An anti-Lisbon treaty poster in Ireland
Euroscepticism is both hard to combat and hard to define, but its potential is growing in Europe. That was the main conclusion (or mine at least) of an interesting roundtable event on euroscepticism and communication strategies, organised by the Konrad Adenauer political foundation yesterday.
At the meeting, a clutch of *academics, EU officials and analysts tried to put their finger on the phenomenon, recently taken up a publicity notch through the attempt by Irish businessman Declan Ganley to found a pan-European party on the back of his anti-Lisbon treaty success.
One point of agreement was that euroscepticism cannot be defined as a single “entity.” It arises from a whole host of grievances be they economic, related to democracy, sovereignty or political reasons (such as the far left viewing the EU as too capitalist).
An EU official, who keeps an eye on the trends, produced a table based on two of questions from the eurobarometer on whether Europe is good thing and whether it has benefited your country.
Based on the answers of these questions, EU citizens were divided into five categories. Hard supporters (Europe is good and it has benefited my country); Generous (Europe is good but I don’t see the benefits for my country); Egoist (Europe is bad but I see the benefits for my country); Hard opponents (negative for both questions) and the Don’t Knows.
Going by the table, the official reckons there is “great potential for euroscepticism in Europe.” For example, in Germany hard supporters account for 45 percent but 25 percent are generous, meaning they don’t see the benefits of Europe although they support it. (This was suggested as a possible reason for why the CSU is employing more anti-Europe rhetoric ahead of the June elections) and 14 percent don’t know.
In France, 34 percent are hard supporters, while 23 percent are generous and 28 percent don’t know. Italy also registered a high score in the generous (22%) and don’t know categories (28%). Britain saw the highest hard opposition (33%) while Lisbon nay-sayer Ireland followed by Poland saw the highest hard supporters (70% and 58% respectively) of the eight countries that were sampled – all of the above plus Spain and the Czech Republic.
A Polish analyst, who spoke of the “systematic inability” to introduce checks and balances in the European Union, remarked that the era of books such as Mark Leonard’s Why Europe will run the 21st Century and Jeremy Rifkin’s The European Dream seem almost “light years away.”
A British academic said that referendums have “created more opportunities for expressing euroscepticism” and suggested that a possible “trade off” is looming in Europe, whereby the EU can be made more democratic or “legitimised” but that a halt is put on further integration.
Virtually all of the participants did not believe Ganley’s Libertas party would feature strongly in the June European elections, mainly because the Libertas brand has come to mean different things in different member states.
Some of the participants took a closer look at euroscepticism in a particular country.
Briefly:
Poland – Euroscepticism here has evolved from its roots in the accession negotiations – on issues such as milk quotas – to the current eurozone debate. Eurosceptics have been “socialised” into the mainstream system.
Britain – The Tories have created an “expectation gap” between what they promise on Europe and what they can deliver.
Denmark – A public holiday on the 5th June plus the decision to hold the European election on Sunday 7th June may result in a low turnout, possibly increasing the eurosceptic showing.
Czech Republic – Europe has taken over from Germany (Benes Decrees) as the number one issue of grievance in the same circles.
Austria – Euroscepticism is fuelled by the mass-selling anti-EU Krone newspaper. A Sunday edition brought by one of the participants did contain page after page of foaming anti-EU stories.
Answers…
Well there were not many. Most felt that because eurosceptic battles are essentially played out on national turf, there is little role for the EU to play. In addition, taking a more pro-active role would open it to accusations of “propaganda.”
But with an eye on Libertas, the participants acknowledged that the main political parties as well as the European Commission have been “too slow” and too bureaucratic to react and use new media, such as internet, youtube, blogs and email to get their own message across.
Personally, I think there is sometimes an almost frantic tendency within the pro-EU camp to try and convert everybody to the cause. It is worth remembering that 10-15 percent of citizens “will always be unhappy,” as the UK academic pointed out and that “contestation” is good. To keep both sides on their toes, if for nothing else.
*Chatham House rules, so no names anywhere.
#1 by Freeborn John on April 28, 2009 - 3:38 pm
European federalism is intellectually bankrupt. There is nobody who can sustain a coherent argument in its defence,. The EU has been sacrificing democratic legitimacy since Maastricht, and even now federalists still want to push on with a treaty (Lisbon) that clearly has no popular support and which would only de-legitimise the project further.
The EU is a historical error that is going to have to be broken. After this is over nothing must remain of it other than a warning to posterity of the dangers of allowing politicians to use the power of international treaties to create a political cartel that is steadily disenfranchising those they are supposed to represent.
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“Experience [has] shown that, even under the best forms [of government], those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” –Thomas Jefferson
#2 by french derek on April 28, 2009 - 6:33 pm
Nice to see that Freeborn John is popping up here, with the same old federalist arguments. Lisbon is/was never federalist – unless you squint at it.
However, the key debate here is Euroscepticism. Seems no-one mentioned the media? Public opinion does not arise in isolation: the media sensitise their readership to a particular point of view – on the EU as on many issues. A study of media reporting of EU matters in each country may be more fruitful than a room-full of “academics, EU officials and analysts” regarding their belly-buttons.
#3 by Freeborn John on April 28, 2009 - 6:52 pm
frenchderek: The Lisbon treaty extends the community method (which is federalism) into numerous new policy areas. It is therefore most certainly a federalist document, as it was intended to be by the people who authored it. Anybody who says otherwise has not understood it.
p.s. The media may shape your views on the EU, but some of us are capable of thinking for ourselves.
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“The last step will then be the completion of integration in a European Federation… such a group of States would conclude a new European framework treaty, the nucleus of a constitution of the Federation. On the basis of this treaty, the Federation would develop its own institutions, establish a government which, within the EU, should speak with one voice… a strong parliament and a directly elected president. Such a driving force would have to be the avant-garde, the driving force for the completion of political integration… This latest stage of European Union… will depend decisively on France and Germany.”
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, speech at Humboldt University, Berlin, May 12, 2000.
“Transforming the European Union into a single State with one army, one constitution and one foreign policy is the critical challenge of the age, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said yesterday.”
The Guardian, London, November 26, 1998.
“Federalism might make eurosceptics laugh but, with the creation of the euro,the halfway stage would be reached. Four key organisms would have a federal or quasi-federal status: the Central Bank, the Court of Justice, the Commission and the Parliament. Only one institution is missing: a federal government.”
M. Jacques Lang, Foreign Affairs Spokesman, French National Assembly, The Guardian, London, July 22, 1997.
“In Maastricht we laid the foundation-stone for the completion of the European Union. The European Union Treaty introduces a new and decisive stage in the process of European union, which within a few years will lead to the creation of what the founding fathers dreamed of after the last war: the United States of Europe.”
German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, April 1992.
“The fusion (of economic functions) would compel nations to fuse their sovereignty into that of a single European State.”
Jean Monnet, founder of the European Movement, April 3, 1952.
“Our constitution cannot be reduced to a mere treaty for co-operation between governments. Anyone who has not yet grasped this fact deserves to wear the dunce’s cap” – Valery Giscard-d’Estaing – President of the EU Convention.
#4 by Ries Baeten on April 28, 2009 - 7:49 pm
Chatham House rules? Why not asking the attendants at the beginning to sign a document that they oppose being quoted, and change to naming non-opposing attendants as default? We’re so close to an update of the Regulation on access to documents, and I am sure the people of the Adenauer Foundation will want us to believe they are all in favour of transparency.
#5 by Ries Baeten on April 28, 2009 - 7:54 pm
According to the Dehaene report prepared by the Committee of Constitutional Affairs of the Parliament, the Treaty of Lisbon will make it possible for future governments to build out the Treaty on the EU as a quasi Constitution, with the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU being open to changes that will no longer need referenda. Why are you even discussing reasons for euro-scepsis?
#6 by Jean-Baptiste Perrin on April 29, 2009 - 9:23 am
Thanks to “Freeborn John” to call us (federalists) intellectually bankrupt. I would like to remind him that the European project is still supported (roughly) by a majority of Europeans. The modalities might and should be discussed. Federalists like myself are all for the shelving (with time) of the nation-states, that we see as obsolete failures. However, we are fairly aware of the fact that we are a minority.
Calling the Lisbon treaty federalist is a simple lie, because it is actually the second only true attempt at making the EU project both more democratic, but also including an opt out system. How could that be federalist? I think people like “Freeborn John” are just too afraid that better rules of the game might make the EU more popular and win votes for the federalist project. He probably prefers the mud pool that the EU system is now… It’s so much easier to blame everything on it. Especially one’s own problems.
#7 by Freeborn John on April 29, 2009 - 10:58 am
Jean Baptiste Perrin: Support for the EU was never more than a permissive consensus anywhere. Honor Mahoney dismisses EU scepticism saying 10-15% of people will always be unhappy. But federalism has never been able to achieve 15% support anywhere! Eurobaraometer shows that there is only in tiny Luxembourg are there 15% of the population who say they feel more European than national. In most European countries the number is only 3-4% (and falling). This is about as low as it is possible to go in an opinion poll question. For example 4% of people tell opinion pollsters that they believe Elvis Presely is alive.
As the community method has been extended to more and more policy areas, the inherent incompatibility between democracy and supranationalism is revealed more and more and people everywhere see this clearly now. That is why the EU cannot win referendums. The simple truth is that either international federalism (of which suprnationalism is one form) goes or democracy will go, and the latter cannot be tolerated.
The game is up for federalism but a movement that has always believed in ‘integration by stealth’ cannot be expected to go quietly. It must be broken, by finding federalists wherever they nest, exposing them for the intellectually incoherent mush that they are, and permanently destroying them as a political movement. I note that you do not even try to make one argument in favour of it.
Even your rebuttal is mush. It is an obvious fact that the Lisbon treaty would extend the use of the surpanational community method (which is federalism) into more policy areas. Indeed the European Community treaty that originally defined the community method is to be renamed the ‘Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union so that the community method becomes the default decision-making method in the EU.
You say that the Lisbon treaty would make the EU more democratic but that is pure junk too because the extended use of supranationalism. Lisbon would lead to more and more binding decisions being taken using qualified majority voting, which inevitably means more cases of nations being permenently required to live under superiror EU law that they never agreed to in the first place, and which they can never change at any time in the future through their votes. That clearly is a reduction of democracy.
When federlaists say that the Lisbon treaty makes the EU more democratic they mean that it increases the power of the EU Parliament relative to that of other institutions. That would be true if the voters who elect the European parliament were a united people that would accept to live under its majority but that is absolutely not the case. More power to the EU Parliament means more cases of nations being forced to follow policies that the EU Parliament likes but which the majority of national voters disagree with. Any federalist who says that giving more power to the EU parliament will make the EU more democratic has to explain why continually INCREASING the powers of the EU Parliament since 1979 has been accompanied by the GROWING feeling that the EU is undemcratic. The only explanation for this phenonmina is that a multi-national majority cannot democratically legitimate decisions that a national majority disagrees with. Since the Lisbon Treaty attempt to make the EU more democratic is merely the continuance of a policy that has already been used since 1979 without success, it is obvious that Lisbon will fail to make the EU more democratic.
In 1862 the liberal historian Lord Acton noted of the Austrian Empire that “In those countries where different races dwell together … the power of the imperial parliament must be limited as jealously as the power of the crown, and many of its functions must be discharged by provincial diets”. EU federalists ignore the lessons of history that multinational federations like the Austrian Empire all collapsed and were replaced by the nation-state because it is the only form of governance in which there is an alignment between the political institutions and the community that is governed.
#8 by Freeborn John on April 29, 2009 - 4:20 pm
Julien (9): The Lisbon Treaty does NOT make it easier for a member state to leave, something that any state can unilaterally do right now, just as Greenland once did. The Lisbon Treaty introduces a clause specifying a 2-year procedure that would (if Lisbon ever comes into force) be followed in such an event in the future, but:
(a) It is a clause which imposes onerous conditions on a state which wants to leave.
(b) It is very dangerous to introduce such a clause, because future treaty changes might modify or even remove this clause to lock us in permanently.
There are no advantages to the Lisbon Treaty. It is a purely retrograde step that must be defeated.
#9 by french derek on April 29, 2009 - 5:22 pm
Freeborn John: you seem to be trying to argue all ways at once. You claim that the only advance of “democracy” in the Lisbon Treaty is to strengthen the Parliament. This body is elected by voters in each and every country in the EU: which, by most accounts is democratic?
Supra-nationalism is unavailable via Lisbon. There are areas specifically ring-fenced to individual states; and you overlook the fact that EU legislation has been passed to ensure subsidiarity.
Also, Lisbon would give more opportunity for national parliaments to review proposed legislation and to raise comment. Agreed, that comment need not be made a binding condition on the legislation but the EU legislators would find surely find it necessary to explain why it has been ignored?
#10 by Freeborn John on April 29, 2009 - 6:14 pm
frenchderek: I have not argued that increasing the powers of the EU parliament is an advance. I have argued the opposite, i.e. that a multinational majoroty cannot democratically legitimate law that a national majority opposes. There is no need for an EU Parliament to exist at all.
It is a fact that the supra-nantional community method would be used more widely under Lisbon, and indeed that voting thresholds would be reduced making it more likely that outvoted nations would be forced to live under brussels law that they never wanted in the first place and can never change in future no matter how they vote.
Do you deny that the Treaty establishing the European Community (which originally defined the community method and its use in minor common market regulations) would be renamed the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to enshrine that the community method becomes the default decision-making mode in the EU (including for many politically sensitive policy areas)? It is total BS to say ‘supra-nationalism is unavailable via Lisbon’. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.
Subsidiarity is nothing. The Brussels institutions representing the suprantional interest would be in charge of deciding if they had violated this principle, which is making the poacher of our political powers the gamekeeper.
Also giving national parliaments an ‘opportunity’ to ‘raise comments’ on EU COmmision proposals is nothing. No EU law should stand in any country whose parliament opposes that law. If EU law is allowed to stand in that case (as it would under Lisbon) then that EU law does not have that which is absolutely essential to it being accepted as a law in that country; the consent of the majority of its population. Nobody can make a democratic case for why EU law superior to national law, and imposed on outvoted nations by qualified majority should have the force of law in those outvoted member states.
#11 by Julien on April 29, 2009 - 8:32 pm
Freeborn John you are right. Right now it’s even “easier” to leave out.
I used a wrong world, sorry. I just wanted to say that Lisbon treaty makes it less controversial. It introduces some technical provisions to arrange any pending issues like pending funds etc. In that sense it makes it easier.
“ARTICLE 49 A
1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own
constitutional requirements.”
#12 by Julien on April 29, 2009 - 8:42 pm
And something more Freeborn John. Arguing that a clause is dangerous because it might be modified (only by unanimοus decision can be done) is wrong in my opinion. That way we couldn’t establish any law at all.
I don’t clame I’m an expert on the Lisbon treaty, but the part I have read (about the withdrawal) makes sense. I can even argue that for a withdrawal it should be made more difficult, for example it should be required either to have a 55% majority or to win in 2 consequitive referandums. Imagine the situation that a 50,05 % decides to withdraw. err.. Anyway, I agree that this must remain an but this must stay a jurisdiction of the member countries.
#13 by french derek on April 30, 2009 - 10:57 am
For all eurosceptics. The EU Parliament have decided to cap the costs of text and web roaming “calls” across the EU. Clearly the EU shouldn’t interfere with free markets, should they? And the EU Parliament once again shows why it isn’t needed?
#14 by Freeborn John on April 30, 2009 - 11:43 am
Frenchderek: Your argument is that if a system without democratic legitimacy leads to policy outcomes that you favour, then it is OK. This was the argument for ‘enlightened despotism’ in 18th century Prussia and Russia but it will not do in the 21st century. There is no reason to believe that policy outcomes you happen to favour should be prioritised above those which the majority in society desires. Nor is there any reason to believe that an unaccountable ‘enlightened despotism’ in Brussels would continue to produce policy outcomes that even you support.
International roaming for data services is mainly used by price insensitive business users. If the EU forces mobile phone companies to lower the price of these services then mobile companies will raise the price of something else instead to recoup the revenue, e.g. mobile voice calls. Therefore the practical effect of this undemocratic EU decision for most residential users will be to raise the price of their monthly bills. If undemocratic governments setting the price of everything was a good idea then Eastern Europe would have been paradise on Earth by now. The real world experience is that democracy and a competitive free market produce better results.
The existence of the EU Parliament is predicated on the fallacy that sensitive political decisions can be legitimated by a multi-national majority. They cannot. If political decisions are returned to national parliaments (which alone can claim a true democratic legitimacy) then the slimmed down EU could concentrated on non-contentious issues of common market regulation. Since these matters are not politically salient there would be no need to elect MEPs to make them, so we would then have the opportunity to eliminate the expensive travelling circus that this pretend parliament has become.
#15 by Julien on April 30, 2009 - 4:58 pm
your perception of the situation is quite static I think.
Problems will keep rising as the time passes. Where do you think all these immigrants try to go? To Italy cause they love them?
They have to go, they will go and they flood Italy, Spain or even Malta. And what you will do? Kill them?
I’m not saying that EU deals with the problem seriously. Just have in mind tough that the problem just getting worse and worse.
#16 by french derek on April 30, 2009 - 6:27 pm
I’ve spent my afternoon browsing the Lisbon Treaty – how sad can you get? (but it’s pouring down and I’m stuck indoors).
It seems to me that any of us can pick or choose selected phrases, or even paragraphs, take them out of context, and make what we will out of them. However, when you take note of the cross-references, the “except if” conditions, etc, (ie try not to take things out of context), so far as the roles of the Parliament (Article 294), national parliaments (Protocol 1), as well as those covering the competence of the EU (Article 1) or subsidiarity (Protocol 2), I find it difficult to see Lisbon as a backward step.
Most of the document is simply repeating existing treaties. But the really new bits are obviously designed to be helpful in the sectors I’ve noted above.
And, to FreebornJohn, We live in liberal democratic societies, where the views (and the power) of the majorities are constrained by minority interests (see Sammy Finer “The History of Government from the Earliest Times”). That’s what I believe in – however badly that may turn out, it’s better than most alternatives I know of (eg me as Emperor).
And to those who claim some sort of supranationalism as the basis of EU actions and policies: have you actually studied how the EU works? For such a tiny (Yes, tiny) institution, it gets through a lot of work – much of it offloaded by national governments. The EU could not work without the massive support and input of national government. But it finds itself, as a result, as being the useful “get-out” route for governments with tough decisions to take looking for someone else to do the dirty deed and take the blame.
But then, logic can’t defeat emotionally held positions.
#17 by Freeborn John on April 30, 2009 - 8:07 pm
Frenchderek (19): Thanks for clarifying that you do not understand the Lisbon treaty or its implications for the future of democracy.
Under the ‘community method’ the Commission holds the monopoly on legislative initiative and its proposals become binding law superior to national law if they are accepted by a qualified majority in the EU Council of Ministers. (If co-decision is used then a vote of the EU Parliament is also required). This procedure therefore alows binding law to be imposed on member states following only a proposal from the Commission that is accepted by a qualified majority in the EU Council of Ministers (and under co-decision a vote in the EU Parliament) in which a state may be outvoted and then required to live in perpetuity (no matter how its citizens vote in future elections) under Brussels law that the government of that state, and the majority of its citizens never agreed to.
The Lisbon Treaty makes the ‘community method’ the default by declaring that “The ordinary legislative procedure shall consist in the joint adoption by the European Parliament and the Council of a regulation, directive or decision on a proposal from the Commission”. The Commission’s monopoly on legislative initiative has always been a key part of the one-way ratchet to a super-state with the Commission only ever making legislative proposals that increase the power of EU institutions. There has only been one example in the 50-year history of the Commission of it ever proposing that a power previously acquired by Brussels be returned to the democratic arena of the nation-state (and that concerning the trivial issue of maximum curvature of cucumbers).
The Lisbon Treaty would not only make the ‘community method’ the default decision-making mode, but allows it to be used in an open-ended list of policy areas. Article 4 TFEU has been worded very carefully such that the EU has ‘shared competence’ in the OPEN ENDED list of policy areas that are not explicitly listed in either article 6 or article 3 (exclusive powers of the EU).
Article 2 TFEU defines ‘shared competence’ by saying that “When the Treaties confer on the Union a competence shared with the member states, member states shall exercise their competence to the extent that the Union has not exercised its competence”. So we see that under Lisbon powers in an open-ended list of policy areas are only shared in time! This wording means that unless a policy area is one of the 7 listed in article 6 TFEU, the EU has the power to legislate at any time in the future and once it has done so our elected governments may not legislate in the area ever again!
It is clear that this wording in the Lisbon treaty would lead to an ever expanding body of EU law that will progressively shut down national parliaments in all except the handful of policy areas listed in article 6. One can debate how long this may take to happen, but not that it would happen under Lisbon given only sufficient time.
I hope you will either point out where my reading of the Lisbon Treaty is incorrect (which you will not be able to do) or accept that it is a very retrograde step for democracy in Europe which should not be allowed to come into force.
#18 by Duncan on April 30, 2009 - 10:37 pm
Euroscepticism seems a very intellectually bankrupt movement in the UK – broadly I find that they tend to fall into a few distinct categories: Conspiracy theorists, Thatcherites, hardcore Atlanticists and people who don’t know much about the EU but read the Mail or Telegraph and accept what they read uncritically.
Most Europhiles, in contrast, I find tend to have actually thought a great deal to come to their position. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who is pro-EU just because the Guardian tells them to be.
On both sides there’s a worrying lack of pragmatism – issues of democracy tend to get more or less completely ignored by Europhiles and worryingly few Eurosceptic politicians seem to show even a fleeting glimpse of the logic behind their soaring rhetoric. Perhaps even more worrying is the massive yaw of apathy between the two groups – most people genuinely don’t care either way.
And Freeborn John, seriously, politicians like having power – if the Lisbon treaty was actually about what you say it is why aren’t governments rejecting it wholesale? After all – it’s not in their interests to lose all of their power, is it?
#19 by Anne Palmer on April 30, 2009 - 10:55 pm
Ah, Freeborn John, someone that really knows what “Lisbon” is really all about. Everything was set out even before the last war, and we are still following that pattern. As you quoted Monsieir JEAN MONNET, I too will quote from his speech before the European Congress of the German Parliamentary Social-Democratic Party, Bad Godesberg 25th Feb 1964.
“Please join with me in paying tribute to three men who are no longer among us, but each of whose names commemorates an essential stage in the organisaing of peace: Erich Ollenhauer, who so well understood the evolution of our times, and who with your Party rendered immense service to the making of the Common Market and to the democratic organisation of political life within your nation;
Rober Schuman, who was at the very origin of the Union of European peoples:
President John F. Kennedy, who opened the way to a partnership of equals between the mighty United States of America and the United States of Europe in the making…………..
Past wars, including the second world war, mobilised only a part of the resources of nations. Victories and defeats brought with them vast, but not limitless destruction. Today’s atomic weapons, and those that may yet be invented, have the power of extermination…………
The path along which the West is advancing will make this possible if pursued; the unification of Europe, establishing with the United States a partnership of equals, and together seeking with the USSR a lasting basis for peaceful coexistence……..
The United States of Europe have begun to be built.
Today, the European Community is limited to the six countries of the Common Market. It must be extended to all democratic countries of Europe which accept the Communities aims, rules and institutions. Here, we all have Great Britain particularly in mind. Her place is with us. I am thinking too of Denmark, Norway and Ireland, all of whom have also asked to join the Common Market.
In order that the citizens of our countries may seek, grasp, and sustain the common interest, conditions must be created which will gradually change their attitude and behaviour towards each other: from having been national, their problems must become common. This can only be achieved and obtained by means of common laws and institutions……….
Our Countries have begun to delegate part of their national sovereignty to common institutions. They have accepted the fact that important decisions, directly affecting the lives of their citizens, are no longer taken seperately but are discussed within European institutions and drawn up together under rules that are the same for all……….
If our present European institutions are limited to economic affairs, they nevertheless represent the beginning of the United States of Europe.
The time has come to make them more democratic; to extend the European method, gradually, to new fields; and thus to prepare for the creation of a European political authority under democratic control.
But this process can only be gradual, because what has to be transformed is that great power which is habit.
Step by step, European nations are changing the traditional for of relations between them. ……..
Europe is being built. End of Quotes.
The speech is long and I had to translate many passages from the French , but if you want more, which is like a template, although I think I have written enough for you to see it was all laid out and set to a pattern for ALL to follow.
#20 by Anne Palmer on May 1, 2009 - 7:23 am
By following Jessica’s suggestion, it will be classed as a wasted vote and set aside. By not making your vote ‘count’ will not prevent messing up some of the proposed legislation. By putting others in parliament, it does move the “money for attending” and expenses around to some-one else. Changing those that sit on the “Gravy Train”. That Parliament WILL go on but hopefully by removing those that have sat in it for some time and giving others a chance might delay or even change things-at least it will make the big three parties here in the UK sit up and make them realise what might happen in a General Election.
We were denied a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. If you want to save your Country, then take the only chance you may have to ‘right that wrong’ and use your vote at the next European Parliament Elections to put fear into the hearts of the EU and fear into the hearts of our own British politicians so much so they may change their idea of wanting to remain in the EU to getting out, for they may lose their ‘seat’.
I am also interested in reaching all those people that do not vote in European Parliamentary elections. I do not usually vote in EU Parliament elections because I chose not to ‘recognise’ their Parliament for we have -or had= an active one of our own once! So this time I WILL VOTE to fill the place with those that will fight for their Country’s freedom once more. To perhaps put a spoke in the total integrationists wheels. I include those countries that many of their people want out too. (Vote for a true Eurosceptic Party) We all have contacts abroad, so maybe the message could be spread to those other countries that were denied a referendum they too wanted? I understand that the EU Commission is afraid that the EU Election may be used as the referendum all, except Ireland, were denied. Let us not disappoint them for it was that expression that gave me a nudge.
I have no idea what name ‘Eurosceptic’ Political Party’s go by on the Continent, but the people that are living in those Countries do. They, as well as we should also remember it was not one Eurosceptic Party that misled, (some say lied) and deliberately denied the people their right to have a say on the constitutional Treaty of Lisbon. The “Eurosceptics” or Pro-British Political Parties here in the UK have never ratified one EU Treaty yet, yet those that did, still pick up the same pay as if they were instigating all our laws. Remember that too.
As there is a list system for EU elections make sure the MEPs voted for are definitely EU-sceptic. In these elections we will be voting for a political party, not a person, we will have to vote for a known EU-sceptic political party. Look at the way the people vote in the EU parliament NOW, not what they are saying they will do, many MEPs vote pro-EU over there in the EU parliament and talk anti-EU ‘at home’.
I do not belong to any political party or organisation; I never have belonged to one and never will in the future. I just want freedom and liberty for our Country once more and our own longstanding constitution, not a foreign one. Temporary Governments have no mandate to give our country away to foreigners to govern.
This is the only (peaceful) way the people will have of MAKING THEIR VOICES HEARD-THROUGH THE BALLOT BOX THAT YOU WERE DENIED AT ‘LISBON’. MAKE IT HAPPEN BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE, IT REALLY IS IN YOUR HANDS TO DO IT BY PLACING YOUR CROSSES ON A SLIP OF PAPER. I have heard enough of “working on the inside to change things”, some have had 50 years to change things, and all we have had is deeper and more meaningful integration. No EU Treaty has ever been signed by a “Eurosceptic”.
#21 by Jean-Baptiste Perrin on May 1, 2009 - 1:48 pm
Well, if there is one thing I agree with Anne, and one only, it is: please vote. Euroscepticists or Europhiles, nationalists or federalists, please vote. If you don’t vote, don’t talk and complain because you will have lost the one occasion when your voice will have really mattered.
And for Freeborn John, I have two questions for you. First, you deny the extension of the EU Parliament’s powers any democratic character, because you believe that they can’t be democracy outside the national representation (stricto sensu). I can only disagree with that: since when is democracy limited to national/ethnic representation? Second question: you call yourself “Freeborn”, which is a very proud statement. How come you constraint yourself and wish to constraint others to a polity limited to your ethnic or national background?
#22 by Freeborn John on May 1, 2009 - 5:24 pm
Jean-Baptise Perrin: You may say that you disagree with me, but you have no evidence to support your point.
How do you explain that increasing the power of the EU Parliament since 1979 has been accompanied by the increasingly widespread perception that the EU is undemocratic? No federalist has ever even able to explain that, but I do when I say that multi-national majorities cannot legitimate political power. The EU ‘community method’ has been undemocratic since 1957 but has only been revealed as such by the sequence of European treaties beginning with Maastricht that extended its use into more and more politically sensitive policy areas. That is why the EU peaked in popularity in the late 1980s and has been suffering declining support since Maastricht. As evidence I point to all the other international organisations (e.g. WTO, NATO, etc.) that retained decision-making by unanimity and which have not experienced an EU-like breakdown in legitimacy.
You on the other hand have no explanations that fit the facts. European federalism is intellectually bankrupt because it is incapable of explaining its failure, and can propose nothing else other than continuing in the same old federalising direction that led directly to the current mess.
Your second question reveals a fundamental lack of understanding as to what a nation is.
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“A PORTION of mankind may be said to constitute a Nationality if they are united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others — which make them co-operate with each other more willingly than with other people, desire to be under the same government, and desire that it should be government by themselves or a portion of themselves exclusively.” – J.S. Mill (‘Representative Government’)
#23 by french derek on May 1, 2009 - 6:22 pm
FbJ #27: Yes, that is one version of “what is a nation”. But is a nation a “state” – ie something concrete that can be governable? If common identity, shared community, equates with statehood to the common man, is that statehood sanctioned by the ruling powers as sufficient to warrant governance? National identity may equate with political identity but that does not mean that either identity is recognised (take the Basques as an example).
What is a nation is a far more complex issue in the modern world than it was in Mill’s day.
Also, to seek to equate the EU as just another international organisation (as WTO or NATO) shows complete misunderstanding of the unique nature of the EU.
But I will draw a line on any further comment. However sceptical I am of the EU and the way it works, I still see it as the future of Europe, with or without the UK. And you won’t be happy until the UK is out.
#24 by Blaat on May 1, 2009 - 10:04 pm
“How do you explain that increasing the power of the EU Parliament since 1979 has been accompanied by the increasingly widespread perception that the EU is undemocratic?”
I can also point out that the increase of average surface temperature in Europe since 1979 has been accompanied by the increasingly widespread perception that the EU is undemocractic.
Therefore global warming is to blame for EU democratic deficit.
Just because there’s a coincided growth between two sets of ‘figures’ doesn’t mean they’re correlated.
IMO the increase of EU’s power hasn’t been met with an increase of mainstream media coverage. In fact the only way to get some decent EU coverage is scouring the web for an handful EU news sites and EU related blogs. This I think this contributes a lot to the EU’s democratic deficit.
#25 by Freeborn John on May 1, 2009 - 11:01 pm
Frenchderek: Nation and state are totally different things, but there has to be an alignment of nation and state if democracy is to exist. A nation is a group of people; a state is a set of political institutions with supreme power over a given territory. You could in theory have any relationship between state and population but democracy is only possible when there is an alignment between nation and state because the majoritorian principle (i.e. that the majority decides) is only acceptable to a society if it is united by the strong bond of national solidarity. Majority rule in a multinational environment simply allows a populous nation to impose its will on smaller nations which the smaller nation will come to regard as oppression, which is how Brussels rule is increasingly viewed. The majoritorian principle is central to democracy as we understand it, and only acceptable within a society united by national identity.
International organisations cannot be legitimated by the majoritorian principle. Their democratic legitimacy is entirely dependent on the decisions taken their being supported by a majority in each of the nations bound by their decisions. That is why all international organisations (other than the EU) that make politically sensitive decisions binding on their members always using unanimity.
p.s. You say that the world is more complex than in J.S. Mill’s day. Some things surely are more complex such as technology which has advanced greatly in the last 150 years. But I would argue that political philosophy has become simpler in that time with liberal democracy (of which J.S. Mill is ‘high priest’) the ‘last man standing’ now that the collectivist doctrines of fascism and communism have collapsed.
Thomas Paine said (in ‘The Rights of Man’) that there are only two kinds of government in the world; those that derive their legitimate power from a people, and those which can trace their origin to a usurpation of that power. The forced ratification of the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty is the usurpation of our political power today. You suggest that this issue will be resolved by the UK leaving the EU, but the European federalism must and will be defeated everywhere because all European nations deserve to live in democratic nation-states just as much as Britons and the rest of humanity does.
#26 by Bojan on May 2, 2009 - 9:00 am
Not only are the Eurosceptics intellectually bankrupt, they are quite entertaining as well. For instance, our friend John thinks democracy can only spring to life if the concepts of nation and state coincide. Perhaps then, John can be so kind as to tell us why is the UK considered to be democratic? According to his reasoning, shouldn’t we expect Scotland and Wales to be fully independent countries and Northern Ireland united with the Republic of Ireland before we can state they are democracies? Similarly, how can Belgium be democratic when the Dutch speaking majority “abuses” the Francophone population? Or how can Spain be democratic when the Bask what a way out? Wake up John! This is the real world we are talking about! We sure as hell don’t need these sort or divisions.
In the real world however, the UK, Belgium and other countries are indeed democracies because the people have chosen to live under a common system of governance in which the leadership is elected in free and fair elections. A process of establishing a common European system of governance is now under way (and has been in the last 50 years or so). This process is by no means different from the state-level one, and the existence of multi – national/ethnical states goes in favour of this argument.
Now, the Lisbon Treaty is one of the final steps to achieving a complete European system of governance – or a state if you prefer. It does indeed provide for more democracy, by means of strengthening EP powers, but even more so by solving the decision-making shambles currently in place in the EU. Furthermore, it provides grounds for a European foreign policy (a real one, not the joke of policy we have now), which will undoubtedly contribute positively to spreading democratic values world-wide.
#27 by Freeborn John on May 2, 2009 - 12:57 pm
Bojan: There is a British nation. England, Scotland and Wales are not nations, but merely regions of Great Britain. The only other nation in the British isles is the Irish who created their state in 1921 for one reason alone – to assert that they would no longer tolerate living under the majority of the parliament in Westminster.
Northern Ireland is the most complex of all scenarios because (as in Jerusalem and parts of the Balkans) there are two communities living side by side in the same streets there who cannot easily be divided into separate nation states. The experience of the 1921-1972 Stormont parliament shows that political institutions based on the majoritorian principle become an instrument of oppression when applied in such multi-national environments. There was only one case in 50 years of a Bill introduced by the Irish Catholic minority ever becoming law at Stormont (and that a minor one concerning wildlife) showing how a majoritorian parliament modelled on Westminster effectively became the instrument by which one community dominated another, leading directly to a mounting sense of injustice which broke out in to political violence in the 1970’s. European federalists want to repeat this mistake on a Continental scale.
#28 by Henrik R Clausen on May 2, 2009 - 7:19 pm
Euroscepticism is a sound reaction to how the European Union is concieved and actually works.
First things first: I’m appalled when EU is conflated with ‘Europe’. Europe has been around for millenia, and Europe, as we know it today, is founded some 800 years ago. Europhiles keep trying to create legitimacy for the European Union by the fallacy of equating “EU=Europe”. It’s balony.
That aside, there is every good reason for EU-scepticism (got that?). The Constitution Treaty, renamed ‘Lisbon’, has been rammed down our throats in spite of three referendums, by means of a tactic to obscure the content and change it superficially in order to avoid further referendums, where the public – not least in the UK – would probably have thrown it into the trashcan where it belongs.
But our Dear Leaders are too scared to ask the citizen about matters like this.
I do not consider the ratification of Lisbon to be democratically legitimate, and will do my utmost to point out why the EU system, as it exists today, is not democratic and does not deserve confidence from the European citizen.
#29 by Lawrence on May 4, 2009 - 11:05 pm
Julien,
The eu knew what was being promised to the Maltese people, it knew they were blatant lies and yet it did absolutely nothing to correct them. This was in all areas, that’s why the eu is to blame.
Re illegal immigrants, they should be put back on their boats and sent on their way. We cannot and do not want to continue to accept illegal immigrants.
This evening the government said that illegal immigrants will not be allowed in Malta and helped to continue on their way.
At least the government is now listening to the vast majority of the Maltese citizens.
Good night
#30 by Julien on May 5, 2009 - 4:58 pm
Lawrence why do you insist so hard? Your point is clear. You think that the eu officials have the obligation to come down to any candidate country and reviel to the national media the lies the local politicians say.
It’s a great idea, but will never happen.
#31 by al on May 6, 2009 - 8:28 am
Lisbon an attempt to make the EU “more democratic”? People say that but fail to prove it, especially out of the treaty. Unless the Commission becomes an elected body that gives up all of its legislative power to the Parliament, and the Council is either abolished or divested of its powers, there will be no advance on democracy; everything will merely move sideways.
I think some people forgot what MEP Otto von Habsburg said about the EU (sorry, the EC; hard to keep up with the name changes) in 1989: “Europe is living largely by the heritage of the Holy Roman Empire, though the great majority doesn’t know it.” Besides, it’s even too late in the European Parliament: with fascists now the controlling majority in the European People’s Party (Berlusconi’s bloc), there is only one answer to which way Europe is headed.
#32 by Bojan on May 6, 2009 - 11:35 am
Al, you are right in every respect except one. The Council should by no means be abolished when the EC becomes an elected college. It should rather take up a role of an upper house of EP, obviously with lesser powers compared to the current ones.
As for the Holy Roman Empire notion, I’d like to think that the EU is different from any historical empire, mainly because it is based on law and dialogue rather than sheer military power.
#33 by Freeborn John on May 6, 2009 - 7:05 pm
Bojan: You are still talking junk which you cannot defend. Our elected heads of government cannot become some ‘upper house’ of an EU Parliament. Neither the EU Parliament nor the Commision has any democratic legitimacy, and members of the EU Council and Council of Minsisters only have a democratic legitimacy in their own country. That is totally insufficient to legitimate the polticial powers of the EU institutions.
The only way to restore democracy is to return the powers of the EU institutions to the democratic arena of the nation state.
#34 by al on May 6, 2009 - 8:29 pm
Sadly, what one would like to think and what reality is are often two different things. Habsburg knew what he was talking about. The EU is not about “laws”, but rather decrees (look up “directive” in any thesaurus). Barroso has already dubbed the EU an “empire”; since left-wing and right-wing are still battling for control (as I noted, far-right wing is starting to overcome), the “Holy Roman” bit is being wedged in slowly but surely.
Note that the Lisbon Treaty, merely the EU Constitution in another form, had to be ratified undemocratically wherever national law allowed same—because when put to referenda via direct democracy, the people rejected it in its first form. The very concoction of the Lisbon Treaty is a rejection of the people’s will in favour of that of the state; the people don’t want a constitution and have said so twice in a row.
#35 by Jan Miller on May 8, 2009 - 5:21 pm
The best way to tackle euroscepticism is to not have any referenda or meaningful elections. Problem solved.
#36 by B. Gagnaire on May 8, 2009 - 5:34 pm
This is a boil that needs to be lanced. At some point some angry minority is going to question the legitimacy of the European project and this will be an embarrassment internationally if we want the EU to have a global role; encouraging democracy, peace and good governance.
Why not have a Europewide referendum on whether each country wishes to leave the EU for some sort of trade association – OR – ratify the Lisbon Treaty and move on? There might not be as many in the EU but at least we would be unburdened by the unwilling and foot dragging.
#37 by Julien on May 8, 2009 - 6:43 pm
Great idea B. Gagnaire.
The problem is politicians and their patrons – the mass media – have gone through all this long and painfull task to make us all thinking like fat caws, that now they are afraid we will blow everything up if we are given the option…
But yeah, I’m all for it. A union with fat-caw citizens can’t be good…