The name of Herman Van Rompuy has been bandied around corridors, newspaper columns, and late-night phone calls for some weeks now, such that his appointment last week brought little surprise – if a few sighs of disappointment. The real shocker was the appointment of Baroness Ashton, which few publicly predicted or advocated.
The response of the newspaper commentariat has been universally dismissive, if not scathing. In the United Kingdom, both the Guardian and the Daily Mail denounced the appointments as a ’stitch-up’. Germany’s Die Welt, meanwhile, complained of “Selbstverzwergung“, which I suppose can only be translated as “making oneself a dwarf”.
Reading below the headlines, however, I cannot help but note a remarkably panoply of errors, which best underline how little most journalists know about either representative democracy, the European Union, or foreign affairs.
To take one example, consider the allegation that the appointment somehow reflects the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’. British eurosceptic Daniel Hannan commits a schoolboy error of this kind, imagining how the initial encounter between Hillary Clinton and Baroness Ashton will unfavourably ‘compare the way’ that Europe and the United States ‘choose their leaders’.
Yet it is an odd example with which to make his case. Hillary Clinton started her political career in 1994 by pushing for comprehensive healthcare reform, when her only qualification was marriage to her husband. She later became Secretary of State after running – but after all, losing – a presidential campaign. She owes her job today largely to the clemency of her one-time rival, Barack Obama.
Her predecessors, meanwhile, were far less exposed to the cruel judgments of hoi polloi. The multiply-talented Condoleeza Rice was plucked straight out of academia, as was her very able forerunner but one, Madeleine Albright, without prior experience of democratic politics.
These appointments were justified, of course, as in representative democracy no foreign minister is ever selected by popular vote. Rather, it is the prerogative of elected politicians – in the US, Presidents Bush or Obama, in our case the elected heads of state and government plus Manuel Barroso, of the dominant EPP group in the European Parliament – to nominate whatever candidate they like. They nominated Ashton, presumably, based on her record and her qualities and not her appeal to voters. In other democracies it is no different. The French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, had only the briefest political career before his selection by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, after a long record of NGO work and Ashton-esque appointments under the French Socialist party. And turning to the UK, the only consolation I can offer Hannan is a reminder that his fellow Conservative, the British shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague, has at least one more thing in common with Clinton, which is the experience of being brought back into politics by personal invitation following a crushing election defeat.
Yet even among those who do not question the legitimacy of the appointment, there is a certain lamentation that the Party of European Socialists’ insistence on appointing a ‘woman’ for the position has resulted in a typically European ‘reduction to the lowest-common denominator’. One finds this view reflected in the otherwise perspicacious blog of Gideon Rachman, of the Financial Times, who calls it “a vindication of the accident theory of history”.
There were, indeed, plenty of skilled men who ticked the various boxes for this role, including David Miliband, Joschka Fischer, Massimo D’Alema, and Chris Patten (though Miliband has been Foreign Secretary for barely a year longer than Ashton has been EU Commissioner for Trade). Perhaps any of them would have done a better job than Ashton. We’ll simply never know. Nonetheless, a preference for appointing female outsiders to manage foreign relations, is not at all as unusual as many allege. Three of the last four US Secretaries of State were women – two with no prior experience in politics – and other female foreign minsters today include those of Switzerland, Mexico, Bangladesh and South Africa.
Compared with the portfolios for finance, say, or justice, indeed, there is a somewhat oestrogen-rich environment in the world of international negotiation. Other countries where a woman has recently been in charge of foreign affairs include such male-dominated polities as Japan, Brunei, and Somaliland. One can wonder why this is, but a pet theory of mine is that high levels of testosterone do not generate attributes especially favourable to good diplomatic relations. Charm, tact, and a little bit of understatement are all things to be welcomed in the role: swagger, braggadocio and bravado, by contrast, are features we can very well do without. Ashton claimed in her press conference last week that she was not ‘an ego on legs’. That seems to me as good a place as any to start.
#1 by Adam Lucas on November 24th, 2009 - 5:14 am
There are too many articles on EU Observer about EU navel gazing; although that may just be a reflection of what’s going on in the EU itself, at present.
We are post-Lisbon Treaty, we’ve got the two new posts filled, let’s move forward now. Please!!
#2 by Joe Litobarski on November 24th, 2009 - 9:11 am
I agree with your main point – that foreign ministers are not normally chosen by popular election.
Hillary Clinton, though, was at least an elected senator – so she was something of an exception. It also wasn’t just the clemency of her rival that got her the job. Why would Obama choose to have his bitter rival in the administration? They struck a deal – and she called off her supporters.
#3 by A Voice for the EU on November 24th, 2009 - 11:41 am
Great article. I also believe that most people do not know much about politics. They mostly see it as a way to get entertained. Just like people who go to soccer games to pick fights with other people. They do not care about the game, just about the complaining, the drinking and the fighting. However, the big difference between politics and soccer games is that politics actually changes the way you live, how much money you get, what you are allowed to do and so on.
#4 by Freeborn John on November 24th, 2009 - 11:53 am
The democratic legitimacy problem lies with the way Lisbon was ratified without popular consent (even in the face of popular discontent with it) such that the post of “High Rep”, and indeed everything else created under Lisbon including all future secondary European legislation enacted under its terms, will lack democratic legitimacy.
The ’schoolboy error’ that much of the pro-EU commentariat are making is to believe that the way the holder of an illigitimate power is selected can legitimate their exercise of that power. It won’t. The only way to restore EU legitimacy is to reduce its powers.
#5 by Renzino l’Europeo on November 24th, 2009 - 1:12 pm
The panoply of errors by British journalists and columnists is expected: it is well known that almost 50% of the lies on the EU comes from the UK.
Many of them fail to understand that the Commission is accountable to TWO Chambers, both democratically elected or accountable to the people of Europe, and is therefore an Executive like all the others across national States. Some others predicted that the Euro could not exist at all.
Since English is the major language for communication, these kinds of reasoning get much wider influence that they would otherwise deserve.
That is a disgraceful situation. But I am not personally interested in running behind each and and every column.
#6 by A Voice for the EU on November 24th, 2009 - 4:15 pm
@Freeborn John:
why do you call a treaty that has been ratified by 26 parliaments and a popular vote undemocratic? Don’t you think something that a parliament approves of with a two thirds majority is democratic?
In this case all the laws done in Germany are undemocratic, because they are done by parliament. All the laws of France and the UK and Greece and the Czech Republic and all other Member states of the EU would be undemocratic.
The schoolboy error you make is that you do not see why we have parliaments, and why we delegate voting power to a parliament. An average citizen cannot work 50 hours a week as a manager, or as a baker and still read hundreds of pages of legislative proposals and be up do date with all the technical and political features of a legislative proposal. That is why we – the people – “hire” other people (the parliamentarians) to do the job for us, and that is why we – the people – hire even more people (the bureaucrats) to advise the parliamentarians. It is basically “outsourcing” that we do.
Once you understand the functioning of a parliamentary democracy (the type of democracy you probably live in, unless you live in an authoritarian dictatorship) you will see no problem with the Lisbon Treaty being ratified by parliaments (MANY parliaments).
#7 by Freeborn John on November 24th, 2009 - 5:28 pm
A Voice for the EU (6): The 27 leaders in the EU Council who negotiated the Lisbon treaty are the very same 27 people who command the majorities in the 27 national parliaments that rubber-stamped it. Ratification was therefore a foregone exclusion. Unfortunately the nature of international treaties means that they have bound not just their governments, but their states in perpetuity.
Once you understand the basics of the sovereignty of the people, i am sure you will see that there is an enormous problem with the way the EU Constitution / Lisbon has been imposed.
———
“The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands: for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others.” John Locke.
#8 by Ben on November 24th, 2009 - 6:02 pm
@Freeborn John
Not all of the European Council have been in office since December 2007. Even less since 1998, when the negotiating began.
#9 by Anna on November 24th, 2009 - 6:53 pm
“The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands: for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others.” John Locke.
Well said Freeborn John. Pleased to say, the people were not asked, and for that reason the EU will fail for it simply does not understand, and seemingly, does not even want to understand, the people. Yet, without the people’s money???????
#10 by french derek on November 24th, 2009 - 7:09 pm
@Freeborn John #7. You claim that, simply because the EU national leaders commanded majorities in their own national parliaments, then the Lisbon Treaty would be “rubber-stamped”. But what of referendums? Also, of course nations which bind themselves to international treaties, etc, are bound – if not in perpetuity, then until they (or another party) break that treaty. That’s normal international politics?
Anyway, these are side-issue here. My own concern on the issue of Baroness Ashton’s introduction is more related to the fact that she has to create the diplomatic/foreign relations system, from scratch; whist being the foreign relations “face” of the EU, dealing with some fairly hot issues. However “green” Albright, Clinton, etc, were, they inherited a well-oiled machine, so had only to “slip into the seat and adapt”, as it were.
Chaos beckons.
#11 by DOCM on November 24th, 2009 - 8:35 pm
I am with Adam Lucas on this one. Let’s move on! Excellent article, though.
#12 by Clarify on November 25th, 2009 - 3:13 pm
Abbia Pazienza. We are talking about the EU First Foreign Minister being an “Aristocrat” from the most EuroSketic country of all.
There might be many realpolitik reasons why that’s the case , but democracy and popular mandate legitimacy is definitely not one of them.!!
#13 by James on November 25th, 2009 - 3:24 pm
Don’t you think the basic problem with Lisbon is that its a transparent remake of the constitution ? That after the failure in the French and Dutch referenda it was repackaged and sent to Parliaments where it was sure to pass ? And that it was sent back to the Irish after they said no once? I don’t see how that stain can ever be removed- even if its a complete success.
#14 by Marcel on November 25th, 2009 - 5:54 pm
What an uninformed post to make.
In the USA, every single appointment must be individually approved by the directly elected legislature. Here in the EU, the faux-parliament can only approve them as a whole.
Oh, and clown Barroso (head of the undemocratic legislative-executive hybrid Politburo aka Commission) isn’t elected either.
Hillary Clinton was elected senator from New York twice. The elitist Ashton (who thinks she is better than ordinary folks because of some worthless title) was never elected to anything.
And whoa, Fischer and Milliband skilled? Fischer is an elitist federalist who has openly stated the EU must ignore the people and do what it ‘needs’ to do and Miliband an unrepentant marxist extremist with zero qualifications.
No, a university degree doesn’t actually qualify you for anything. It was the ’smart’ boys like McNamara (Harvard/Yale) who ran the Vietnam war, and another ’smart’ boy like Rumsfeld who did the Iraq thing. In politics, as Ronald Reagan understood, you don’t need to be smart, you need to be right. Just ask the Soviet Union, also devised by the socalled ’smart’ crowd like Marx, Engels and the tyrant Lenin (who was also university educated).
In politics, never trust the smart ones. Nor in military affairs. Those with university degrees tend (most, not all) to have lost contact with reality.
#15 by Anders S. Løvlie on November 25th, 2009 - 8:07 pm
Mr. Foa, you wrote:
“…it is the prerogative of elected politicians – in the US, Presidents Bush or Obama, in our case the elected heads of state and government plus Manuel Barroso, of the dominant EPP group in the European Parliament – to nominate whatever candidate they like…”
I think the problem with this statement is that it glosses over the fact that most european heads of state are not elected by the people but by their respective parliaments. There is nothing undemocratic about that, it is just (for better and worse) a slightly more indirect system than the ones in the US and in France. But it becomes problematic when a further level of indirection is added, by the “election” of the EU president and foreign minister.
These are not elected by representatives of the people, subject to our direct oversight, but by the representatives of the representatives. This happens two steps away from voters, and in such a manner that no information is transferred back to the bottom level – the representatives have pulled up the ladder behind them, so to speak. That is why this whole process seems so undemocratic and illegitimate.
#16 by Anonymous on November 25th, 2009 - 8:55 pm
@ Marcel
Is it the case that you hate educated people so much for the reason of having failed to graduate from university yourself?
Also, under one of the other posts you claim that blame for the Vietnam and Iraq wars should be put on Europe, while now you state that it is actually educated Americans who are responsible. Make up your mind I say.
#17 by Jean-Baptiste Perrin on November 26th, 2009 - 10:41 am
By the way, the individual grilling of each higher administration member in the USA leads to over politicization of these positions, as well as to the spoil system. I personally think that this is one of the major flaws of the US political institutions (amongst many others), because it puts incompetent single minded people in technical posts and breaks any attempt at some continuity in public administration.
#18 by Roberto Foa on November 26th, 2009 - 6:33 pm
There’s a lot here, but let me just chip in on a few things.
Freeborn John – with Locke and Mill, you have smarter men than myself on your side. But regarding Locke and parliamentary sovereignty, my concern is the following: where would it leave the task of 21st century global governance? Not only the EU, but also organisations such as the WTO, the United Nations, the ICC, the World Bank and the IMF operate on the basis of delegated responsibilities, and with far fewer (if indeed any) avenues for democratic participation than those available in Brussels. So while it may be right in theory, I fear that if we took Locke’s principle seriously, in practice we’d be seriously impeding our ability to jointly manage issues such as economic coordination, climate change, or immigration.
Anders – you are right that in Europe there is are two stages of separation between citizens and their officials, such as the Commission or the new post of Council President. This weakens an important principle of democratic governance, which is the ability of the public to periodically and decisively replace one’s rulers. In my post I only deal with that of High Representative, though, as unlike the role of premier, foreign affairs is not a role typically subject to that direct mandate. But in doing so I don’t mean to sideline the important issue of this two-stage separation.
To continue on this point, the ‘two stages of separation’ indeed, creates a serious a legitimacy problem for the EU. But how does one redress it? I know some here favour abolishing such positions altogether, but that is not really an option: the next day we’d be left scratching our heads, wondering how to deal with the challenge of coordinating European climate policies, economic regulation, internal trade, and movement of peoples, and very quickly, we’d be forced to invent another international organisation remarkably similar to the EU. It is in the nature of the interdependency of nations in the twenty-first century, and the reason why other regions (Mercosur, ASEAN, the GCC) are copying the European model of regional governance.
The only credible option is to keep reforming Europe, step by step. The Lisbon Treaty actually contains a number of provisions that move us in this direction, such as the power of national parliaments to challenge legislation, and the obligation of the Commission to respond to citizen petitions. Another welcome changes would include having the party groups pre-announce their candidate for Commission President, thereby introducing more openly competitive politics to the Commission.
Finally, a number of people here point out the dubious path to Lisbon ratification, and the legitimacy erosion that has created. But is not the problem that we compare the EU to a nation-state? If one is comparing how the EU is established to a federal system such as the US, then one expects popular legitimation through a referendum. But if one thinks instead of the EU as an international organisation, then there is nothing unusual about simple parliamentary treaty ratification. And the EU compares remarkably well with other such organisations in terms of its transparency, accountability, and the possibilities for democratic participation. So it really depends on your framework of reference. The EU is neither a state, nor an international organisation, but something inbetween. It is best to judge it as such.
#19 by Freeborn John on November 26th, 2009 - 11:39 pm
Roberto (18): You are obviously an intelligent chap. So please answer the following:
1. The EU is the only international organisation to suffer a breakdown in democratic legitimacy, with the WTO, UN and all the other international organisations you list not experiencing this phenomena. Yet you say the opportunities for ‘democratic participation’ are greatest within the EU. How do you explain this apparent paradox between what you predict and what is observed? (Could it be that majority elections do not provide democratic legitimisation at levels higher above the nation-state, with international organisations needing to use decision-making by unanimity if they are to preserve the democratic legitimacy of decisions reached at international level?)
2. You highlight some ‘welcome changes’ introduced by the Lisbon treaty. For example:
(a) A ‘power’ of national parliaments to challenge EU legislation (actually to challenge legislative proposals from the EU Commission on the grounds of subsidiarity only). Yet the judge as to whether the Commission’s proposals will proceed or not following such challenges is the EU Commission itself. Do you think a party in a case should be its judge? If it is a foregone conclusion that the EU Commission will never find against itself can this be described as a ‘welcome change’?
(b) The same consideration applies to another of your ‘welcome changes’, i.e. petitions to the EU Commission. Can it not be predicted that the EU Commission will use petitions for measures it was anyway in favour of as PR to proceed with them, while ignoring anything else? Is that any more ‘welcome’ than a return to subjects petitioning their kings?
(c) You ‘welcome’ the use of elections to the EU Parliament to introduce ‘competitive politics’ into the selection of the EU Commission president and to influence its legislative proposals. But at the top of the page you argue against the ‘schoolboy error’ of using multi-national elections to select the president of the EU Council and High Representative for Foreign Affairs. You can have it one way or the other but not both. Either such multi-national elections can provide a democratic legitimacy to both the presidents of the European Commission and Council or to neither. Are you wrong at the top of the page or at the bottom? (Your ‘welcome change’ to politicise the EU Commission would rapidly lead to fracturing of the non-existent European ‘demos’ along national lines with nations refusing to accept that the votes of people in other countries gave such ‘presidents’ any democratic mandate to force them do that which their majority opposes.)
3. You imply that Locke’s ‘non-delegation doctrine’ (which is the basis for sentence 1 of article 1 of the US Constitution) is not necessary because “21st century global governance” would be “impeded” should voters have to freely delegate the power for international organisations to decide the rules they live under on an arbitrary list of policies such as ‘economic coordination”, immigration, etc. Then you go on to tell Anders that long chains of delegation (involving representatives electing representatives electing representatives) “create a serious legitimacy problem for the EU”. On the one hand you suggest the nature of the problems addressed by international organisations is such that delegation is unnecessary; And on the other hand that the more direct the delegation the better. How do you explain that inconsistency?
#20 by Desmond O’Toole on November 27th, 2009 - 11:14 am
@Robert Foa
Thanks Robert for a well argued, alternative and very interesting article. Along with everyone else I too was surprised by Catherine Ashton’s selection, and also to a degree with the selection of Herman van Rompuy. On reflection, however, I think these appointments are quite clever. The idea that captured the “imagination” (for want of a better word) of the media commentariat of leaders for Europe who would “stop the traffic” was in retrospect very naive and potentially damaging to the successful, collegiate way that the EU leadership operates. It was a narrative that spoke more to the media obsession with high drama and personalities rather than with the difficult, and often mundane task of maintaining political cohesion across 27 seperate national governments. The repeated use of the shorthand “President of Europe” was an example of the superficial understanding that much English-language media comment expresses on the EU.
On one other point. You wrote:
“If one is comparing how the EU is established to a federal system such as the US, then one expects popular legitimation through a referendum. But if one thinks instead of the EU as an international organisation, then there is nothing unusual about simple parliamentary treaty ratification.”
It is worth remembering that neither the US Constitution nor any of its many amendments were ever put to a referendum of the American people. American federalism is not a model for European integration that I would be comfortable with and like European politics there is often a wide gap between democratic rhetoric and practice in the USA.
In addition, I’m sure I’m not the only one that is amused by the complaints by British europhobes about the democratic deficit of the EU when their own parliament includes a chamber with absolutely no democratic manadate whatsoever. A chamber, in fact, made up of appointed prime-ministerial placemen-and-women and a rump of aristocratic members there by right if primogeniture. It’s time perhaps that British europhobes set about addressing their own democratic deficit.
Desmond O’Toole
PES activists Dublin
(personal capacity)
#21 by Widely Red on November 27th, 2009 - 1:36 pm
12 Clarify.
Allow me to correct you. Ashton may be a member of the House of Lords. But she is not an ‘aristocrat’. She comes from a modest background in a small town just outside Liverpool. Her efforts throughout her career led to her being made a ‘life peer’ – ie an appointed member of the House of Lords, as most of the members of that house now are.
Privately, she is thought to dislike her title, and finds it particularly inappropriate in her new job, but can’t do much about it.
#22 by Roberto Foa on November 27th, 2009 - 2:26 pm
Freeborn John,
you’re obviously a smart fellow too, and I enjoy the exchange. Let me try and address each point as best I can, and please excuse the length of these comments.
1. I believe the multilaterals (WTO, UN, World Bank, IMF) have all experienced some form of challenge to their legitimacy, whether from social movements, or indeed the non-cooperation of their own member governments. As a result, they do not command anything near the degree of popular legitimacy presently secured by the EU. If we were to subject the Bretton Woods agreement to a referendum in each member state, there would be no possibiity of consensus. Likewise, consider that each trade round of the WTO were subject to referendum approval. We’d have seen our last. And even with the UN, which carries relatively higher legitimacy, the only country to vote on membership (Switzerland), actually rejected entry until they were made to vote again. So the legitimacy of the EU is incomparably higher than these other international organisations: a majority of Europeans say their country has benefited from membership, and even during the debacle of the Constitutional Treaty, we forget that referenda passed comfortably in Spain and Luxembourg. The EU suffered a ‘legitimacy crisis’ in 2005-8 because the bar was set too high. Even in the United States, the condition for the constitution to come into effect was not unanimous approval, but the approval of only 9 of the 13 states, by state legislatures, not by referendum.
2.
a) In determining political outcomes there are formal and informal institutions. Formally, the Queen of England has the power to dissolve parliament and appoint her horse as prime minister, but informal norms – the unwritten constitution that is the basis of British democracy – determine that she should not. Formally, the Commission may still retain the right to plough ahead with a legislative proposal in the face of concerted opposition from national parliaments, but informally, it would be unthinkable. The real question is whether parliaments can actually coordinate in the 8 weeks granted to them in which to object.
b) My same comment applies. It is possible that the Commission will respond in the way you describe. It is also possible that this could seed the basis for a more direct citizen initiation along the Swiss model. Like you, I suspect more the former, but one can’t predict how these things will evolve over time.
c) The schoolboy error is Hannan implying that i) all senior adminstration appointments in a democracy must be from among political representatives and ii) that this distinguishes the EU and the US.
On elections to the EP, what I favour is having the party groups preannounce their candidate for the Commission President, as is the norm in any parliamentary democracy. Far from causing a fracturing of the EU, I believe this would increase legitimacy by giving voters a sense that EP elections actually mattered – as their vote will determine which party group wins or loses, and that will in turn determine the shape of the Commission.
3. Yes, it is true that Article 1 of the US Constitution states this. Yet it gives the US great difficulties in participating in the emerging institutions of global governance. The US has consistently refused to be bound by the ICC, various UN treaties, and even NAFTA rulings are ‘non-binding’ as the US refused to approve any legal arrangement superseding US law (so the US retain the right to ignore judgements of rule violation). Indeed, the US Congress has periodically had to sign over its powers to the presidency (e.g. granting fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals that Congress cannot subsequently amend). Perhaps national parliamentary sovereignty had its time in 1688 or 1787, but not in the emerging twenty-first century order when our problems are primarily international.
Second, what you highlight is a problem, but not an inconsistency. As a practical matter, it is necessary to have two-stage delegation to deal with matters of international governance, whether in the EU or in other multilaterals (UN, World Bank, IMF, WTO, etc), whereby elected heads of state and government elect in turn an executive board to conduct the day-to-day business of the respective organisation. But the problem is that this creates a legitimacy gap, not least of all, because politicians blame these institutions for implementing the policies they themselves agreed to behind closed doors. The way to close the gap is to make them more directly responsive to citizens, for example through electoral processes, so that citizens feel they have a direct stake in the decisions. We can’t get there in just one day, so it will require a more incremental process of reform.
#23 by Freeborn John on November 27th, 2009 - 6:05 pm
Roberto (22): The comparison you are making between the early USA and the EU makes no sense. The 13 original US states were sovereign states by accident and only for 12 years. This was merely the de-facto post-conflict situation on the ground with severed links between the colonial executives (governors) and The Crown. Americans were already a single people at the time (hence ‘We the People…’ in the preamble to the US Constitution) something which cannot be said of Europeans today. Given only a few years to design something more appropriate they of course came together naturally as part of a single nation-state with a federal form of government. Germans did exactly the same in less than one year in 1989 once the Soviet coercion that kept them apart was removed. Nation-states with a federal form of government should never be confused with a multinational federation like the EU, yet this is a very typical misunderstanding of many a US-based observer of Europe. Therefore you extrapolating the way the US Constitution was ratified into an assumption that a minority of European nation-states can be abolished the will of their people if a majority of other nations so desire is obscene. Do you think Germany’s takeover of the Czech Republic in 1938 was democratically legitimate if the overall majority of the combined German-Czech population favoured it?
Rather than compare the US to the EU a better comparison would be the EU and all the Americas together. You believe that Europeans are a single group that will agree to be bound by their majority but this is not the case. Any politicised EU Commission chosen through pan-European elections would be rapidly find out that they had no real democratic mandate in many countries. Indeed even the EU Commission knows this. It is no more plausible than Americans agreeing to live under a pan-Americas government where the votes of Mexicans, Brazilians, Venezuelans, etc. would overwhelm that of the American majority.
There is no way you can say that the EU has more legitimacy than the UN, WTO etc. Your mistake is to confuse elections for those who wield a power, with referendums to legitimate that power. You believe that if the EU is given powers without asking the voters if they agree to it having them, and then later the voters are allowed to choose between candidates to wield the illegitimate powers then this legitimates both the power and its holder. It is not. That is why increasing the powers of the EU Parliament has not solved the EU crisis of democratic legitimacy.
The EU legitimacy crisis did not begin in 2005 and end in 2008. There has been a long series of EU referendum defeats, going back to the Danish referendum on Maastricht in 1993, and including the Irish rejection of Nice in 2001, the Swedish rejection of the Euro in 2003, Norwegians voting not to join the EU in 2004 etc, etc. And these defeats are only the tip of the iceberg because many nations were never allowed to vote on these treaties precisely because it was known what the result would have been. The whole EU project has become ever more de-legitimised and it did not start in 2005 but can be traced right back to Monnet and his \integration by stealth\ method. All that has changed is that people increasingly notice that their votes can influence less and less as Brussels power grows.
As for the ‘yellow card’ system, it is very far from “unthinkable” that the EU Commission will plough ahead with a legislative proposal in the face of an appeal. The rule has been designed to be used as it is written and is not the ‘red card’ you pretend it to be. Federalists do not want national parliaments to be able to block legislative proposals from the Commission. Yet this is precisely what you pretend this toothless yellow card allows when you proclaim it as a ‘welcome change’.
#24 by Jim on November 29th, 2009 - 11:06 pm
@ Freeborn John: What about Switzerland? Their confederation grew gradually out of sovereign cantons, expanding over many centuries from the original 3 to the 26 there are today.