Who's running the EU?
When the US president turns up for the EU summit in Prague whose hand will he shake? The Czech government, which holds the presidency of the European Council, has fallen. As I write it is uncertain what will happen next.
It seems it is now up to the profoundly Eurosceptic President Vaclav Klaus to appoint a new caretaker government. Parties opposed to the Lisbon Treaty are gleeful - they feel it is unlikely he will put anyone in place who would get the treaty through the senate.
Governments have fallen before during a presidency, so will it make any difference? It may make a difference to complex negotiations over subjects like the Working Time Directive if the ministers who chair the meeting change: it would be quite a job getting on top of the brief. Equally, if there was a big crisis involving the EU, it wouldn't be clear who was in charge. I expect President Sarkozy is standing by the phone awaiting the call.
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 
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I don't expect President Sarkozy is standing by the phone awaiting the call: I cannot imagine President Sarkozy waiting for anything or anyone.
He is probably already calling - no - he'll probably announce some of his ideas about EU leadership in a random press conference today.
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At every turn, the EU seems to expose it's own systemic failures - and I write this from an enthusiast viewpoint. The idea of a rotating 6 month presidency from each of the 27 was always absurd. When one of the big countries has the chair, there is a huge rush to push 'radical' measures often with half baked outcomes. When second tier countries have a turn, it is usually accompanied by by low expectations.
Why would Sarkozy be waiting for a call? Does the presidency automatically default to the previous holder in such an event? (That is not sarcasm, by the way. It is a serious question). If not, why Sarkozy? I would imagine Klaus as head of state is still in a position to do the handshaking, Baroso can represent the Union's position and Brown's team, as host of the G.20 can do the donkey work.
Does this not also betray an inherent conflict of interest? After all, France, Germany, Italy and the UK - as members of G.8 are there in their own right. Should they also have double representation in the form of an EU delegation? Would the EU not be better giving a collective voice to the smaller nations who otherwise would not be at the top table?
It takes a situation like this to point up the need for a new arrangement of some sort - an arrangement which would have been offered either by the dead constitution or by Lisbon. Sadly, the collective leadership so badly bungled the Lisbon process that it's future must be in doubt. All over Europe, as I write, there will be political groupings hoping to seize the moment, mobilise anti-Lisbon feeling in the Czech Republic and use it as a springboard to mount a fightback.
The EU must find a mechanism to sort out this mess and prevent it happening again and this time they must do so in an upfront way and seek the approval of their ultimate masters - the people. Surely it is now obvious that this is the only way forwards.
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threnodio @ #2
All very good questions and, although it will create howls of derision, such questions would be irrelevant if the Lisbon Treaty were to be ratified as the EU would (although probably not in this instance because of delays) have an elected EU President, in place, to perform the very role to which is likely to fall to Vaclav Klaus on this occasion.
I think Mark is being mischievous with his reference to President Sarkozy as he knows the groundswell of opinion from his regular commentators will be cries of derision. The simple fact of the matter is that Sarkozy has no more right to represent himself as the "Leader" or "Representative" of the EU than I little ol' me!
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Have you seen this, Mr Mardell?
Daniel Hannan MEP: The devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs
This is one of the most superb political speeches ever. I look forward to reading your comments on it.
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Whose hand should he shake ? Who should he phone ?
Rather inconveniently he should phone the NATIONAL LEADERS because that is where the power should lie, because, like it or not WE ARE NOT A UNITED STATES OF EUROPE !!!
And the sooner that we stop pretending that we are the better. That may be inconvenient for Obama, and mean more hands to shake, and more phone calls to make, but he will easily understand that just as he has his power from a DEMOCRATIC ELECTION - then the democratically elected NATIONAL LEADERS are who he should be dealing with !!
Anyone else claiming supranational authority is just an impostor - just as if Hillary Clinton were to claim she wasn't just acting with the President's authority, she WAS the President.
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With criminals holding seats as MEPs who (aparantly) cannot be displaced until the end of their term - why would anyone with a brain support the addition of an even less accountable 'elected president'.
The EU operates as a quango for politicians and political parties and is operated in the interestes of those participats - not the public.
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Wasn't there a rumour Tony Blair is considering leaving his Quartet post?
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#3 - Menedemus
I am almost tempted to suggest that Sarkozy can have the job if he wants it. After all, he can't do anything without the say so of Leader of the Free World Obama or Saviour of the Economic Universe Brown who, even as we write, is galloping round the world clocking up air miles and making sure everyone had their invites for the G.20.
(If they did, it shows that the Post Office is fit for purpose and Mandy can flog it off so Alistair can buy another bank).
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This episode provides yet more evidence (if we really needed it) of the EU's shambolic institutional architecture?
@threnodio: "The EU must find a mechanism to sort out this mess and prevent it happening again and this time they must do so in an upfront way and seek the approval of their ultimate masters - the people."
@threnodio - you’re absolutely correct of course but what seems like a no-brainer to those who view this complex topic with dispassionate logic arouses very strong emotions when the profound implications of this common sense approach are understood.
A directly elected head/leader of the European Union (which is what we considering), automatically conveys political intent. Politicisation of the Union's institutional architecture will require a rational process of policy realignment to determine which functions of governance are exclusively 'European' in nature and those which are not.
A politicised European arena therefore requires a transformation in public disposition towards the concept of European governance. A directly elected tier of European governance obliges a fundamental change in public perceptions about who wields power and how such power should be held accountable.
If that evolutionary process were to begin, it would signal
a) The slow emergence of a (vague) European demos
b) A discernable diminution in the dominating influence currently exerted by individual member (Nation) state administrations (this would be most keenly felt in the capitals of the larger member states; Paris, Berlin, London, Rome and Madrid would be the biggest losers in the power stakes)
I would argue that it is the latter of these two developments forming the main obstacle to progress, rather than any visceral hostility on the part of the European public. Unfortunately political elites in respective domestic capitals are not about to let us test the water on this vital question.
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#9 - padav01
I agree with what you say but it gives rise to the chicken and egg question. I would argue that, amidst all the high passions that run through these threads, the most rational position is that of those of us who acknowledge that what we want to achieve is reconciling two distinct models of democracy both of which are fundamentally flawed. You will, I am afraid never succeed in persuading those who have set their faces against it on the basis that they are irreconcilable.
Given this to be the case, there are, it seems to me, two ways forward. You can either ask the peoples of the individual nation states at an early stage whether in principle they want to move forward with the European project. The problem with that is that what you are offering is some vague promise that, if they agree, you will find some way in the future of making it workable. The alternative is to admit the flaws, undertake the root and branch reforms then take the completed package to the people. The problem with that is that it will take years and there is no guarantee that, at the end of the process, the powers that be will not be minded to force it through national parliaments afraid of the consequences of seeking popular approval. It happened with Lisbon, which is why it is beginning to appear devalued. The incumbents have form on this one.
To my mind, it is about the distribution of power between the strata. Clearly there are advantages to Europe speaking with one voice on foreign policy insofar as it relates to Europe as a whole. There does not seem to me to much virtue in nations with interests outside Europe being required to consult. For example, since so many nations are involved in Afghanistan it makes sense to have a Europe wide strategy. Why the other nations should be in the least bit interested in what the French do in Chad or the Brits in Sierra Leone is beyond me. These are inherited areas of interest from a time past and European involvement simply complicates things. It follows from that Europe needs a common defence capability to protect its mutual interests but some of the members need residual forces to pursue their own obligations.
Thus, those who argue for an all embracing common foreign and defence policy are wrong. What is needed is a multilayer structure in which the culture of subsidiarity can prosper. Similarly with social policy, as we are all EU citizens, it would clearly be unacceptable if our fundamental rights were to change when we cross internal borders. There has to be a social structure legally enforceable and community wide. The details of how you regulate and define it seem to me to sit far more comfortably within the legal frameworks with which they are familiar and comfortable - the domestic legal systems.
These arguments apply right the way across the whole range of government. What I am arguing for therefore is a model in which anything that can be delegated should be. I happen to think this also applies lower down the strata. Why involve national governments in areas which are better dealt with regionally or locally?
What would logically flow from this would be an EU with considerably sharper teeth but much fewer of them - considerable power but concentrated within far narrow areas of competence. The question is how you appoint them and to whom they are accountable. The quid pro quo would be that, since many powers would end up being repatriated, nations could elect their own governments secure in the knowledge that their wishes would be accommodated. Equally you could then argue the case that, within the areas of European competence, the powers would be sufficiently significant to justify direct election with a separate administration replacing the rotating presidency. These are only preliminary musings by way of response to your post and need thinking through but they are my initial response to an uneasy feeling that what we have at present is the worst of possible worlds in which it is really no surprise that there is so much opposition to the whole enterprise.
The big question to me, coming full circle, is do you admit it's broke, fix it then offer it as a new model or do you give the people the opportunity to say it's not worth the candle and abandon the whole thing?
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I started to give up on the EU when legislative opt-out was removed.
I have just about reached the point where I will sell-up and take my (devalued) UK pension and my savings out of the UK to go and live in Thailand. When a Thai government steps out of line the normally mild mannered Thai people stand up to be counted, not lie down like sheep in the slaughter house.
It has become apparent that successive UK governments have a two-faced politicasl agenda, one they present to the public at elections, the second devious underhand agenda they keep under wraps till elected then steamroller it through irrespective of the publics wishes - thats not democracy, thats Stalinism, and if you dont like it they will apply the Anti-terrorism laws to have you arrested. A plague on all their houses.
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Paradoxically the most anti-Lisbon governement in the EU has just demonstrated the urgent need to have a permanent EU president. More than ever, for the next 3 months there won't be a EU leader to call to, except if Sarkozy takes the reins again.
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Peter Davidson (padav01): What you suggest would only de-legitimise the European Union further and accelerate its break-up. The peoples (nations) of Europe would not accept the legitimacy of an elected leader of the EU simply on the basis of a pan-European vote. No nation in Europe (or anywhere in the world) agrees that they should be governed in the interest of more populous nations elsewhere, which is what international elections would mean. Should an elected EU leader try to pursue the politicised agenda that you advocate you would rapidly see the nations which he tries to impose his agenda upon reject his leadership as illegitimate on the basis that he does not have majority support within their country. You do not see this because you are a European federalist, but federalists like you are in a tiny (and declining) minority in every European country. Your logic could equally be applied at the world level, where it may be easier for you to see what is wrong with it. Would you accept that the political decisions that shape your life are made by someone elected by the whole of humanity when that would in practice mean that political decisions are made in the interests of the billions of Chinese and Indians rather than your own? The lesson of the failing EU project is that political decisions should be taken as close as possible to the people they affect as possible.
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Mark writes a good blog, doesn't he ?
But on top of that, all you guys bring new insights and suggestions to the discussion, that just one person never could.
So keep up the good work !
Is it just my interpretation, or would most of you contributors like to see us withdraw, in part at least, from the EU ?
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Yes, newsjock . Out of the EU. The fact that we have not had a referendum is a disgrace.
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#14 - newsjock
No. You cannot change anything from the outside except by force. Hang in there and introduce reform as best you can is my theory. Of course the sceptics will pour scorn on that but why would they bother to reform something they want no part of?
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#3,9,13
Concerning the elected EU President proposed by the treaty of Lisbon, this should not be seen as a 'President of Europe' in the same way that there is a 'President of the USA'. It would be largely an administrative post. The main decisions would still be taken by the Council (ie, the Member States) under Qualified Majority Voting. Some people have suggested that the President should be directly elected by the people. OK, fair enough, but it would be misleading in a way because people would be given the impression that they would be voting for someone who would wield power, but it would still be the Member States through QMV which would have the power (and quite rightly in my view since Europe should be a Europe of the Member States rather than a 'top-down' model which some people - wrongly- think it already is).
#14
'Is it just my interpretation, or would most of you contributors like to see us withdraw, in part at least, from the EU ?'
Do you expect a statistically balanced response to that question …on this blog?
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Newsjock 11:26
Your interpretation is perfectaly correct.
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Peter Davidson (padav01): Tinkering with EU institutions may say something about the political intent of those behind the tinkering (many of whom are insiders that benefit personally from the proposed changes), but it says nothing about the legitimacy of the institutions thus created. Any political institution that exercises powers over people without their consent has forfeited its democratic legitimacy. This is what has happened to the EU institutions (including the elected EU Parliament) because the power of superior EU law imposed on nations against their will by a qualified majority vote is simply not acceptable to the majority in this or other European countries. The legitimacy problem can therefore only be corrected by either removing the supremacy of EU law, or reintroducing national vetoes (which is not a complete answer because it would not restore the legitimacy of existing EU law already agreed by QMV). Your magic bullet solution of pan-European elections for the head of the EU Council is guaranteed to fail. It would be no more successful in legitimising EU power than the direct elections to the EU Parliament that were introduced in 1979 have been. So stop proposing something already proved not to work!
EU federalist must recognise that the nations of Europe exist and aspire to govern themselves rather than by a self-aggrandizing cartel of politicians from other nations that we cannot replace at the ballot box. Changing the way this or that Brussels official is selected cannot hope to address a legitimacy problem that arises from the national identity of the governed. Until you recognise that political institutions must be shaped around the contours of community as defined by national identity then all your proposals for EU reform are totally disconnected from the actual problem and would indeed only make that problem of lack of EU legitimacy even worse. In truth I believe that even you know this, because you are in fact just advocating a continuation of the same old agenda (as codified by the treaties Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice, etc.) that led to the current unsatisfactory situation. Federalism has reached the end of the road, and there is nowhere to go but to return powers to those institutions which can truly claim a democratic legitimacy, i.e national parliaments.
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@ 16
You are absolutely correct, the only way the UK can ever see the changes in the EU; either in its institutions, constitutional make-up or specific policies- it is vital to integrate and be at the heart of the European Ideal.
Never again must there be war and division on the continent, never again.
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#15 - secondmugwump
Contradiction in terms. You may, as an individual, want out. That's fair enough. You may feel that no referendum is a disgrace. That's fine too. But until you have had the referendum, you have no way of knowing whether you collectively want out of Europe or not.
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@Freeborn-John
Your response makes persistent reference to the term “nation” and appears to attribute almost mythical levels of legitimacy to this collective unit.
Firstly we need to differentiate between the term “nation” and the more widely accepted definition “Nation State” because whilst this distinction may seem subtle, it has profound implications for perceptions of legitimate representation.
For the purposes of discussion, I’ll assume you are referring to the “Nation State” – please feel free to disabuse me of this notion if I’m incorrect. Your disposition is predicated on your perception of a sacrosanct “Nation State” and the role it plays in our ordinary lives. Not only does this conventional hierarchy impact most markedly in the political sphere but it also has profound implications in cultural, legal, economic and social realms of human activity.
I merely pose what I perceive as an entirely valid challenge to this orthodoxy; your apparent reliance on the “Nation State” as the sole legitimate arbiter of identity, affinity, allegiance and social organisation.
Is the world now not a very different place from just 60 years ago, when we emerged from the chaos inflicted by a period of internecine conflict? In the next 60 years it is more than likely that the world will evolve even faster and more dramatically. Forces of unimaginable scale are already unleashed, acting outside the remit of even the largest individual (Nation State) players in this game, to effectively shape and control. In this increasingly interconnected and interdependent world, is the notion of distinct Nation State sovereignty and the manner of political legitimacy it conveys, still hold true? In short, is the conventional perspective international world order to which you allegiance still valid?
This is the fundamental flaw within your argument – your concept of individual Nation State sovereignty and identity looks back to a period of human history no longer relevant. My viewpoint looks forward and anticipates the kind of world which future generations might inherit.
For me the idea behind the manifestation we recognise as the European Union is, essentially, recognition of that profound difference in our viewpoint. You look back and argue for retrograde developments, I look forward and pose the question; how might we as humans begin to develop a framework of governance appropriate to these changing circumstances?
One logical response is to acknowledge the fact that in certain many respects, many of the larger European Nation States have become both too large and too small at the same juncture.
They are too small to effectively respond to many of the challenges we now face in the 21st century:
• Climate Change
• The Function of Trans-National Financial Markets
• Global Migration Flows
• Organised Crime & Terrorism
In stark contrast these very same units of political organisation are now too large to deliver equitable governance outcomes universally across the territories they claim sovereignty over, in many vital policy fields
• Healthcare
• Education
• Localised Law & Order
• Housing
What is often referred to as the post-code lottery effect?
This reality should prompt us to consider the manner in which governance in organised. Might it not be more appropriate to merge sovereignty in some of the globalised policy areas referred to above, whilst counterbalancing that apparent loss of National distinctiveness by transferring significant areas of government policy much closer to the communities affected by decisions in other areas of government activity? In other words the objective and pragmatic realignment process I referred to in my original post.
@Freeborn-John: “The peoples (nations) of Europe would not accept the legitimacy of an elected leader of the EU simply on the basis of a pan-European vote.”
Are people only legitimately represented through the medium of individual Nation States?
Is it morally correct that Catalans should be solely represented on the International Stage by a Madrid based government they share little affinity with?
Is the cultural heritage of the Scanian people safe in the hands of an appointed bureaucrat in Stockholm?
Will the best interests of Scots be pursued by a Whitehall based administration?
I could go on….and on…..but I’m sure you get the idea
Your perceptions are fixed, unmoving, inflexible, and incapable of adapting to the dynamic environment in which we now live. The legitimacy you refer to derives from a democratic framework – I believe that if people have a sense of direct connection with their political leaders through the ballot box, legitimacy will automatically spring from this relationship
That’s why I am arguing for a different kind of European governance; one based on pragmatism and democracy. A tier of democratic European governance managing and controlling only those aspects of governance defined (by a Constitution?) as exclusively European in nature, directly accountable to the European electorate for the consequences of its actions.
For me this evolution in governance would represent a step forward to a more appropriate and responsive form of democracy. Perhaps it’s time to ask the European people if they agree?
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#17 - Iantownhill
For the sake of clarity, I do not want to see an executive presidency on the US/French model. A symbolical presidency which has more to do with an open hand than an open mouth is fine by me. There is no reason why he or she should not be directly elected. Both Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese have proved hugely popular and ultimately quite influential in Ireland under such a model.
What I do want is more democratic accountability where policy is determined and law made. This could be a cabinet system based on party support in the EP. I am open minded but I am convinced that the Commission and Council system, while functional, does not pass muster and a democratic mechanism.
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19. Freeborn-John
There are no EU federalists?!
Integration and harmonisation does not necessarily mean these 'others' -as you refer to- seek to destroy the European nation state.
The bogyman you attempt to pain, of faceless sir-Humphrey's busy at work destroying our way of life is perhaps fit for conspiracy theorist websites, but not serious political discussion.
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Masstracht was never about ferderalism in Europe- Freeborn-John if you ever ever a Tory (and one hopes you are not) you'd a one of the Maastricht rebels, whom damaged Majors government.
The Tories are still dominated by these europhobes, and if conservativism is ever to be seen to be centre-ground then a simple "keeping an open mind on Europe" policy is perferable- and able to achieve consensus within the party.
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#17 Indeed the President of the European Union would be the equivalent of the German Bundesratspräsident which, perhaps not so coincidentally, also gets chosen through a yearly rotation (although officially it's supposed to be an election) between the 16 Minister-Presidents of the German states.
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Iantownhill (17): The president of the EU Council does not have significant formal powers but does have considerable informal power to set the agenda of EU Council meetings. He is the only person to know the bargaining position of all 27 government leaders at these EU summits and therefore is the only person with real knowledge as to the bounds of possible agreements. He is therefore uniquely positioned to steer outcomes of EU Council summits towards possible agreements he likes and away from possible agreements he dislikes. Therefore the post of EU Council president is not simply an administrative post, but neither can such backroom deal making be the stuff that can be debated publicly in a pan-European election campaign and put to the non-existent EU people.
My objection to pan-European elections bears no relationship to the posts that it might be used to fill. I simply refuse to accept that decisions which the majority in Britain are against become legitimate simply because there are majorities in other countries that are in favour of them. As a British citizen I agree to live under law decided by the majority in the Westminster parliament. I do not agree to live under law which is opposed by that majority. That includes EU law or policy agreed by qualified majority in the EU Council of Ministers when the UK government is outvoted, EU law (including treaties) that were approved by past British governments but do not have the support of current British parliaments, and backroom deals stitched together in the EU Council where the British prime minister is pushed into doing something by an EU Council president that the majority in the country would rather he oppose. Electing the EU Council president (either directly or via the EU Parliament) would not change that.
Even federalists should recognise that there is a real danger that an elected EU Council president might mistake victory in a pan-European election for a real democratic mandate and proceed to push through a politicised agenda that would push the EU towards break up. Therefore federalists that wish the EU to survive should also oppose these naive calls to elect more EU officials.
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"When the US president turns up for the EU summit in Prague whose hand will he shake?"
Surely, the real question is; if Brown doesn't like it, will Mark even bother to mention it?
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Still nothing on Hannan's speech.
This blog, like its parent organisation, is not fit for purpose.
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Obama visits Prague on April 5, and was supposed to go for a pint with Topolanek. If he has to drop in to Prague castle instead, for a draught of Klaus' bile, it may be no bad thing for motivating Obama to go that extra few miles on attempting to sort out climate change
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I will be (for the first time in the upcoming elections) a Conservative voter.
I am, however, pro-European.
The UK's withdrawal from the EU would be a catastrophic step backwards, and that is why NO major political party in this country will support it.
What does need to happen as a matter of urgency however, is a comprehensive reform of the way the EU works (or doesn't, depending on your view), to promote democracy and remove those elements which are bureaucratic and anti-democratic.
As has been seen from the recent financial difficulties, this country has little to offer to the rest of the world apart from a shower of incompetent, immoral and potentially criminal financiers. As such, anyone who believes the UK can "go it alone" in the modern world is living in a dream world I'm afraid. We are, as Obama's administration pointedly demonstrated, a tiny nation who only punches above its weight because we are the dogsbody of the US and Israel.
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Iantownhill @ #17
I do understand the intended role of President of the EU as determined by the Lisbon Treaty and I do accept that the elected President is not the leader of an Executive Administration as, per se, is the Prime Minister of the UK, the President of France or President of the USA but, perhaps the nearest simile would be that of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, who has unelected influence. In the case of the EU, if Lisbon had been ratified and implemented, the elected EU President would have similar authority of post but this would be enhanced by the fact that the holder is a true elected President and that would give him or her much more weight in exercising that influence.
In the case of the EU needing to sit in on the G20 Meetings, it would seem to me to be fitting that the elected EU President be that representative of the EU. The fact that an elected EU president is not going to be there is entirely the fault of the Council of Ministers who have diverse agendas and intententions towards the EU and their crass stupidity in not embracing the will of the people of Europe in developing or abandoning the EU Project.
It is my view that the majority of Europeans actually do want to collaborate, co-exist peacefully and share prosperity with one another. It is simply that the EU Project has been derailed by a total lack of engaging the development of the EU with the views and aspirations of the very people the EU is supposed to serve that is its cause of failure. The absence of an effective pan-EU elected representative for the EU at the G20 is merely symptomatic of these crass failings.
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Um, .... the CDU and the SDP. The french have been bought off, the Italians are following their leader, and the Brits have been shut out.
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#22 - padav01
There is a lot to think about in your post but I would like to say that the use of the word 'nation' is quite a common ploy amongst sceptices. It is no coincidence that National Socialists used the same technique referring to Das Land meaning the geographic entity and Die Leute (or commonly Das Volk) meaning the diaspora. Thus Das Reich very conveniently became interchangeable depending on the message (unlike der Staat which is unambiguous).
It is a very convenient ploy to muddy the waters. A nation is, of course, a people not a geographic entity. The State is the form of governance. Thus when you speak of the Nation State, you commit yourself to referring to a legitimate geopolitical entity. In the UK's case, this is Great Britain whereas nation could equally well be interpreted as England, Scotland or any other component part. It is deliberate vagueness.
(FBJ before you take me to task, this is not a personal attack, it is a general observation. It would, however, be helpful to know what you mean by nation).
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Czech Government falls!?
Czech President opposes!?
EU Economic summit dissembles and delusional!?
Lisbon Treaty unvalidated!?
Presidents Barroso and Sarkozy at odds on 'protectionism'!?
PM Brown and the total lack of EU belief in his economic skills!?
It is not too offensive I trust to just express as a confirmed anti-EU lobbyist my profound satisfaction at the present parlous condition of this wretched institution!?
Surely, if there is any natural democratic justice, there will be just one more really big EU crisis in the next few weeks and the whole undemocratic, venal, corrupt, unworkable edifice will collapse under its own gross EUrocratic inadequacy!?
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@threnodio: “the most rational position is that of those of us who acknowledge that what we want to achieve is reconciling two distinct models of democracy both of which are fundamentally flawed.” You will, I am afraid never succeed in persuading those who have set their faces against it on the basis that they are irreconcilable.
Not really, for me the constituent elements currently making up the European Union are intrinsically democratic in nature. France is democratic, Spain is democratic, even the UK is democratic so it is not so much a conflict between two distinct models of democracy as a struggle between two distinct models of governance, one intergovernmental the other integrationist. The hybridised nature of the EU’s institutional architecture is a reflection of that unresolved tension.
So there is little point in utilising “democracy” as a mechanism aimed at “persuading those who have set their face against” the integrationist pathway because their opposition is not, in reality, based on democratic concerns. Their visceral rejection is quite simply rooted in naked nationalism; of course they’re not going to admit to that fact because it undermines the moral credentials of their viewpoint.
@threnodio: “there are, it seems to me, two ways forward. You can either ask the peoples of the individual nation states at an early stage whether in principle they want to move forward with the European project.” “The alternative is to admit the flaws, undertake the root and branch reforms then take the completed package to the people.”
There is of course a third way, much more legitimate and that is to allow the people themselves and community groups far more representative of their hopes, aspirations and desires, to drive the process, rather than leave it to the usual suspects within political elites.
Let’s cast our mind back to the failed Constitutional Convention and the dogs-dinner spawned by its peripatetic deliberations. Fact is, up to the point where the individual member state administrations became involved the process had actually worked, produced a good working relationship and was inspired by a large degree of consensus and radical ideas. It was also open to public scrutiny.
What happened when the individual member state governments got involved?
First of all the proceedings went behind closed doors – one is tempted to ask why?
Secondly, the Convention’s output became mired in the petty power politics pervading the orthodox bi-lateralist approach used for concluding EU Treaties.
Now, doesn’t that outcome tell us where the REAL problem lies?
@threnodio: “To my mind, it is about the distribution of power between the strata.”
Now you’ve hit the nail on the head!
It is all about power and who wields it. The world is changing – at a faster and faster pace – within an integrating pan-European environment the traditional Nation State unit of political organisation is now well past its sell by date.
European integration needs another way, a radical departure from the traditional perception of individual Nation States as the sole legitimate medium of political identity and aspiration.
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#25 - deanthetory
I think it is naive to deny that, to those who harboured ambitions for a federal Europe, Maastricht marked a significant step but I agree that it was not adirect consequence and that this was never the intention. Your recollection of the Major government is interesting. My recollection is that the election of 1992 was fought on the basis of a manifesto which included a commitment to ratify Maastricht. In fact, no major party opposed it but it was a specific Tory manifesto pledge. To the best of my recall (I am open to correction) only Sir Teddy Taylor made it clear prior to polling day that he was not bound by the commitment and would rebel. The rest of the group Major later famously called 'the b*****ds' were elected on the back on the manifesto then rebelled.
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#22 - padav01
I have now studied your #22 and cannot disagree with a word of it.
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If only our incompetent government would fall we might just be saved from abject penury.
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Peter Davidson: I certainly do not confuse nation and nation-state. I merely say that (i) national identity is the strongest form of community that we have and (ii) that decision-making by majority on politically-contentions issues is only accepted (anywhere on earth) within a society held together by the strong solidarities afforded by national identity. Since decision-making by majority is central to our understanding of democracy, it is no surprise that the only states (i.e. sets of political institutions) that have ever been democratic are nation-states. Without the solidarity of national identity some other means (typically military) always has to be found to bind a multi-national state together. When democracy was introduced in Eastern Europe it was first necessary to break up multinational states there such as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia or the USSR. And now we see the opposite phenomena in Western Europe of democracy having to be removed in France, the Netherlands and Ireland (not to mention the UK) to create the European Union.
You suggest that problems of the world such as climate change, international terrorism, etc. can only be solved by the EU. But if that were correct it would not be possible for non-EU states to solve these issues, which is obviously not the case. According to you there should be no Kyoto treaty, no action in Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban training terrorists etc. We see that you have had to blind yourself to the reality of the world in order to maintain your self-delusion that the EU is the only answer.
Your mistake is to always start your argument from the blinkered position that the EU is inevitable and then to conclude that anything in the world not consistent with that outcome must be ignored. The entire history of the world since the American Revolution shows that (i) the democratic legitimacy of political institutions is ultimately dependent on the strength of national identity, and (ii) that without this legitimacy all state-like political institutions perish. But you choose to blind yourself to that too. If you were correct one would expect the number of nation-states in the world to be declining, but the number of nation-states has risen from 60 in 1945 to almost 200 today; numbers that are likely to rise further as nations from Tibet to Quebec achieve their goal of national self-determination. All the evidence is that the world is slowly converging on the nation-state as the preferred form of governance worldwide and the only one compatible with democracy. The EU is not going to buck that trend. What we are witnessing today is the de-legitimisation of the EU project spreading beyond the UK to Ireland, France, the Netherlands etc. This widening de-legitimisation is the necessary prelude to the EU perishing; it is entirely predictable and it is gathering pace.
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@Freeborn-John: "As a British citizen I agree to live under law decided by the majority in the Westminster parliament. I do not agree to live under law which is opposed by that majority"
Sorry to burst your bubble of moral outrage @Freeborn-John but you're already living in that precise scenario. No UK government in living memory has boasted the legitimate democratic support of a majority of the UK electorate through that tried and trusted device called "the ballot box"
The incumbent UK adminstration was supported by just 35.2% of the active votes cast in the 2005 General Election. Not sure about your maths but that makes 64.8% of the electorate who didn't vote for the laws now being passed through Parliament, courtesy of a 60 odd seat Commons majority. Last time I looked, 64.8% DOES represent a majority.
Maybe you should spend more of your time and effort in addressing obvious democratic shortcomings closer to home before aiming brickbats elswhere - "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones?"
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#13 Freeborn-John
"No nation in Europe (or anywhere in the world) agrees that they should be governed in the interest of more populous nations elsewhere"
Now if you look just a litter further north, you will find one which still hasn't learned your dictum. ;-)
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ikamaskeip wrote:
"Surely, if there is any natural democratic justice, there will be just one more really big EU crisis in the next few weeks and the whole undemocratic, venal, corrupt, unworkable edifice will collapse under its own gross EUrocratic inadequacy!?"
Surely, there is not such a thing as "natural democratic justice". As it is not your usual style to write such non sequiturs, I suggest you go and have a lie down. Return to the keyboard when the fever has passed.
Anyway, what can this corrupt EU structure collapse into? A bunch of corrupt national structures?
threnodio has written some interesting stuff in this thread, not least of which is his desire to change the EU from within. Now I ridicule that, because I believe the EU has been carefully constructed from its inception to achieve the exact opposite of what Threnodio wants to achieve, but perhaps he is on the right track.
I may have little faith that the threnodios of this world can change the EU from within, not least because the system itself corrupts all who learn how it works, but I have equally scant faith that a complete collapse of the EU will improve anyones lives.
So maybe threnodio is correct. Perhaps there can be a kind of democratic coup staged from within the current EU structure.
I think that if such a thing is possible, sooner or later the movement must challenge the current forces that control the EU. Now these forces are the Commission, and the CDU and SDP. Sooner or later, the reform of the EU will require a direct challenge on those who subscribe to the legitimacy of the two party system, and defenders of these parties must be cast as the enemy of the people.
I believe that is axiomatic, because whilst direct democracy can live with political parties, it can only do so if the parties form after the direct democracy has been established. Direct democracy is a profound threat to the established economies that sustain and enrich the people who populate the major parties.
I think perhaps the media could be convinced to stay out of the war between direct democrats and party elites. Both systems have money for the media, via government, so I do not see that Murdoch et al would need to side with the party.
But I totally dispute this notion of "natural" democratic justice. I think there has to be an organized battle for democratic rights, however the increasing turmoil in Europe may be just the fertile soil in which to grow an appetite for this battle.
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#36 - padav01
Again I agree. However, just to be clear, when I referred to 'two distinct models of democracy both of which are fundamentally flawed' I was specifically referring to the UK and the EU. We basically agree about the EU. The UK democracy starting from a pretty low point anyway has, I think, been irreparably damaged by the incumbents to the point where to use the word democracy in any meaningful sense is pure fantasy.
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OK, Mark, you failed to assess the importance of Dan Hannan's speech yesterday when you posted your pro-Brown blog.
But here you are, 24 hours later, the YouTube clip being viewed all around the world, even being run on FoxNews in America, and you still haven't even mentioned it. This is turning into one of the biggest political stories of the year so far and the Beeb is two days behind the curve!
Ignoring it won't make it go away, you know.
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FBJ
If "numbers . . are likely to rise further as nations from Tibet to Quebec achieve their goal of national self-determination", isn't it somewhat delusional to assume that UK will exist as a nation state for much longer?
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We're well off-subject as usual but there are some really interesting posts - thanks to threnodio, padav01, Menedemus and others.
@ FreebornJohn: there are EU-sceptics in every country of the EU that I have visited (and that's quite a few). Those that I have spoken to always seem to claim that they represent "the majority" view in their country. How do they - how do you - know? Or is this, as has already been so eloquently explained, rampant nationalism? These are people whose entry into the EU has usually been as a result of an open referendum (real democracy according to some).
You claim you recognise only the UK Government, but (it seems) you don't recognise the international treaties and obligations to which it is party - at least when it comes to the dreaded EU.
From here in France I still think JohaMe #1 had it right!
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@9 padav01
"A politicised European arena therefore requires a transformation in public disposition towards the concept of European governance. A directly elected tier of European governance obliges a fundamental change in..."
Terrible snide PC use of the word 'European' again. Tut tut. This is obviously 'European' in the EU-propaganda sense of the word. It tries to exploit the weak-minded by suggesting that the identity that they were born with qualifies them as a loyal subject to the EU. By extension, anyone who dissents from the EU political experiment is a traitor to his/her own identity. Every time some Europhile uses the term 'European' I smell the stench of coercion. I feel attacked. I sense that someone is trying to wrench my identity from me by pressing the psychological buttons. This is foul.
Even 'EU Citizenship', which I was never asked about and totally reject, does not impose on me the notion that I have to be a 'good European' (at least I hope it doesn't - anybody know anything about that?)
Let's get this straight. There are 27 countries in the EU and there are 51 European countries (53 countries in UEFA minus Israel and Kazakhstan). A European is someone who hails from this geographical region by race (Caucasian) and culture - I accept that you could debate around the edges there but that's the simplest definition I could come up with. One thing that can not be denied is that the term European has nothing to do with political viewpoint or loyalty to the EU and its objectives. I guess that the EU-elite were emboldened by the 2004 enlargement to start using this piece of EU-litergy in public more often in order to impose the EU-belief-system upon us unsuspecting subjects and soften us up to become compliant 'EU-citizens'. Now even journalists abuse this word. To deny that this is an abuse of language is to suppose that when you use it:-
(a) you speak for the citizens of the 24 European countries living outside of the EU as well as those of us in the UK and elsewhere who hate the EU from within. This is incredibly arrogant;
(b) you deny the true meaning of words, which, not surprisingly is a favourite tactic of the EU when it suits them to do so (e.g. 'No' doesn't mean 'No' if you are a French, Dutch or Irish voter). And if you start denying the true meaning of words then you finish by living in denial of the truth. You then arrive at an altered state of consciousness where right becomes wrong and wrong becomes right - in other words you can say or do anything you like without moral constraint. End result: tyranny. Fortunately, a lot of my fellow British subjects have spotted this behaviour pattern and want to leave the EU for this reason.
The English language evolves. This is one of its strengths. However, the abuse of the English language for political purposes (by introducing a deliberate and calculated ambiguity) is coercion and utterly wrong.
Will people stop using the term 'European' when they really mean 'someone who is loyal to the aspiration of a United States of Europe' and stop trying to hide behind a piece of fake inclusive terminology.
Love Europe - Hate the EU.
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Peter Davidson (41): I am careful with my words, and do my thinking before I write them. I am happy with what I have written here and see no need to play word games with you.
Let me ask you (and other federalists) to do what I have done here, i.e. provide a logically coherent explanation for the EU crisis of legitimacy and propose reforms consistent with that explanation that would remedy the problem. All I have ever seen from you and other federalists is proposals for more of the same old federalising agenda that created the EU legitimacy crisis in the first place. Now when you are confronted with what is wrong with your argument you want to play word games instead! I am not going to oblige you because you need to realise that federalism is the problem and only rolling back the old 'more EU' agenda can be a solution.
Unless you can explain to me why directly electing the EU Parliament and increasing its powers since 1979 has coincided with the increasing widespread feeling that the EU is undemocratic then I fail to see why anyone could ever believe that electing the EU Council President would be any more successful. So what other proposal do you have, and why would it work?
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More fun and games: The Czech PM has just called Obama's stimulus plans (so beloved by one Gordon Brown) "The way to hell".
The Czechs seem to be right on many things these days.
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Thank you DemocracyThreat #43, I've had the advised nap and find only one alteration of my #35 has survived the snoring!
"...surely if there is any such thing as 'natural justice' there will be just one more really big EU crisis in the next few weeks and the whole undemocratic..."
However, back on the anti-EUrocratic soap-box: I certainly would agree there "..has to be an organised battle for democratic rights..", for a UK/England Referendum on membership of the EU, and, for the Right and Responsibility of an England Parliament for the English.
Maybe some day a BBC Editorial Blog will have the integrity, nerve and astuteness to run a Blog Headline only marginally different from Mr Mardell's present one:
I.e. WHO's RUNNING THE UK?
and that Blog's introductory sentence not unlike Mr Mardell's opening query, "When Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II turns up for the new English Parliament whose head will bow as First Minister?"
Whether in reality a devolved English Parliament is required/occurs before an EU Referendum only time will tell.
Certainly, I can foresee enormous problems were an EU membership Referendum to be held across the UK and the English 'No' to membership vote found itself out-voted only by the combined 'Yes' votes of the 4 UK nations. How a devolved Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland could be allowed to hold sway over the expressed majority opinion (if 'no' it is) of England on such a vital 'National' issue as they do on so many matters in the present UK London Parliament is beyond my reasoning?
I suspect the outraged backlash within England would be short and most probably exceedingly violent.
I just hope the peaceful UK Constitutional divorce occurs before too long for everyone's sake.
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So it seems that the answer to your original question about who is running the EU is a prime minister who is so embittered about losing a vote of confidence that he blew a hole in European solidarity - such as it was - took a side swipe at the world's most powerful man, rubbished the US Treasury Department and blew his own foot off, all in the space of ten minutes without leaving the comfort of the parliament which only ousted him yesterday. And we all thought Sarkozy was dangerous?
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@52 thrednodio - No, he didn't blow a hole in 'European solidarity', he blew a hole in EU solidarity. FACT. And, no, I am not being pedantic. This has got nothing to do with the 24 European countries outside the EU. See post no.48. Thank you.
Love Europe - Hate the EU.
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No problem - only the prime minister of the Czech Republic.
He still is the president of the EU .
If they elect a new one, the new one will be the president of EU .
Where is the problem in ?
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Re #52
My mistake. Mr.Topolanek was addressing the EP, not the one which ousted him yesterday
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To threnodio (52):
Hey mister, that's the European way! If you don't like, you can get the ... out of here! /with the voice of Billy-Bob junior
Seriously, how are the rest of the world going to understand the European Union is an major world power without us giving the finger to it and acting like we own it?
Now everybody, repeat after me with a snide attitude...
Hey you mister American president! We are not going to protect the American consuming any more! Europe has supported you long enough. It is time you learn how to make stuff and take care of your accounts!
Okey, good, now shout with me again...
EU! EU! Who's the number ONE! EU! That's us!
Seriously, we need to start learning this stuff, for crying out loud how are we ever going to take over the world if we don't get the basics right?
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#53 - LogicalJack
I have already read and noted your #48. Apart from Russia, which pursues its own agenda, the four European members of the G.20 are France, Germany Italy and the UK. Which one of these is not in the EU?
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@Freeborn-John
Before I begin I must preface all of the ideas and information I set out below with a single overriding caveat - TIME!!! The processes I am referring to here can only unfold over a protracted period of time, measured in decades. Many of the readers here (myself included) are unlikely to see them come to full fruition, even if they begin tomorrow, during their lifetime. These are changes of such magnitude and gravity, initiating an irrevocable process of deep social and political transformation. They cannot, indeed should not, happen in a relatively short timescale. My comments should be considered in that context.
In addition it should be noted that I share many of the concerns you raise about the institutional form European integration has taken. In short I am no fan of the EU in its present guise, but I am unequivocally positive towards the idea of closer integration on all levels; political, economic, social, legal and cultural. I believe that there are many shared attributes across Europe, which taken together, boast the potential to form the foundations of a close and meaningful relationship between all of the peoples inhabiting the European continent.
First of all I have on many occasions attempted to explain how I believe the manifestly obvious problems within European integration might be addressed. You simply dismiss these concepts because they don't fit with your immutable vision of the world. My ideas are essentially pragmatic projections based on how the international order appears to be evolving (if the evidence provided by the last decade is anything to go by).
Your world revolves around the idea of Nation States, constituted in more or less the same configuration as they are now, continuing ad infinitum. The basis of your argument seems to be that there is no other form of legitimate affinity/political identity other than that exemplified by the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, et al and that this state of affairs will persist in perpetuity.
To provide some background evidence refuting such deeply flawed assumptions I'll direct you to a BBC resource, which indicates how these matters do in fact change. I posit the not unreasonable suggestion that the face of Europe will change significantly again in the next 100 years, just as this graphic illustrates how they changed dramatically in the last 100.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/europe/04/changing_borders/html/1900.stm
To supplement the power of this hypothesis I also refer you to an objective academic study of this seemingly exogenous (but deeply fascinating, to me at least) topic, entitled "The Size of Nations ", by Alesina & Spolaore. They approach this highly emotive and contentious subject from an utterly objective and dispassionate tangent, in many cases reducing the arguments to mere mathematical equations.
Their conclusions are startling; in fact evolution of the geo-political framework is a wholly natural phenomenon, reflecting the dynamic nature of changing political fortunes, most of which lie entirely outside the remit of individual nations to shape/control.
The chapter devoted to the European Union is particularly germane to this discussion because it illustrates how “economies of scale” operate to deliver benefits. In particular they make reference to the tension between economic integration and growing pressures offered by sub-national aspirations. The long-term viability of the Nation State in Europe is threatened from above and below by a combination of factors once dubbed “a pincer movement” by Michael Portillo. I concur with their wholly objective conclusions, though I realise these statements might make uncomfortable reading for you.
You ask me to provide an explanation of the EU’s crisis of legitimacy and by extension, some remedies.
This forum is, of course, unsuited as a vehicle for the provision of a comprehensive response to that challenge; whole books have been devoted to the subject with limited success. If I had all the answers in a few paragraphs I think I might be more usefully employed elaborating them for a wider and more influential audience
The fact that you dismiss federalism and its potential solutions out of hand severely limits my scope for manoeuvre but undaunted, I’ll give it my best shot.
The hybrid nature of European governance it is present form is symbolic of the paradox lying at the core of the EU’s “crisis of legitimacy” – that’s your phrase by the way, not mine. Certainly I would agree that there is a growing disjunct between the EU’s institutional architecture and the general public it is supposed to serve but we should also acknowledge that this malign trend is exhibited almost universally across all forms of democratic governance, whether they be at the local, regional, national or supra-national level, so it is perhaps disingenuous to single out the EU for particular disdain – perhaps it is valid to question your motives for doing so?
In effect there is no fully formed framework of European democratic governance. There is no directly accountable executive arm within the EU’s institutional architecture. This pivotal role persists within the intergovernmental sphere of influence, represented by the Council of Ministers and European Council itself. The appointed European Commission may of course propose legislative programmes but these only emerge to put flesh on the bones of broad principles agreed through these intergovernmental mechanisms. So whilst it might appear that huge swathes of legislation are emanating from Brussels, the driving force behind this process remains securely fixed to individual member state administrations.
This is the source of the EU’s crisis of legitimacy – the unresolved compromise between ‘Intergovernmentalist’ and ‘Integrationist’ demands, which persists to this day. To break that cycle will require a leap of faith on the part of the European public, something you may find unpalatable but perhaps succeeding, more forward looking generations might begin to consider as the factors I have referred to above begin to exert pressure on the everyday experience of ordinary European citizens.
The EU Parliament lacks credibility precisely because of this gaping constitutional hole in the EU’s institutional architecture. Without a politicised Executive function, drawn from the ranks of an elected legislature, the entire function of democratically accountable governance on a European scale is fatally undermined. How can citizens connect with a Parliament that lacks the constitutional capacity to initiate its own programme on the basis of a mandate drawn from democratic endorsement through the ballot box – the answer of course is that it can’t and so the Parliament exists merely as a kind of political cheerleader, standing on the sidelines of the real action. It is therefore hardly surprising that it lacks the legitimacy you claim it must aspire to in order to justify its very existence.
I’ve already explained why this constitutional development is unlikely at this stage. It has very little to do with what should happen to deliver a more effective form of governance and is rather more influenced by the realpolitik of those who currently exert power over the EU’s decision making processes. Of course I don’t expect you to accept these explanations because the conclusions flowing from them point in a direction clearly divergent from your unyielding analysis of the problem.
If an exclusively European tier of accountable governance did evolve over a period of time, this process alone would serve to focus attention on the continued viability of individual member state administrations. If the “pincer movement” alluded to before continues unabated, policy portfolios would migrate from their current locations to reside in more appropriate tiers of democratic governance, some upwards to a federal centre, others downward to sub-national entities. This is an entirely logical development but then I don’t expect you to agree with that analysis because you don’t seem to do logic, rather your fixed notion begins and ends with the existing panoply of European Nation States so there really is no breathing space for progress?
So what might Europe look like in a hundred years time? Could be many things but if logic and reason has any bearing on the matter it might resemble something like this?
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3506518,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3254764.stm
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#57 threnodio
Could he have been referring to the fact that the EU itself is also a member of G20?
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Although many might consider it heresey, the EU could be more 'democratised' quite well if it were done on the US model. Think of the primary objection: that either small states will lose their voice against the massive states (Germany, UK, etc.), or they will be given a disproportionate voice. A US-style system would solve this: a House of Representatives with population-based constituencies (ie one member per 2.5 million people or whatever), and a Senate with nation-based constituencies (ie 2 members per nation). This would ensure that both large and small states had an appropriate voice.
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#15 - FreeBorn John
'No nation in Europe (or anywhere in the world) agrees that they should be governed in the interest of more populous nations elsewhere, which is what international elections would mean.'
That's funny, because it doesn't seem to fit with the UK's own experience. At the moment a majority of voters in Scotland and Wales (best leave Northern Ireland to one side!) are in favour of continuing to be governed by a Parliament which is overwhelmingly controlled by another more populous nation (England) and can therefore be assumed to act largely in that nation's interests.
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#58 padav01
Thanks for that post. (This blog produces more intellectually coherent posts - on both sides of the debate - than most, Thanks to all contributors, I have learned a lot from all of you).
Threnodio knows that I sometimes struggle with reconciling two principles, both of which I passionately believe in, (but that many British/English Nationalists find irreconcilable) - the need for nations to have self-determination, and the need for pooling sovereignty for securing common interests.
While, you posted nothing I wasn't conscious of, it has a coherent structure which is "satisfying".
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#58 - padav01
Very interesting response. I was preparing something of my own but it was becoming too much for blogging purposes. I focused in part on what I perceive to be a misunderstanding, possibly willful, of the history and origins of the project which have led us to where we are. I want to revisit my comments in the light of what you have said and if I cannot precis it sufficiently to fit it in here, I will put it in my blog and point you in the right direction as I would appreciate your comments. But not at 2.30 in the morning:-)
#59 - oldnat
I am sure he did. I don't mind people correcting my English when absolutely necessary but I do object to being told what terms I may or may not use to satisfy the political leanings of others. PC is PC even when it's standing on it's head. I am just getting tetchy in my dotage oldnat. Take no notice.
#61 - MrCynical
"At the moment a majority of voters in Scotland and Wales . . .are in favour of continuing to be governed by a Parliament . . . etc".
I am not sure that this is still the case, especially in regard to Scotland. If there is a significant swing to SNP at the next election, that might suggest a change and if they can deliver their proposed referendum, then we will have a much clearer idea. Interesting though that all three major UK parties are opposed to the referendum which suggests they may be more than a touch nervous about the outcome. Interesting too that there is a groundswell of public opinion emerging in the 'more populous nation' for devolved power.
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The Czech Opposition has apparently stated that they expect the government to see through the EU Presidency.
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Who's running the EU?
'Greater Germany' is running the EU.
I know that most of yee will regard my contention as ridiculous but I believe that Germany and her 'satellites' have already taken contol of the 'New Europe'. Having given up on her failed expansion towards the east and west, she embarked on acquiring 'lebensraum' southwards to the Adriatic. The old buddies of the Austro-hungarian empire are now in the bag (Croats, Slovenians, Albanians). Only Serbia has been the thorn in her side.
One has to give it to the Germans for their expertise in manipulating the World's media, to be sure!
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#65 loojeanmacloo
I think your assumption in line 3 is correct.
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Grrrrr.....not sure why the first URL doesn't function because I can navigate to it with no problems. Its absence rather detracts from the flow of my post so I'll try again here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/europe/04/changing_borders/html/1900.stm
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How long are the BBC going to pretend that Daniel Hannans speech never happened.
Its all over the states, fastest spreading you tube video, etc etc... But then I shouldn't be telling you this... the BBC should be telling everyone...
Licence fee? what for?
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#67 - padav01
It was working at 2.30 CET (1.30 GMT) so maybe its a temporary glitch.
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To the-real-truth (68):
I watched the speech of Daniel Hannans, I do have to say that he is a good speaker, he made a good presentation. However what he only did was to say that things aren't working in the UK, that the current government of the UK isn't working. It is mighty nice to point this out, as everybody already knew it, but what I and many others were probably missing was the part of "then what"?
What is Daniel Hannans proposing to do?
Lets not support the banks... and have them go bankrupt and then there is no more major financial and banking sector in the UK. In many other countries whole industries have gone away after they have made terrible decisions and the government haven't bailed out them, that will too happen to UK.
Lets not print money... a good idea, but then either taxes have to be increased in the UK, or services have to cut, or painful rationalization programs have to be carried in the public sector to maintain the services at acceptable level. Honestly coming from an Nordic welfare state, you can't afford to cut anything related to schooling, education and to public health, thus taxes go up or the whole public sector goes into rationalization process.
The money has to have value... yes, so why not and join the Eurozone? Ah, but that doesn't work because that would be either an federalist or positive integrationist thing to do. In this sector I don't think that there is no other way, as small currencies will always be speculated in the markets: there was a run into the bank in the beginning of the 90s, and there can be run to the bank in this crisis.
If I would be a British citizen, I really would demand that the conservatives give a practical guide on what they are going to do. No more visionary stuff or some abstract concepts, do remember that Labour in the 1997 elections promised to make Britain the leading country of the European Union and to renew and make the whole Union a different kind of beast. What was the result of that 10 year plan again?
So please British citizens, ask what spesifically they and their parties are going to do. Practical and simple answers... "We are going to brake up from the EU" / "We are going to join the Eurozone" / "We are going to increase taxes" "We are going to cut the spending of the public sector" etc..
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Jukka_Rohilla and Comment 56.
Hey!
It is most certainly not the 'European way' to blow raspberries at the USA whenever mainland Europe has needed assistance over the last 100 years or so!
2 World Wars, the League of Nations (US idea - see Pres Wilson's 14 Points - but admittedly they backed out), setting up the United Nations, European Economic recovery via the Marshall Plan, the NATO alliance defence of west Europe in the Cold War, the interventions and peacekeeping in the Yugoslavian-Balkan civil wars, the negotiations with potential nuclear powers N Korea and Iran, the ongoing worldwide fiscal-economic-trade decline...
Your invitation to be 'snide' at the expense of the USA whose Citizens are enduring problems as great as any of the modern nations suggests a level of antipathy that is both unpleasant and unhelpful. Furthermore, it denies this is a finite world where logically it is in the interests of everyone that we are all in the struggle to keep it spinning, politically-economically-socially, in a recognisable and stable manner.
Yes, of course the USA has made some bad mistakes (Phillipines, Chile, Cuba, Iraq etc.) over the century and will do so again: Show me the nation that has not done so?
However, as for the idea a 5 million populated nation like Finland with an economy smaller than 32 of the 50 US States is going to give lectures like, "..time it (USA) learnt how to make stuff and take care of accounts.." has an unintentional curiosity value that brings into question your entire contribution to any Blog debates.
You see the EU as the answer to Europe's problems and in the sense that we are "..all in the struggle to keep it spinning.." I would agree the EU, because it is presently in-place, is a part of the means to a solution to the difficulties we are experiencing. However, the stridency of your competitive attitude to the USA exposes just how dangerous the concept of a Federal EU can be.
I hope and suspect your views are out of step with the majority of sensible and experienced Europeans who will recognise that a united Europe must not be founded on or developed around a basic hostility to the USA, or indeed Russia or any other nation/region.
It really is for you to, ".. start learning this stuff.." and to ".. get the basics right..".
Certainly as we read your recent contribution those of us who are anti-EU for a variety of reasons can add to the list the possibility that a Federal EU may harbour such volatile and unreasoning concepts about International Relations.
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I think the Czech president is right.
A US recovery model is not suited to the EU, as the basic structures of 'both' societies are different, with the US pure capitalist model, and it's extremes of success or failure, compared to the more conservative mixed aspirational/social model of the EU.
And more than that, the debt driven US structure is being exposed more than ever for it's inherent weakness, in relying on debt to service changes in economic health.
So from an EU economic position, based more on conservative economic policy, it could certainly be viewed as the wrong solution.
The point was made earlier about the inherent weaknesses in the EU, and the failings that arise from that. It's true to say this is valid in certain circumstances, but from a longer term perspective, these could also be interpreted as growing pains. Something as large, and complex as the EU, by the nature of it's size and weight of numbers, is going to naturally move slowly, with decisions more thoughtfully taken, and considered.
But at the heart of the EU's challenges (imho), is the nationalistic nature of political discourse. Those who seek political office, in general, are still motivated by national populist agendas as a tool to seek election. These aren't EU oriented, but purely local. That may seem fine to some, but it's Jurassic politics, and creates a gap between nation, and the EU paradigm. That's a good result for those who seek to revert to single nation status, but it does nothing for a better, more streamlined, progressive motion for the EU project, and the greater potential benefits of such a mindset.
The average EU citizen seems generally happy with the idea of a common currency, unhindered travel, and the idea of being able to mix, and learn about, fellow EU citizens in other places. We've already seen the evidence of this with people living in other countries, working together as EU nationals in mixed workplaces.
The naysayers will cite this as unacceptable, and shout their common mantra "Jobs for locals!"
Well, frankly, that's if the locals are willing to work, and do so to a level of excellence that others from further away may aspire too.
But politically, our representatives haven't kept up. They're quite happy to jump on what they perceive as a gravy train, and reap the benefits of that, but still cling to an isolationist paradigm when it comes around to election time, as they continue to believe they'll keep their cushy spot if they do. This is all too willingly reinforced by local media, and organisations for whom the idea of integrated european societies is a step too far.
Again, the EU as a project, with the benefits for people of all it's members, isn't to blame here. It's those who manage it, and bring their single nation perspective to the table, in an aggressive "protect my corner, personal ego, and political reputation" driven mindset.
Until we mature into a greater political perspective, in which politicians think and present themselves as members of a greater whole, then the extremes between pro, and anti, will continue, and the EU project suffers as a result, and is victim to getting the blame for all wider Europe's ills, even when plainly inapplicable.
We're also at risk from personal egos, and the regulatory framework for decision making, and levels of responsibility/power must be reviewed, to ensure no one dominant personality changes the EU based on personal intention.
The politicians in general are still stuck in 'old politics', and this is at the heart of so many challenges, and perception of failure, of the EU.
When the combined people of the EU start electing those who see and conduct themselves beyond quick, fear of consequence driven, peasant politics, then we might just get an EU that represents all of us in a manner that supports and encourages progress, and greater personal aspiration for us all, equally.
If they let Brown anywhere near the till, then we're in serious trouble. He's proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that his role as chancellor, and now PM, has been a profound disaster for the UK, and it will only take a modest percentage of financial service and assett migration into another centre in the EU to leave the UK in serious financial trouble, and at the mercy of the inherent risk in an american style recovery.
That might work for the US, who knows, but it will almost certainly fail spectacularly in the UK, and EU who's systems are different.
Finally,I might be a briton living elsewhere, but i urge the UK to hold an EU referendum. The sooner this gets done, the sooner the majority in the UK will vote to leave the EU, and the rest of us with a more progressive view of living in harmony with our fellow EU citizens can breathe a sigh of relief, and get a respite from the constant whining.
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@the-real-truth & @Jukka_Rohila
Mr. Hannan's withering critique of Gordon Brown's failed economic policies is certainly deserving of a wider audience and I do find it strange that the BBC have not picked this up - maybe it's just too good?
However Jukka is correct in stating that the content of the speech is, given the current semi-detached nature of the UK's economic engagement with the rest of the EU, largely a matter of domestic concern.
I know this is off topic but Jukka poses a valid question about the bold promises made by the current Labour administration when they came to power in 1997.
For me, the root cause underlying the failure of Labour to implement the bold progressive policies they promised can be found in one very simple phrase: FIRST PAST THE POST!
In the two year period before Major's morally and politically bankrupt administration was cast out by an electorate eager for change, Labour had made all of the right noises, talking about the new way they were going to do politics. They even engaged in substantive dialogue with the Liberal Democrats (led at that juncture by Paddy Ashdown) and entered into a formal agreement with them about a review/referendum leading potentially to electoral reform. This commitment appeared in the Labour Party manifesto for the 97 election.
This progessive and (dare I say it) statesmanlike approach was fatally wounded by Labour's landslide victory in the 97 election. Labour succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, courtesy of the warped electoral mathematics and skewed results delivered by Single Member Plurality (of FPTP as it is more widely known)
The rest as they say is history.....
Labour held the reviw all right; the Jenkins Commission produced its recommendations for a system called AV Plus. Then the tribalist dinosaurs within the Labour Party; Prescott, Straw and even Brown himself went to work on Blair and the Jenkins proposals were kicked into the long Westminster grass where they still reside today.
Just think, if the 97 election had delivered a balanced (hung) Parliament, the UK would be a very different place now. A more consensus style of government would be the norm, the UK government would encompass a wider scale of political opinion - who knows Vince Cable might even have become Chancellor?
As it is FPTP gave the UK yet another round of "Chuckle Brothers" style governance and guess what, it looks like history is going to repeat itself about 14 months from now. The UK public exhibit the same antipathy toward the incumbent adminstration as they did during Major's tenure, Cameron and Co are making the same positive noises we heard back in 95-96 from the Blair/Brown comedy duo and FPTP will install the Conservatives into No.10 with yet another thumping Commons majority on the basis of minority support through the ballot box. So much for the UK's democratic credentials?
The moral of this story?
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!
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#72 - alex1658
On your specific point about the Czech leadership, it was Topalanek the prime minister, not Klaus the president. I am not being picky. It is important because he, not the president, is head of government - or at least will be until he resigns later today. The problem is not that he is not entitled to a view or that his view might not have merit. The problem is that it was utterly tactless to blow a hole in the EU's negotiating position when it was difficult to achieve in the first place and the timing is very bad. The points he has made so publicly were probably cards in the sleeve of Merkel, Sarkozy and others for the G.20. He has torn that particular rug from under the EU's feet.
On your more general points, I agree with your analysis. I am also a Brit living in mainland Europe and have some sympathy with your view that Britain's pick and choose approach is becoming an embarrassment but you need to spare a thought for the ordinary British voters who have never been given the opportunity to express an informed view. The current model of how the EU should function is in transition and to invite the public to vote on a dysfunctional or incomplete project is an open invitation for rejection. Maybe that is what you have in mind?
There are also consequences for retired and retiring expats. I believe some who have retired outside the EU are experiencing problems securing their pension rights. If at any point a British withdrawal looks like a serious proposition, those of us who have not already done so will need to consider dual nationality as a mechanism to allow us to remain where we are while ensuring our years of NI contributions are not going to go up in smoke.
On the subject of official British policy, there isn't one. You cannot possible interpret the mind of a prime minister who speaks in one breath of being in 'Europe's mainstream, not it's slipstream' and in another of 'British jobs for British workers' as having a coherent policy. His statements are tailored for maximum effect for the audience he is addressing at the time. His number one priority is his own back and the sooner we see it, the better off we will all be.
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@alex1658: "But at the heart of the EU's challenges (imho), is the nationalistic nature of political discourse. Those who seek political office, in general, are still motivated by national populist agendas as a tool to seek election. These aren't EU oriented, but purely local. That may seem fine to some, but it's Jurassic politics, and creates a gap between nation, and the EU paradigm. That's a good result for those who seek to revert to single nation status, but it does nothing for a better, more streamlined, progressive motion for the EU project, and the greater potential benefits of such a mindset."
You are absolutely correct in this analysis - you've taken the words out of my mouth!
Quite simply in the longer term (decades) there is not enough room on the global stage for two different sets of players, one European representing Europe's collective interests and another representing an array of disparate National voices.
The double speak surrounding the forthcoming G20 conference is a prime example of this tension.
That's why I argue for a process of rational and pragmatic policy realignment. Common sense tells me that there are some policy portfolios of exclusively European import and resonance; Defence, Immigration, Foreign Affairs and Macroecomics (assuming everyone joins the eurozone of course) spring to mind.
Many others, such as Housing, Education, Local Law & Order, Healthcare are quite obviously more immediate in nature. Essentially the EU should not be interfering in these policy areas, but they do, due in large part to the EU's uniquely hybridised form of governance.
When the logic of this desperately required realignment process dawns on the European public, perhaps we might be able to engage in a meaningful conversation about how we wish to be governed, what things should be done at which level and how they should be paid for. That process, of course, leads to an obvious culmination - it's called a Constitution?
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Peter Davidson (59): The links you provide support my case. They show that the number of states in Europe is rising, and that the growth is due to the dismantling of multinational states and their replacement by nation-states. And the academic article you posted a link to says that cost of independence for small states is lower in today’s free-trading world than it in the past, e.g. during the high-tariff inter-war years allowing small states (like Singapore) that would have been unviable in the past to thrive.
You say that only TIME is needed is for your world vision to be realised, but back on planet Earth we see that as time progresses the real world converges on my vision of a multitude of democratic nation-states trading freely and voluntarily co-operating on issues of mutual interest using the classical intergovernmental methods. This is the major trend of the last 250 years and has yet to play out in important parts of the world such as China and Africa (and Scotland). So even on your own evidence it is my world that is taking shape and not yours. The EU is increasingly revealed as a historical error, a throwback to pre-democratic Europe on the middle ages, but it cannot buck this major trend in the progress of humanity towards a world of democratic nation-states each shaped around the contours of community defined by national identity.
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In reply to LordBeddGelert:
I presume your comment must also apply to the UK Prime Minister who, as a matter of fact, has no mandate to run the Country since it wasn't elected in a democratic election and, from the opinion polls, has a minority support from the British people.
Wouldn't it be more efficient and productive if the UK thought about putting order in its own house before teaching the world how it should be run?
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Alex1658 and Comment 72.
A fascinating and well developed piece of writing from an avowed EU fan.
There were many sound points presented as pro-EU, but, in all truth most could just as easily be seen and measured as detrimental to the future prosperity and security of the UK/England.
I particularly enjoyed, "..until we mature into a greater political perspective in which politicians think and present themselves as members of a greater whole.."
As an an anti-EU promoter I could not have put it more succinctly myself.
Your sentiment clearly dove-tailing with the later one wishing for a Referendum on UK membership of the EU: Indeed, if that great day ever arrives I might well use the above quote as the guide to all the 'No' voters. For it is certainly the case that until UK/English elected politicians 'mature' enough to offer the UK/English Citizens the chance to have a 'greater political perspective' on where they wish their nation's political future to be headed there can be no true escape for England from, as you so rightly point out, the "..inherent weaknesses of the EU.."
Some of your labels, e.g. "..populist agendas.." and "..nationalistic nature.." ascribed to the average (and presumably British Politician) national leaders are not wide of the mark: However, whereas a pro-EU lobbyist sees them as "..stuck in old politics.." and likened to "..Jurassic politics.." (more of that later), the anti-EU perspective sees these as encouraging signs that some Politicians are not yet entirely in thrall to the corrupted, venal EU-pie. You consider the EU as "..victim to getting all the blame for Europe's ills.." whereas I must ask who else can be blamed when it is the paramount authority for all Laws and Regulations for the last 35 years (Maastricht)? Thus, you see nationalistic politics as backward where I view it as a lively demonstration that the political will of the Electorate at National level has not yet been extinguished from the mind.
So, whilst you interpret the present ongoing difficulties of the EU as "..growing pains.." I see them as evidence that the EU after 50 years has failed and continues to fail its Citizens in most core areas of their lifestyles. All key areas where the 'strength through unity/one-size-fits-all/united we stand' theoretical advances/improvements that an EU was supposed to bring about are in truth not one iota better than the former individual States' condition. And where there has been reform and improvement at National level it could just as easily be explained by natural, logical progression which may only have been hindered by an unresponsive EUrotocracy.
I will concede the dramatic easing of the cross-border/customs/trade processes has been down to the EU, but then, that was the original purpose and nothing since has been of any genuine, enhancing value except the extension of such arrangements to those nations once in the shadow of the Iron Curtain.
Of course there are many organisations and people such as myself who see "..integrated European societies as a step too far.." and with very good reason: A European Union is surely demonstrably the 'Jurassic' of all political theories on mainland Europe. Whether it be Rome, Charlemagne, Catholicism v Protestantism, Napoleon, Bismarck, Hapsbergs, Hitler, Stalin post-WW2... Is there any era when a form of 'united Europe' was not on the agenda of some over ambitious, wealth aggrandizing and ultimately undemocratic person/power?
I believe infact the genealogical term would be: Megalosaurus. So much for the "..rest of us with more progressive views of living in harmony.."!
Finally, I would agree with you, it would be wonderful if I were to once more experience the Right and Responsibility of being an individual Citizen of a UK/England (in all honesty just England will suffice) that "..breathes a sigh of relief.." and is politically-economically-socially-judicially free at last of all the "..constant whining.." by EU member nations. They have demonstrated so often (e.g. Pres Sarkozy, Czech President, Msr Barroso etc.) that their only real interests are their own constituencies, and rightly so.
PS: Whilst holding no brief at all for PM Brown (surely a national and literal 'prime' example of the UK 'Democratic defecit') I cannot agree with your sweeping, ".. beyond shadow of a doubt.. profound disaster.." summation of all his works. As with so much of present day events I strongly urge the jury is still out and the verdict of History may well be different from the initial rush to judgement.
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Freeborn-John and Comment 76.
Pleased to agree with you on every point (though the Scotland one is slightly pre-1707 Scotch-mist in the eyes about the perfidious English!).
The link shows more independent nations and time plus History suggest the EU is a throwback to all those eras of dictatorial people/powers seeking sway over everyone on the mainland and these Isles.
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LogicalJack wrote:
"@52 thrednodio - No, he didn't blow a hole in 'European solidarity', he blew a hole in EU solidarity. FACT. And, no, I am not being pedantic. This has got nothing to do with the 24 European countries outside the EU. See post no.48. Thank you.
Love Europe - Hate the EU."
LogicalJack, you are fighting for the dignity of this word "European" with admirable tenacity and, well, logic.
But that will not save you. Lots of us here have been fighting for the little word "democracy", and it faces a far more uncertain future. It has been dragged through the mud, chopped up into little pieces, pressed with lies, rolled into sheets of deceit, and hung out to dry. Currently, "democracy" means watching your money get thrown into a black hole whilst party cretins in suits laugh at you on TV.
I do understand what you are saying, and I agree 100%, but I put it to you that we must fight for this little word "democracy" before we bother to rescue "Europe".
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#77 - Alfe0110
No Prime Minister has a popular mandate under the UK system.
All the more reason for taking your second paragraph very seriously. Well said.
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Peter Davidson (padov01): It is no accident that political discourse takes place within a national context. The very things that underpin national identity – language and culture – are pre-requisites for any meaningful debate. And much of modern politics as we know it, such as redistributive healthcare or social policies, are only accepted by voters when there is a shared solidarity between taxpayer and beneficiary that is ultimately derived from shared nationality.
Dan Hannan's speech in Strasbourg could never have attracted attention, had it been a speech between an MEP and prime minister from two different countries, in a language not shared with their voters, about transnational issues. Mark Mardell may think that comments from Martin Schulz (German leader of the socialist grouping) are newsworthy, but his management at the BBC should be asking him and Shirrin Wheeler some very hard questions about their coverage of the EU because the BBC is very much part of the EU problem. The biased BBC promotion of the EU cause extends well beyond the Brussels-based journalists though. During Gordon Brown's recent trip to Washington a BBC reporter told millions of British viewers that Barrack Obama would only listen to Gordon Brown if he was delivering a message that Angela Merkel and President Sarkozy approved of. One might have thought that the American president had invited the leader of his most dependable ally to Washington to hear his own thoughts. Or that the American president would invite or telephone the French and German leaders if he wanted to understand their views. Not according to the BBC. When Sarkozy or Merkel visit Washington I somehow doubt that the BBC will then report that Barack Obama will deny them time of day unless they restrict their words to those that Gordon Brown has pre-approved. How can such BBC promotion of the EU agenda be explained? Mark Mardell may not be the worst offender, but the problem is an editorial one and Mark is the BBC Europe editor, so he should answer. Failing that, better blog topics might be ‘Who runs the BBC?’ and "Why do they let their journalists use their privileged position as a pulpit from which to promote the federalist agenda?".
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padav01 wrote:
"You ask me to provide an explanation of the EU?s crisis of legitimacy and by extension, some remedies.
This forum is, of course, unsuited as a vehicle for the provision of a comprehensive response to that challenge; whole books have been devoted to the subject with limited success. If I had all the answers in a few paragraphs I think I might be more usefully employed elaborating them for a wider and more influential audience."
You could be wrong, you know. Arguably forums such as these, and the wider blogosphere, are destroying the party control over mass media that prevents modern society evolving its political systems. You speak of "books", but who reads those anymore? When I was growing up and going to university, I would read books because they were the best way to source information on specialist subjects that interested me. Now, if I want information, I go online.
And blogs and forums are decimating the conventional subservience to powerful slogans that form the bedrock of party based dogma. So I am quietly hopeful. I am also cynical by nature, and would not be surprised if the internet does NOT improve the human condition. By I am quietly hopeful. I hope your faith in books and "reaching a wider audience" is nothing but pomp and nostalgia. After all, you don't who you are talking to on this forum. A prince of the realm might read it, and learn something. You have a scant chance, but better than if you publish in a book.
Now getting back to this question of preferable models of political structure in society, you claim that the process must take time, huge amounts of time. You suggest change must be slow, and reasonable, and it cannot be projected in terms of the current fascination with the nation state.
I would agree with your last point. I agree that the nation state is but a fad, and faces severe threat, if history is any gauge of such things.
However I do not agree that change is slow and reasonable. I don't see the evidence for that. When change came to the soviet union, it was fast and completely unexpected. One year before the Berlin wall came down, nobody was predicting it would do so. Heck, probably one week before it came down.
And when the current economic crisis hit, nobody had a clue. McBain was spriuking about the fundamentals of the economy being sound.
Nobody predicted the rise of fascism or soviet party rule, and nobody predicted the internal combustion engine, fission or the internet.
And the one thing we all know comes slowly and with geological proofs to warn us millennia in advance (global warning) we all deny.
So let me disagree with you on the pace of change, and further on the difficulty in predicting what that change will be.
I suggest change will come faster than anyone will predict, at a time nobody predicts. The change will be from party based representation to real direct democracy, where people vote on legislation from their living rooms, and where nobody in society has an opinion that is worth more than anybody else, when it comes to making law.
That MUST be the change, because any other change is merely a reversion to past models of inequality and over bearing domination of reason by those who inherited their power via the rule of the fist.
Power corrupts, and therefore direct democracy must be the best form of government, because it is impossible to corrupt every voter at once, and therefore it is impossible to corrupt the law making process in direct democracy.
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#83 democracythreat
I find your ideas interesting, but the ideas seem a little fuzzy.
For example, I would be happy to vote on issues which are within my area of expertise, but I would have been quite incapable of deciding on the best way to regulate the financial industry.
To have made a decision on that, I would have had to have the various issues explained to me by people whose area of expertise that was. While that would have been good for my education, it seems to me that the reality that interest groups would band together to push their particular philosophy. They would no longer have to corrupt the political parties - they would be the political parties. Money would always be the deciding factor in "getting the message out", so that we really have government decided by Fox News.
Thoughts?
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oldnat wrote:
"#83 democracythreat
I find your ideas interesting, but the ideas seem a little fuzzy.
For example, I would be happy to vote on issues which are within my area of expertise, but I would have been quite incapable of deciding on the best way to regulate the financial industry."
Yes, of course. And so, knowing that you are expected to vote, you would seek to educate yourself on the legislation that was coming up for vote. You would go out and read on the topics, you would want your newspapers to cover the topics, and your demands for information would thus create a service industry for this demand. If you read a Swiss newspaper, you will see what I mean. This is one of the very great benefits of direct democracy: it gets people engaged in the process of having an opinion. It brings people in from the cold of irrelevancy. Furthermore, it forces the experts to make their cases publicly.
Your concern is precisely the concern of every elected MP. MP's are not experts. They do not claim to be. They are people like you or I. But they surround themselves with the views of experts. And indeed, sometimes they don;t bother and they make poor judgments. But in direct democracy, everybody does the same thing. They surround themselves with expert opinion in an effort to make the best choice. And the law of averages gives a far more accurate distillation of expert opinion than the two party system, where each party has experts on the payroll, and where experts who do not please the party system are silenced by default.
oldnat wrote:
"To have made a decision on that, I would have had to have the various issues explained to me by people whose area of expertise that was. While that would have been good for my education, it seems to me that the reality that interest groups would band together to push their particular philosophy. They would no longer have to corrupt the political parties - they would be the political parties. Money would always be the deciding factor in "getting the message out", so that we really have government decided by Fox News."
This argument is too clever, and seeks to prove too much. You presume that direct democracy is a theory, not a practice. Look at Switzerland. Now you confuse "experts" with "interest groups". That doesn't work, for a whole bunch of reasons. For a start, people are free to choose their own experts. They are NOT free to choose their own ruling class (the people with "interests" to protect). Therefore, everyone comes to their decisions privately, having listened to the people THEY decide are expert. So you get communists listening to communist experts, greens listing to green experts, and educated people reasoning for themselves, based on logic and experience.
But look at Switzerland. Murdoch doesn't own a paper there. Why? Because he can;t get government advertising contracts in return for political support. Why? Because if he tried, the people would be outraged, they would submit a piece of law to proscribe the behaviour, and it would come to an end.
And in fact, this happens. People in Switzerland are always getting outraged by the behavior of large corporations or other "special interests", and forcing them to stand down.
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Freeborn-John and Comment 82.
Unfortunately, as you, I and a good many others have had cause to lament in the last couple of years the BBC has indeed become an integral part of the "Democratic defecit" problem when it comes to the UK/England v EU issue.
The complete lack of reportage of the Dan Hannan speech is only the latest in a catalogue of BBC Editorial decisions with regard to the EU. It is an example of the serious concern amongst all those who believe the BBC as a public service body paid for entirely by British Citizens should be presenting a British perspective on a range of issues alongside the professional journalistic obligation to report news events from across Europe and the World at large.
In the past I have had BBC respond to my enquiry about how it formulates its Editorial policy on coverage of the EU issue within the UK? It may interest you to know the BBC regards itself as even-handed in its reporting on the popularity of the EU among UK Citizens. It may also be of interest to know the BBC does not consider it has a duty to reflect the evident English majority opposition to the EU anymore than it does the pro-EU lobby: I.e. BBC will give equal attention/time to the 30% Electorate whom Polls/Surveys suggest are in favour of the EU to the possible 70% against the EU. Thus, not only is the weighting of Broadcasts on the pro-EU lobby higher than that for the 'anti-EU' lobby in any BBC reporting it is also therefore directly supporting a view counter to that of the great majority who pay its License Fee!
This, the BBC powers that be claim, is its even-handed approach!?
So, Mr Mardell can represent the EU voice to the UK Citizens each day but no there will not be a BBC voice for the anti-EU lobby except on those rare occasions when it gives a 1 page report of UKIP's conference (no, I am not a member) or an especially unavoidable anti-EU event in the UK.
It would be a truly amazingly brave (and rapidly unemployed) BBC Editor or Journalist who actually asked each of the 3 main Political Party leaders the straightforward question: "Will you allow a Referendum for UK/England Citizens on membership of the EU?" Answer: Yes or No.
So far as I am aware, this direct question, demanding a direct answer has never been tried by any BBC interviewer (not that Independent TV/Radio is any better).
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#83 - democracythreat
One of the drawbacks with representative government is that it requires people to either feign or manifest expertise in fields in which they are plainly not expert. Nowhere is this more evident than at cabinet level. A PM, when he initiates a cabinet reshuffle cannot seriously believe that someone who was an expert on agriculture, fisheries and food one day can suddenly morph into a defence specialist or an economist the next. The great strength of 'Yes Minister' was the underlying truth. The expertise at almost all levels of government actually rests with the officials. Ministers are, at best, coordinating figures and, at worst, front (wo)men whose sole purpose is layer 'the party line' over what they have been told they must do.
This would appear to reinforce the theory popular with some that government is simply 'too important' to be left to the people. There is some evidence to the contrary to be inferred from turnout figures. EP elections are a case in point. If the sceptics are right that people are so turned off by Europe that they stay away in protest, that is a sad indictment of the democratic process. There is an alternative explanation which is that large numbers of people accept that they do not full understand the issues and choose not not vote. This may be a sad indictment of presentation but it is no bad thing for democracy.
In his response to you at #84, oldnat writes 'To have made a decision . . . I would have had to have the various issues explained to me by people whose area of expertise that was'. What I think it boils down to is rather whether people who have not grasped the issues are sufficiently honest to be agnostic and abstain. You clearly are much more familiar with the Swiss model than me but, as an outsider, I have the impression that the stability and reliability manifested by successive administrations is too consistent to be down simply to the 'national character'. It suggests to me that direct democracy does actually work in the context of a well ordered modern society. Another model which has been floated quite a bit here in the east has been the idea of 'governments of experts'. The problem with that is it involves people serving in government by invitation and with no particular mandate. You can argue that cabinets drawn from the legislature are in much the same situation but they can be called to account if things are not working as they should. Moreover, Mr.Browns original plan of a 'government of all the talents' seems to have slipped badly with several ministers bussed in from outside the political circle having fallen quite hard. Could it be, I wonder, that the problem with expert ministers is that they think they know better than their officials?
There can be no better example of the quandary than financial regulation. The FSA can only function if staffed and run by people who understand that of which they speak but who are these people? They will either be academics who by definition come from a sheltered academic world of hypothesis or people who come from the sharp end and were probably part of the problem in the first place.
Which ever way you come at this, it boils down to who you can trust, both in terms of honesty and in terms of judgment. In the former, the answer would appear obvious. While voters will doubtless continue to vote out of self-interest, the hidden agenda of party loyalties and backstage maneuvering is taken from the equation. The chances are that direct democracy would, in that sense, be much more honest.
Judgment, though is a different matter and here I strongly favour pavdav01's thinking. People who simply cannot imagine the vastness of the numbers involved in the present crisis will very quickly get a handle on it when the scale comes within their comprehension. As he has pointed out previously, ask anyone what is wrong with the NHS and you will get a stack of vacuous and generally spurious answers but ask someone what is wrong with their local hospital and they will put their finger on it faster than any official parachuted in. So it seems to me that the best way of making direct democracy work is to scale it appropriately and that means delegation, devolution and subsidiarity. In short, nothing that is susceptible of a local or regional solution should progress to national level and nothing that is better dealt with a national level should progress to supranational administration. Eventually, you will arrive at a situation in which everyone knows precisely what is within their competence, no higher authority will be allowed to interfere with it and everyone will know what they are voting for.
Padav01 is right about the time scale. This requires a whole new set of political values and will involve a mindset in which the great and the good see the value of relinquishing rather than accumulating power. I suspect that this is beyond the mindset of the current generation of politicians but I think it is a desirable aspiration and possibly achievable by mid-century if enough people are willing to take it up.
(PS. oldnat. When your post was awaiting moderation, you were flagged as 'theoldnat'. Is this you or has someone hijacked your ID?)
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#85 - democracythreat
My #87 (still awaiting moderation) was posted before your #85. In view of your final paragraph, what would have happened if the Swiss had had a 'Fred the Shred' pension moment?
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"subsidiarity" is one of those curious words that looks ugly and sounds sleazy, but in fact describes a very desirable thing. I have a grudge against the word, because I can never spell it correctly, though I often want to use it.
So, sure, creating more government at local level is part of what makes the Swiss system work. People can make decisions for their own town, their own region. They can elect their own teachers, and their own police and so on and so forth. What this means is that you get the efficiency of local intelligence being brought to bear, but you also get a profound sense of empowerment. People know they are responsible, so they take things seriously. If there is a problem in the school, the try to fix it, not least because they know full well that all the neighbouring townships will be whispering constantly about "those weird folk over there" who can't sort out their school.
Setting tax rates and having a real control over the budget is the cornerstone of this system of subsidiatry. If any level of government can't raise their own money for their own proposals, subsidiatry is a myth, a sham that is really just the rubber stamping of party based schemes. I wont digress, anyone who has been involved in local government in the two party federal states knows what I am talking about.
But that is only one part of direct democracy. The other part is that direct democracy does NOT replace representative government. Far from it. You still have representatives who are elected because they are very competent, or "expert", in whatever field, and these experts still do a hell of a lot of work within the system. And indeed, there are still political parties within the swiss system.
The crucial difference is the power structure. Parties in Switzerland and subservient to the people. Sure, they can meet and discuss and get funding for campaigns and all that stuff. But they know, at the end of the day, that nothing they agree can over ride a referendum demanded by the people, even a small group of people. And so the whole mindset of the politician in Switzerland is different to the two party system in the west or the one party system of the former soviet union. In the west and the soviet union, all you need is to get enough votes to get a bill through the houses of representatives. So you can buy votes, by promising MP and senators (or Duma members) a greater share of tax revenue for their electorate (or soviet department). And this is how the system works. It is called "horsetrading". Votes are traded this way and that, and so those who control this trade (cabinet) can control the legislative process. Now those who sell their votes often believe (and with some justification) that they are doing their job. They were elected to go get a share of the tax pie for the folks who elected them in their electorate, and so they go to parliament to get a share of that pie by selling their votes to the cabinet.
Those who have seen the film Charlie Wilson's War might remember Charlie saying that his electorate were christian farmers who never asked for anything except to be left alone and to keep their guns. And so that allowed him to build up a lot of favours in Washington. Charlie was able to swap his votes for favours, because his electorate didn't want the tax money.
Anyway, the swiss system has all this sort of horse trading and division of tax revenue and party schemes, but with one crucial difference. Because the people can veto any law they think is corrupt, or bad for the country as a whole, and because the parties and the politicians KNOW the people can (and have, and WILL) do this, the horse trading is less prone to get out of hand.
In the west, the massive influence of corporate jobs (the revolving door) and corporate campaign funding (giving control of who is on the short list of the party to stand for elections) has utterly corrupted the political process. Politicians in the west (and in the soviet union) are utterly unable to escape the new rules of the game. They are forced to tow the party line or give up their careers. There is no higher authority than the party, and therefore no higher authority than the corporations and Media giants (hi rupert!) who sponsor the party.
the end result is that Switzerland is protected from the excesses of the party-corporate symbiosis, whereas we in the west are not. The Swiss people refuse to send 25% of their population to jail in order to make huge profits for those who manage the police force wage revenue and the prison system. The Swiss people refuse to go to war for the sake of profits for those who manufacture weapons and boots for soldiers, and oil for the navy. the Swiss people refuse to allow monopolies to evolve that hold the public to ransom, and they refuse to allow their cities to become hopelessly overpopulated cess pits of poverty so that corporations can have access to ultra cheap labour. And they refuse to allow monopolies to exists in the public transport system, unless the government owns them.
And they utterly refuse to allow their bankers to to behave the way western bankers behave, by buying off whole ministries of finance and establishing nonsensical cultures where nobody knows what an asset is worth anymore, and that is precisely the intended result. (the bankers from UBS who got involved with American securities are seriously facing jail time in this country. They have all fled to the USA, and are terrified of returning. I can't tell you how angry the Swiss are about these folks. If you want to see a Swiss turn livid with disgust and raw anger, mention UBS executive from the USA.)
All of these perversions and corruptions of the democratic process are prevented, simply because the swiss system allows horse trading, but it also allow the people to say "No way!", by referendum on demand. Hence they are very rich, very peaceful, very well educated and a very caring society. Health care is universal, and universally excellent. Nobody gets left behind in Switzerland. Even in the prisons there is a menu with three choices, and the choice between play station and xbox.
Direct democracy works, because it is based on the principle that power corrupts.
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oldnat wrote:
"To have made a decision on that, I would have had to have the various issues explained to me by people whose area of expertise that was. While that would have been good for my education, ..."
I would stop you right there, oldnat, and suggest that no stronger argument could possibly be made for direct democracy. Direct democracy does not just protect the people from corrupt laws, it engages them in their society. You may have heard that the swiss have zero crime. It is true. I have never lived in such a society. If you leave your wallet on the bus in a mountain village region, you'll probably get it back with the money still in it. Indeed, one of the reasons the swiss are so hostile toward immigrants is because the immigrants make up 90% of all criminals in this society. They have not been indoctrinated with respect for the law, so they don;t care, on a personal level, about breaking it.
Swiss society, swiss political society, engages the people and educates the people. Most of all, it forces the people to care, and to respect the law. It is, after all, their law. If any person dislikes a law, they can go out into their community and argue for change. That is real, and it has real results.
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ikamaskeip (86): Interesting comments concerning the BBC. Personally speaking I would be happy if the BBC did not report an explicitly British-perspective on the EU (or other issues) but I am not happy at all when the BBC promotes the undemocratic EU federalist agenda. I do not think the BBC feels it has to take a neutral line on Robert Mugabe's highjacking of a few elections in Zimbabwe so I am baffled as to why it feels the need to report positively on the permanent highjacking of the entire democratic process in 27 countries including Britain.
Late last year Mark Mardell indicated he would blog on the topic of the perceived pro-EU bias at the BBC. Unfortunately he has yet to do so.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2008/12/sarkozys_ambitious_agenda.html#P72948391
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#85 democracythreat
Thanks. That was helpful. As I think of more issues, I'll come back to you, It helps to clarify my mind, and I really need to get a better grip on this. As an ex-teacher, I'm more than happy to be the pupil. Hope you don't mind sitting on the other end of the log.
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#87 threnodio
It was me. I was trying to fix something in my profile, and got confused.
"Theoldnat" sounded too pompous even for me!
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"what would have happened if the Swiss had had a 'Fred the Shred' pension moment?"
Well, it only takes 100 thousand signatures to force a referendum, but it probably would never have come to that.
Switzerland has never had a banking crisis, it has never had a stock market crash or insurance company failure. It has never had unemployment over 5% since it has had direct democracy.
However, it is a good question. Folks here are as mad as hell about UBS. I mean, they are really seething with righteous anger. The UBS has lost two CEO's since the crisis hit. The public have renamed "Parade Platz" in Zurich to "Pirate platz".
Also, the laws here are very different from the UK. Corporations do not have the same protections as in the UK or Europe. So debts can piece the corporate veil, and strike shareholders. To explain, if a bank hasn't got enough assets to meets its obligations (and the asset ratio here is much higher than in the UK) it can't just "go bust". The shareholders must recapitalize the bank.
Now think about what that means. In switzerland, if you are the major shareholder of a bank (wave to the queen now), and you appoint directors who then throw away your money and your customers money on crazy schemes (yes, contrary to popular wisdom shareholders tell directors what to do. they are responsible for appointing them or nobody is), you can't just threaten to walk away from the mess.
And that is precisely why our western governments have been held to ransom by the banks. The banks here have lost everybodies money, and they are saying: "Give us taxpayers money to make up our asset balance or we walk away and let the whole lot go splat."
Now that is holding society to ransom, and they can do it because corporate law will not let the government or the people with their savings in banks pursue the shareholders (HRH et al) for their lost savings.
But in Switzerland, that is not the case. Switzerland gets a lot of flak about "secret and shady banking practice", but I have read banking regulation law in both Switzerland and the UK (and a bunch of other places too), and I can say that the UK is the wild wild west compared to this place.
Here, shareholders of banks who lose assets must replace the lost assets from THEIR OWN POCKETS. they cannot just walk away.
So, why is there such massive outrage at UBS? Because a hell of a lot of swiss folks are shareholders!!
They are unbelievably angry. See, they haven't just lost their investment, they might have to pay MORE than they have already paid, just to keep ownership of their shares! It is a curious situation. UBS ended up avoiding this problem by selling half of the companies shares to a Singaporian investment firm, but this still means the shareholders have had their shareholding HALVED because of this law that says you cannot just walk away.
Now, in contrast, in the west the banks have been able to demand that the government simply buy them out. So the taxpayer has been paying the shareholders (your majesty) of RBS full price for their shares, in return for a bankrupt bank. Now you may be told that this is not the case, that the government has not done this, but in reality they have indeed done this. See, when the government "put money into the bank", what the bank then does with that money is to pay out the money to its "creditors". Which are other banks, you see. So by putting money into one bank, the government is effectively gifting it to other banks. The most alarming example is AIG getting billions and gifting it to goldman sachs. Now they explain this by saying that goldman sachs had good credit, and that AIG held the bad credit. But that is a completely fraudulent distinction. If the taxpayer had not paid in the money, both Goldman Sachs and AIG would have been holding bad debt. And yes, the guy who invented the bailout scheme was indeed the CEO of goldman sachs when all these funky debt deals were created. I mean, it defies belief, but here we are.
So this just could not have happened in Switzerland. The law is different. Corporation can;t just walk away from their mess as they can in the UK. Why? Well, because a while back they tried, and the Swiss had referendums, and they said "No way!".
This is why I say direct democracy works. I am not theorizing. I have seen it action. I see it in action every day.
Now you will hear that Switzerland is in fact gifting some money to UBS, but this is because so many swiss are shareholders, and there is political will for this to happen. But it is no way a done deal. There is a huge amount of speculation that someone will force a referendum on this issue and the move to help out UBS will fail. It all depends on what the Swiss decide to do.
But there is no way the same sort of scandals could happen here. Just not possible. Companies are not above the law here, and politicians and CEO's who fail lose their jobs. that guy with the pension, he would be on the dole here, and he would never work again in the financial sector. In fact, he probably couldn't get a job flipping burgers.
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#89 - democracythreat
Thank you. Fascinating stuff and very persuasively argued.
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democracythreat @80 Right behind you on that one, matey. I'll stand up in favour of democracy and happily join the fight against the bully-boys that have taken it away from us and our children by signing EU Treaties in our name without bothering to explain what they were doing on our behalf. Let's expose their neglect, tyranny, self-interest and double-speak at every opportunity. Prosecute The Cause! All for one....
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Maybe a better question would be, why recognize any of them???? None of the so called leaders seem to have any street credibility in their own alleged countries and really have the support of what is only the minority party that combined with another equally unpopular minority party to form the government. Those parties have given their soverignty away to the EU, which if these men are not traitors in their homeland is the self-proclaimed legitimate government. If the EU is the legitimate government, we should ask Germany, France, Czech Republic, etc, for their embassies back and refuse to meet with them as it is a slight to the EU. Mr. Obama should fly to Brussels and meet with the EU Burecrat of the moment and tell them we don't have time to meet with every government of a former country. We should also declare null and void all trade agree ments with the former countries, many of which were written with the intention of giving small friends access to US markets..
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#93 - oldnat
Now I am going to look really stupid. Where the hell did you find your profile? I am damned if I can find a link and my email address needs updating.
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@democracythreat: "I would agree with your last point. I agree that the nation state is but a fad, and faces severe threat, if history is any gauge of such things.
However I do not agree that change is slow and reasonable. I don't see the evidence for that. When change came to the soviet union, it was fast and completely unexpected. One year before the Berlin wall came down, nobody was predicting it would do so. Heck, probably one week before it came down."
@democracythreat
I'm not going to deny that such cataclysmic episodes can or will not happen in the future - the current economic crisis may yet have some dramatic impact that we are unable to imagine at this juncture.
However, we need to ask ourselves a vital question here. Is this form of sudden political upheaval desirable?
I would argue that, for the sake of social stability if nothing else, surely a better, more equitable and democratic form of political evolution is one which proceeds with the engagement and consent of the people; if so that can only happen over a protracted period of time.
Now it's true that the demise of totalitarianism in Eastern Europe was, relatively speaking, a bloodless affair but are we certain such dramatic upheaval in the future will always unfold in this benign fashion. After all, Europe has previous form when it comes to these kind of episodes; 1870-71, 1914-18, 1939-45......?
This is why I mention time as an overriding factor because evolution of the European geo-political arena has profound implications for all European citizens.
I am not, and never have done, arguing for France, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, Poland et al, here today, gone tomorrow. That way lies untold misery, war, social revolution on an unimaginable scale. What I am arguing in favour of is a rational debate, involving all of the citizens of Europe about how this continent and the vast potential it possesses might evolve and adapt, in terms of its governance, to reflect these changing circumstances.
Those who bury their heads in the sand and say change is not happening, let's go back to the way it was in the "good old days" are, quite frankly, either blinkered fools or promoting a hidden agenda.
I'm just as critical about the pathway European integration has taken, certainly in terms of the EU's institutional architecture, but ultimately our (those living on these islands) future is European, whether or not we like it so I argue for a structure of European governance that is both pragmatic and appropriate.
That means recognising the reality of events rapidly moving outside the scope of traditional European Nation State sovereignty to effectively manage and shape, it also means recognising the malign impact of centralising power per se, so governance should be geo-politically appropriate, wherever possible. For example, the UK remains an exemplar of a unitary state highly centralised, very bureaucratic and largely unaccountable (the exponential growth of quangocracy?), the very same flaws thrown in the face of the EU's institutional architecture also apply right here in dear old blighty!
Many of those amongst the fiercest of EU critics point to Switzerland as a model form of liberal democratic state. I agree, the Swiss model has many fine attributes to offer, not least its federal structure and fundamentally dispersed framework of political power?
If we use the Swiss experience as a template, we might imagine a Federal UK based on an array of largely semi-autonomous, sub-national geo-political territories (averaging 4 million inhabitants?) displaying a high degree of fiscal independence, ie. with their own Parliaments boasting primary legislative powers and tax raising powers (please don't mention an English Parliament as an integral element of this Federal UK structure?). Such momentous change cannot, indeed should not happen in a short (say one year or less) timescale. Far better that root and branch constitutional transformation of this kind should evolve over a period of several years. Scale up that process for the European arena and it is easy to see how a period of decades might be required?
Finally, those who extol the virtues of direct democracy overplay its benefits. Yes, deliberative forms of democracy have a supporting peripheral role to play, particularly at the more local level, but I reject claims that it can and should replace representative (I use that word advisedly) forms of democracy.
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Thank you for your insights into the Swiss system democracythreat.
I kinda doubt that the Swiss system would work out in other countries for a couple of reasons (obviously different ones from country to country):
First Switzerland is rich, but it is not only rich because of it's form of democracy, but also because of it's banking secret etc. - so it benefits from foreign people to store their money there for security and other matters. Theoretically any country could do that, but if they would all that money would be far more spread over the world and not a single (or a few to be more precise) countries would benefit from it alone.
Secondly here "people" in general are not as educated and if you just read the lower class "newspapers" such as "Bild" you can't even blame them for having such limited perspective of the world around them. Thus I think empowering the broad mass would maybe on the (very) long term have advantages when people get used to their new responsibilites and actually think what their actions cause - however there will be a long time until that happens and I am not sure if the stability of the country would endure such a harsh process.
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Freeborn-John and Comment 91.
"..Mark Mardell said he would Blog on the topic of the perceived pro-EU BBC bias... unfortunately has not done so.."
Well, no surprise there then!
Cue my Comment 86, "..amazingly brave (and rapidly unemployed).. BBC Journalist.." Should this 'perceived bias' actually get to be aired on BBC TV, Radio, HYS and Blogs!
As for "..Zimbabwhe.." etc. and BBC reporting (even from outside the country as they so proudly boast before each report just to remind us how big and bold the BBC is!?): No surprise there either; afterall, Nick Robinson and a couple of other BBC Journos have leapt on the 'Binyamen Mohamed and torture' story like hungry, fearless reporters... Nothing like a good, solid news story of a highly dubious, unsavoury character illegally in the UK but so-deserving of Human Rights accords to get the BBC journos' juices in fully fledged investigative mode.
Meanwhile, the approx 70%, i.e. 35,000,000 UK Citizens (and License Fee payers, and I would bet a year's pension a certain Binyamen never paid it once) who are apparently 'unhappy' with the highly dubious and unsavoury character of the EU get reported 2 or 3 times a year!?
As I have had occasion to mention on other Blogs: That the BBC has slowly and deliberately slipped from the superior heights of Richard Dimbleby's Broadcasts from Belsen Concentration Camp to the cheap, shoddy, sensationalist and biased stuff that passes for Editorial integrity and Journalism today is one of the great, immeasureable tragedies for Britain's cultural development.
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padav01:
"Finally, those who extol the virtues of direct democracy overplay its benefits. Yes, deliberative forms of democracy have a supporting peripheral role to play, particularly at the more local level, but I reject claims that it can and should replace representative (I use that word advisedly) forms of democracy."
But padav, if you understood what direct democracy was, you would understand that it does not "replace" representative democracy. Nobody made that claim, so your rejection is mystifying.
Specifically, at post 89. I wrote: "But that is only one part of direct democracy. The other part is that direct democracy does NOT replace representative government. Far from it. "
The bold was in the original. Maybe you can comment further having read this post.
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Seraphim85 wrote:
"I kinda doubt that the Swiss system would work out in other countries for a couple of reasons (obviously different ones from country to country):"
Everyone says this. OK, the two reasons you give are that Switzerland is rich and the Swiss are smart.
Well, that kinda kills any argument for political reform stone dead, doesn't it? "We can't do that because the people there are rich and smart." And for every other case, "why would we want to do that? those people aren't rich and smart."
It is a neat way to defeat the proposition, but it has no logic to it.
Look, I am not a theorist. I didn't come to Switzerland because I was studying political theory. I'm a lawyer, and I came here to learn about international corporate structures. And to ski. But that is beside the point. the point is, I was amazed by this society. I was amazed by the wealth of the public (as opposed to being amazed by the private wealth in London), and by the hugely informed public. I mean, the education in this place is off tap. And the hospitals, the schools, the wages... and the TAXES!! That was the thing that blew my mind the most.
The swiss somehow had trains that ran on time, everytime. They had universal health care that was the best I had ever seen. They had no crime that I could see. They didn't get drunk and fight for kicks. They didn;t have a war on drugs. They had compulsory military service, but they were a nation of pacifists.
But most of all, they somehow managed all this with low taxes. All my life, I have understood that government costs money, and that taxes fund governments. So this was a total mystery.
It was not until I understood how little political corruption, and therefore how little waste of taxes, occurs in this country, that I began to really understand why the Swiss are so rich, and why they are so well educated and peaceful.
See, you make the argument that we in the west can't be democratic like the swiss because we are not rich like the swiss. And because we are not smart like the swiss. But has it occurred to you that you put the cart before the horse? Germans are rich, and they are smart. So are brits. Maybe because they have some limited sort of democracy, relative to cultures that endure dictatorship and the rule of the fist?
If it holds that democracy that defeats corruption, because it disperse power and does not allow concentrated power to corrupt leaders, then it follows that it is democracy that creates social wealth and also high levels of social education.
That would lead you to think that democracy, real democracy, is the horse that pulls the cart of wealth and education. In short, societies do not achieve democracy after they achieve wealth and education, rather the opposite. If a society has democracy, it will improve its wealth and its education.
Curiously, this is the dogma that justifies our empires going to war and installing puppet client state democracies, but even so these very marginal democracies are often better than what they replace.
Now my experience in Switzerland and the west has taught me that we in the enlightened west have lost control of what little democracy we had. Our system of representation now only represents the shareholders of banks and major industrial corporations. Their power is incredibly concentrated, and reasonably easy to perceive just now. They have democracy, but the lower social orders do not. Hence we have slums and shanty towns developing within formerly great democratic nations, and in the same cities as mighty towers of financial power, where a few individuals earn more than poor countries.
So i dispute this idea that we can wait for wealth and education before we will be blessed by direct democracy that gives people a greater share in the political and social life, and in the pride, of their communities and federated states. Our wealth and education is eroding, because our democracy has become corrupted by the ever more concentrated power of the corporate elite, the banks, the parties.
But I am not especially concerned. I believe that if I can perceive this reality, and so many on this blog can also perceive it, then the time for this idea has surely come to Europe and to the western world.
Lord Acton said "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." But he also said "Sooner or later, there must be a reckoning between the people and the banks."
Now he was a very good catholic, a corrupt politician, and undoubtedly a good european. I am sure he can be relied upon for counsel in these troubled times.
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@democracythreat
OK I accept that you, individually, are not calling for direct democracy as a wholesale replacement of its representative counterpart but there are some who do.
The basic principle of Representative democracy has been corrupted to such an extent, particularly in the UK by the malign influence of FPTP, that the established well of public goodwill toward its function has been poisoned; democratic politics excercised through traditional mechanisms - Voting in Elections, Parliaments etc. - is perceived as broken beyond repair.
I've been pilloried and ridiculed in certain debates simply for attempting to defend the principle of represenative democracy as the bedrock of any just society and arguing for its enhancement, via electoral reform and other constitutional improvements.
Switzerland is often invoked in this instance. You appear to understand that Switzerland is still, essentially a representitive democracy. Yes, direct democracy does play a much larger part in Swiss political life but referenda only serve as an adjunct to the main menu of political discourse, which remains representative in form and function.
Put simply, there are some sad folks out there who honestly believe we can initiate credible policies to address climate change, the global economic crisis, the war on terror and other "big issues" of that ilk, simply by holding a series of meetings in village halls with a show of hands, all linked up on the internet and that this outcome will somehow deliver an improved form of democracy.
In stark contrast I would point to Switzerland's federal structure as the principal origin of its sound governance
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#104 - padav01
No. You hit the nail on the head but with a glancing blow. What DT proposes is not inconsistent with representative democracy. What I propose - and you appeared to agree with me earlier - is that global, continental and national issues be dealt with by representative systems unencumbered by the issues that are better dealt with locally and regionally. So we mandate our representatives to deal with macro-economic policy, defence, foreign affairs, climate change and so on, we create transnational legal institutions to deal with financial regulatuion, interntional terrorism and the implementation of laws to ensure level playing fields in area like social justice and competition regulation and the rest we do for ourselves at regional and local level by direct democracy.
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padav, I think we are very much on the same page. Direct democratic practice is the check to balance the power of the houses of representatives, it is not some magical cure all by itself.
And I agree, it is poor history, and idealistic in the extreme, to think that representative democracy is inherently a bad thing. Clearly societies with representative democracy in good working order enjoy huge benefits from the collective governance of experts and thinkers.
So I advocate only the ultimate power, what we call the "sovereignty" of the nation, being placed in the demos. That is sufficient protection for society from the concentrated power of those who sponsor political parties.
It is curious that the people of britain seem to understand this, and reach out for it. There has been outrage at Browns decision to renege on his promise to hold a referendum on the EU. I think the people feel slighted, and deliberately left out of the political process. But one referenda every 50 years, when it suits the parliament of the day, is scarcely something to cry about missing. So I doubt the people of britain were upset because they missed what they had come to expect as their due. I think the lament for this lost referenda is something altogether more profound, perhaps a cry for a recognition that the people ought to be the sovereign power in the land, above parliament and above the crown. Even above the law, for the sovereign is the law, in truth. But, we are agreed that a balance of power means a sharing of power, and those who claim all power to the direct democratic system are simply repeating the old cry "All power to the soviets!". And we saw where that ended up.
We can't throw away the good in search of the perfect, and I hope we see a sensible evolution of our western political system towards a meld of what is best in both the swiss system and the english system. But I hope it happens sooner rather than later, because the concentrated power of banks and large corporations is rapacious in the most unconscious and therefore destructive sense of that word. Our leaders in profit grabatisation are butchering the natural world in their insatiable quest for economic growth and profits, and I fear we face a race against the clock to bring some common sense and humanity bear upon our collective decisions. Hence my hope that you are wrong about the slow pace of change.
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This American would like to thank Topolanek and Hannan for trying to teach our President about the dangers if runaway spending.
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three notes, you confuse me terribly. Who is sovereign in your grand system of federalism, and what force can stop the central powers of this vast federation from starving recalcitrant regions of funds, in order to force them to toe the party line?
I think you divide the powers of the realm into cabinets, rather than true branches of legislative power. this will not do, simply because the overall sovereign power will, if left unchecked, concentrate power unto itself and become as corrupt and as destructive as its predecessor.
Now direct democracy places sovereign, or ultimate, legislative power with the people, and thus it is their prerogative to ultimately decide what the limits of federalism shall be. I put it to you that if a central federal institution is given such a power over the other institutions in the federation, it will be but a matter of time before the interests with the finance to sway the careers of mortal men will hijack the reigns to the society.
It is worth noting that in the history of Swiss direct democracy, there have been virtually no positive legislative proposals that have been brought by the common people which have passed into law. Sure, the people have the right and the power to initiate legislation, but seldom do any of the rank and file of society every bother to put forward a reasonable proposal that has not already been investigated and analysed by the institutions of the federal government. When they have done so, such proposals have nearly always lost at the ballot. Indeed, the very role of the institutions of federal government is to listen to the debate in wider society, and to articulate and predict where that debate shall lead, and to set out legislation that is topical before citizens become so disgruntled that they take the duty upon themselves.
The real benefit of the Swiss sovereignty in the people has been to veto law, not to create it. The people use their power as a check against the power of more organized, more nimble power structures.
I suspect you wish to create a perfect model for naturally wonderful beings, such that they can express their inner beauty and god given perfection upon the world stage.
I differ. I see the human animal as a hyper carnivorous beast that must be controlled and tempered by law. therefore I wish to see a system that raises the raw powers of emotion to a higher level of conditioning and respect for law, and which educates men away from the rage and the selfish fantasies of their biological condition.
I fear that you could build a wondrous palace for men, a glittering forum where each pure and generous soul could go to express their inner beauty in harmony with their brothers, only to watch it torn down and scrapped so that one man could build himself a throne from the bones of the weak.
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#108 - democracythreat
I am astonished that I confuse you. I would have thought it could not be easier. It is nothing to do with 'dividing the realm into cabinets' and it certainly has nothing to do with 'perfect models' and 'wonderful beings'. I am far to long in the tooth and cynical to believe in either. Finally, I do not want to create a vast federation.
Sovereignty should be vested in the people. I grant that direct democracy would have that effect but it is not a prerequisite as you well know. It is quite normal in modern representative democracies. In fact, England and Wales, New Zealand, Israel and Finland are the only other examples I can think of off hand of parliamentary sovereignty.
My 'vast federation' would actually be considerably smaller in terms of it's powers and competence. It possibly would expand geographically over time but it is equally possible that Britain, if ever given the choice may chose to leave. I would identify key areas in which the collective interests of the people are clearly better served by pooling sovereignty - short term: climate science, basic human rights, macro-economic policy, competition rules - mid-term: defence and foreign policy. I would establish a basic charter of citizens' rights and reconstitute the ECJ so that it could rule on the compliance or otherwise of national law with this minimum standard but with no power to make law. Everything else - health and safety, food regulation, working time directives and so on would be repatriated. Brussels would have enhanced powers in certain key areas but greatly reduced powers in others. One these area of competence were properly defined, I would like to begin a process of moving the power base from the Commission and Council towards the directly elected representatives. It would happen over a transitional period rather than by a 'big bang' process.
At the same time, I would like to see the repatriated and existing national powers devolved so that things such as health care, education, policing, regional development and infrastructure, while coordinated, would basically be decided at regional or even local levels. Direct democracy would come into play at these levels only. Everything of national or EU wide competency would be delivered through representative government. I would like to suggest to you that, when you speak of raising 'the raw powers of emotion to a higher level of conditioning and respect for law', it is you not I that is reaching for the stars. What I propose is pragmatic, practical and - given the collective will - realisable.
Now for the pie in the sky stuff. Somewhere down the road, this process would start to polarise and, as sovereignty was transferred to the EU in some areas and other areas were devolved to more local control, the nation state would become less relevant and regional identities would surface. You would expect to see other parts of Europe laying claim to separate identity much as Bavaria, Catalonia or Scotland do now. The Hungarian speaking region of Transylvania, Brittany possibly or the Basque region. There would be casualties. The British Union would begin to look very anachronistic and you could anticipate Belgium breaking up. This is not a negative process. The tension between the Britishness and Irishness of Ulster, the tensions in the Basque region, the friction between rural southern Italy and the industrial north would all begin to ease. Eventually you would end up with a Europe not defined by borders drawn by victorious powers at Versailles in 1919 or fashioned from the spoils of war but one defined by culture, language and geography. Now I grant you that the second part of my thinking is somewhat idealistic but surely it would be preferable to hopelessly out of date and artificial representative democracies that are actually no longer representative or democratic to be found all over Europe.
There is already some evidence that it works in practice. The Baltic republics have regained their identities post USSR, Scotland and to some extent Wales are reasserting themselves post devolution. Slovakia and the Czech Republic are perfectly comfortable together as separate entities. When Serbia finally accepts that Kosovo is lost and the Greeks stop playing hardball about Macedonia name (for God's sake, how petty can you get), the process can begin in the Balkans. Then maybe, enlargement will be on the cards.
Now tear it apart by all means because it is not fully thought through and there are bound to be flaws but please don't suggest that I want to create a vast superstate. Nothing could be further from my mind.
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"At the same time, I would like to see the repatriated and existing national powers devolved so that things such as health care, education, policing, regional development and infrastructure, while coordinated, would basically be decided at regional or even local levels. Direct democracy would come into play at these levels only. Everything of national or EU wide competency would be delivered through representative government."
Once again, you divide the land into geographical divisions, and to these areas on the map you allocate cabinet appointments, giving some "areas of competence" to local government, and some to federal institutions. You evade the crucial issue of sovereign power. You imagine that sovereign power can be shared, that the federal institutions will not use their overall control over taxation and spending to force local governments to do as the dominant federal parties direct.
In every political system, some person or some institution is sovereign. The law requires this fact, because some source of law must hold authority if decisions in difficult cases are to hold authority.
I suggest that the people must be sovereign because they are the hardest institution to corrupt. Now they can be decadent, and they can make mistakes. But being so numerous, and so divided and varied, compared to other candidates, it follows that they are the hardest institution to corrupt. That is what makes them fit to be THE sovereign power in the land.
And that means the people must have the practical means to exercise legislative power. They must have the means to initiate legislation, and to veto legislation. Now this is not radical theory. Even within the EU, the entire debate over powers has been precisely who holds control to initiate legislation, and who has the power to veto legislation. The reason the EU parliament is correctly described as a joke is precisely because it originally held no power to do either, and it has only gradually been granted very limited powers in this respect. The EU parliament can talk and talk and talk some more, but it can;t do anything significant. It cant make laws, or change them. And the people of europe, well they get to choose who can talk and talk. This is their "democratic" share of power. And even here, the parties that created the EU institutions have been careful to construct the means of selecting who can be eligible to talk and talk. Such is the nature of the desires of these parties to share power with their people.
The same crucial issue of power to make law exists inside the UK. Indeed, we can still see the echo of old wars over power in the UK today. Parliament makes the law, but the Queen still signs off on it. Now by custom she always signs off on it, but if she were to refuse to do so, it is an open question whether the courts would enforce the parliaments law. Most probably they would, unless they felt the royalists were more militarily powerful than the parliamentarians, in wider society.
So sooner or later, your federal structure must acknowledge who hold the ultimate power to make and veto law. My point about direct democracy is simply that by creating a federal constitution that gives the people this power, you prevent the possibility that the people can be sidelined and made impotent, in precisely the same way as the European parliament has been engineered to be impotent.
I suggest that this is a fundamental requirement because federal institutions can be trusted to sideline local governments, if they possibly can. Unless the sovereignty of the people is protected by a constitution that shows a clear path to the means to initiate and veto ALL law, both federal and local, then whichever institution that does hold this sovereign power will certainly reduce the common people to spectators in their own lands.
This is why I say that you cannot divide competences for government along the lines of cabinet competencies, and say that federal institutions can make federal law, whilst the people can make only local law. If the federation is to endure, and remain a federation of cohesive regions and local communities, the federation must be united under one sovereign power. This is why I continue to ask you, who holds this sovereign power in your model? Who holds the power to keep the members together, to make the universal laws that stop the regions splitting apart into separate states, and making separate legal systems, some dictatorial, some less so?
I think it is entirely possible to have a desirable united Europe, a europe united by law and a europe that will stand together on the world stage, enjoying the benefits of a common currency and without borders or wars between internal regions. But I suggest that such a european superstate must be constructed with a constitution that provides all the people of europe with the means to control the institutions that they allow to govern and manage the tax revenue they give to such institutions.
How these managing institutions are formed, and which competencies they hold within a system of representative democratic process, seems less important to me than the overall constitution that serves to set out the divisions of power. Indeed, I am content to leave the detail of such organization to the wider community of each generation. But the principle at the heart of the union is how the power shall be shared, and who shall make the law.
This is what confuses me with regard to your model. I still don't understand who is sovereign.
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now the men collected on this blog talk sense. (a Russian likes nothing better than late into the night kitchen talk how to improve the world :o)
an English friend of mine, a lady married to a Russian. BTW - a prince! (well, a result of the 1st immigration, in 1917) when I am visiting, normally recognises the take-off decision point and says, "now you two Russians can discuss it no doubt till 6 am, you've got wine here, I hope you liked the dinner, you're all sorted, unless you'd like something else? No, well if you don't mind I'll go sleep now. Have a good time! See you in the morning! don't smoke too much! byyyeeee... And vanishes upstairs.
Anyway, whatever you agree on, I have a vague feeling I can live in that world. :o)
three cheers! for three notes. and an amount limited, by the number of people only of course, :o) for direct democracy.
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politejomsviking, I am happy you are back I was worried. was about to post 3 days' ago - if anyone met you, elsewhere. or else to send a snail mail letter to your native town demanding if anyone knows the owner of Skipper and that he should immediately write back! to wonderland.
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for someone who does not propose any models (me :o) it is very easy to criticise others.
so, firstly I don't see incongruencies btw threnodio's and directdemocracy plans. these two excellent models can be excellently accommodated, in one geography. perhaps.
threnodio's division into grass roots and umbrella levels is division of responsibilities, who is practically working on what. and to this we add the splash of "any group of citizens willing can intitiate a referendum on either proposing a new, or veto-eing any existing law".
? why not.
secondly, directdemocracy it's nice to focus on the key point "whose is this sovereignity", "constitution should pin-point it unequivocally, that it's peoples, not anyone's elected for whatever purpose/duration/by whatever means." Good. But beware of the "detail", that you are happy to leave to others to bother about. That very "detail" can turn everything upside dow and neglect the Constitution as it pleases 10 times a day like there is no tomorrow. On the practical example of the Soviet Constitution sad to remember ultimate sovereignity belonged to people. Not a word about the Communist party. One wonders how it slipped alon :o)
Same is with the Russian one.
On the basis of Russian constitution absolutely all cases against state are won by Russians applying to the Strasbourg court. If I cared and had strength to spare, I think LOL in fact it'll be enough one application to Strasbourg with Russian Constitution book in hands to somersault full existing Russian systems and the whole state because none of them can stand the test of our Constitution. One application LOL enough to cancel whole Russia as unable to stand up to its Constitution. Only when the Strasbourg court ruling in hands - who would fulfill the court ruling :o)
So in now way denying the core Constitutional setting down who is who and what is what, there are apparently some other don't know which forces in play.
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#110 - democracythreat
OK, now I see the problem and how my proposal might seem vague. It would be best demonstrated with a flow chart but alas the limitations of the bot do not allow. I may have a chance to put one up on my site and post a link later.
We are agreed (I think) that sovereignty should rest with the people. I think we also agree that making direct democracy work in a community of some 500 million is a non-starter, even in the broadband age. Firstly we need to take a leaf out of the American book. The separation of powers in the British system has become so vague - if indeed it ever really existed - as to be non-existent. Separation is important in my thinking.
Again I am at an early stage in developing these ideas but the EU would have a directly elected non-executive presidency along the lines of the Irish model. (S)he would be the public face of the Union, shake all all the hands, do the photo ops, all that stuff. (S)he would not be completely powerless though. There would be responsibility to arbitrate in the event of a constitutional crisis, invite appropriate figures to form administrations according to the outcome of elections and so on. I don't have to spell this out - it is a familiar model both in republics and monarchies.
I would abolish the Council and the Commission in favour a Senate the membership of which would be elected by and from the national parliaments. This would be one chamber in a bicameral system which would also have a chamber of representatives directly elected by the people. Since the latter would be elected by PR, there would be a multitude of parties so administrations would be formed by the time honoured mechanism of get down and dirty horse trading. Cabinet style administrations would be formed according to the distribution of seats in the assemblies but portfolios would be limited to Europe wide areas of competency with everything else devolved.
I am more vague about the ECJ because I have always seen drawbacks in an elected judiciary. I am open to suggestions but am clear that it would be able to rule on the legality or otherwise of measures taken at all levels of government in terms of compliance with basic rights laid out in the constitution, statute of rights or whatever you want to call it. It's overriding duty would be to guarantee the rights and freedoms of citizens and of course it would interpret the law and cause it to develop by the accumulation of precedent but it would have no power to make law.
All this would occur under the framework of a constitutional document guaranteeing the rights outlined above.
Yes I know it's still vague but consider the obstacles.
1. Before you could move to an integrated macro economic policy, you would need everyone in the single currency.
2. Before you could have an integrated defence policy, you would have to figure out the role of the British and French nuclear capability and create a structure which could embrace non NATO members (possibly by reforming NATO rather than the EU).
3. Before you could have a common foreign policy, you would have to address the issue of the permanent seats at the UN Security Council and matters relating to individual nations' interests outside of Europe.
All of this is going to take time.
I began by saying that sovereignty should abide with the people. It follows that none of this can take place without the consent of the people so we must have a constitution - not a treaty arrived at horse trading in the manner of Lisbon. We must return to a concept of a constitution endorsed by all the people of Europe. Ideally, the constitutional document when ready would be put to all the people on the same day.
How would the votes be counted?
Nationally. You could not allow a situation in which the wishes of the majority of Europeans overrode the wishes of any one nation.
Would this not create a two speed Europe?
No but it would create a two tier Europe. There would be nothing stopping nations which rejected the constitution from forming a sort of revitalised EFTA which could enter free trade arrangements. Iceland, Norway and Switzerland all have perfectly good arrangements with the EU today.
Would there be a bottom line regarding opt outs?
Yes. Membership of the single currency would be an absolute condition.
How would it be paid for?
Federal taxation. The system of national government contributions would end and either a general federal taxation system introduced or a system whereby all direct taxation went to the Federal Government and indirect taxation to national governments or vice versa.
Would this mean the end of the CAP?
Yes. Regional economic funding would be the responsibility of the regions and there is no reason why agriculture would not be part of that.
Would this mean the end of the Working Time Directive?
It would mean an end to all regulation which is basically none of government's business. Subject to safeguards (you cannot have lorry drivers or surgeons working 24/7), people would be allowed to work when, where and as long as they liked. The trick is not to limit working time, the trick is to prevent employers requiring it.
I could go on forever but you get my drift. Government where necessary should be good government. Where it is not necessary, no government is better than tiresome regulation.
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Having said that, it is NOT my intention to chill you out in any way, you're thinking ab the EU layout currently, as min at the moment, so please do by all means.
I brought in Russia only keeping in mind, like somebody said, "in this world as a pilot project :o), to test theory, this and that, in reality, with the main objective - "a lesson to the humanity - So that others looked at us and didn't do the same!" :o)
I am sure by our Constitution I can call a referendum. Many want to, for example for a law to share oil incomes a bit directly with citizens, like Norway pays simply money to simply all people, Saudi Arabia and many those. In the OPEC. If those "underground stocks", our closet with supplies, indeed belongs by Constitution to absolutely all the folks who happen to hold the passport - why not? And hop la la our Government quickly took a law that "in order to call a referendum a group of people has to collect not less than 50,000 signatures in not more than 2 weeks' time in no less than 12 "subjects of the Federation." Translates - from Baltic to Pacific. Not forgetting the perma-frost far North regions to hunt in the tundra after separate deer-culture based folks, travelling on dogs and deers around. Where one can get, for the beg., by helicopter only.
And what will happen to those "signature collectors" walking the ground... scary to imagine, LOL.
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Re: 114 above
Whoops! I hit 'submit' when I meant to 'Preview' - hope it makes sense. Sorry:-)
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I think the key to direct democracy is that word: "direct". It means that people can and do vote. Maybe not on everything small thing, but potentially on every small thing, and definitively on a lot of big things.
Notice, I do not say "vote for ..", but rather "vote on..". Direct democracy means people vote on issues, not just for representatives.
So for direct democracy to work, there must be a structure that allows people to vote on issues. And not just whenever the government allows this, or once every ten years. There must be a known structure in the constitution that allows people to FORCE a vote, in the same way as every parliament has this process for forcing a vote.
So in Switzerland, the process is fairly simple. Anyone can go around and collect signatures for a proposal. If they collect enough (100 thousand to propose a law, 50 thousand to veto a parliament law) then the government MUST submit to the sovereignty of the people, and hold a vote on this issue. The government does not have a choice. Furthermore, everyone knows this is the constitution. They know they have this power.
This is what makes them the "sovereign". It is not just some words in a nice document that hangs on the wall of the parliament. And every government claims to represent the people, and that really it is the people who are sovereign. Even kings and queens, who get their power by being born, even these dictators claim that they are the voice of the people.
So there must be a process that allows people to force government to let them vote on issues. Otherwise they are not sovereign, because they lack the power to make law, or to stop law being made. So there must this process of allowing any citizen to go and get support, and create a referenda on any issue.
Also, this power must be practical. It cannot be so small that any one crazy man can make everyone vote on whether socks should be made illegal, but it cannot be so big that nobody can ever use the process.
So it makes no sense to say that the UK is a direct democracy if you need to collect signatures from 50% of the population. And the system cannot work if you only need 1000. The Swiss have decided that the best ratio is 100 000 for a population of about 5 million voters, or 2% of the population. 1% if people hate a law from government and want to challenge the law. This means that there are regular referenda, and people often vote on issues. They take part in their government. Curiously, the number was once 50 000 to suggest a law, but then the swiss voted to make the number higher, because they were sick of voting all the time.
It is this process of referendum in the Swiss system that makes it different from Russia, from the UK and from Europe. And from the USA. This is the process that makes the country a real democracy.
Now on a local level, the system is repeated. So is the division of taxation. The federal government has about 33% of the taxes. Cantons, or regions, have 33%, and each village has about 33%. Each level of government can change its own tax rate. This means that people in Geneva might pay 35% tax on their wage, but in Obwalden they might only pay 15%. This is because the town of geneva and the canoton of geneva set high taxes. The federal taxes (7.8%) are the same everywhere.
So there are three levels of government, and each level can make its own tax laws and can make regulations for education and others things as well, but even so the federal government makes laws for the whole of Switzerland. But the crucial thing is that at every level of government, the people have the power to make law, and have referenda on demand. That is the key, it is why so many people with such different languages and such different lifestyle can still live together in harmony.
It is very ironic that the EU has the opposite approach to making a unified state from so many different languages. They want to impose uniform taxation from the centre, and they want to make the regions and the towns beg for their money from the ruling party. And they wonder why these regions are split up along language and cultural boundaries, but they never look at the solution that is right in the middle of Europe: Switzerland.
If the people who created the institutions of the EU really wanted unity and a Europe for the people of europe, they could have copied the Swiss model. But they did not. The went the opposite way. They concentrated power at the centre, and forced the regions to follow their economic laws. They gave no mechanism for the people to vote on issues, to make or veto law.
Therefore I do not believe these people when they say they want a united Europe that is created for the benefit of the European people. they just want concentrated power.
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#117 - democracythreat
Agreed. The problem is one of scale. It simply is not practical to institute direct democracy among 300 million Americans or 450 million Europeans. This is why I want the Senate. People at regional level can require that their elected representatives deal with something in a particular way at national or EU level. If an issue is sufficiently important, the pattern will repeat itself community wide wide. Call it 'indirect' direct democracy if you will. The compulsion to comply with the people's wishes forces its way through the various strata without the logistical nightmare.
Eventually, of course. everyone will access to broadband if not at home then in community facilities and, with virtually foolproof ids, Europe wide direct democracy becomes feasible.
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In Engines direct drive is ussually a more efficient means of applying power, but a transmission is necessary, because maximum power is not always necessary and sometimes reverse is good to have. An example would be America's Civil War, if left to the common people, we would still be fighting a Confederate Army or two somewhere in the South, because the common Southerner never acknowledged defeat, no matter how obvious. Lee had to surrender the Army, and was the only one who could do it.
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#119 - politejomsviking
That is a very astute observation but what happens if engine fails? You have to get out and push. The more people who push, the easier it becomes - but it does have to be in neutral.
As it is, the engine is failing and people are pulling in different directions. We either have to jump start it or get a new model.
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"The problem is one of scale. It simply is not practical to institute direct democracy among 300 million Americans or 450 million Europeans."
I don't know if that is true. It sounds true. I wouldn't want to bet anything against the possibility.
But neither of us has any evidence, have we?
And most people, if you suggest direct democracy in a small country like Switzerland, will tell you it isn't practical. Too many people. Not practical.
And, having no evidence, you can't argue. But there is no evidence that it is impractical, either. You are just guessing. Maybe direct democracy could work given the whole population of the entire world?
Who knows?
It works in Switzerland based on percentages of the population, not based on size. The same rules apply at local, regional and federal level. And it seems to scale perfectly well.
So, if it were scaled to the UK, you would need about 1 million signatures for a referendum. Not so easy to get, but not inconceivable. The iraq war would have been subject to referendum. So would the whole EU issue. So would the pole tax have been.
And as for something Europe wide, why not? It would scale to needing about 5 million folks. Again, not easy, but not impossible either.
And after all, someone has to set the agenda for law. If not the people, then who? You suggest a "senate". This seems to ignore everything I have said about the tendency of power to corrupt. What would prevent large corporations and banks funding the political careers of senators, and from the senate passing laws that ignored the desires of the people?
Anyway, I suppose that we will never know, because we will never see any evidence. But I can tell you this, from personal experience:
Every intelligent, educated person I have ever spoken to about direct democracy has claimed that it would be impossible where they live. 100% of them. They all claim that it would be impractical, because there are too many people, and the people are not the right people, because they are too stupid, or too poor, or the wrong heights, or whatever. And none of them are aware that Switzerland has a fully functioning direct democracy that has existed for more than 100 years.
And when I tell people, they pause. They think about that for two seconds. Then they tell that it would never be possible in their region. And then they list the reasons, the same reasons they listed before I told them about Switzerland, and then they sit back, satisfied, waiting for me to argue this purely theoretical subject.
This experience has taught me a great deal about academic debate in the west. It is largely a waste of time, because the educated classes do not argue for the sake of learning anything. It is merely sport, and has absolutely no connection to the real world. One can rely upon educated people to talk a subject to death but learn absolutely nothing. In the end, they go to work and they do what they are told. they learn absolutely nothing unless it advances their careers, and this includes time spent at university.
Now this comment is not directed at you, it is tabled as an example of the futility of the whole debate, but it is something you ought to bear in mind. You make arguments about the practicality of direct democracy, and sometimes you speak as though the matter is purely theoretical.
Now imagine if the Swiss started discussing the common law system as though it were a mere theoretical possibility. How ridiculous would that be?
I doubt Europe will see direct democracy purely because it has existed in the centre of europe for more than a hundred years, and has created the only neutral, the most wealthy state. An Island of peace and wealth in a sea of murder and chaos. For more than a hundred years.
And yet nobody knows the first thing about it! Nobody is curious, nobody asks. And it is not like the Swiss are hard to talk to. They have the three biggest european languages as national languages, and they all speak english as well.
The only explanation is that people just don't care. They are not interested.
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#121 - democracythreat
My experience tends to bear out what you say but there have been moments in modern history when people have been willing in sufficient numbers to grasp the nettle. Sadly more often than not it has taken a catastrophe of some sort to provide the catalyst. At a time when governments are talking about more intensive regulation of financial institutions, it seems to me that the time is right to look also at the institutions that would impose the regulation and their complicity in initiating the problem in the first place. Perhaps for once we could preempt catastrophe rather than inviting it. There does appear to be an appetite.
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padav21 @58
See my post @48.
You're trying to pull off the ol' EU-propagandists' trick again by abusing the term "European". Can't let you get away with that.
By the time we reach "The hybrid nature of European governance it (sic) is present form is..." you are well on the way to selling us the dummy.
And by the time we reach this bit...
"In effect there is no fully formed framework of European democratic governance. There is no directly accountable executive arm within the EU's institutional architecture..."
you're definitely trading in dodgy goods. I can't see any way to construe this statement about "European democratic governance" other than by using the sense that you are really referring to EU governance (as qualified in the subsequent sentence).
Don't do it.
Say European when you mean European and say EU when you mean EU. Don't deliberately mix up the political and the geographic/cultural. Please. It is very offensive to those of us being accused of the crime of being "bad Europeans" by EU Commissioners and the likes for simply disagreeing with political orthodoxy as laid down by the EU-elite.
Thank you.
Love Europe - Hate the EU.
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Directdemocracy, I've been in Switzerland and nobody told me of directdemocracy :o). Though must say it was very briefly, still the talk was about chocolates. And socks. LOL. Seriously, it's not like the Swiss go and advertise it around. When you happen to meet one. May be they take it for granted all know they differ. Whereas nobody does. I wish our Lenin stuck in Switzerland for longer and picked up more ideas. But the case could be he'd made up his mind already. :o)
No! Now I remember. All we remember about Lenin in Switzerland as that he spoke to some student audience and said "bla bla bla. that's my idea of the changes. bla bla bla. But I will not live to see revolution in Russia, this, if it ever happens what I dream about is a matter of distant future alas not for people of my generation, but you are young bla bla bla - you may live to see it!"
Forgot how long time has passed btw this pessimistic evaluation of Russian possibilities, LOL, and the revolution. A month?
Except that one was the real one. later played down into the shade, as simply "No 2 revolution - February 1917 "bourgeousie revolution".
Which Lenin had to saddle somehow later and take extraordinary effort for the bolsheviks to survive its consequances, and eventually revise his long-term plans for the "next generation" and organise the coup (the 3rd, "Great October Socialist Revolution". to get power back, as it slipped out of his hands in February. All the haste and mad run on his part during the following summer to catch up on the developments.
Because by the results of the bourgeousie sorry diff. word revolution of February, the results were both tsars available (in turns) abdicated, parliament formed instead, and in that parliament the Bolsheviks - literary the ex "big" revolutionary fraction got forgot how much I think 7 per cent. And couldn't rule nil. Which sad state of affairs (wrong! wrong revolution! un-planned! wrong parliament!) Lenin had to fix. for which he set himself a limit of just one summer.
BTW you are right. Change happens very quickly. Even prof. big head Lenin couldn't anticipate once. Or at least, may be it seems to people on the ground, that change starts at once. "Love ? forgot.. approx. "Love
attacked / downed on him suddenly, like a murderer from behind house corner" Bulgakov Master and Margareta, can be applied to change as well.
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Hello People, this is another raid by the Identity Police.
To Threnodio @57,
Your original post that started this @52 included this:
"So it seems that the answer to your original question about who is running the EU is a prime minister who is so embittered about losing a vote of confidence that he blew a hole in European solidarity - such as it was - ..." - a reference to the Czech PM who lost a vote of confidence.
Your statement makes sense either way you choose to define "European", if you like. It just proves my point that the term "European" is so widely abused in these parts that you can convey the wrong meaning quite by accident. That's why I'm here.
Judging by your post @74 it does seem, however, that you were driving at "EU" solidarity. You said:
"The problem is that it was utterly tactless to blow a hole in the EU's negotiating position when it was difficult to achieve in the first place and the timing is very bad. The points he has made so publicly were probably cards in the sleeve of Merkel, Sarkozy and others for the G.20. He has torn that particular rug from under the EU's feet."
But let's leave all that to one side for a while. Bear with me minute while I do a little cross-checking on your record.
First of all a few bits of terminology:-
Glossary of offences:
1) "Identity Theft": the offence of displacing geographic/cultural identity with loyalty to a political system;
2) "EU Political Correctness": the offence of substituting a perfectly good word understood by ordinary people with a less emotive esoteric one that obscures the true political situation;
3) "EU Aggression": the offence of expanding the EU to incorporate all 51 countries of the continent of Europe without actually having the signatures of Norway, Switzerland and all the other pesky little blighters who haven't got round to it yet on an Accession Treaty. This transgression is often hard to spot to the untrained eye but it marks the onset of domination tendencies - very sinister.
On "Who's running the EU?" you are charged with the following:-
One count of Identity Theft and one count of EU Political Correctness (swapping the word 'power' for 'competence') @10:
"Equally you could then argue the case that, within the areas of European competence, the powers would be sufficiently significant to justify direct election with a separate administration replacing the rotating presidency."
One count of EU Aggression @21:
"...you have no way of knowing whether you collectively want out of Europe or not."
And after my intervention at post no.48...
One count of EU Aggression @87:
"EP elections are a case in point. If the sceptics are right that people are so turned off by Europe that they stay away in protest, that is a sad indictment of the democratic process."
Three counts of EU Aggression @114:
"...Before you could have a common foreign policy, you would have to address the issue of the permanent seats at the UN Security Council and matters relating to individual nations' interests outside of Europe....
.... It follows that none of this can take place without the consent of the people so we must have a constitution - not a treaty arrived at horse trading in the manner of Lisbon. We must return to a concept of a constitution endorsed by all the people of Europe....
...No but it would create a two tier Europe...."
One count of EU Aggression @118:
"Eventually, of course. everyone will access to broadband if not at home then in community facilities and, with virtually foolproof ids, Europe wide direct democracy becomes feasible."
I await to hear the case for the defence.
Love Europe - Hate the EU.
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I was looking for the link under Mr. Mardell's column, "Complain about this essay”, but it must have been disabled or overwhelmed by the many hits, so …
There is not a doubt in my mind that Mr. Mardell and the BBC ignored Hannan's comment because they oppose his views. And to cover their Axxes, they want to make his censorship a virtue of good reporting.
This was an event that excited the world. Mr. Hannan speech was on American TV and major radio stations along with interviews with him. It was also well covered in the press.
My daughter, an Obama supporter and firm liberal (unlike her parental units), thanked me for directing her to this great oration.
It was an electrifying and brilliant speech. I felt a new Churchill had arisen.
And during the pre-war period, Churchill's greatest speeches were booed and shouted down by his opponents.
If the Internet had been available or BBC TV had been in existence at that time, I'm sure Churchill’s speeches would have been ignored by the BBC … perhaps booed or shouted down ... since he was clearly an “over the hill" warmonger.
I’m sure in that time period a BBC spokesperson, would smugly comment that ignoring this old dinosaur "was only doing their job."
Princeton Junction, NJ USA
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@ 123 LogicalJack
Unfortunately your UKIP-borrowed slogan "Love Europe - Hate the EU" makes about as much sense as "Love North America. Hate the USA" or "Love smoking. Hate lung cancer". In other words fatuous nonsense which overlooks the fact that almost the entire European continent is part of the EU and every one of those countries which are not members has expressed an interest in joining. Whether you like it or not the EU is here to stay.
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Logicaljack,
I shall defend the EU, and its tribe, on the charge of conspiring to steal the good name of Europe.
In the first instance, I submit no case to answer, based upon a logical modulation of the principle of "nemo dat quod non habet". You can't give what you do not have, and therefore that which doesn't exist cannot be stolen. One of the crucial elements of theft is to deprive the owner of a thing, and the case that Europe has bean deprived of its good name has not been established.
Europe, as separate from the EU, is a collection of small states that may as well be modeled on the EU structure, for all the improvement they offer. Now I grant, it is an absurdity of the richest variety to create one huge bureaucracy in order to protect the people from the evil of their small bureaucracies. But that does not suggest that one state of play is better than the other.
In the second instance, in the event that Europe is held to possess worthy characteristics, despite its rich history of religious perversion, genocide and tyranny, I submit upon behalf of the EU the defense of diminished responsibility due to infirmities of mind.
If the EU have created a monster, they did so in the spirit of christ their lord god: they made this creation in their own image, replete with the capacity to sin and with all the emotional (and frankly psychopathic) characteristics of the Old testament deity of the christian and judaic faith, who in the time of the pharos sent both chemical and biological weapons against the civilian population of Greater Egypt (according to his own witnesses who have turned hostile on the stand, he turned the Nile to blood and visited the crops with pestilence). therefore it is submitted that the freaks and weirdos who invented the institutions of the EU did not possess a guilty mens rea (state of mind), but were rather moved by an acute deficiency of sanity, deserving not criminal sanction from this court, but rather medical care from a suitable institution.
As both these submissions turn on points of law, I shall call no witnesses for cross examination.
The defense rests.
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Ravenseft @127
...and as much sense as "Love United - Hate Glazer" coined by Manchester United supporters to express, very clearly and accurately, their differentiation between the spirit of their beloved club and the man who was in charge.
I think you know what I'm driving at and I think both of us know that you are not interested in clarity, accuracy or the truth, but just want to wind someone up. You haven't come up with a logical argument to counter my point about language being abused for political ends but just an intemperate remark about "fatuous nonsense" but no reasoned approach.
Norway has held two referenda on EC and EU membership in 1972 and 1994. On the first occassion the 'No' vote forced the incumbent Norwegian Government to resign. Norway has not filed to join the EU since 1994 and has no plans to do so. Switzerland rejected full EU membership in a referendum in 2001. Conclusion: governments may "express an interest" in joining the EU but that is no guarantee that their countries will join, especially if an informed and circumspect electorate is offered a chance to vote on their own destiny. It is by no means a foregone conclusion that all European countries will come under the EU - and you insult their electorates if you feel that way.
Yes, the EU will survive but not in its current form. The EU has over-reached itself and finally shown its anti-democratic credentials over the last 5 years. It invested so much political capital in trying to establish a crucial self-engrandising Constitution for itself that ordinary people have woken up to its true reason for existence - a Federal Europe (and I do mean the continent of Europe) - no more and no less than it defined for itself under the Treaty of Rome, 1957. The EU will, by virtue of its own DNA, replicate and expand more centralised control, more corruption, more incompetence and more injustice against ordinary people (e.g. the European Extradition Warrant and the EU Police Force whose officials are immune from prosecution) so that more and more ordinary people like me will simply reject it.
Take the example of an independent garage in my town. The owner has recently issued redundancy notices to a number of its mechanics citing EU Directives on working hours as the cause. They attached a copy of the relevant EU law to each worker's final pay packet. Those people felt cheated, swindled, lied to, powerless and angry - now they're all voting for any party that pledges to take the UK out of the EU.
Engage me in a reasoned argument but don't shoot from the hip, mate.
Love Europe - Hate the EU (you know what I mean).
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#125 - LogicalJack
At 10 - Swapping the word 'power' for 'competence'
Competence (or more correctly competency - had you accused me of that I would have been guilty of the serious offence of being incapable while in charge of a keyboard) is the authority to exercise power as opposed to power itself. NOT GUILTY.
At 21 - EU Aggression.
Implying a state of ignorance in the addressee could be deemed aggressive, possibly even offensive. It was not implied, however. It was a bald statement of fact. Since the question has never been put, there is no way of knowing the answer. NOT GUILTY. (By the way, be careful on this one. I happen to favour the question being put).
At 87 - EU Aggression.
If the eurosceptic is disenfranchised to the degree that the only way he can voice his dissatisfaction is by way of abstention, it is sad for the eurosceptic, not for the pro-EU camp. It is therefore disingenuous to place this charge at all. NO CASE TO ANSWER.
At 114 EU Aggression.
1. Statement of the obvious - NO CASE TO ANSWER.
2. See 1 above.
3. Absolutely nothing aggressive about that NOT GUILTY.
At 118
Now you are just being daft. I said feasible not compulsory.
#129 - LogicalJack
". . . but (you) just want to wind someone up." Oh, and your #125 isn't a wind up? I didn't realise we were supposed to take it seriously.
"Those people felt cheated, swindled, lied to, powerless and angry". Might have been more productive if they had thought rather more and felt rather less. The statutory procedures for redundancy are stated in Part 3 of the Employment Act 2002 and how these procedures shall operate is given in the Employment Act 2002 (Dispute Resolution) Regulations 2004, S.I. 2004/752.
They don't need UKIP, they need a lawyer.
Mind you, if eurosceptics are so desperate for support that they are unfairly dismissing people in order to drive them to the margins of politics, I guess that means they are loosing the argument - and the plot.
Love Europe, like the EU, hate pedants.
Reactive or post moderation for all except CBeebies please!
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To LogicalJack (129):
You said: "Take the example of an independent garage in my town. The owner has recently issued redundancy notices to a number of its mechanics citing EU Directives on working hours as the cause. They attached a copy of the relevant EU law to each worker's final pay packet. Those people felt cheated, swindled, lied to, powerless and angry - now they're all voting for any party that pledges to take the UK out of the EU."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Time_Directive
Wikipedia: "Key features are the limiting of the maximum length of a working week to 48 hours in 7 days, and a minimum rest period of 11 hours in each 24 hours."
Wikipedia: "Like all European Union directives, this is an instrument which requires member states to enact its provisions in national legislation. Although the directive applies to all member states, in the United Kingdom it is possible to "opt out" of the 48 hour working week in order to work longer hours."
So what was the problem in the independent garage? Did the garage owner get few employees to opt out from the 48 hour working week and get them to work long hours thus making rest of the workers redundant? If that is the case then the fault lies in the British government who has negotiated and fought to get this opt out not the fault of EU.
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#131 - Jukka_Rohila
"If that is the case then the fault lies in the British government who has negotiated and fought to get this opt out not the fault of EU."
No it does not. The fault lies with the employer. As you quite rightly say, there is a UK opt out. It follows that the WTD cannot be used as grounds for dismissal. There are number of situations in which an employer can issue redundancy notices but misapplying the law to suit his own agenda is not one of them.
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@ LogicalJack no. 129
Except that the EU can't be compared with a football club owner who buys and sells his team as he/she wishes, the EU is a 50-year old organisation whose inbox is overflowing with membership applications and whose free trade zone is the largest of its kind in the world.
With regard to Switzerland and Norway, both countries have confirmed their pro-EU status. According to the Swiss government website (a link can be provided): "Joining the EU remains the cabinet’s aim". For the Norwegians: "all major political parties now view the EU as a positive influence, all parties wish to monitor developments in Brussels more closely and, importantly, they are, at least for the time being, willing to let the question of EU membership remain dormant."
The EU will not only survive but also expand eastwards. The UK was one of the major proponents of the accession of the former Communist countries. The "self-agrandising" Constitution was an attempt to simplify the current complex patchwork treaty structure by presenting a text which ordinary people could read and understand. The particular problem in the UK is that the word "Constitution" has negative overtones, and hammers home the fact that the EU is not the trade association that many in the UK hoped it would remain.
You cite the "European Arrest Warrant" - but what is the alternative - each Member State negotiates its own extradition treaty with another? Allowing situations like the Costa Del Crime to be created? As for the "EU Police Force", this is a team of about 500 people who tackle cross-border crime. When given its real name - "Europol" - the nature of the organisation becomes clear - a European counterpart to Interpol. Of course this will not prevent some UK newspapers from writing about jackboots on British streets etc.
The evidence is that ordinary people don't reject it. Where are the popular pressure groups (in countries other than the UK) which are pushing for withdrawal? Where are the street protests? Why does one elected government after another continue with membership? Why do Eurobarometer and other opinion polls reveal support for the EU (other than in the UK)?
Nobody is saying that the EU is a perfect organisation - far from it. There are many necessary democratic reforms that need to be carried out and I would personally support Libertas's aim in this respect. The point is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater; much has been achieved in the last 10 years or so, and I'm confident that still more will be done.
As for your friends in the garage, as Jukka correctly mentions, the UK opt-out on the Working Time Directive is still in place, and they should be claiming for wrongful dismissal.
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#133 - Ravenseft
I entirely agree with the points you make about the EU with the exception of Libertas who appear very naive and simplistic to me and will continue to do so until they produce a manifesto. Without one, they look suspiciously like a single issue party and that is inherently dangerous.
However, that is by the by.
I do wish to make a point about the garage. I am not one of these sniffy people who has a downer on Wikipedia. It is a useful and well informed resource but it cannot possibly cover a subject as complex as English Employment Law. It is very complex. Entire law firms do nothing but employment and I cannot let Jukka get away with a remark like "the fault lies in the British government" on the basis of a Wikipedia entry. God knows the government makes enough foul ups but, in this case, not so. It sounds - although I would need to know much more - as though you are right that these people should be investigating unfair dismissal but let us be clear, even if there was no opt out, it is Health and Safety matter. Dismissing someone because you have to restrict their hours is the equivalent of sacking them because you cannot afford to buy them hard hats. It is a complete nonsense. It does not even make sense in money terms. If they are working fewer hours, the wage bill drops and that should fund bringing in someone else to make up the extra hours. The bottom line is that I do not believe the story as it has been described here and if, as I suspect, it is far more complex, it should not be used in this form for political point scoring on either side.
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To threnodio (132) and (134):
I do think that the fault lies in the British government.
Yes, it is true that the employer probably isn't following the law and dismissing employees over redundancy probably brakes the law in this case. However this is the effect, not the cause.
The UK opt out with the working time directive is akin to wife telling "you can go to brothel, but don't ... the ...!", in another words the opt out opens a gate to abuse the rights of the employees and when the employees are comparable to a wife that believes that "I tripped and then accidentally landed in top of a ... and in accident ... her, purely by accident!". Of course the employer is going to test the water and get some of his employees to opt out and then test the water by unlawfully sacking unwanted / unneeded employees. Do remember that companies choose by themselves what laws they follow and what not.
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Jukka -
You are well informed and intelligent man. Please be intelligent enough to accept that you are not an expert in English law and, just this one, take my word for it.
The law is carefully crafted to ensure that, among many other provision, employers cannot use spurious grounds to dismiss workers or make them redundant. You may not approve of the WDT opt out but simple truth is that an employer cannot use it as an excuse because the law does noit require him to apply it. It therefore cannot possibly be the government's fault.
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Jukka may not be an expert in English law, but if he knows his EU law (i am not suggesting he does: I speak hypothetically in order to start an argument) then there is a definite possibility that he knows English law better than an English lawyer.
Who can trust the courts to apply English law these days? Is it not possible that the ECJ can make a ruling that the English courts decides is now part of English law?
The whole point of the EU is the fusion of legal systems, and I think that UK law is sliding toward fusion with increasing speed. Article 6 of the ECHR is now invoked to sustain the idea of a McKenzie friend as a fundamental right. Why should it not also be invoked to destroy the purely English invention of the barrister/solicitor dichotomy?
I find the subject of law within the EU fascinating, purely because it creates such incredible hypocracies of behaviour and judgement. Just about every barrister in England would declare himself in favour of econmic union, because his corporate clients desire freedom of capital and free movement of workers to enhance their profits, and so the barrister conditions himself to believe in these things, for "economic" reasons.
But if you were to suggest that all LAWYERS should be able to practice anywhere in the EU, or even more radically still, that anyone should be able to practice law if they can establish a demand for their services, the barrister has a fit of apoplectic rage. All of a sudden the champion of open borders and free trade becomes the hard core unionist, and his "economic" beliefs change radically 180 degrees.
To me, this highlights the problems the EU will face in pursuing further integration. Some intergration suits the owners of the member states. They want to shift paper around, and they want competition for skilled labour because that drives down the price (wages, to the common folks who earn them). And they want access to sell their products, as this is in line with their greed.
But what happens when they start to tread on the toes of the lawyers and the bankers? Already, the bankers and the commission are facing off over state aid. The commission points out that governments gifting bankers money is 100% the opposite of the economic "principles" upon which the union is founded. The bankers just tell them to shut up and talk about something else. The commission obliges. It is the same with the practice of law.
In theory, according to principles of free trade and human rights, the existence of separate legal systems is a massive fraud on the common market, created to make law firms rich and people desperate. But the commission will never go there, because economic principles are not the most crucial power in the world of the European Union.
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#136 - threnodio
'I speak hypothetically in order to start an argument'
Unfortunately, you won't because there is very little you say that I cannot agree with. It is, I suppose, in the nature of mankind that individuals will usually put self-interest ahead of the greater good. There is no reason why lawyers should be any different.
I would say only subsidiarity should ensure that, providing European Law is implemented and upheld in the process, nations may effect it in what ever way they think fit. The WTD, if Britain ever abandons the optout could equally well function as an aspect of social legislation or an element of health and safety.
'Why should it not also be invoked to destroy the purely English invention of the barrister/solicitor dichotomy?'
Because it is already dead. It died on the day those woeful little pen pushers who used to write briefs were allowed to play at advocacy. Like having a gynecologist perform a heart transplant if you ask me.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
@ no. 137 Democracythreat
"if you were to suggest that all LAWYERS should be able to practice anywhere in the EU, or even more radically still, that anyone should be able to practice law if they can establish a demand for their services, the barrister has a fit of apoplectic rage."
I've got news for you. Back in 1989 a certain directive 89/48 was passed which allows a lawyer qualified in one Member State to ask to have his/her qualification recognised in another State. This was used to great effect by a certain Graham Wilson, a UK barrister, who was refused authorisation to practise in Luxembourg because he didn't speak Luxemburgish. The European Court of Justice ruled in his favour in 2006.
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threnodio @ 130 "Competence ...is the authority to exercise power as opposed to power itself"
Well, that's news to me. All the definitions I looked up define competence as being something related to being suitably qualified to do a job by virtue of having achieved the required standard of skill, knowledge or educational qualification. They don't say anything about having authority or power. Please give me a link to a definition that shows otherwise. You'll never understand my point if we're talking two different languages.
And the rest I will reply to if I get a chance tomorrow.
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threnodio @130.
'Competence' is the opposite of 'incompetence'. Think about that. Hope that helps.
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I think didn't we all come across in work of various framed diploma holders - who don't know what they are talking about. At that with most arrogant airs. I've got academic folks all around in family and LOL absolutely all shared this view. A degree is just a paper at max indicating you've chosen the direction along which you plan to develop later. If one does plan to excel, as way so many are content with framing their diploma as a thing "done". And become very puffy with airs.
And ruin things around left and right in their field, later on through life. As they are "qualified".
I think one vital subject is missing in all academic studies, several months ought to be devoted on explaining students that they know nil, and the more they study - the more they'd realise the size of the problem. With a kind of a "refreshment" course, LOL, in modesty, scheduled for the last year of study again. :o) Unfortunately this goes against most educ. establishments' principled principles :o) which include "you haven't wasted your money here on us in vain." :o)
I quoted this before but will repeat
"Don't be scared of war
Don't be scared of plague
Don't be scared of hell or paradise
Be scared exclusively of that one man
Who comes and says : I know. What's proper.
Throw him out of doors! Don't trust his single word!
He lies. He does not know, "what's proper".
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#141 - LogicalJack
"Well, that's news to me. (You learn something new every day) All the definitions I looked up define competence as being something related to being suitably qualified to do a job by virtue of having achieved the required standard of skill, knowledge or educational qualification. They don't say anything about having authority or power.
Neither did I say anything about power. It was you who attempted to substitute the word power when I knew exactly what I was writing.
"Main Entry: com·pe·ten·cy
Function: noun
1 : the quality or state of being mentally competent
2 : the quality or state of being legally qualified or adequate competency, quantum and legal effect of evidence
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law"
#142 - LogicalJack
"'Competence' is the opposite of 'incompetence'. Think about that. Hope that helps." - 'Incompetence' is the opposite of one definition of 'competence'. Think about that. Hope that helps.
Why would I need help with English, Jack? I have been speaking it fluently for the best part of sixty years.
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I first refer to Polcirkel who says he will retire to Thailand , taking his pension and savings with him . I have already done that , enticed by a pretty young lady , head teacher of an infant school .
Thailand does not really encourage foreigners to emmigrate there . You are reqired to bring in a substantial sum of money every month , or have a substatially larger sum deposited in Thailand . Unless you have worked here for a number of years , there is no permanent residence . You have to reapply every year as if for the first time , which can be a bother , further you have to report to immigration every three months . If you have a British state pension , there is no reciprocal agreement beween Britain and Thailand , so your pension will never increase . If you marry a Thai , it is easier to get the married man's allowance while you are still resident in Britain .
I don't know how the Philpines compare with Thailand , but British citizen can receive raises to the pension there .
Threnodio and Padavo1
Seem to be generally committed to the European Union as an eventual Federal State . Both admit that the EU as it is has siezed like an engine . They raise the question , whether to service it and sell it on as a reconditioned engine ; or whether it has siezed beyond repair .
I cannot see that there is any way that you can reform the EU in its present Guise ; it is not what the people of Europe want ; like an engine siezed beyond repair , you cannot reform or repair it . The political and bureaucratic structure of The EU is so large and set in its ways , so far down the wrong track , that you cannot change it , turn it back or change its course .
There have been references to John Major having an electoral mandate from the people in the 1992 general electon . I did a lot of canvassing for the Conservatives prior to that election ; I do not recall of any mention of Maastricht . It is suggested that the rebel politicians brought down John Major's conservative government . I do not believe that it was so ; it was ordinary private conservative supporters , who withdrew from party membership and their subscription .
John Major pushed the Maastricht Bill through parliament , with the tiniest majority of I believe 1 or two , against the wishes of the British people ; that too is the reason why British people are so strongly Eurosceptic The European Union as the political/burocratic institute it is today , is not what British people want to be a part of . The British public will vote NO to anything that suggests futher integration .
Britons are not against an alliance with other European countries in a looser form , of individual self governing nation states . I have lived in Italy for a number of years and loved it , I speak fluent Italian .
The biggest problem is how to reform or start The European Union afresh . The cost of making redundent the 700,000 enployees would be enormous , though in the long run would be a great saving of money squadered and little achieved .
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Ravenseft wrote:
@ no. 137 Democracythreat
"if you were to suggest that all LAWYERS should be able to practice anywhere in the EU, or even more radically still, that anyone should be able to practice law if they can establish a demand for their services, the barrister has a fit of apoplectic rage."
I've got news for you. Back in 1989 a certain directive 89/48 was passed which allows a lawyer qualified in one Member State to ask to have his/her qualification recognised in another State. This was used to great effect by a certain Graham Wilson, a UK barrister, who was refused authorisation to practise in Luxembourg because he didn't speak Luxemburgish. The European Court of Justice ruled in his favour in 2006."
I didn't know about that, i will check it out. Thanks for the news, I deeply curious about labour law in the legal profession.
But at the same time, this debate does not reject my argument. I said "If you were to suggest it..", not that it could never be suggested.
I think the fact that the issue had to go to the ECJ supports my case, and further that we have not seen the last of it. For example, how do you enforce market equality in courts?
You cant make common law judges hear arguments based on napoleonic law in opposition to common law causes of action. I mean, how? How does that work, in terms of procedure and precedence? If two procedures differ between common law and continental law, which is to be considered binding precedent? The judge is faced with telling the common law lawyer, with whom he shares an understanding of "the law", that what he can prove to binding precedent is wrong and ineffectual at law, or he can tell the EU lawyer, backed by the judicial supremacy of the ECJ, that he can invoke the rules of procedure found in a small village in Portugal, to deny an English firm a legal remedy they rely upon for their business welfare.
I suppose the ECJ can try to meld the to legal systems on a procedural level, but who shall be the judge of what is fair?
The argument is also made by some lawyers that if you have a uniform code of recognized qualifications and qualifying institutions throughout the EU, you face a race to the bottom in terms of education and training, as states compete to offer the easiest route to practice.
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@Huaimek: "Threnodio and Padavo1 - Seem to be generally committed to the European Union as an eventual Federal State . Both admit that the EU as it is has siezed like an engine . They raise the question , whether to service it and sell it on as a reconditioned engine ; or whether it has siezed beyond repair . I cannot see that there is any way that you can reform the EU in its present Guise ; it is not what the people of Europe want ; like an engine siezed beyond repair , you cannot reform or repair it . The political and bureaucratic structure of The EU is so large and set in its ways , so far down the wrong track , that you cannot change it , turn it back or change its course ."
@Huaimek - I think you misrepresent my contributions to this debate, which, if you care to examine in detail, you will conclude that I argue for precisely the same outcome you predict. I am saying that the EU in its present guise IS unsustainable. I have argued consistently for an entirely different approach to the European political agenda, one that recognises the rather obvious fact that an arena of exclusively European competence should exist, but the "Europe of Nations" geo-political foundation, upon which the EU has been constructed from day one, frustrates.
@Huaimek: There have been references to John Major having an electoral mandate from the people in the 1992 general election. I did a lot of canvassing for the Conservatives prior to that election; I do not recall of any mention of Maastricht . It is suggested that the rebel politicians brought down John Major's conservative government. I do not believe that it was so; it was ordinary private conservative supporters, who withdrew from party membership and their subscription.
John Major pushed the Maastricht Bill through parliament , with the tiniest majority of I believe 1 or two , against the wishes of the British people ; that too is the reason why British people are so strongly Eurosceptic.
Not so sure about your conclusion - the UK public takes a rather detached view of European politics in general, primarily because the European political agenda is focussed almost exclusively perceived through a national lens. Very few, if any, UK residents consider European issues in a holistic European manner - this is a major factor in perpetuating warped attitudes towards Europe in general. In general Europe is somewhere else other than the UK that you sometimes go on holiday because the weather is warmer.
With regard to the Major administration's rather tenuous grip on power, the manner in which John Major was able to manipulate his slender Commons majority is symbolic of all that is wrong with British Politics. In short no UK government in living memory has boasted an electoral mandate. The UK's uniquely arcane voting system ensures that we must endure what amounts to an elective minority dictatorship. The current Parliament is no exception either, with Labour enjoying a 60 odd seat majority or approximately 55% of Commons seats on the basis of just 35% support through the ballot box. How any reasonable person can describe that circumstance as "Representative" Democracy is beyond me?
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Thank you Padav01 for your kind reply to my comment . I admit that there are so many interesting comments ; that I read rather hastily , evidently not taking in the salient points . I will read again more carefully your comments .
The British are an Island People , have been separated and self sufficient from Europe , trading around the world . We do not see ourselves as European , or needing to be dictated to by the European Commission . I have a daughter married to a most charming , knowledgeable , humorous German , they live in Berlin . From my time in Italy , I have dear friend from many European countries . I still see Europe as another place and do not see myself as European , even if historically I am of European genetics .
I consider the freedom to move from country to country and live and work in different countries a great asset , I fully respect the laws and style of life in the country of my choice .
On the subject of voting , I would still consider the British , first past the post method the best . Proportional representation weakens government , as in Italy , to the point of being ungoverable . I find it unacceptible that a British government serves the EU rather than the British people ; passing bills and laws they know the majority of the people are strongly against . One of the problems in Britain is that we play by the rules . In other countries , Italy a prime example , they say yes to everything and carry on as before , ignoring directives . You can get EU grants for industrial developements . In Italy they compulsorily purchase farm land to make an industrial estate , factories are partially built , but lie empty for years almost to the point of deriliction . Southern European countries know how to abuse the system beyond belief .
I will go back and read your posts fully and carefully .
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#147 - padav01
I can only endorse what you say. Far too many contributors here seem to think that being pro-EU is having a brief for a vast bureaucratic monster. Like you, I have been arguing consistently that it is the destination I approve of but not the route map. The whole machine requires root and branch reform with great emphasis on regionalisation, decision making at the most local level practicable for each issue. It requires democratic accountability at the highest level and it needs to regain the trust of people by more institutional transparency. As to the UK, it is beyond salvation in my view. The progress away from democracy towards control freak administrations has become so advanced that I now believe the only solution is to break it up into it's component nations which, if the Scottish experience is anything to go by, does have a chance of regaining the democratic momentum. A looser confederation working for what the peple want as opposed to what the government thinks is good for them - as I have discussed with oldnat - then becomes a real possibility.
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@Huaimek
A few things you might like to consider
First of all, you need to discard preconceived ideas about Europe and its constituent elements; for example you characterise the British in a singular and homogeneous fashion but is this really a true reflection of identity? Similar false ideas exist elsewhere - the orthodoxy conveyed by Europe as a continent made up of distinct national identities contributes in no small part to the problems we see in the development of its future governance - is the Europe of Nations model the only way of looking at Europe and its makeup?
Are Catalans to be considered exclusively as Spanish in the eyes of European governance, is the linguistic heritage of Scania safe in the hands of Stockholm based bureaucrats, are the Scottish not entitled to view their identity as equal in value to their official British counterpart?
The diversity of Europe remains a principal strength – is European diversity, represented solely on an official level by individual Nation State entities, a true reflection of reality or is there another way that more accurately communicates the rich cultural and linguistic heritage of this continent - I believe there is but the sovereign powers entrenched in individual member (Nation) state components of the European Union actively conspire against their legitimate expression.
Finally I must vigorously reject your defence of majoritarian (FPTP) voting systems.
Ask yourself a seminal question; what is the purpose of an election – is it
a) to elect a government to govern?
or
b) to facilitate the periodic (as constitutionally mandated) expression of collective political preference on the part of the electorate (voters like you and me)?
In other words when push comes to shove, which principle prevails, the exercise of political power or democracy itself?
I always thought democracy came first but maybe I'm wrong about that. For me strong government isn't good government - in fact it can lead to very bad government. You provide the oft quoted example but I'll see your Italy and raise you with a Germany, Nederland, Sweden or more or less any other member state in Europe - it's the UK that's the odd man out here (yet again)
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Mark:
When the US president turns up for the EU summit in Prague whose hand will he shake? I would agreed to the point with you, It will the government of the day in the Czech Republic.....
~Dennis Junior~
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