Europe’s
Constitutional Treaty: A Threat to Democracy and How to
Avoid It
By Declan J. Ganley
Volume 4,
Number 5
December 2003
Declan
J. Ganley is an Irish entrepreneur and founder of
wireless broadband and cable TV businesses in Western,
Central, and Eastern Europe. In the early 1990s he built
what became the largest private forestry company in the
former Soviet Union. He serves on the Futures Group of
the Irish Government’s Information Society Commission.
Many observers view former president
of France Valery Giscard d’Estaing as having labored
tirelessly in the interests of his nation and Europe
over the course of his life of public service. But
Giscard d’Estaing now presides over the Brussels
convention charged with producing a draft constitution
for the future of Europe, the very concept of which is
an attack on democracy in Europe and a subversion of
Europe’s citizenry.
“Democracy” derives from the ancient
Greek word for “the rule of the people.” Invented in
Europe, its ideals have spread to the far corners of the
globe. It has become our way of life in Europe and
something we take for granted. It cannot be taken from
us or relegated to the role of symbolic chattel while
Giscard d’Estaing and his convention transfer its key
functions to Brussels. Throughout Europe’s history,
those who attempt to take from the people that which is
theirs ultimately fail; one can only hope that the
convention’s usurpation of the European agenda seems
similarly destined to fail.
Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Any
society that would give up a little liberty to gain a
little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
European citizens must pay attention to and act on the
draft constitution for the future of Europe that the
convention’s logrolling has produced. Unless they do, a
serious assault will have been carried out by the
European elite represented by the convention, which will
further encroach on Europe’s libertarian democratic
society and its ability to hold those who govern
accountable for their actions. If the convention
succeeds, Europe’s future may be headed down a very
dangerous path.
The draft constitution represents the
political bureaucracy’s attempt to consolidate its hold
over the decision-making process in the EU, which
affects Europeans’ daily lives in fundamental ways.
Should it come to pass, the constitution would call for
a presidential head of Europe, in the role of the
president of the European Council, who will have global
recognition as president of the Union, in whose election
the people will have no say. Their vote and opinion are
neither required nor desired.
A foreign affairs minister would
oversee the tract in the draft, that “member states
shall actively and unreservedly support the Union’s
common foreign and security policy in a spirit of
loyalty and mutual solidarity. They shall refrain from
action contrary to the Union’s interests or likely to
undermine its effectiveness.” Of course, the
(non-popularly elected) president and his or her foreign
minister would be unlikely to display what Chirac
earlier this year identified as the “bad behavior” and
signs of being “badly brought up” of the annoying,
democratically elected leaders of Central and Eastern
European states.
The president and minister will be
hand-picked by the Brussels bureaucracy. The European
minister for foreign affairs, who will represent
European interests to the world, will not have been
appointed by a president elected by Europeans. It is
already the case that Europeans did not elect those
responsible for the policy that underpins the Euro. The
governor of the European Central Bank is neither
directly nor indirectly accountable to the citizenry.
This means that Western Europeans live in a far less
accountable society than they did only a decade or so
ago. Sweden’s rejection of the Euro in its recent
referendum is a sign that Europeans recognise this fact
and require accountability from those setting monetary
and other policy. The many areas over which they have
ceded or will be ceding power to Brussels include
employment regulation, industry, transport,
communications, justice, health, agriculture, fisheries,
and important aspects of defence. The national veto is
to be abolished in no fewer than 50 new areas, including
immigration and asylum. The draft constitution also
ratifies that EU law will have primacy over member
states.
[As we have already pointed out it would be
impossible for the EU to make any major changes to its CONSTITUTION
because it is the exact copy of Himmler's PLAN for EUROPE which was
finally put into being in the Nazi
Geopolitical Centre in
Madrid in
1943 when it was accepted that the Nazis would lose the WAR. Our
support of
www.LIBERTAS.org.uk
is because that even those who agree about a
EUROPEAN UNION which WE DO NOT nevertheless it WILL PROVE to the EU
FANATICS that the FAULT is in their passionate adherence to a
TOTALITARIAN ideal which any Nazis still living will smile with
quiet satisfaction that what they could not complete in TWO WORLD
WARS they have DONE by the willing cooperation of ENGLAND'S
QUEEN and the majority of members of our once respected and
honourable Houses of PARLIAMENT.]
FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT
Bureaucracy vs. Democracy
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Notice a trend here? Our democratic
rights and liberty, values that so many Europeans and
others have fought and died for, are at risk. Ideals
born of revolutionary France are betrayed. Our liberty
and democracy are interwoven: subverting them could undo
the success of liberal democracy in Europe to date.
Superannuated or failed politicians with sinecures atop
a multiplying bureaucracy in Brussels have prospered for
too long off the backs of hard-working Europeans. This
latest effort is a bridge too far.
At least one aspect of the
bureaucracy’s effort has merit, which is the laudable
goal of achieving the ever-closer union of Europe
aspired to in the 1957 Treaty of Rome. This is a wise
and desirable objective and should be achievable. The EU
has served the people of Europe well. It is abundantly
apparent that it is capable of much more, which is why
we must jealously guard it from those that would try to
snatch its levers from us. A United Europe could provide
for European peace, prosperity, strength, quality of
life, and the ability to build not just a better Europe
but a better and safer world. A United States of Europe,
structured properly, could benefit Europeans and the
world.
The convention that Giscard d’Estaing
has presided over these past two years has somehow
managed to tarnish the prospect for a United Europe. It
has created a perception in the minds of millions of
Europeans that European federalism stands for
centralism, inefficiency, lack of accountability, and
overreaching control--classic big government encroaching
on the rights and sovereignty of the individual and the
last redoubt of old-style socialism writ large. A
federal Europe is a pretty good idea, if it possessed an
accountable administration with a clear European
identity and position on the world stage; had vested in
it only those key disciplines that are best and most
efficiently managed on a European level; embraced
Europe’s diversity; and devolved as many matters as
possible to Europe’s regions. But the Constitution for
the Future of Europe does not provide for such a Europe.
Most important, the president of the
European Council must not be elected by the collected
Prime Ministers of Europe, who will no doubt choose from
among themselves, electing one of their retired/retiring
own for the job, where s/he will win a triple-crown
retirement plan: the parliamentary pension, the
ministerial pension, and then the EU pension. Yet
another American founding father, James Madison said
that “the censorial power is in the people over the
government and not the government over the people.” His
words ring true for Europeans today. Europeans do not
require middlemen to interpret what is best for them.
The president of Europe must be accountable to Europeans
at the ballot box.
The European Flaw and How to Fix It
All of these goings-on in Europe point
to a current flaw in the European system of democracy,
whose structures are failing through a combination of
self-interests and inability to adapt. These failing
structures are the embodiment of “old Europe.” Like the
creaking analog telephone systems of earlier decades,
Europe’s system of nationally structured political
parties has become a legacy system. You can tweak and
push the system harder, you can add new parts, but what
lies underneath can no longer deliver the performance
required of it. The old “analog system” must be
discarded: European politics needs to go digital.
It is time for the creation of new,
truly pan-European political organizations. Looking at
the United States, the historian Clinton Rossiter said
“No America without democracy, no democracy without
politics, no politics without parties.” Similarly, in
the absence of mainstream, truly European political
parties, the European political scene has become the
plaything of special interest groups with no broader
European vision. New parties and organizations could
address Europe’s needs at the levels where most of the
decisions affecting us are, or should be, made: the
macro level in Europe, our broader community, and at the
most local level within the regions of Europe’s states.
Europeans hold in generally low regard most of the
current political leaders in Europe, who stumble from
opinion poll to opinion poll with little other motive
than to stay in power.
In addition to protecting our future
from power grabs, pan- European parties could start to
address issues such as free trade, security, education,
quality of life, health care, the family, an independent
judiciary, competitiveness, technology, entrepreneurship
and job creation, the developing world, and human
rights. Vaclav Havel put it succinctly when he said of
the current structure of the European Union, “Europe
speaks to my head but it says nothing to my heart.” For
the European ideal to prosper, Europe must become
something much broader than a physical place: it must
become a living idea that others might embrace and
eventually join.
Unfortunately, the draft constitution
does not follow the true path of constitutional
liberalism that has served the Western world so well in
recent history. The foundations of libertarianism in the
Roman Republic were slowly undone by the undermining of
Rome’s own elite. As political analyst and
Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria
states in his The Future of Freedom: Illiberal
Democracy at Home and Abroad (2003), “The lesson
of Rome’s fall is that for the rule of law and liberty
to endure, you need more than the good intentions of the
rulers, for they may change (both the intentions and the
rulers).”
The draft constitution may prove to be
a significant ingredient in what could develop into a
medium-term disaster for Europe. Continuing down this
path could lead to the rejection of the constitution in
its present form via referenda in a small number of
European states. This may well lead to a two-tier
Europe: the “fast-track” inner core and the others. If
Germany and France stay on this course and at the same
time fail to reform their welfare burdens, they will
have no choice but to seek shelter for their economies
through trade protectionism in order to stanch the
resultant loss of jobs and investment. Within a decade
the EU could be disintegrating into something unpleasant
and have grown farther apart from its old ally, the
United States.
Brussels has already begun its efforts
to force the constitution upon the people of Europe. A
spokesman for the European Commission president Romano
Prodi stated in September that “if it (the constitution)
is not ratified, Europe faces the messy choice of
grinding to a halt or having to expel one of its
members.” This from a man with no mandate from the
people. Europeans have by and large become tired of our
political leadership, who are for the most part devoid
of any great vision for Europe’s future. Many of
Europe’s leaders have taken on a distinctively grey hue.
This disillusionment in the leadership has resulted in
most people’s not noticing what has been going on in the
convention. Through the familiar, steady drone of weekly
political coverage, a coup of sorts has been perpetrated
to snatch away Europeans’ rights.
Preventing Disaster
The forces at work within the
Europolitical elites make a momentous force behind this
power grab. Each state’s senior socialist and centrist
political figures will call for adoption of the draft
constitution as a “reasonable compromise” and a
“historic achievement”—of which Europe has had too many
with sad consequences already. The extreme right and
fringe parties will argue against them, which will only
make the proponents look more correct.
The convention can only be countered
with a true and fair vision for a United Europe.
Europeans who until now have kept their views to
themselves should mobilize to stop this tide. They must
overcome groupings and parties based on legacy national
organizations to form a new organization and articulate
a clear and achievable vision for Europe’s future.
Rather than try to define itself in contradistinction to
the United States, this new Europe must be an equal
partner and influence for the worldwide extension of
justice and liberty. Such a political party— I will for
the sake of discussion call it “Libertas”—will need to
challenge the engrained composition of the convention in
local and regional elections, as well as running
candidates at member-state and EU levels. The old
structures need shaking up.
The Intergovernmental Conference
expects to conclude its work by December, towards having
a treaty ready for signature in May 2004. Fortunately
this outcome can be avoided. The constitution can be
rejected by referenda voters in Ireland, Denmark, and
France. Something better needs to be proposed. It is
time to map out a new and better United Europe. When
given the opportunity, Europeans must bury the
constitution of the Brussels elite in the spot they’ll
mark with an X on the ballot paper.
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