad will ever happen to them.
The point is that before voting on the Lisbon Treaty the Irish should have discussion on their place in the world and Europe. When they have made this discussion they can make rational decisions concerning their place in Europe and world.
---
Now, just few notations on power politics.
1. There is no reason democratic nations don't wage war with each other. Wars are born out of other reasons than ideological or form or government: they are always about land, people and resources.
1.1. Case in point: if EU had more power, the Iraq war could have been prevented. The war was tremendous accident for the people in Iraq, but it was also against the economic interest of Europe. Iraq started to trade oil with Euros and if Iran had joined it, Euro would have reached parity with US dollar as reserve currency meaning large economic benefits to Eurozone. That's the real reason why France and Germany where against the whole war, they understood the economic situation.
2. Russia is still powerful. They are in decline, but that doesn't make them a house cat. Moscow is now controller by ex-KGB agents and the only way to counter them is in united front. If EU doesn't speak to them with united voice and with consolidated power, we are ones that have to back down.
3. Spreading democracy to Russia and China starts by checking their expansionist policies first with credible power and then via dialog try to persuade them to change their ways.
4. I'm not calling to overthrow Irish voice or vote, I'm saying that they have to make serious discussion about where they are and what that means. In example a question could be, does defending Ireland start somewhere in middle of Africa; in the middle east, in Siberia; in borders of Europe; or in the shore of Ireland?
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we all need a strong europe, failure to understand that is risky.
only together, Europeans can rival US, China,India, Russia.
there is a great picture that can be used as a metaphor of what is happening now.
http://www.easteurope.org.uk/editor.htm
the european flag with a sign Work in Progress inside the stars
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Does anyone know of any pro-treaty argument
of potential benefits that the EU does not get because of the lack of a treaty? (I mean to EU citizens, not Baroso or Solana)
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Jukka_Rohila @31 (and referring to previous comments).
I entirely agree with you about the Irish needing to understand, as a Nation, what their position is in the world, what they want their position to be within Europe and what they want the position of Europe to be within the world community.
But is that not true for all the 26 other member states and peoples of the EU?
All 27 nations have clubbed together within the now political and trading bloc of the EU for disparate reasons. I suspect, more often than not, the reasons for joining the EU are economic rather than for political benefits.
Perhaps, if the various Nations and their peoples could discern the long term political objectives of the EU more clearly then they could all rest a bit more comfortably with where they are being taken, their roles in the organisation and, perhaps, see the benefits. However, the original concept of 6 European countries merging together in a common market with the rather nebulous policy of "ever closer union" is very different organisation compared to the European Union of today which is stridently political in nature.
I don't think the European Union itself really understands its position in the World - it is currently striving to be a political union and create a constitution so that it can have a permanent President and Foreign Minister (which immediately means that there will be EU Embassies around the world and a Foreign Service to support those Embassies) but that is simply making the EU equivalent to being a Nation with the accoutrements of Nationhood.
My post at #21 was to highlight the EU MEPs wanting the EU Flag and other bunting to be given higher profile throughout the EU member states. This is typical ostentatious Nation building frippery.
The EU needs to understand its own role and purprose and then the people should agree or disagree to that purpose.
Do we want a Federation of member Nation States or do we want to give up our individual Nation State for membership of a Supernation State. This is not something that can simply be decided by politicians on our behalves.
At the present time the EU is being allowed to evolve without any real direction and without popular consent. If the people were truly involved in this project it would be much the stronger an "ever closer union" and the far better a project than it is currently perceived to be.
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benagyerek in post 23 wrote
"freeborn john mentions that the minority nation would not be willing to be ruled by the majority, and cites ireland's secession from the uk as a case in point. however, it is a bad comparison. the uk was dominated by a single nation that had treated ireland horrendously throughout its history. ireland seceded because it was PERMANENTLY in a minority and its specific identity and interests, shaped by history, religion and geography, was NEVER seriously included by the ruling majority. in the eu today, no single country or even coalition of countries dominates".
I should point out that the influence of Irish MPs in governing the Union of Great Britain and Ireland prior to partition was far greater than the power of the Irish to influence the workings of the EU today.
Before partition, Ireland sent around 100 MPs to the British Parliament out of around 670, a far bigger percentage than the number they currently send to the European Parliament.
Their influence was huge, particulary in the years leading up to 1914 when they held the balance of power in Parliament, ruling in effect the greatest Empire in the world. The extent of this influence, which was well beyond their numerical numbers, can be shown in the results of the January 1910 general election. The Conservatives won 272 seats (46.8% of the vote) the Liberals 274 seats (43.5%), Labour 40 seats (7%) and Irish Nationalists 82 seats (1.9% of the vote). In effect the Irish nationalists, with the support of just 1.9% of the electorate of GB and Ireland, controlled the direction of the Government of the country as the Liberal led governement relied on Irish nationalist support for their majority. The second General election of December 1910 produced a very similar result and confirmed the key role of the Irish nationalists.
The Irish Nationalists used their power to pass the Irish Home Rule Bill which would have granted home rule to all of Ireland. It never came into force because of the outbreak of the First World War. One casualty of the war was that any slight chance of unity under home rule was shattered and Ireland split with partition.
I respect and understand the Irish decision to leave the Union in 1921. They decided they would rather rule themselves than be part of a far larger union in which they had a significant say and at times held the balance of power, as in the period after 1910.
It therefore makes perfect sense for the Irish today to have rejected the Lisbon Treaty as this treaty was another step that reduced their power to govern themselves won in 1921 and which further reduced their power to influence the workings of the EU.
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freeborn-john @ 27
i think you misunderstand my proposal.
i am not in favour of transferring more powers to brussels. i am not in favour of turning the european commission into a federal government for europe. i am not even especially in favour of extending qmv.
what i am saying is that the eu has already expanded into politically sensitive areas like immigration, defeating organised crime, energy security, etc. this is already happening under the existing treaties (i.e. even without ratification of lisbon).
i think it is right that these issues are addressed at the european level (as you mention, an even higher international level would in theory be even better, if only other governments could be made cooperate at the required level of detail, and if only we did not run the risk of having the terms dictated to us by colossally large countries like the usa, india and china). in the modern world these issues cannot be dealt with by nations acting alone. there is a common european public interest to be served and nations must cooperate.
currently, these politically sensitive issues are dealt with directly between the national governments, where they still wield vetos or at least blocking minorities under qmv. this is as it should be, and i do not propose to change this. the lisbon treaty would extend qmv on these issues. i am pretty agnostic about that, as i think extending qmv is missing the point.
the real problem is that these important policy debates all happen between our governments behind closed doors. no national government bothers to explain to its public what the common european interest being served is, as no national government represents that common interest. instead our governments focus on telling us how much they won in the debate vs the french and the germans.
i think that the lack of public debate in europe about these issues is the main reason for the current crisis. voters in france, holland and ireland (and the uk) have turned against further european integration because they see a lot of activity going on in brussels, but they do not understand what it is about and therefore do not trust it. as milliband says, the eu has not explained its purpose. i would add that it hasn't consulted the public either.
the kind of democratic mechanism i am talking about would be to appoint the head of the european commission, someone that frankly does not wield much more power than the mayor of london, nor should he. the commission can propose legislation within a narrowly defined policy space that is clearly limited by the european treaties. none of these proposals become law without the consent of the council of european national governments, where ireland and every other national government still has a veto over the more politically sensitive issues.
the kind of strong group identity that you quite rightly say exists only at the level of the nation state is relevant to one specific policy area: foreign policy and its ultimate tool, war. nobody is suggesting that this power should be transferred to a centralised european government. that is not something anyone (bar a tiny minority of rabid europhiles) would want. no european government wants this - it would be completely against their interests. it could only ever happen with the public's consent, and the only scenario in which i could see that public consent forthcoming would be fullscale war between europe and e.g. russia. not a likely scenario.
we need to create this democratic mechanism so there can be an ongoing dialogue between europe and the public in which europe explains what it is actually for, and the public says what is really important to it. instead, what we have is a very complicated game of chinese whispers, where the public talk to their national governments, and then the governments talk to each other, and nobody talks up for the common european interest.
ps i think we are several centuries away from europe speaking english as a first language. but i think a fluent second language is more than enough for what i am proposing.
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busby2 wrote:
"I should point out that the influence of Irish MPs in governing the Union of Great Britain and Ireland prior to partition was far greater than the power of the Irish to influence the workings of the EU today."
Of course, this must be the reason why Irish love you so much.
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busby2 @ 35
thank you for the correction. clearly i was speaking from ignorance when i used the word "NEVER". sorry for that.
but i still think my basic point stands. there is a very big difference between being a minority (albeit a large and for a few years influential one) within a polity in which another nation comprises well over 50% of the legislature, as opposed to the eu where the population share of the largest nation germany is only some 16%.
clearly several centuries of repression by the english also had a huge amount to do with ireland's decision to secede, which also muddies the comparison with the eu.
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Jukka, you wrote:
"I'm not calling to overthrow Irish voice or vote, I'm saying that they have to make serious discussion about where they are and what that means."
Where we are is believing in a peoples freedom and rights, it's why we take part in UN peacekeeping missions. And why we can vote no if the majority feels.
The situation now might be comparable to Finland sitting in on NATO meetings and not joining it.
You also wrote:
"a question could be, does defending Ireland start somewhere in middle of Africa; in the middle east, in Siberia; in borders of Europe; or in the shore of Ireland?"
An answer might be that our participation in the UN defends Ireland, as defined above, without having to threaten war; which seems to continue to fail in Georgia despite such threats from USA.
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“[Milliband] then talked about the need to build a global role for the EU in combating climate change, promoting democracy and security beyond its own borders. He ends up saying, "We must put function and purpose before institutions. We must take the opportunity to define the function and purpose of the EU with clarity and drive."
This is just the usual inane drivel from the government, with a clear Neo-Con agenda of searching for a “messianic” role for the EU in order to neutralize the very role of the EU, which is to promote integration (although not necessarily federation) of European countries in order to cooperate with each other for their common interest.
Apart from the fact that combating climate change and spreading democracy is *definitely* not *the* role of the EU – perhaps it might be *the* role of the UN or other institutions, but that is not to say that the EU should not adopt policies in these areas – it seems to me that Milliband and his NuLab acolytes would want to copy the US in everything that is wrong about it, e.g. the self-appointed messianic role of “spreading democracy”, if necessary from a military aircraft above, but not copy from the US any of the good things about it, e.g. having a single currency (the euro in the EU’s case) and having 51 states with no policed borders (Schengen in the EU’s case).
It is probably because the UK has little or no say about what really matters in the EU, e.g. issues related to economic and monetary policy (Eurozone) or border and immigration policy (Schengen) (the UK, of course, being the *only* EU country that is outside both pillars), that the British government is trying to find this “messianic” role for the EU so that the UK can have a say.
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betuli @ 37
You wrote; "this must be the reason why Irish love you so much."
I am sorry but that is a untrue statement of the the reality of today.
The Irish don't hate the Scottish, English or the Welsh - they have a strange ambivalence towards the United Kingdom and to the other nations of that grouping.
It would be true to say that many Irish would support a United Ireland but that is no longer in the hands of the English, Scottish or Welsh - it is the hands of the Northern Irish where there is a distinct schism between peoples of the distinct ethnic and religious divide. The Irish, both north and south of the border will have to resolve that issue.
The Irish people are intertwined into the English Society and live amongst the English as equals and we are as happily living together as anyone could care to imagine. So much so that I, as an Englishman, am married to a lass of Irish stock and we share family ties that link us and our children and their children to Ireland and England - a common phenomenon that is repeated up and down the width and breadth of the nations that make up the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland and Eire.
I have no rancour with your statement but it is simply an ignorance of the real fabric of the mix of peoples that make up the British Isles and how well they do live side-by-side without the hatreds of times long past.
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paulcrossleyiii #30
Irrational fear? Take the trouble to find out what is in it?
Have you read it yourself? The EU Constitution? The Lisbon Treaty? The so called red lines? I actually read the red lines. It was around 40+ pages of arcane legalese terminology. It was not what the politicians who advocated it said it was, that was clear. The EU Constitution was unreadable and 400 pages long. The Lisbon Treaty which I have dubbed the son of the EU Constitution was purportedly 150 pages shorter but I saw accounts that it was actually 8000 words longer, only the font size and inter line spacing had been reduced to make it appear shorter. I also read reports that it was made deliberately unreadable by average people. So what the politicians were asking for was a blank check which said in effect "trust us." This from people whose accounts could not be certified for over ten years. Why would anyone place their trust in such a scheme from such people?
Contrast this with the American Constitution. It is a short document of a few pages written in plain language any person of ordinary intelligence can easily understand. Yet its meaning has been parsed by attorneys and judges for over 200 years testing the validity of laws againt what this ultimate document says. How many judges would have to sit and make comparable assessments against the EU Constitution? Would even they have first read it. Would they have understood it? Does anybody understand it?
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To MyNameBlog (39):
In essence you say that you believe that the UN is the final authority and the keeper of peace and security? You more or less say that by working in and with the UN you secure your country?
I'm sorry, but the reality is that the UN is the working club of great powers: its more or less designed to be negotiation place for leading powers. The UN only does something when all the leading powers share their view on a situation which is more or less a situation where all powers benefit on crushing some third world dictator.
Also the situation is not the same as Finland and NATO. The Finnish government has noted that while Finland is not allied militarily, it's not a neutral country as it aligned strongly with the European Union. This decision on not to be militarily allied is then met with adequate preparations for defensive war: modern air force, modern tanks. large conscription army, infrastructure that's ready with burned ground tactics, etc.. Essentially the country has prepared to fight to the end if war ever brakes up. Now if you look at Ireland you don't have any credible defense. You aren't militarily allied and seem not to be aligned with the rest of the Europe. That isn't a healthy or even a real position to be.
To Menedamus (34):
I think that the rest of the Europe has more or less joined EU and its predecessors because of political and only partly to economical and cultural reasons. You say note that if EU and EEC have been trading blocks, but you forget that EU essentially grew out of European Coal and Steel Community. It's wise to remember that steel and coal were then the essential means for economic and military power. By pooling steel and coal France and Germany more or less became allied and shared their resources. It should be remembered that both France and Germany had lost their place as major powers after the second world war to USA and Soviet Union and pooling their resources was power political play. The notation of economic union has been the working of later generations and I would say that it's more or less false notation that sharing economy is just a continuation on sharing strategic assets.
I don't know if you have red Paul Kennedy's book The Rise and the Fall of Great Powers, the book was written before the fall of Soviet Union. An interesting notation in it is that Kennedy in his numbers and projections handle EEC as a one power block. The notation that ECSC, EEC and EU are about power politics is not new one.
Now, to go back in the conversation, into what is the position of European countries and how they see EU, I strongly think that large amounts of countries joined it because of political reasons. The six founding members formed ECSC because of matters related to politics and power politics. Scandinavian countries and eastern European countries too joined EU because political but also because cultural reason. In example Finland has had a long drive to be a European country and a European nation that has driven it many times in its history to have close relations with Germany. A common theme with Finland, Baltic and Eastern European countries is their relation to Russia, they don't want to be left alone with Russia and they surely don't want to become Russian or be dominated by Russia. If that isn't a political reason then I don't what is.
I would say that Ireland and UK are more or less only countries that joined EU and it's predecessors out of economical reasons. This maybe because you don't share the continent. We other European share the same continent and from history can see how easily armed forces travel huge distances, borders can be change and nations can be re-located. I think for these reason EU is not just an economical project, but also a political project for other European countries.
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Jukka_Rohila @ 43 and JorgeG1 @ 40
i don't think i agree with everything jukka has been saying, but i do agree that ireland (and the uk) need to rethink what the real purpose of the eu has been throughout, and what their role in it should be. and i do agree that that the eu's purpose is fundamentally political and not economic.
jorgeg1 objects to the eu being given a mandate to promote democracy on the grounds that this would be to adopt some article of neocon american ideology. i disagree with this view. the eec / ec / eu has always been about promoting democracy and peace. it has done this by continually expanding its membership to include newly transitioned democracies on its borders.
the eu and its expansion is basically about (1) dangling the carrot of membership in front of aspiring new democracies to encourage them to reform and behave themselves, and (2) binding new members into a set of rules and norms that will prevent any return to the dictatorship and war of the past. it has been so successful that today its success is completely taken for granted.
let me list some successes:
- democratic consolidation in germany, italy, spain, portugal, greece, all of the ex-communist members
- absence of any conflict even approaching war among any of its members, something that has no precedent in history
- providing the context for resolving ethnic conflicts in alsace, the balkans, the hungarian diaspora and cyprus (before anyone gets on their high horse about how europe screwed up in bosnia, i am talking about the process of eu integration here, not the idiocies german foreign policy in the 90s)
- incentivising democratic transition in serbia, turkey, ukraine, etc
the eu is all about promoting democracy, as is clear from the copenhagen criteria for membership (democracy, liberty, free markets). i think the eu's success provides a beautiful counterpoint to the failings of the us neocon agenda. it proves that the means are as important as the ends - i.e. you cannot impose democracy on a country with bombs, as jorgeg1 rightly points out.
the problem that the uk (and perhaps also ireland?) have, is that they did not enter the eu as a means of consolidating their own hard fought freedoms and democracy. the uk of course has a 300 year history of independence, political stability and democratic evolution. as a result, we have an enormous blind spot for the main purpose of the eu - its role in consolidating european democracy. this is something that is obvious to every other member of the eu outside scandinavia.
that is why many people in the uk harp on about how they were fooled in the 1970s into joining an economic project, only to discover later on that its other members have "secret" political ambitions. the project was always political, but has been continually missold to the british public because the uk government has never had the balls to risk explaining what it is really for.
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Jukka_Rohila @ #43
I am not sure if you are missing my point.
I am not sure we can definitively discern why any one member state joins or has joined this European Club.
The only political sentence in the Treaty of Rome, 1957, was that the member nations would seek "ever closer union".
"Ever closer union" is a political intent but it is nebulous to the extreme. "Ever closer union" is a statement of intent with ambiguity.
A political dimension to the EEC that has become the EU was defined in the 1970 European Political Cooperation (EPC) Treaty that was introduced in 1970.
The creation of the EU in 1993 has marked a progression from the EPC and made the EU much more of political organisation.
The problem is that this EU project has commenced with no end objective! Ask any Project Manager and they will tell you, you cannot run a project without knowing what the end result is expected to be. It is like asking someone to take a leap of faith that the politicians know where they are taking us!
This is where the Council of Ministers, when they come together to discuss the next step fail to understand that this project must fail unless the common person understands what it is they are attempting to achieve on their behalf.
Ireland can define its place in the world but unless it knows where the EU is taking it, Ireland (and any other member State of the EU for that matter) cannot know where it stands within the EU.
Signing up to "Ever closer union" is a grand idea but what does it actually mean?
Is the objective to create a United States of Europe or is it to create a Union of Federated States or is it to remain a loose grouping of independent nations working together in as much harmony as they can manage?
The politicians probably have no real idea of where the EU Project is taking them and they flounder from a failed Constitutional treaty to a slimmed-down Lisbon Treaty - with second referenda as their only hope of pushing the project forward.
However, if the politicians were to actually define the end objective and seek the support of the people then "ever closer union" and the EU Project would become a unifying purpose and give the people a role and purpose in their engagement with other Europeans within the project.
This has got to be so much better than trying to impose an unknown end-result upon the people as though they matter not.
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benagyerek @ #44
I spent so long writing #45 and then you go and say everything I would agree with before I got to post my comment.
But, you hit the nail more firmly on the head and probably more succinctly!
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benagyerek (36): I do not really mean to take this thread too far from this issue of Mark’soriginal post. But let me ask you one question: Do you believe the recent EU Parliament vote NOT to respect the result of the Irish referendum has any democratic legitimacy in Ireland? If (like me) you think that this decision by the EU Parliament has no democratic legitimacy when it differs from the majority opinion of the Irish nation, then why would you think that an EU Commission elected by the same EU Parliament would be able to claim democratic legitimacy either?
I disagree strongly with your claim that the EU Commission “frankly does not wield much more power than the mayor of London”. The Commission has the monopoly on all proposals to change EU law superior to any other for 490 million people; proposals that can only be modified in highly unlikely circumstances (such as all 27 governments agreeing). Jose Manual Barosso resigned from the highest elected office in his country to take up the position of EU Commission president because he felt he would have more personal power in that role than as the Prime Minister of Portugal. But even if he had been elected Commission president by majorities in 26 EU countries other than Britain he would not be able to claim a democratic legitimacy when exercising his monopoly on legislative initiative for the supreme law of this land any more than would an American president or an Indian Prime Minister. Democracy is ‘rule by the people’; not ‘rule by other people’.
The blunt truth is that the EU simply has power inappropriate for an international organisation and that power must be taken back.
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menedemus @ 46
i don't think anyone can accuse me of being succinct
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To Menedemus (45):
I do understand your point, but I don't think that it's realistic. You say that the EU is a project without a clear end or objective. I say that the nature of the EU can be seen from the roots and context that it has grown from.
I do think that your point is a good one, but in the same time it's very unrealistic. Let's in example take look at the United States. United States started as an rebellion against British rule. It then evolved from loose confederation into an loose federation. This initial development took decades. The next major element in the development of US was the civil war which was all about the federal government and states rights. Later developments of the US included expansion of the federal government in the Roosevelt era. US has had the same iterative development process that the EU is going over. From our time it may seem that US was a project with a clear end and objective, but lets face it, US evolved into its current form without a master plan, it evolved because of necessities of our changing world.
The EU, as has been stated, has an objective of an ever closer union. We should not think EU as an project with an end, but as an ever changing process that is shaping and aligning European countries and nations to meet the challenges that the changing world is facing us.
What I think politicians all over the Europe should be doing and actually some of them are doing is to note that all European nations share the same destination. We are geographically grouped together and what ever happens in any part of Europe touches other Europeans. As we share the same destiny we all should share costs and work together. That's the only message that matters.
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Why would the Irish believe anything the EU says.
They were asked to vote and they did.
Talk of another vote (because they were being silly) it's insulting.
Anything that comes from Miliband must be taken with a pinch of salt, his boss, and party, refused to honor their promise to give UK a vote on the EU.
Silly to worry about an army, the EU can take care of any trouble as was seen when Russia was out of line.
I can't remember the last time the UK PM.
had 'words' with Russia. The EU has made all this possible.
It makes us feel secure, like a big EU family, flexing it's combined muscle and having a set to with a neighbour, no big deal.
EU is big enough to do these things now.
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Benagyerek @ 44, I mostly agree with what you are saying, I just think you have slightly misinterpreted me.
The EU *indirectly* promotes peace and democracy in two ways: a) by replacing wars with dialogue and common purpose between European countries and b) by its expansion, as you correctly say, by including “newly transitioned democracies (within) its borders”
My fundamental disagreement is not with you but with the British government, either this one or the previous/future one. On the one hand, it sees the EU as little more than a glorified single market (as it is self-evident by the UK’s refusal to join Schengen, an EU pillar that is the *embodiment* of what the EU stands for in the 21st century), but on the other hand, wants to create for the EU a new *messianic* role of promoting peace and democracy the world over. How can a *glorified single market* take on the role of promoting world peace and democracy? Interesting question for Milliband and NuLab.
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Freeborn-John @ 47, “The blunt truth is that the EU simply has power inappropriate for an international organisation and that power must be taken back.”
Freeborn-John, the blunt truth is that you keep going on and on and on and on and on about the same thing, which is very legitimate, but you go on about it in the wrong way, i.e. the Tory way, of which I assume you are member or supporter.
The UK can take its supposedly lost *power* from the EU, but this cannot be done as you say at no. 3 by “an incoming Conservative government commencing negotiations to return powers from Brussels in 2010.” This is just plain Tory nonsensical fantasy, pure and simple. The way to do what you want an incoming Conservative government to do is very simple:
An incoming Conservative government should first of all consult the British people in a referendum as to what relationship they would like to have with the EU, i.e.
1. Full membership, including the Euro, Schengen, Charter of Rights et al.
2. Continuation of the current half-in, half-out membership
3. A different kind of membership, e.g. leaving the EU to become an EEA member
Only once this is clarified then the Tory government can go with all the necessary democratic legitimacy to the EU Council (i.e. the heads of governments of the other 26 EU members), not to Brussels, as you incorrectly state, to discuss and implement the policy adopted by the British government as a result of the above referendum.
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It is a pity look to see one is not aware of his own definition or identity. What makes us the Europeans? Why should we think globally, far beyond our own backyards?
Is it true that such definitions have always been safe, that there is no need for any consolidation? The easiest way, what seems majority of Irish citizens did -- together with many others "old" Europeans -- is merely to plunge deeper into a sphere of subconsciousness. They have given the politicians a free hand. Basically, they have left to the other Europeans the question of identity, they already exploit to a great extent.
Our subjects are within our backyard, allegedly practical. Many of us are not reluctant when it comes to suspect the length of laser guns, routes of oil pipelines, etc. There is no end in discussing such matters, and those are really not interesting. We are not to decide anyway.
But we can decide what should be "the role of the EU in the modern world". We should not leave this question to the politicians.
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#41 Menedemus and others
..and earlier busby2
The Irish relationship with the UK is often misstated - not least by the Irish and the UK population. On a detail, busby2 - I looked it up, there were 105 Irish seats out of a UK parliament of 658 in 1865. It also tends to be forgotten that the first thing the Irish did on independence was to have a civil war. The majority of the Irish republic’s population wanted to remain in the British Commonwealth but as Eamon De Valera put it, “the majority have no right to do wrong".
My mother was Irish, to confirm Menedemus' point. She was pro-provisional-IRA because she was an Irish nationalist. She was nevertheless born a UK citizen (because she was born in 1909) and lived much longer in England than she did in Ireland of any kind. The Irish diaspora has a lot to answer for, I believe, not least in the perception of Ireland abroad.
That also brings me to the strongest point of opposition to benagyerek's completely reasonable proposals.
Humans are not reasonable. We support nations and their flags and anthems viscerally, not rationally.
There are, of course, elites - economic and political - who hold much of the power in democracies. These elites are much more rational and they create entities like the EU and NAFTA and all the other strings of letters in the world.
These elites form cabinets and commissions and quangos and other vehicles for power. They rule. They organise, coordinate. They explain and 'move forward' in all manner of ways. They are the government. They are not the state.
I suppose it is why several states retain monarchs and why the Presidency in the USA has a charisma which no other political appointment is even close to.
In order to create a meaningful democratic entity in the EU, you would have to shift this notion of statehood at least partially to a supranational entity. This has, of course, already happened with the EU parliament. It has failed miserably.
Elections for the EU parliament have a turnout consistently 20% below the turnout of national elections (http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/6/8/3/8/pages68380/p68380-2.php)
The author of this paper concludes:
‘Proportionality’ is the number of seats in the EP / Commission compared to national population, resulting in the concept of under-representation in these bodies possibly causing disillusion.
The numbers are not in this document so I cannot tell but I would be surprised if that is not confounded with the population of nations, i.e. the larger nations are under-represented. I believe the larger nations are also those with the strongest concept of statehood.
Anyway, I believe the above disparity in voting levels to be pretty much immovable. The EP and Commission will keep on campaigning to have themselves better advertised in the nations of the EU. I believe it is pointless. It merely reinforces the disillusion which already exists because 'the EU is now spending money on advertising itself as well as on a bunch of French farmers', etc.
In order to change this situation, EU governments will have to face the fact that to promote the EU, they will have to demote their nation states. That may well not be in their power to do.
Language is a huge reason for this isolation into nation states. It culturally identifies in a unique internal way in each human. It cannot be overcome. It is inconceivable that there could be a single democratic entity in control of all essential functions without a single language.
It is no use talking about English as that unifying language. As that de facto occurs more and more, it will meet more and more resistance, e.g. now in Italy (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7608860.stm).
I believe that the only alternative to the nation – as Freeborn-John hinted, is The World. We can believe in world government because that avoids the notion of us vis a vis anyone else. It is just all of us together. That is a looooong way off.
As long as there is the potential for conflict between groups of humans on a large scale, the nation state will be their point of reference because, forget history, in each individual, it always has. This despite WW2 wherein nation states were patently insufficient in their own defence yet still most of their citizens laud their own nation above all others for their salvation.
Jukka_Rohila, I believe The EU – in the sense of all of the 27 nations - will only ever be a confluence of limited interests – primarily economic. I doubt that it will ever amount to anything much militarily (sorry MarcusAureliusII) because NATO will be a bridge to Russia and the USA beyond the scope of the EU.
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freeborn-john @ 47
i don't think this discussion is off-topic for this thread at all.
first of all, i think we are discussing two separate issues here. my point is that we already have a european commission with a lot of powers but no accountability. we also have a total lack of public policy debate or public understanding or trust in the eu. i think both birds can be killed with one stone - making the commission democratically elected. but whether it is elected or appointed, the very existence of the commission with its current powers assumes there is a common european interest it must serve, and in some sense a european polity.
i think the arguments you have been making aren't so much about whether the commission should be elected or not, but about whether the commission should exist / what powers it should have. as you mention, you think the process of passing power up to the eu has gone too far and should be rolled back. i don't think this is an argument against making the commission democratically accountable for whatever powers you think it should have.
i agree that in many respects my comparison of a democratically elected commission president with the london mayor is a bit fatuous. the similarities i wanted to highlight are that the london mayor is a likable and recognisable person, he is the only person who speaks specifically for london's common interests, and the existence of his role and the mayoral elections has created a much greater awareness of london-wide issues than existed before. he also has far fewer powers than a national government, most importantly he has no power over foreign policy or the military.
in your rebuttal i think you yourself are very disingenuous about the power of the european commission. yes, the commission has the power to PROPOSE european law, but no law is ENACTED without the consent of the parliament and crucially the council - i.e. the committee of 27 national governments. on the more politically sensitive issues, all governments in the council retain a veto. on the others, decisions are by qmv, which under lisbon means they can be blocked by a coalition of governments representing 35% of the eu's population.
maybe you take the view that everything in the council should be decided by unanimity, line by line. however, i suspect that even you agree that when it comes to detailed regulation of the safety features of video equipment for example, giving every country a veto is a bit impractical. so the question is what issues should be subject to veto, what to qmv. i'll leave that debate for another occasion, although i note that even under lisbon, proposals by the commission related to foreign policy, defence and taxation would all still be subject to a veto).
so what is the point here? i think the point is whether a country (i.e. its voting public) considers its sovereignty to be absolutely sacrosanct, or whether they can bear risking the possibility of sometimes being in a minority on some issues. i think those in the uk that insist on absolute sovereignty must feel very threatened and isolated in europe. i think they must feel they will always be in the minority. but you know what, one great provision in lisbon is that it gives a formal procedure for a country to exit the eu. so if the uk (or anyone else) did always find itself in a minority, it could always leave and join the european free trade area instead, as jorgeg1 suggests.
i also think people in the uk with this mindset are a little arrogant, in that they ignore the point of view of a substantial part of the uk electorate such as myself, which is that there are plenty of issues over which i would much more readily agree with like-minded germans, french, hungarians, etc than with david cameron (or david milliband). fortunately this phobia of "loss of sovereignty" is predominantly a british disease, and not one that i believe many irish suffer from. i'm happy to be corrected on this.
btw, i would be happy to discuss that european parliamentary vote you mention, but i know nothing about it. can you provide a link to a news article?
bonybbony @ 53, not sure i understood everything you were trying to say, except the last line with which i agree wholeheartedly
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Firstly Irish referendum result must be acknowledged by the EU otherwise people will start to draw valid comparisons to Zimbabwe, where the electorate was bullied into voting for a different sort of TYRANT.
Secondly the British should be given a Referendum on the The Lisbon Treaty, as promised in the LAbour Parties Manifesto before the last election. If the British public votes NO we should then have a Referendum on whether we want to be in the EU at all, to sort the issue out once and for all.
Thirdly the EU needs to be massively reform how im not sure but it needs to be made much more Democratic, there needs to be much more acountability to the people. At the minute the people of Europe have no say and the politicans can do as they please and as soon as someone objects then they try to find a sneaky way to get around that objection.
How can the EU effectively promote Democracy around the world when it is the least Democratic organisation in the World.
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I have found it very interesting to read this blog in parallel with Nick Robinson's column. If the blogs broadly reflect the wider public view, it seems that a significant majority of the UK population are fed up to the eye teeth with the government and it's leadership. It is also clear that most UK contributors and many from elsewhere are deeply uncomfortable with the Lisbon process.
What is the connection between the two threads?
Simply that, when confronted with the likelihood that they will not get the answer they hope for, government simply refuses to ask the question. Brussels will continue to try foisting their treaty on the people of Europe despite evidence that it is deeply unpopular. Labour will continue clinging to office despite overwhelming evidence that the public have had enough of them.
What I find astonishing is that these same people continue to lecture the rest of the planet about the virtues of democracy when it is plain that they are not in the least concerned about it closer to home. Classic examples of 'don't do as we do, do as we say'.
Democracy - what democracy?
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chill0 @ 54
thanks for this post. i was waiting for someone to raise these points.
(1) the european parliament:
let's all agree on the following points about current european elections:
- turnout is very low
- everyone votes for national parties based on national issues, and not on european issues (unless its for the ukip)
- noone can name their mep
i know this is true in the uk. i suspect it is true in every other european country.
why is this the case? i think the best comparison to draw in the uk is with local council elections, where i think the same points equally apply. local councils do not do anything very interesting. the powers they have are over rather banal uncontroversial issues like rubbish collection. most councils (the gla being the obvious exception here) do not have a recognisable figurehead that people vote for. you vote for a party. for a brand.
the european parliament is very similar. no real power. no recognisable figurehead. no relevance.
if you will grant me the liberty, this is how i would see european elections working in my proposal:
- parliament would still comprise meps elected in the same way as they are now
- each mep would, when they stand for election, commit to support a particular candidate for european commission president
- following parliamentary elections, the candidate that wins the largest number of meps (even if less than 50%) would be elected for a five year term (to match the parliament)
- parliament would have the right to remove a commission president mid-term if by majority vote they simultaneously appoint a named successor
the effect of this would be that when people vote at european elections, they would be choosing not a faceless mep, but a high profile figure - the commission president. this person would exercise real meaningful powers, and would be responsible for proposing european laws that are clearly matters of interest to the public. i have absolutely no doubt that voters would take these elections much more seriously. i also think that (after one or two elections) they would stop voting based on national politics and instead based on the individual candidates for commission president and the european policies they represent.
to draw the parallel with london again, national politics are of course still important in voters' minds at the mayoral elections. but i think more important is the individual candidate. interestingly, maverick candidates (i.e. ones that are not party clones) tend to do well in these elections.
(2) "humans are not reasonable":
this is a hard one to discuss without sounding elitist and detached.
let me make the following observations:
- national identity is a tidy form of group identity based on easily identifiable criteria, like language
- group identity is a basic instinct that we all have, and that early in our life we are trained to apply to certain people that we are taught to consider as part of "us"
- the purpose of this instinct is basically to do with trust - the notional that these people are like me and we will look out for each other
- the difference (in this respect) between "elitists" and let's say "proles" is that "elitists" have been more connected with people of other nationality from an early age and therefore have a group identity that transcends national identity. in this sense, i don't think you need to have gone to oxford to be an "elitist".
ok, that is enough pop psychology. what is this national identity really for? i think it is to do with security. i think most people instinctively trust those of the same nationality with defending their rights and freedoms, and don't trust foreigners with this.
however, everyone is also capable of rationality to some degree. it is insulting to claim otherwise. the problem is that politicians very rarely appeal to rationality because they are afraid of failure.
my point is this - the powers granted to the european commission even under lisbon in no way threaten issues of national security. as i noted above, foreign policy, defence and taxation are all subject to national vetos. this reflects the fact that in all european countries, the nation state is the founding stone of national security and as you say, that will not change for a looooong time.
the areas that the commission is truly responsible for (i.e. that are currently subject to qmv) - namely trade, industrial regulation, competition policy, pan-european transport infrastructure, etc, etc - are all areas where most people feel much more comfortable rationalising. so long as the policy debate and the powers of the commission are limited to these areas, i think very few people would feel threatened if this was done at a european level.
there are however grey areas - and i believe i am right in saying that lisbon extends qmv to cover these grey areas - namely issues like immigration, organised crime prevention, etc. i personally have no problem with these being subject to qmv. but i think it is a fair point that in many countries the majority of people may well have a problem with them. so maybe this is a question to put to a referendum BEFORE drafting a detailed treaty (and not the treaty itself, which was always a stupid thing to put to a referendum, as required by the irish constitution).
in any case, none of this contradicts my central thesis that whatever is or is not subject to qmv, the european commission should be democratically elected.
btw, re language - this is important both (a) as a medium for rational debate, and (b) as a means of defining group identity. if you accept the points i make above, then it is mainly (a) that is relevant for a democratically elected commission president. therefore, if 90% of the european population is willing to learn english fluently (which seems to be the case), then i think language is not a problem. your italian example is about (b), i.e. certain italian elitists (ironically) feeling their identity is threatened because the italian language is being polluted by english. i do not believe they are objecting to their fellow italians learning english as a second language. as an obvious counterexample, please note the very recent suggestion by the french government of all people that there be free summer lessons in english for poorer french so that they are not left behind by globalisation, english and not french being the global language.
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If its true that the EU has offered Ireland a bribe to have a second referendum, then this truely is the END OF DEMOCRACY in the EU.
EU = laughing stock. That's more right wing than Hitler
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It seems to me that those pushing the Irish so hard have a lot to learn about the Irish. I happened to be in Ireland when the French President visited Dublin this summer. My Irish friends (as well as those with whom I struck up casual conversations) didn't seem impressed at all. In fact, they seemed quite resentful of the EU. (Some of the parody songs on the radio were very rude too.) What about "no" is so difficult to understand? Why have a vote if you have to keep voting until you get the "correct" answer? Obviously, to be a member the EU thinks that you MUST "go along to get along". That doesn't seem fair to the smaller countries in Europe, who surely need to reatain SOME right to self-determination and their unique identity...
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To threnodio (57):
You make a classic mistake on thinking that democracy means that the elected government does what the people wish it would do.
In representative democracies people elect representatives to parliament that they truest to oversee the country and that represent their interests. Representatives however don't have any obligations to voters, representatives have only obligations to their country and the nation it holds, thus representatives main obligation is to do decisions that are good for the country. This means that representatives sometimes have to make unpopular and unwanted decisions for the good of the country.
If we look at the history of Europea Union, we can see that parliaments and governments have continuously supported the idea of ever closer union. If representatives are favor of European Union and its further more integration, but the people are against it or are unsure, the question that we must ask is not what is wrong in representatives, it's to ask what doesn't the ordinary people know that their representatives know.
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Jukka_Rohila 61
You couldn't be more wrong Representative owe complete obligation to there consituants, they have a moral duty to up-hold commitments made in their party's manifesto. Thats the basis on which they are elected.
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The fact that they often don't is a comlete joke, if a party refuses to live up to its election promises, there should be new elections called.
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#61 - Jukka_Rohila
With the greatest respect, it is you not I who are mistaken.
I cannot fault your definition of representative government - I assume that is what you mean. It does not follow that it is democratic. You are correct in your general assertion that governments are elected by people in accordance with the national constitution of the country concerned for a period of time during which they undertake responsibility for governance for the lifetime of the government. So far we agree.
However, in order to function as a democracy, the elected representatives must first present to the electorate a manifesto to which they are duty bound to adhere unless extraordinary circumstances occur which forces them to to otherwise. In the British case, it is clear that the government has departed so radically from the manifesto on which they were elected that it no longer resembles what the British people voted for. It's moral authority has gone.
As regards the Lisbon Treaty, the mandates given to the majority of member states' governments pre-dates the negotiations in some cases by several years. In 1992, the British government called an election in April just 2 months after the signing of Maastricht which included a manifesto to ratify. There was therefore a clear mandate to do so. This is not the case with Lisbon and it is therefore apparent that a deeply unpopular government is proceeding down a route of action for which they are not mandated. To say that they are entitled to do so in law is perfectly correct. To infer that it is democratic is most certainly not.
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I have every respect for those who can say I dislike this or that country for emotional or historical reason. But not much at attempts to rationalize these feeling as being based on fact or logic.
Dispute in the Balcans and the Caucasus come immediately to mind. The French don't like the Americans because of the 1944 invasion. Not much logic about that is there?
Before 1914 there were were close relationships between Britain and the countries of Continental Europe. Particularly with German, France and Holland.
Understandably, two World Wars changed all that. Even sixty years later many people in Britain still regard the Continent with great suspicion. This is understandable when so many families lost loved ones or suffered years of seperation.
But what should be remembered is that not only has the continental coutries change greatly since 1945, some have change completely, but so has Britain. People both on the Continent and in England or now so completely mixed as to race colour and creed that if you were blind, in many places just listening to voices you would be har put to know in which contry you were.
The is the modern world that the E.U. is a part of and there is no going back.
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The is the modern world that the E.U. is a part of and there is no going back
Thats not the issue, the issue what the E.U. should really be and how it can beformed to be a democractic institution rather than the un-democratic elitiest gravy train it currently is. Its un-representative, and completely unacountable to anyone.
It's the Nazi party of our time and every European country just keeps appeasing it.
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For the record in principal i am all for a European Union just not the institutional corupt one we have art present. Give them more power you must be joking
'Were all Irish Now!'
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@benagyerek (55)
There is a clear advantage Europe already has in today's world. Not a political advantage, due to deficiencies of the concept of its intitutions, but an advantage in the field of knowledge. I will not say culture. European way of life is broadly accepted, at least appreciated.
This is an advantage which should not be compromised by the shortage of its political system. We should not fall into the same old trap, by locking ourselves into our national borders.
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whiteenglishproud
you make some very good points. but i wish you would stop comparing the eu to hitler. i know you are frustrated with the hypocrisy of european politicians, as am i, but when you start talking about hitler and the nazis it just makes you look much less intelligent than you really are. it does not serve your arguments well.
i am not generally a big fan of referendums. people rarely vote on the question being asked, but instead on what they think of the people asking the question. not such a bad grounds for voting i suppose, but it does often produce the "wrong" result, meaning an outcome that voters end up regretting. i also dislike the fact that referendums are (normally) one-off in nature. with a general election, if voters come to regret their decision, they can always change their minds 4 years later.
i am not defending sarkozy et al saying the irish got it wrong and should simply be asked to vote again. that is insulting and wrongheaded. but it is clear from the survey done by the irish government that voters did not understand what they were voting for, so in that sense the result was inevitably "wrong". how can you give the right answer to a question you do not understand, unless by luck?
if there has to be a referendum, it should be on a very clearly worded question of principal, not on a long and by its nature unreadable international treaty (which unfortunately is what i understand the irish constitution requires). i would not be in favour of a uk referendum on the lisbon treaty for this reason. i would prefer to have a general election where ratification is part of the party's manifesto. if you trust the people you are electing, trust them to make the right decision. if they break their promise, kick them out again. that is the principal behind representative democracy.
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Jukka-Rohila @61
You wrote: "...we must ask is not what is wrong in representatives, it's to ask what doesn't the ordinary people know that their representatives know."
That is a naive idea (not that I think you are naive I hasten to add!). The reality of elections is that individual representatives will say anything, promise everything and mean nothing in order to become a representative.
Once they have achieved that role then they are available to freely choose to vote as they please - usually along party affiliated lines as belonging to a political party brings collective responsibility as a ready made excuse if the party gets it wrong the repreentative can step back and say "it was not me, it was them lot that done it!".
In the UK General Election of 2010 (or ealrier if current local political events continue to see the demise of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister) there will be many a Labour Party MP saying exactly that when they go to the hustings.
The problem is not that there is a schism between what the electorate think and the politicians know - it is that the politicians have no ideas for an alternative policy if it comes to life outside of the EU.
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threnodio wrote in #64 that "In 1992, the British government called an election in April just 2 months after the signing of Maastricht which included a manifesto to ratify. There was therefore a clear mandate to do so".
Please remind me what choice we got in the General Election in 1992? Did the Labour Party, the only other party capable of winning the General Election, say that they weren't going to ratify the treaty? My recollection is that they said they would opt into the Social Chapter, therefore EXTENDING the scope of the Treaty.
So please do not say the Tories had a claer mandate to ratify when you know full well that the British electorate was not given a choice at the 1992 general Election.
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benagyerek @ #69
You wrote: "...it is clear from the survey done by the irish government that voters did not understand what they were voting for, so in that sense the result was inevitably "wrong". how can you give the right answer to a question you do not understand, unless by luck?"
Is that so and is there a link to that finding?
I confess that this was my understanding too from newspaper reports but not from any factual accounts but I am now wondering if there is a bit of (to use an Irish phraseology!) "shenanigans" going on with the findings as to why there was an "Irish "No" vote.
lasso23205's comment at #9 has been a real eye opener. If an Irish voter can read then they, literally, had it spelt out to them as to what the Lisbon Treaty was for and what the consequence of a "No" vote would mean.
I am now even more than I was, troubled that there is a suggestion that the Irish made a rational choice through not understanding what they were voting for. I am now convinced that the majority Irish vote was more rational than it was given credit for and delivered to halt the Lisbon Treaty for no other reason that exactly that.
I am also convinced that the Irish "No" vote would have also been the result in some, if not all, other Member States - if the peoples of those nations had been given the choice.
The travesty for this debacle is that the Lisbon Treaty is probably a good thing for the EU but that the desire of the Council of Ministers to deliberately not allow any of the EU Member State peoples to vote was undoubtedly a secret deal to avoid reoccurence of the embarrasement of the previous French, Dutch and Danish Referendums which have derailed EU plans previously.
The Council of Miinsters simply forgot that the Irish have a constitutional right to require a referendum to vote on a treaty that might even slightly impact upon the Irish Constitution - oh that were the case in the EU Member States throughout the EU!
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#71 - busby2
I was taking issue with Jukka-Rohila's view of what constitutes a democracy, not the realities of the '92 election. That having been said, it is the case that the objective of ratification was clearly stated in the Tory manifesto of that year. The fact that no political party with any realistic hope of success came forward with an anti-Maastricht agenda may indeed validate your point that the electorate had no real option but it also tends to suggest a broad measure of agreement across the political spectrum that it was the right way forward.
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Benagyerek (55): Two points initially before returning to our earlier theme:
1. I cannot agree that the mere existence of an international political institution indicates that the people governed by it form a polity willing to be bound by decisions of their majority. If this were true then every empire that ever existed could have been democratic where as none in fact were.
2. Judging by Article 1 of the Constitution of Ireland ("The Irish nation hereby affirms its inalienable, indefeasible, and sovereign right to choose its own form of Government") I should think sovereignty is not a 'disease' unique to the UK. Indeed what is a nation except a community with sufficient common identity that they desire to be governed by themselves and not others?
The two issues we are discussing are 'democratic deficit' and 'democratic legitimacy'. When you said (post 36) that EU "debates all happen between our governments behind closed doors" you are talking about the 'democratic deficit' which is a problem common to all international institutions. In essence it is the danger that the person supposedly speaking on our behalf is actually speaking for himself. It is a particularly serious problem at international level because the decisions reached there are often binding on future governments and generations of voters which is not the case with domestic legislation. The institutionalized form of this effect is 'bureaucratic drift' where a body with delegated power (like the EU Commission) begins to act in its own self-interest and make decisions which those who originally delegated power to it would never have wanted. We see this problem of 'bureaucratic drift' with both the ECJ and the EU Commission who each consistently act to advance the cause of integration that (not co-incidentally) results in more power for the supranational institutions (i.e. themselves). Your suggestion is to directly elect the EU Commission but I am doubtful that this would correct the problem. The EU Parliament is directly elected and also exhibits the same tendency to vote to advance its own interest (e.g. by supporting the Lisbon treaty that gives it more power) when it is obvious that the voters they supposedly represent would vote to do the opposite.
Furthermore your suggestion would lead to two other problems:
1. The current system of selecting the Commission via a long 'chain of delegation' was designed to insulate common market regulations from the pressures of democratic politics. Directly electing the Commission would likely result in more protectionism.
2. If the Commission was directly elected the winner might mistakenly believe they had a true democratic mandate to push forward a politicized program onto nations against their will. Democratic legitimacy means that a decision is accepted as legitimate if it is supported by a majority of population, but this principle is only accepted within nations. (If this were not the case there would be no nation-states in the world and the Indians and Chinese would largely decide everything for us). A politicized EU Commission would rapidly expose the 'democratic legitimacy' problem that is unique to the EU (due to QMV) leading to the break-up of the organization as countries secede to avoid being forced to live under policies they strongly object to.
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As the Euro sinks slowly. As the euroland economies begin to implode, soon it will be just a question of survival and the treaty will do little to address that. When you see your assets and your job disappearing down the EU drain. I suppose few will be much interested in the welfare of the EU gravy train members and and their families who are gainfully employed. to oversee this government of fellow travellers. The clock is ticking and it'll soon be midnight and then the golden coach will change back into a humble pumpkin. Because the EU shoe will never fit all no matter how hard you squeeze.
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menedemus @ 72 this is the link to what i have been reading. i think this is a preliminary report, whereas mark seems to be referring to a fuller survey (presumably also eurobarometer) in his article. [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator] i have to admit i feel very ambivalent towards this treaty and don't know how i would have voted. i think most of what it contains is a step in the right direction, and i have no problem with extending qmv, although lisbon takes it to the limit of acceptability in my opinion. but i do have a problem with the treaty's total failure to address the democratic deficit, as i have been banging on about ad nauseum, and i naively hope that a huge crisis might be what's needed to make our governments start thinking along these lines.
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Benagyerek (55): P.S. I do not think the sovereignty issue can be reduced to fear in the UK that we will always be in the minority. Can you tell me under what circumstances we would we want to be in a majority that forces other nations to do what they do not want to do?
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"They (the English) are not only jealous of their own liberty, but even of that of other nations." - Voltaire 'Lettres sur les Anglais' (1733)
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freeborn-john @ 74
"I cannot agree that the mere existence of an international political institution indicates that the people governed by it form a polity willing to be bound by decisions of their majority. If this were true then every empire that ever existed could have been democratic where as none in fact were."
sorry, i obviously did not explain myself clearly. my point is that the existence of the ec with the powers that it has PRESUPPOSES the existence of a polity. this is the case whether the ec is elected or appointed. if you do not think the polity exists, imo this is grounds for saying the ec should not exist or its powers scaled back, not an argument about making it democratically accountable.
"Judging by Article 1 of the Constitution of Ireland ("The Irish nation hereby affirms its inalienable, indefeasible, and sovereign right to choose its own form of Government") I should think sovereignty is not a 'disease' unique to the UK. Indeed what is a nation except a community with sufficient common identity that they desire to be governed by themselves and not others?"
yes, but nations should also be free to choose to pool their sovereignty if they want. i agree that if the irish people felt strongly they did not want to be part of an eu that compromises their national sovereignty in any way (and the eu as it exists now compromises national sovereignty a lot), they should be free to choose to exit (as the lisbon treaty would allow), or maybe just to opt out wholesale from areas they don't like, as the uk does.
i am sorry that my previous comments were drafted in a rather spiteful way. but i think it is true that the debate in england about the whole principle "giving up sovereignty to brussels" is pretty unique, and in other countries people are much more comfortable with the idea. maybe not in ireland, i don't know.
The two issues we are discussing are 'democratic deficit' and 'democratic legitimacy'.
yes, i agree these two things are different concept, and my arguments have focused on democratic accountability, i.e. the "democratic deficit". i agree all institutions, elected or otherwise, tend to accumulate power even if that is not what their electors (be it voters or governments) wanted. but again i think you are ignoring the very important point that the ec's power and legitimacy will always be heavily outweighed by the power and legitimacy of the council (i.e. the european national governments). no democratically elected commission president could claim to have a mandate to push through reform that was clearly and strongly opposed by one or more national governments, given the much stronger allegiances felt by voters to their nation than to the eu. and even if it did try, in the more politically sensitive areas the national governments still wield a veto.
"The current system of selecting the Commission via a long 'chain of delegation' was designed to insulate common market regulations from the pressures of democratic politics. Directly electing the Commission would likely result in more protectionism."
not sure i understand the argument about protectionism. i assume you talk about eu protectionism vs the rest of the world, e.g. at doha. unfortunately the eu is already very protectionist because the national governments are.
i get your more general point though. it is the same argument used for having independent central banks and judiciary. the problem is that the commission has moved way beyond the role of a technocratic organisation akin to a central bank or supreme court. as you mentioned yourself, its role is to propose european law. the areas in which it can now propose law are no longer limited to narrow technical issues of trade and industry regulation. i do think that european law does now need to originate from a democratic dialogue with the european public conducted through the ballot box. if the result is populist protectionism, so be it. the public needs to learn the consequences of the bad policies that it sometimes chooses. that is democracy. in the long run the public learns from its mistakes, and the democratic process comes out with the right policies.
"If the Commission was directly elected the winner might mistakenly believe they had a true democratic mandate to push forward a politicized program onto nations against their will. Democratic legitimacy means that a decision is accepted as legitimate if it is supported by a majority of population, but this principle is only accepted within nations. (If this were not the case there would be no nation-states in the world and the Indians and Chinese would largely decide everything for us). A politicized EU Commission would rapidly expose the 'democratic legitimacy' problem that is unique to the EU (due to QMV) leading to the break-up of the organization as countries secede to avoid being forced to live under policies they strongly object to."
again, your arguments boil down to where to draw the line on qmv. you seem to think it is a bad thing that an elected ec would expose this issue. quite the contrary in my opinion. i doubt you would have multiple countries seceding. if it angered that many electorates, you would instead find that national governments agreed to roll back qmv and reintroduce the national veto.
i already addressed above your comments about the ec's democratic mandate being abused. i would add that i think that like any elected politician, the commission president would assume he has a mandate to do whatever the institutional constraints on him allow him to do, and whatever he thinks will be popular enough to get him reelected. if european voters really thought as you seem to describe, they would elect someone who would promise to do precisely nothing, and reelect someone who stuck to that promise. and if e.g. only uk voters thought this way, and other european voters wanted a more pro-active commission, then uk voters could elect a uk government that promises to veto everything that comes out of brussels, or in the worst case to secede from the eu altogether.
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menedemus @ 72
as i fear, my response at 76 got automatically pinged because it contained a weblink. that is why i did not give it in my earlier postings.
just google "eurobarometer irish referendum lisbon". it should be the first result.
i am personally very ambivalent about the lisbon treaty and would not know which way to vote in a referendum. i think it is mainly a step in the right direction. i don't have a problem with the extension of qmv, although i think lisbon takes it to the absolute limit of acceptability. however, i am frustrated that our governments have again foregone the opportunity to address the democratic deficit that i have been banging on about on this blog ad nauseum. i naively hope that a second irish no vote and a real crisis might finally get them to start thinking along these lines.
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freeborn-john @ 77
yes. in a situation where (a) i know that same minority nation is in the majority on vast majority of other votes (which should be true of all nations under qmv), and (b) the european law i am helping to impose on them is not so objectionable that they would prefer to secede from the eu altogether. pretty simple really.
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#73 threnodio
You wrote "The fact that no political party with any realistic hope of success came forward with an anti-Maastricht agenda may indeed validate your point that the electorate had no real option but it also tends to suggest a broad measure of agreement across the political spectrum that it was the right way forward".
I think this only shows that the political establishment supported the Treaty and that the views of the establisment have nothing to do with democracy or the will of the people. The vote to put the Maastrict treaty to a referendum was opposed by the Govt and the opposition because they both knew the treaty would be defeated in a referendum.
In Ireland just about the whole of the political and business establishment lined up to support the Lisbon Treaty and their views were soundly rejected in the referendum. There were similar results on the Constitution in France and the Netherlands where the views of the political and business establishment and the Commission were also rejected by substantial margins. The Swedish electorate also voted against joining the Euro contrary to the received wisdom of their political and business establishment.
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Keep voting until you get it right. That is the message we've been getting from Brussels ever since the brave Irish rejected the anti-democratic EU's anti-democratic Lisbon Treaty.
@Jukka Rohila (61)
Why do 'main stream' politicians tend to support the EU? Well, as said many times before, that is a very simple question. The EU is a politicians dream, a massive gravy train. And what's probably best of all, those who really make the decision are no(t) (longer) subject to parliamentary control. They can bypass delected national parliaments altogether.
And furthermore, no national politician has a mandate to permanently cede the powers of national governments and parliaments to an altogether new layer of government (EU), which was created without popular consent.
@benagyerek (44)
The EU has never been about promoting democracy. Right from the start, the idea was to eliminate democracy, but Monnet and co recognized this would have to be done covertly, by letting national democratic institutions continue to exist, but slowly hollow out their powers and transfer those to an unelected unaccountable body of politicians (hence EU commission).
@jwwhite (11)
Is it that you hate democracy so much that you want to ram the undemocratic EU's anti-democratic Lisbon Treaty through so badly?
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busby2 @ 81
..yes, because european electorates no longer trust their political establishments when it comes to the eu, because the eu is fundamentally undemocratic and takes power out of the electorates' hands...
btw, in case you hadn't noticed, it looks like mark got bored with this thread and started a new one..
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mcdv-1975 @ 82
"The EU has never been about promoting democracy. Right from the start, the idea was to eliminate democracy, but Monnet and co recognized this would have to be done covertly, by letting national democratic institutions continue to exist, but slowly hollow out their powers and transfer those to an unelected unaccountable body of politicians (hence EU commission)."
sorry, but this is just paranoia. there was never any thought out plot by european governments in the 1950s to erode democracy. politicians do not plan that far ahead.
when i say that the eu was a tool for promoting democracy, i mean democracy at the level of the nation state. please reread my post, and this will be clear. your objection is to the lack of democracy at the european level and the transfer of power / sovereignty from the nation states up to this level. i don't think your objection really contradicts my point.
in fact, i actually agree with your objection, as should be clear from all my posts. however, i don't think we got into this situation simply because our governments are devious. rather, i think it has been an incremental effect. the original eec did not need to be democratic because the powers passed to it were not so controversial and its remit quite technocratic. it was basically a civil service controlled by the 6 nations of the eu.
powers have passed up to the european level incrementally, treaty by treaty. each time, national governments have done this because the eu has proved a very successful forum for solving policy issues that national governments cannot solve alone. each time governments have signed a new treaty elevating more policy areas to the european level, they also had the opportunity to decide that things had reached a tipping point where so much policy was being proposed and decided in brussels that greater democratic accountability was required.
the "conspiracy" amongst our governments is that they always put off addressing the growing democratic deficit. a bit like people sometimes put off dealing with their tax returns. our governments know that having a democratically elected commission president would create someone who could shine a light for the public on the whole policy debate in brussels, and the public probably won't like everything they see. it would mean they lose control of the project back to the public. so they have always put off addressing the issue.
clearly, we are already well beyond that tipping point now, as i suspect most "no" voters in the various referendums mentioned by busby2 intuitively sense.
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Benagyerek (80): My answer would be that a majority of countries should only be able to compel another (i.e. force it against the majority opinion of its own electorate) to prevent that country from harming the interests of another. Otherwise each country should be free to govern themselves in accordance with the majority opinion of their voters no matter what anyone outside that country thinks. This leads to a free and peaceful world of voluntarily co-operating democratic states.
Based on your answer it seems you support the maximum international despotism that nations will tolerate before they revolt? Well the EU revolt is under way…
Jukka Rohila (61) said: "You make a classic mistake on thinking that democracy means that the elected government does what the people wish it would do… Representatives however don't have any obligations to voters, representatives have only obligations to their country"
First the lust for collective power, and now this statement. You disturb me more and more.
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"#13: In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view; one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction" – Umberto Eco ('Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt')
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come on freeborn-john. don't hijack my words.
countries can choose to be in the eu or to exit it and join the eea instead (or when it comes down to it, to stay in the eu, but just to opt out of certain policy areas). if you don't like what the majority says, you always have the choice to exit and keep your precious national sovereignty. if your country is really so different in its views from the rest of the eu that you always find yourself outvoted, it is better just to leave.
in reality, no country will be in a minority except on rare occasions. not even the uk. qmv makes sure of that. and whether finding yourself outvoted is a big deal or not depends very much on what is being voted on. consider these examples:
- if the uk gets outvoted on what the standard sizes of condoms should be, i think we can all live with that.
- if we get outvoted on whether to raise income tax, this would be a very big problem, which is why we would always have a veto under lisbon (and this would never come to a vote in europe anyway).
- if we got outvoted on whether to give europol more access to national police data, well this one is debatable. personally, i am comfortable to give up a veto, as i think we would never be in a diametrically opposed viewpoint to the other european nations on an issue like this (although there will always be disagreements on the details). but if the majority of brits disagrees with me on this (which i suspect they do) then either we need a veto or an opt out or (if other eu nations will not agree to give us the first two options and the british public feels strongly enough) we need to leave the eu altogether. however, i do not think that the majority of the public in france, germany or most other places in the eu would object to giving up their vetos on a subject like this.
this question of what areas should be subject to qmv and what subject to national vetos is something that clearly has to be addressed more openly in consultation with the public right before lisbon can be ratified, maybe by a referendum, maybe by a more open policy debate like milliband suggests.
but again, the question of qmv is totally separate from the question of whether the commission should be democratically accountable. unless you want to strip the commission of the powers that it already has under the existing treaties (which frankly is not going to happen), we need to have democratic accountability. and i think this step should come before the debate about giving up further vetos. i think an election of the commission president would be the ideal context to discuss these matters in the public domain.
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returning to Marks article. I have no idea where the Irish Governmet's researchers found that 38% of NO voters thought that the Lisbon Treaty would lead to conscription in Ireland. I avidly watched all the TV coverage and read everything I could find during the debate and do not recall conscription being mentioned even once. European armies yes but NOT conscription.
The questions asked in a survey and how they are asked can be manipulated to provide any result the paymaster wants. Ask a question about conscription and people will feel they have to give you an answer.
That having been said, if there was a European army and all 27 States contributed to it and if the leaders of the United States of Europe went to war against another superpower then YES that would create a situation where there would be have to be conscription !
Question: Would we ever get to war or would somebody exercise their veto or could we poosibly go under QMV.
Sorry I am being facetious. I await the FULL publication of the Irish Governments survey on why we voted NO
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41. At 11:12am on 12 Sep 2008, Menedemus wrote:
"I have no rancour with your statement but it is simply an ignorance of the real fabric of the mix of peoples that make up the British Isles and how well they do live side-by-side without the hatreds of times long past."
I totally agree with your statement ;-)
Only to remind you the Irish feel themselves inside the European family... Do you, English fellows? Time to make up your mind!
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Benagyerek (86): The Lisbon treaty already includes a measure whereby the majority in the EU Parliament would propose the Commission president. It will not solve anything any more than introducing an elected EU Parliament solved anything because the problem is not one of institutions. If it were then the solution would be trivial because we could take a tried and trusted institutional architecture with impeccable democratic credentials (e.g. the US Constitution) and apply that instead of Lisbon. But the result would actually be catastrophic for the reasons I have tried to explain. Ask yourself why Northern Ireland blew up when just two communities lived under a Stormont parliament modelled on Westminster, or why the Balkans erupted when a federal model was introduced, and extrapolate that mess to Continental scale because that is where simplistic ideas that ignore the human element lead.
The problem of international governance is not one of institutional imperfection but rather is in our heads in the form of our strong sense of national identities; identities which are not going away in the lifetime of anyone reading this.
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benegyerek #86
How about when the French government wants to lower the tax on gasoline because the high cost of fuel is crippling its economy but the bosses in Brussels say no, that would be a violation of EU law? Not so trite or trivial an issue as the standard size of condoms, is it?
You think that Britain will always have a veto because of the opt outs described as red lines? Think again. Those red lines only last for 5 years after which the UK conforms to ALL of Lisbon or faces penalties imposed without limit by a board it is not even represented on.
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f-j @ 89
democratic institutions fail when you have two distinct nationalities trying to live under the same roof. see belgium for example. the reason is that all political debate is reduced to a struggle by one nation not to be dominated by the other. croats don't want to be dominated by serbs. catholics don't want to be dominated by protestants.
the situation in the eu is very different, as no nation comes anywhere near to dominating. it is a much more fluid situation. that is why i don't think any nation (apart maybe from the uk) would feel threatened in such a system (especially as the big issues would remain subject to national vetos). on the other hand, if the eu still comprised only 6 nations, i would agree with you entirely.
re your comments on the european parliament, the proposal under lisbon is a joke. we need a system where voters know exactly which ec president they are voting for when they go to the polls. they need their vote to be meaningful and result directly in the appointment of the winning candidate. the person they are voting for needs to be someone high profile who clearly has the power and status to do something meaningful, even if that meaningful thing is only to lay out a clear agenda for europe that voters actually subscribe to, instead of the big mess that our national governments have given us.
ma2 @ 90
tax issues should remain subject to a veto, so the situation you describe should not arise. there are no "bosses in brussels" dictating what happens. everything is ultimately decided by a vote among the european governments in the council.
i agree that the opt-outs negotiated by the uk in lisbon seem very weak and transitory. my personal view is that these were opt-outs were not needed anyway.
but the more i think about it, the more i think lisbon does have to die. there can be no more relinquishment of the national veto until we have first dealt with the democratic deficit and had a proper open public debate about the direction europe should be headed.
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message to the moderator - i don't seem to be able to post anything on the "is europe cut off" thread. some kind of technical problem?
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benagyerek (91): The EU is not unpopular because of the lack of a powerful Commission president. It is unpopular because it is seen to have too much power and to be interfering too much. Your answer is an elected Commission president "who clearly has the power and status to do something meaningful"! Frankly it is crazy suggestion that would only make matters worse and repeating your proposal endlessly will not change that simple truth.
Do you have anything to say about railroading the treaty past the Irish? Presumably that is the type of 'powerful' and 'meaningful' leadership action you think will make the EU popular?
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betuli @88 wrote:
Only to remind you the Irish feel themselves inside the European family... Do you, English fellows? Time to make up your mind!
If the EU was my 'family', it would be my devout wish to be orphaned.... ;-)
As an Englishman I know that the Irish don't take kindly to being bullied.
'No' means 'no'. The behavior of some EUrophiles is getting dangerously close to that of a over-excited brute who turns rapist. Back off!
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benagyerek, just look at the news of a few weeks ago about the French gasoline tax situation and you will see that exactly what I said happened. Despite protests in the streets of French cities, the French government was helpless to act because it had relinquished much sovereignty over its economy to the bosses in Brussels. This is the price Europeans have and will continue to pay for their ego boosting notion of being a major political player in the world comparable to the USA, one not justified on the basis of facts. Not only is the concept of it badly flawed, the method of execution is hopeless blunder piled upon hopeless blunder based on lies and irrational reasoning. That is why I like it so much. It makes Europeans individually and collectively far easier people to compete against.
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@Freeborn John (85)
I too find it worrying that some people seem to blindly support the EU and all the centralization of powers and collectivist mindset without ever questioning why.
Its one of the EU aspects that worries me the most, the ceaseless and endless centralization and moving decision making powers away from democratic influence.
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freeborn-john
you still don't get it, do you? let me make it simple for you.
there should be no more centralisation of power in brussels and the lisbon treaty should be rejected. i totally agree that people don't want it, and so it should not happen.
but even without lisbon, the european commission already wields way too much power for what is basically a bunch of unelected bureaucrats. that is why the commission MUST be made democratically accountable.
your position seems to be that there should be no democracy in brussels, and instead everything in brussels should be made subject to a national veto. i think this view is totally unrealistic as it would make the eu completely unworkable. but maybe the truth is that this is what you actually want to happen.
in any case, to argue against making the commission answerable to ordinary voters because "there is no european polity" strikes me as arrogant and insulting to ordinary voters. you say voters are unreasonable, that they are incapable of thinking outside of the confines of their own national loyalty. i think this is rubbish. we are not talking about northern ireland here! 90% of europeans are perfectly capable of finding common cause with other europeans.
on the other hand, i do think people are quite right to be unreasonable when they are ignored and condescended to, like they have been by their politicians for the last five decades on the issue of europe. but give them a meaningful say over the european union, instead of that pointless talking shop the european parliament, and i think the public will respond enthusiastically. real consultation in europe, and not the occasional sham referendum, is exactly what people are crying out for.
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benagyerek, thank you for making my point for me. Europe's cultures all have in common the belief that the way government should be structured is though centralization of power which is held by an elite. The only disagreement is over whom that elite should consist of. And that because they have all of the answers for everyone, they alone should create all of the laws uniformly applied and enforced over every aspect of life. In other words Europe is an inherently anti-democratic region of the world. That its inhabitants barely whimper at the reality of this proves that they are sheep to be led to the slaughter. In America such an idea would lead to a revolution, blood in the streets. And it did 232 years ago. This kind of governance whether at a national level or at a corporate level has proven time and again to be the worst, most ineffective, least flexible, least responsive method, a virtually guaranteed failure every single time. The USSR is proof. Even those which appear temporarily successful fail in the end. China will be an example.
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Benagyerek (97): If an organisation wields "way too much power" the answer is to reduce that power. You are saying that electing the head of the EU Commission is a magic bullet solution to the EU's ills, but you are not providing any reasons as to why what you propose will work.
Therefore let me ask you the following direct question to which I hope you will respond to with a convincing answer: Can you please explain the apparent paradox that directly electing the EU Parliament and increasing its powers since 1979 has been coincident with rising concern that the EU is a threat to democracy?
Unless you can explain why that seeming paradox would not also apply to a directly elected Commission president the conclusion must be that what you propose now is no more the answer than directly electing the EU Parliament was in 1979.
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"In those countries where different races dwell together ... the power of the imperial parliament must be limited as jealously as the power of the crown, and many of its functions must be discharged by provincial diets". (Lord Acton 'Essays in the History of Liberty' describing the Austrian Empire in 1862).
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freeborn
pls stop misquoting me. i said the commission has way too much power FOR AN UNELECTED ENTITY. if the mayor of london was unelected i would say the same about that post as well. you could not logically conclude that london would therefore be better off with a powerless but still unelected mayor.
"Can you please explain the apparent paradox that directly electing the EU Parliament and increasing its powers since 1979 has been coincident with rising concern that the EU is a threat to democracy?"
the european parliament has no ability to put forward an agenda for europe.
- it cannot propose legislation
- it has no identifiable figurehead that voters could choose between at elections
- it is frankly dull
how many people in london know who their representative on the london assembly is? how many listen to debates of the london assembly? how many even know that the london assembly exists? very few i suspect.
whereas everyone in london knows who the mayor is and everyone takes an interest in the policy discussions that the mayor initiates. for example the current discussion about highrise construction in london - this is a discussion that simply would not happen in the public arena without the elected mayoralty. it would have been lost in amongst all the other national issues debated in westminster, and londoners would not have had the opportunity to steer the debate in the direction they want.
what the european debate needs now is to be shaken up by someone who can credibly claim to represent what the european public really wants, and can shine a torch on what our national governments are doing in brussels. a commission president that is elected (and subject to reelection) can fulfill this role. the european parliament cannot for the reasons i give above.
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Benagyerek (100): I think you did not explain why the introduction of direct elections to the EU parliament and increasing its powers since 1979 has failed to give its decisions a democratic legitimacy. To illustrate do you feel that the EU Parliament voting 378-262 to scrap the UK's opt-out from the Working time directive has democratic legitimacy in the UK? Or its 129-499 rejection of the measure 'The European Parliament undertakes to respect the outcome of the referendum in Ireland' has a democratic legitimacy in Ireland? If not why do you think that electing the Commission president in the same way as the EU Parliament would give its legislative proposals democratic legitimacy?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/8864b2f6-c186-11d9-943f-00000e2511c8.html
The answer that you did provide indicates that you want one of types of election for either:
(a) A Commission president who is rather restrained (like Barosso) in the use of the agenda-setting powers of the Commission such that your election would be deliberately low-key and not lead to much, or
(b) A Commission president who runs on a much more distinctive (i.e. politicised) agenda for Europe than at present. Your assumption is that to win a direct election from a multinational electorate would give this figure the same kind of legitimacy enjoyed by those with a national mandate to push a politicised agenda. That works in a nation-state with a federal form of government because outvoted regions (e.g. California in the last US presidential election) abide by majority decisions of the American people due to a national solidarity that does not exist at pan-European level. The election of such a politicised head of the Commission would instead rapidly expose fractures along national-lines tending towards the break-up of the EU. Ask yourself what the British reaction would be to a strongly dirigiste Commission agenda backed by French and German voters? Or the French reaction to a liberalising agenda such as eliminating agricultural subsidies and tariffs in WTO talks?
So which of type of election ((a) or (b)) are you proposing; elections about nothing or ones that will exacerbate tensions in an already fragile organisation and drive it onto the rocks? And if (a) how you stop people running with a politicised agenda?
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Re post 100, the E.U. lacks democratic legitimacy not beause it has no elected leaders with real power, but becuase in the last 20 years it has failed to hear the very real message of the European population that it wants the E.U. to have less powers, not more.
They want powers repatriated to the nation states, where they have a political system which does have some mesaure of accountability. They want decisions taken as close to them as possible, not in some region on the fringe of Europe. (Brussels/Strasbourg)
Perhaps a straight choice could be given to electors. They could have a referendum with a clear choice. The voters could either vote to allow an elected head of the E.U. to weild powers the E.U. currently has or alternatively return those pwers to the member states. Leaving the E.U. to return to a common market helping to regulate free trade.
As you are interested in giving the european people's a true say to help E.U. legitimacy, I take it you would be in favour of such a vote.
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Many people have referenced my statement about the next Lisbon Treaty vote in Ireland being, not about Yes or Not but In or Out, they mention bullying and not accepting the right of the people to say no. My response:
- It is very easy to stand up and proclaim that the Irish people should sacrifice their economic achievement on the alter of democracy, but the economic and political reality is that an isolated Ireland would never have achieved the economic successes of the past, so what makes people think that isolation today will support this prosperity into the future? This is about jobs, economic success and participation in a Europe that will be far more effective at protecting the Irish people from the challenges of the 21st Century than Ireland alone.
-Secondly, what is undemocratic about going back to the people? Surely they are voting, and therefore democratic! But the Irish people need to fully understand the REALITY of the situation, it IS Yes or No, Participation or Isolation, Economic Achievement or Stagnation, Outward Orientated or Inward Orientated and simply In or Out. If they vote No, the Irish will suffer, that is not bullying that is REALITY.
Do the bloggers here believe that a second Irish No is in IRELAND's best interest knowing the likely next steps or are you even considering that?
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Re post 103, the next steps are very clear, it was laid out by the E.U. If there was not unanimous support in all of the E.U. countries for the proposed treaty. it would not pass.
So the treaty should be dead and buried. What the E.U. now needs to do is go back to the people and listen to what they are saying.
In the mean time, despite protestations that failure to ratify the consitution and its succesor would result in calamity, I notice the E.U is still functioning pretty much as it always has done.
It is now more difficult for it to give itself more powers, but I do not think that is a bad thing.
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The next steps in the manual are clear, they were clear before the Danish second referendum in the early 1990's but the EU had created plans to sideline Denmark and implement Maastrict without them.
I agree that EU has important issues that must be addressed but should the Irish people sacrifice their economic success for them? Who is thinking of what is in Ireland's interest here, the bloggers speak about the EU and the challenges they face at length, but this is actually about what happens to Irish membership and the unfortunate reality is that a second No will have, ultimately, serious consequences for Irish membership and Irish economic prosperity.
Plus who has caused more damage to member states, the EU or national government policies? e.g. Labour policy, economic policy, taxation policy..all reside with member states. Worth a think I believe.
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jwwhite021 (105): A part of Ireland's early economic success may be attributed to EU funding but Ireland is now becoming a net contributor to the EU budget. Its success is far more due to its good relations with the wider world (especially inward investors from the US), and a dynamic, low-tax business environment which is regarded in Brussels as 'unfair tax competition'.
The richest European countries (Norway, Switzerland and Iceland) are not in the EU because they would (like Ireland in the coming years) pay a lot to be members and do not want to sacrifice their democracy. Of the countries that are EU members those that do not use the Euro (Sweden, Denmark, UK) or are outside the Schengen-area (UK, Ireland) are the most affluent. The slowest growing European economies over the last two decades are those like Germany, Italy and France most closely associated with the relentless demands for 'ever closer union'. The evidence therefore is that 'more Europe' is actually as bad for your wealth as it is for your democracy.
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31Jukka_Rohila
I am thankful to say that , though a British citizen , I no longer live in a European member state .
You evidently speak from within the European commission or parliament .
You have at your fingertips all the EU propaganda and you evidently believe it , and in the European superstate being created .
As seen from afar , The European Union has an image the size of the smallest new member state .
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103 jwwhite021
You express here exactly the heavy handed attitude of the EU to member states , " You either Conform as we tell you to or you are out " If the Irish voted no a second time , the EU has no powers to Expel them . The EU can do nothing about it .
The people of no other country have been given a say on the Lisbon treaty ; if they had , Ireland would certainly not be alone .
What You are suggesting " Is Bullying "!!
A second Irish NO VOTE would be in the interests of all the other member states that were forbidden a referendum
THE EU needs a big smack in the eye !!
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88 Betuli
You say the Irish feel within the European family , do the British .
As a British citizen , I say without hesitation , " NO , NO , NO !!!
I have lived in Italy and speak fluent Italian , my daughter is married to a German and lives in Berlin .
I give NO allegence to the EU !
I am BRITISH !!! but with an international outlook to the world at large .
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Hi Mark, I have been reading a lot of your blogs over the last year especailly about the Lisbon Treaty and disagree strongly with a comment you made on this blog.
"While 78% of those voted correctly"
This is a very BIAS point of view from you.
In a Referendum there is no Correct or Incorrect answer. Referendum is where people made a decision "Yes" of "No" to proceed with the question in hand.
I voted No because valid questions that were asked during the Lisbon Treaty were brush off by the government and kept talking about previous benefits we got from the EU, which were due to the previous treaties and agreement. So bull was pasted over our eyes. Vulnerable people was swayed by this.
Also the "Solidarity clause" was very very vague , it did not limit the type of support i.e. military. I have no problem with Ireland coming to an aid of other countries in term of natural/Industrial disasters, But when it comes to Fighting Wars (i.e iraq) in which the founders of the EC/EU wanted to prevent this from happening again in Europe, then the EU has miserably failed in preventing members from doing so.
Also there is a part in which allow the leaders to self amend the Treaties. These questions about what does this entails got brushed off with spoof by our government like they were trying to sweep it under the carpet.
I have read and listen to everything on what the government said and the Referendum commission have sent out. The "No Campaign" had no effect on my decision. I already knew they had their own agenda with misinformation which was blatantly obvious if you read the Referendum Commission leaflet. It was the Government lack of clarity and understanding and reasoning of the Lisbon Treaty which ended in me deciding to Vote NO.
Brian Cowen was very aggressive about it, and kept saying in a bullying manner "we are either In Europe or Out" He cannot pull us out of EU there is no legal framework to do so, which show his inability to understand EU workings. If they were elections soon after the Referendum I bet the Irish government would be kicked out of office for their poor performance.
The Lisbon Treaty is a treaty amending previous treaties. I want to read these amendment in their context with existing treaty. I found out there is no EU publish versions of the amended treaties to read.
It just like after Sept11th 2001 when Bush got through unsavoury legislations through in the middle of the night in a method the the US polotions did not understand what they voted on.
Personally I think the whole commissioner thing is Bull. The commissioner is an EU Civil Servant, not their country Civil Servant. Claiming by having a commissioner to express their country point of view is ridiculous. They cannot represent their country because their Job entails that they must represents the EU as a whole.
If the commissioner do act only on behalf of their country then they should be fired.
It up to each country leaders and ministers and MEP's to express the countries view in which they regularly do.
For EU Leaders claiming this Treaty is more democratic was torpedo when they started bypassing the people. You cannot claim that something is more democratic by not giving the people their say and approval.
Luckily for Ireland, Our Constitution and Court system protects our right to choose and prevent our Leader from bypassing us.
If EU leaders want me to "vote Yes" then they must show their support for their people by their actions and less actions on overriding/bypassing their own people or other nations people decisions. The Irish Government has fail in their duty and got punished for it. In the end of the Lisbon campaign, there was more misinformation from the Irish Government than they were from the No campaign.
I am pro-democracy, Pro-EU and I vote No to Lisbon Treaty.
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Together, we STAND
Divided, we FALL
Like it or not, this is the world today.
All about food, living space ("territory") and status quo! (greatly simplified, but basically the case)
Go back in time and look Neolithic onwards
(or go into the remote Brazilian forest or Borneo, for examples)
First "families" struggling against "families"
then tribes "alliances of families" struggling against other tribes
then "ethnic" regions struggling against other ethnic regions
then coming together into "(near) ethnic countries" struggling against other countries
and now?
Blocks (alliances) of countries struggling against other alliances. Integrate into one of the (power) blocks - or perish!
EoS!
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One day the world may possibly need to be united to stand against some menace from "outside". Who, with 100% certainty can definitely say this will NEVER be the case? Will "humanity" ever be ready??
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Rcaryo (111): Yours is the same logic as that of Jukka Rohilla (post 12); the pursuit of power as the ultimate end in itself, with no room for democracy or liberty. It must be a great puzzle to you that there are more and more states in the world and not less (up from 60 in 1945 to 200 today), and that Singapore and Switzerland have not only not perished but are the most prosperous countries in their regions.
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"#9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such "final solutions" implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament." Umberto Eco ('Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt')
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