Farewell Bruno; you were a voice of sanity among the long dismal cast of federalist drones who write for the one-eyed EU ‘Observer’.

And so Mr. Waterfield retreats to his Island, to further convince his fellow Islanders of the ‘undemocratic’ nature of the EU.

Mr. Waterfield simply can’t acknowledge that the EU is no more or less democratic than it’s Member States. Therefore if there is any democratic deficit (which I don’t believe there to be) it should be handled by the Member States who can amend the Treaties.

Westminster is as (un)democratic as Brussels. But Mr. Waterfield does not see any problem there, for in Westminster they speak English and are Anglo-Saxon, whereas in Brussels there is diversity and a majority of ‘continental’ people.

Continental people/governments/states having a say over what happens in the UK? An unbearable thought to Mr. Waterfield and many British citizens.

Why don’t you use Article 50 TEU Mr. Waterfield?

If the bureaucrats were actually competent, the people would be less outraged at the failure of democratic control. It is the fact that they are incompetent and WE CANT GET RID OF THEM through any existing democratic lever that creates the huge popular swell of anti-EU sentiment, a sentiment that is only in its infancy.

This is a tsunami that will crash onto the Brussels bureaucracy in the next few years and come as a total shock to them. It may even happen sooner if the Portuguese revolutionaries unpack their arms.

How can the ECB, for example claim any legitimacy if it has presided over the failure of financial regulation, the exacerbation of divergences between economies (Germany needs a +4.5% bank rate to control inflation whilst Ireland needs a -4.6% – much more divergent now than under the precursor system of EMU) and currently risks the collapse of the Euro due to its automatic ostrich-like response to mounting crises?

The Chinese people may not elect their governing officials, but at least they have a system that seems to ensure a reasonable degree of competency. Indeed they currently set the global standard in such matters – a measure of how low that standard actually is.

Promoters of the system of periodic voting for media selected political representatives – incorrectly known as “democracy” in all western nations – need to address the failure of their system to deliver even basic competence in their forms of governance, and the outrageous and escalating risks that that system takes with people’s livelihoods, their personal wellbeing and the very survival of the human species.

There is a tsunami coming and the competent governments of the world are planning for it already. The EU is still frantically kicking the dead horse of neo-liberal economics in the hope of a resurrection.

I’ll miss you Bruno. Our views often converged – albeit from radically opposing ideologicial starting points. Yet another outlet for radical thought is closed down in the interests of the dead horse.

Alas, farewell poor Bruno, we knew his line of argument well.

@ Freeborn John, the Council have the final say in any event and they are all elected. Ditto the EP which has a not insubstantial input.

Most Commissioners have been elected to high office at one time or other. Barroso was Portuguese PM, Kallas was Estonian PM etc. Having these people directly elected would go against the fact that they are supposed to be independent from their home states. It would also mean that the country with the highest population would always have the Commission Presidency. Finally, and probably most importantly, it would remove the intergovernmental element which ensures that Member States together agree by consensus who is to be in the Commission and have the opportunity to veto, e.g. De Haene by the UK in 1992.

I sincerely doubt that electing Commissioners would improve the situation. In fact, it might just give them legitimacy to challenge the EP. No, what is required – and what is happening in reality – is a gradual shift in the Commission’s powers to the EP, leaving the Commission as a pure civil service.

What you are describing about “ossified EU law” applies equally to national and international law. There is UK legislation which dates back hundreds of years and international treaties for a similar period. None of these texts is set in stone, it only requires the agreement of the contracting parties to modify them. Hence, in the case of VAT at EU level (or even the seat of the EP), there has to be agreement between the states. This can be cumbersome, which is why there is such a thing as QMV, but this does not apply to VAT and other indirect taxes, for which there must be unanimity (Art. 113 TFEU).

I was never interested in the EU before the Irish were forced to vote a second time on the Lisbon treaty. This was after three countries had voted against the treaty’s blueprint, the infamous EU Constitution !
Like millions of Europeans (who had a second EU “citizenship” forced upon them without their consent ), I thought the EU was all about the curvature of bananas etc. I have now learnt that the EU and it’s servants is actually about unadulterated power. Governments can use their influence in the EU to supress information, increase surveillance of their populations or ban things (smoking, herbal remedies etc.) while hiding behind EU direktives.
The un-elected Commission of millionare second-rate ex-politicians can introduce any draconian scheme it likes and is free to break the law (see bailouts), because it is ABOVE THE LAW and all 27 commissioners have immunity from persecution.
They then have the nerve to offer us the “Citizen’s Initiative” as an Orwellian example of “direct democracy” !
The wrongly named European “parliament” (it’s actually an EU “parliament”) is free to vote itself increases in salaries and expenses while pretending the EU is all about European “solidarity” ! A so-called parliament with no real people of it’s own to represent and no opposition, whose main purpose is to steal power away from sovereign elected Parliaments and their voters ! I would rather die than vote for this wanna-be parliament.

Real democracy is dying in Europe which is depressing and sad.
Europe needs more journalists like you Mr Waterfield.
Thank you.

Bos sounds like an arrogant democracy-hating elitist who thinks it is great that a handful of unelected mutually appointed elitists can make the decisions and bypass the democratically elected national parliaments more and more.

The sheer arrogance of those pro-EU anti-democracy types is just unbelievable.

Listen up buddy, DEMOCRACY requires a DEMOS. That exists on the national level but NOT on EU level.

Bos does what pro-EU democracy-hating types do best, postulating BS arguments, rally against democracy and against referendums and for elitism.

And of course, being the democracy-hating elitist that he is, thinks that the EU parliament is somehow democratic, just because it is elected. The EU parliament is no more democratic than North Korea’s parliament, that too is elected. And for the EU, no demos = no democracy.

EU: friends of the investors, markets and bankers, enemies of the peoples.

it was a pleasure to read you on this blog. well done et merci.

Bos: I am a liberal nationalist and very proud to say so, since liberal nationalism is highest form of political system ever devised by mankind and the only one compatible with democracy and peaceful intergovernmental relational between nations. This however is not, as you would, suggest a national bias. I believe that other European nations (and indeed all nations worldwide) deserve a democratic nation-state just as much as my own nation does. You on the other hand would deny the nation-state to European nations alone, leaving them politically disenfranchised compared to the rest of mankind which is progress steadily towards ever more democratic nation-states. EU-sceptics therefore represent the real interests of all European nations better than do euro-federalists.

You are wrong to say equate constituencies to the Westminster Parliament and the EU so-called Parliament. The parties contesting elections in different constituencies of the Westminster parliament are the same parties. British voters who live in constituencies other than those of the party leaders know that they voting both for their local representative and the party likely to form the government. Those parties all put forward their proposed policy program of government in the form of election manifestoes. And there is a national debate, conducted in the national language, through the national media around the respective merits of each party’s proposed program of government. None of that is true of elections to constituencies of the EU so-called parliament. No political party in one member-state competes in constituencies in another because they have no links with the citizens of those other countries and therefore no chance of winning. There are no figures in the EU Parliament (akin to leaders of national political parties) who are well-known in their own country, never-mind other member-states. There is no proposed policy program upon which EU elections are fought, no debate around the non-existent manifestoes; And no debate would be possible anyway with no common language to hold it in, and no common media to report it. The most obvious facts about pan-European elections is that they are really just 27 national elections held the same day, each contested by national parties alone with the outcome decided purely on the national electorates perception of how these national parties and especially the national government is performing. But a bigger and more fundamental issue against pan-European elections is that no nation in Europe agrees to live under a pan-European majority. Every ‘European issue’ (especially those involving funding) are viewed through purely national interest, typically whether the country is a net contributor or recipient of funding. Thus there is permanent 26-1 majority of nations in favour of abolishing the ‘British rebate’, a permanent split between agricultural and industrial countries on the Common Agricultural Policy, a permanent split between richer and poorer countries on regional funding, a permanent split between bankrolling and bankrupt countries on eurozone bailouts. Majorities cannot tell us anything in such cases about the case of the British rebate, CAP, etc. And there is no need to go to the expense of holding a pan-European election when one could very accurately predict its outcome by simply adding up the census figures of the net contributor and recipient nations.

The concept of ‘pacta sunt servanda’ (i.e. ‘agreements must be kept’) between states should only be apply when there is a long-term cross-party consensus in all those states that would be bound. This is only true in a very limited range of areas in politics, e.g. basic human rights, etc. for which there is near universal support. ‘Pacta sunt servanda’ cannot apply between states in perpetuity in politically contested policy areas such as those that typically decide general elections. Yet this is exactly what the most recent EU treaties allow. Wherever EU law exists in a politically-contested policy area we lose the ability to elect a new government capable of changing the law to whatever the new majority in the country believes is now most appropriate. That totally destroys democracy. The only people who favour ‘pacta sunt servanda’ in contested policy areas are politicians in office who would like to lock their personal policy preferences into place such that their political opponents cannot undo them should they the next election. However it is not only the current Opposition which loses, but all future generations of voters who are de-facto disenfranchised by the supranational law. That is why we see this very deep disconnect about EU integration between politicians (especially those in power) and their electorates.

Bos: You don’t have an argument. You have a theory which does not match the observed facts in the world. The scientific tradition is that theories which do not match observed facts must be discarded. The existence of nations in the world is not a matter of your opinion versus mine, but one that is a matter of fact provable by looking at the real world. When you are faced with a choice between maintaining your ‘argument’ and retreating into a fantasy-world where there are no nations, you choose the latter. But no-one else should follow you there. The rest of us in the real-world see an increasing number of democratic nation-states – up from ~60 in 1945 to 200 today – with new ones appearing in Tunisia and Egypt this year. Your theory cannot explain why there are more and more nation-states in the world; why it appears to be a universal part of the human condition to wish to be governed within a community of ones fellow-nationals, and why state borders all around the world are increasingly aligned with the contours of national identity.

I (and Marcel) however do have an argument, i.e. a theory that matches what is observed in the real world, and which can explain the worldwide phenomena of an increasing number of nation-states for 200 years all around the world. That theory is that democracy (i.e. majority elections) is only accepted within the context of a community (demos) with a sufficiently strong bond of national identity that the society will hold together even when there are minorities that disagree with the national majority. This only explains why state borders all over the world have to be re-drawn around the contours of national identity when free institutions are first put in place (e.g. why British India, Czechoslovakia, Yugolsavian or USSR borders had to be re-drawn when democratic institutions were first put in place), but also why international organisations must use decision-making by unanimity if they are to be accepted as legitimate (i.e. to prevent any national majority being forced to do what it does not agree with). This also explains very precisely why the EU crisis of democratic legitimacy began in the early 1990’s with Maastricht (when decision-making by unanimity first began to be replaced in politically contested policy areas with QMV) and has grown worse with every ‘federalising’ EU treaty since.

EU-sceptics have real-arguments with a theory that matches observed facts, while euro-federalists have theories that cannot explain any real-world phenomena and which you can only sustain by retreating into a fantasy-world where there are no nations. Therefore any independent observer should conclude that the time for listening to euro-federalists who recommend blindly repeating federalising measures when they have persistently failed in the past, is over. The only way to restore the legitimacy of the political systems in the nation-states of Europe is to reduce the powers of the EU institutions. In particular the supra-national institutions and the secondary EU law they produce must be eliminated with a return to purely inter-governmental relations (in all politically-contested policy areas beyond the common market) such that ‘pacta sunt servanda’ applies only to agreements between European governments (i.e. until they lose an election) and do not remain binding in perpetuity on all states no matter how the citizens of those vote in their future elections.

Bos (18): QMV did not start in politically-contested policy areas before Maasticht. Using QMV to decide the maximum curvature of cucumbers cannot lead to political tensions that will shatter the non-existent European ‘demos’ because the issue itself is not politically salient. However this is not true of the policy areas where recent EU treaties have given Brussels power but where lack of any strong identity means that no national community will agree to live under a politically contentious EU policy it does not agree with, simply because majorities in other European countires would like them to.

You are trying to make an argument based on a misreading (more likely a non-reading?) of Benedict Anderson’s “Imagined Communities”. The trouble with that is that Mr. Anderson does not agree with you (see below). The title of his book is a play on words, i.e. the double-meaning of the word ‘imagine’ in the English language as (1) something originally created by the human mind and (2) something that does not really exist in the real-world. You are trying to suggest that national identity is imagined as per definition (2) but Benedict Anderson does not agree with that. All the components of national identity, e.g. language, etc. certainly do exist and are vital in holding political communities together. And euro-federalists cannot ‘un-invent’ them.

———–
“None the less, in themselves, market-zone, ‘natural’ geographic, or politico-administrative, do not create attachments. Who will willingly die for Comecon or the EEC?” B. Anderson, ‘Imagined Communities’

@Freebornjohn

If QMV is not per definition politically salient we wouldn’t have haid the empty chair crisis in the 1960′s. Even cucumbers can be politically salient if it means French cucumbers could be disadvantaged through QMV by other MS whose cucumbers have a different curvature.

It seems you are basing your arguments on a nonreading of my posts. I have explicitly stated myself that ‘nations are relevant’ (post 18 ‘thus they are relevant’). Simply because people believe they exist. My point is that nations are highly subjective, thus we should not accord them the importance you accord to them.

Secondly I do not plead for a European federation by referring to Anderson. A european nation or demos would be as imagined as a french/british/etc one.

I do not really plead for a european federation either. I just plea against your archaic world view, where you think 21st century problems in a globalized economy can be best solved by nation states in an intergovernmental fashion.

Observed facts have shown intergovernmental cooperation cannot address the challenges we face.

Bos: In post 16 you said “nations do not exist”. You make clear in more recent posts that you are only prepared to accord nations significance to the extent that other people believe they exist. So your whole argument is based on an assumption that the rest of mankind is hallucinating. However even you cannot deny (if you can read this sentence) that important ingredients of national identity like language do exist. If the rest of mankind believes something exists which you do not, and flows from things whose existence you cannot deny, then is it not far more likely that you are the one hallucinating?

The democratic world outside the EU uses inter-governmental relations to solve their prolems just fine. There are many intergovernmental organisations like WTO, NATO, G20 etc. that work better than the EU, i.e. produce better economic growth or defence or whatever policy outcome they are set up to achieve, and have not suffered the EU breakdown in democratic legitimacy that it suffered when introducing QMV. The countries that have the most EU integration (the eurozone) have worse performing long-term economic growth than the rest of EU; which in turn has worse performing long-term economic growth than the purely intergovernmental world beyond. So once again your argument that supranationalism is needed to successfully solve real-world problems is seen to be a theory that is unsupportable by real-world evidence, and which should therefore be discarded as another hallucination.

Populism isn’t a bad word, except in the minds of arrogant elitist ‘we hate the people if they do not agree with us’ figures such as politicians of PvdA (Dutch Labour) or CDA.

And like the typical elitist Bos exposes himself to be (any relation to that miserable Wouter ‘give peoples money to the bankers’ Bos?) he has no real arguments and feels that labelling someone a ‘PVV’ voter is somehow going to be perceived as an insult. Well, to me it is not. I never voted for them to begin with.

And not only do I believe there is such a thing as a ‘national demos’, it actually exists. Lets have a referendum on that, oh wait silly question of course not, can’t have referendums that produce results the elite doesn’t like.

Intergovernmental cooperation has accomplished a hell of a lot more than supranational tyranny. The WTO did far more for removing trade barriers than the ‘must protect French farmers at all costs’ EU which only sees the rest of the world as a bogeyman that must be kept out. The pro-EU crowd use the ‘must come together argument’ to suggest ‘to protect ourselves from the big bad bogeymen’ in the rest of the world. No need to ditch democracy for that, I say.

And as for Britain in the EEC, that was France’s interest. First, France needed to keep Britain out to get the funding system for CAP (common agricultural policy) in place, once that was in place it became in France’s interest to get Britain in, so Britain would need EEC permission to trade with the rest of the world and Britain could be forced to buy French agricultural produce because of imposed tariffs on the rest of the world (Commonwealth in particular).

France wanted Britain in because it made France better off. This was all De Gaulle’s doing. Though De Gaulle did do one thing decent, to block the attempts then to force federalization of the EU through.

Patrick :
Alas, farewell poor Bruno, we knew his line of argument well.
@ Freeborn John, the Council have the final say in any event and they are all elected. Ditto the EP which has a not insubstantial input.

No member of the Council was elected to that office; they behave like the UN in the ineffectual capacity that they wield, and they yield to the will of one country, that being Germany. The new President of the Council, whose powers are not specified, is most definitely not elected. Germany, by the decision of their Constitutional Court, has the power to review every single piece of legislation that Brussels passes; therefore all the power is actually in Berlin and Karlsruhe.

The EP (do you mean “Europarl”?) has no powers at all. One may as well claim that the Supreme Soviet and National People’s Congress have “powers”. Legislation in truly democratic countries requires separation of powers; there are none at the EU level, where the unelected Commission both writes and passes the laws and “Europarl” acts as a toy parliament wielding a rubber stamp.

Most Commissioners have been elected to high office at one time or other. Barroso was Portuguese PM, Kallas was Estonian PM etc. Having these people directly elected would go against the fact that they are supposed to be independent from their home states

“Independent” as in against? Please don’t use the word “independent” as a synonym for “unaccountable”. Doesn’t quite fit. And what significance is there to Commissioners having been elected politicians prior to that job? because so were (and are) many politicians in totalitarian regimes outside the EU. Even Ahmadinejad had to be elected, if the Supreme Leader is not.

It would also mean that the country with the highest population would always have the Commission Presidency

Don’t know where you got that from. In real representative democracies, representation is not wholly by population, and executive office is not determined by population either.

Finally, and probably most importantly, it would remove the intergovernmental element which ensures that Member States together agree by consensus who is to be in the Commission and have the opportunity to veto, e.g. De Haene by the UK in 1992.

Please tell us how “consensus” was ever democratic? More like “consensus” is a masque for the will of one rather than all. Democracy is all about dissent.

I sincerely doubt that electing Commissioners would improve the situation. In fact, it might just give them legitimacy to challenge the EP. No, what is required – and what is happening in reality – is a gradual shift in the Commission’s powers to the EP, leaving the Commission as a pure civil service.

Where exactly are you seeing that? It’s certainly not in any TEU nor in any TFEU; rather, the Commission having “sole legislative initiative” is the only thing that is law. Given the moves of recent legislation (more centralization, the abolition of habeas corpus), the trend is towards less freedom, actually. That applies especially in the case of so-called “QMV” at the Council level. If anything should happen to the Commission, it ought to be abolished, and the Parliament become bicameral and given legislative powers but not executive; you also have an elected executive. Funny how that actually works when you stick to that formula; the formula that the EU is copying is doomed to either become tyrannical or lose power.

What you are describing about “ossified EU law” applies equally to national and international law. There is UK legislation which dates back hundreds of years and international treaties for a similar period. None of these texts is set in stone, it only requires the agreement of the contracting parties to modify them. Hence, in the case of VAT at EU level (or even the seat of the EP), there has to be agreement between the states. This can be cumbersome, which is why there is such a thing as QMV, but this does not apply to VAT and other indirect taxes, for which there must be unanimity (Art. 113 TFEU).

Note you said that there has to be agreement “between the states” rather than the will of the people be expressed. That has the characteristics of an “old boys’ club”. And for all of the false comparisons to the UK’s parliament, the fact remains that the House of Commons is directly elected and holds actual legislative power, and supremacy in that respect. Can’t say that about the EU, nor the direction it’s heading in.

Goodbye Bruno, you will not be missed.