The Lisbon Treaty. For or Against

Art

The Lisbon Treaty was introduced to replace the rejected EU Constitution.

It's critics say it is the same document repackaged and re-presented under a different name but this time without a referendum in those countries which rejected it's predecessor.

Ireland is as far as I am aware the only country which will now hold a referendum on ratification which will take place in 4 weeks time. Rejection by Ireland will (theoretically at least) mean the scrapping of the treaty.

For those Europeans who do not have a vote on whether or not they want this new treaty here is a chance to register your approval or disapproval

http://www.reformtreaty.ie/

RonPaul2008

This doesn't really apply to me since I am an American, however, if I were European I would be against that smacks of globalism. That is all the EU is.

chemisttree

It sounds like a slippery slope to me to confer powers to an international bureacracy regarding matters of agricultural and monetary policy.

This is also the current role of National Parliaments. What defines "if possible"? Majority vote? Unanimous vote?

Very slippery slope IMO.

Art

The vote on this treaty is next week and at the moment polls show it to be neck and neck.

The gov't who are campaigning for a yes vote originally adopted a strategy of providing zero information on what the treaty actually means saying it was too complicated for people to bother with the details. Some independent groups such as Libertas whose funding sources the gov't have queried are campaigning for a no vote and have spelled out specific consequences of agreeing to the new treaty.

The problem the gov't have in selling it is there actually isn't anything good in it for Ireland. For example it halves Ireland's vote whilst doubling Germany's.

It is also another major step on the road to a US of E with the creation of a president and European foreign minister which many people are very unhappy about not least as these will be appointees rather than elected officials.

In this vein it also moves many more items such as immigration policy for example from the jurisdiction of the sovereign gov'ts of the individual countries to the largely unaccountable bureaucrats of Europe.

It will be interesting to see how the Europhiles will respond to a no vote. Because France and Holland voted no to the first draft of the new constitution they simply tacked it on as additions to existing treaties and didn't give them a vote whereas last time it happened in Ireland they simply held the referendum again until people voted the right way.

There is something very undemocratic about the way Europe as a political entity is developing.

Ed Aboud

Hey. I'm living in Dublin, but I'm not really sure what to vote yet. As it stands, I think I am going to vote yes. I feel that it will definitely strengthen Ireland's position economically.

epenguin

(Germany's under-representation has had to change.)

But mainly, about Ireland, the example cited often us in order to show how scandalously undemocratic and unfair the EU is. If you want to try and show that, choose some other issue.

It is a quirk that the Irish constitution (according to the interpetation by a Consitutional Court ruling) required a referendum only in Ireland on enlargement of the EU. So if their Irish no vote had been accepted it would have meant stopping the unification of almost a continent because of a vote of a small province of it, that probably reflected local and extraneous issues as referendums often do. But insofar as it did reflect the ostensible issue what was its meaning? Ireland in the Europe of 15 was the needy poor relation which needed help. Which it received on quite a large scale. It did show itself more capable of benefitting than some others, and has by now become a relatively prosperous country, a remarkable turnaround and success story. However enlargement was to countries all poorer than Ireland and all existing member states. So the Irish were being asked to vote on the question 'Do you want lose your status as poor member deserving help, to admit still poorer ones who need it more and will absorb most of the relevant budgets, and instead of keeping your grants perhaps you contribute to finance poor member states in your turn?'

They didn't. No one respected them for it and it was quite right to tell them they had made a mistake and they had to democratically vote for what they were told.

Art

Simplistic nonsense. That is not the reason Ireland voted no. The treaty of Nice was not just about enlargement, in fact that was a minor side issue. It was cynically portrayed as being about enlargement and Ireland blocking new members so as to put pressure on Ireland to reverse their referendum result. If you are looking for where the bulk of EU funding goes then you are looking in the wrong place. Try French farmers.

The Nice treaty was really about giving new powers to Europe in areas which they previously had none (in areas such as justice and social standards) whilst extending and strengthening their powers in others and was cobbled together in a so called compromise deal worked out between France and Germany to replace the Amsterdam treaty which neither would ratify and why wouldn't they ratify the Amsterdam treaty? Oh because it reduced their voting power. Yet you think as Ireland is a small country they should just do as they are told and accept the reduction in the power of their vote. Seems to me a very good reason for voting no.

And curiously the main reason for Ireland's prosperity was it's low corporation tax rate (which by the way the EU tried to stop them from doing), the subsequent inward investment, the vast majority of which came from US companies (which the EU complained about) and practically zero from EU countries, it's highly educated workforce and the highest productivity per worker in the industrialised world.

A key reason why the first Nice referendum failed was because it followed closely on the heels of the Irish finance minister being rebuked by the EU for his budget which btw in hindsight was seen even by the EU finance ministers as showing remarkable foresight. This interference in the running of the economy woke Irish people up as to just how much power the extremely undemocratic EU bureaucracy had taken on to itself and so they voted against extending that power still further. The fact Ireland was then portrayed as voting against helping new poor members was just pure propaganda for the ignorant masses.

This latest treaty has already been rejected by both Holland and France in referendums and so was redrafted as amendments to existing treaties to avoid the inconvenience of having to allow the citizens of the member states to vote on it.

Art

I should also point out that far from trying to block new members Ireland and the UK were the only existing EU members who gave the citizens of the new member states immediate rights of entry to their countries as full EU citizens.

Ed Aboud

Well the no vote won in Ireland.

vanesch

That's exactly what I like so much about it: European policy could be steered without having to take into account the necessity of electoral politics. It works best when it is purely technocratic.

But now, Europe is totally broken. Maybe the EU model has burst outside of its workability with so many members, and maybe it should evolve now in a kind of onion structure: a whole set of options, which member states decide to be part of or not. It is already the case: there's the Euro, there is Shengen. I am affraid that the time is over where one can hope for a totally united Europe, as visibly individual national preferences have diverged so much over different issues that no reasonable and effective compromise can be found. Where the French voted no because they thought that the previous constitution was too liberal (in the sense of too much free market oriented) and didn't have enough socialism in it, the Dutch voted no for exactly the opposite reasons. There where the French found that not enough social security was enforced by the European constitution and where corporations were not enough taxed, it seems that the Irish take the opposite stance.

So maybe one should now stop trying to have a common Europe which is the same for everybody, and just think of totally different agreements, which member states can join or not. You could have a "union of social security-rich European states", and then a "union of low tax European states", you could have one (or even different) "unions of European states with common foreign policy" (interventionist ones, peace-loving ones, military driven ones...), and each state could then pick what options it wanted for its Europe. And then you would have of course to negotiate how, for instance, trades and border taxes between these different zones should adjust for the different systems adopted in each.

In the end you would find out that each state would have its own little zone in which it just resides with exactly its preferred mix of options... with nobody else in it. The trade and other agreements between different zones would then just be specific agreements with other states. And that's then the end of it.

quadraphonics

The problem, of course, is that technocracy is not the only, or even most likely, alternative to democracy.

How would that be different from simply abolishing the EU entirely and relying on regular old national politics? Or was that your point?

Art

I am not sure why you would find even a benevolent dictatorship preferable to a democracy What may be benevolent today might not be so benevolent tomorrow but once you've abdicated your powers to them there is nothing you can do about it.

The way the EU currently works is unelected civil service appointees write up legislation which is then submitted to the elected European Parliament for their input. The elected part of the EU monolith gets to make suggested amendments to the bills which the unelected civil service then decide whether or not to take on board. The Lisbon Treaty would have given even more power to this completely unelected body at the expense of democratic processes.

How is the EU broken? It's the same as it was yesterday. This no vote simply means it will be a lot harder for the likes of Giscard d'Estaing the unelected author of the original constitution, already rejected by the citizens of France and Holland, to achieve their aim of a US of E dominated by France and Germany.

The treaty was masked as merely a tidy up of various pieces of existing legislation to enable the EU market to operate more efficiently but in reality some of the key pieces were the creation of a non-elected president and foreign minister with the power to agree worldwide treaties. It also allowed for the creation of a European army (renamed rapid defense force because of the disquiet over the initial proposal) presumably so Europe could if it wished go to war with somebody under the authority of these unelected unaccountable officials. So much for Ireland's neutrality in this new Europe

None of this is fantasy the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso himself has declared the document will usher in "the world's first nonimperial empire".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-dEstaing.html

vanesch

As I said, that's what I think is so brilliant about it: that the real work is done by unelected civil servants, which do not suffer from "pressures from the democratic process", but can work out entirely coherent schemes that way. In order for this not to drift away, what is necessary, is a democratic *control mechanism*. It's the only thing why a democracy is superior to a dictatorship: if you really see that it doesn't work, you can stop it. But this safeguard of democracy very often turns into a direct or indirect rule "by opinion of the people" - directly if it is by referendum, indirect if those making the decisions have to please their electorate to be re-elected. As such, most of the time, not the "right" decisions are taken, but only the "popular" decisions, that means, the rules are written by "average Joe", and each rule is written by a different "average Joe" which doesn't have to take into account whatever he decided before or will decide afterwards: it is a memory-less, responsibility-less decider. The only thing "average Joe" really can see, is whether those making the rules are really making a mess of it. That's the real power of democracy. And there should indeed be a tool, based upon that, to stop those making the rules in that case.
But "average Joe" should not be part of setting up the rules, or even each rule individually. That's BTW, the whole idea of representative democracy: you use your vote to select a set of "wise men/women" who are supposed to be more responsible and more coherent, and more intelligent than the voters themselves. However, this game has been pushed into perverted perfection because now, the voted representatives don't work out a coherent plan with the confidence of their electorate, they try to match the public opinion of the moment of their electorate, using opinion polls and other such tools. In other words, the perfect politician is now just a sounding board for the opinion of its electorate - a sounding board for average Joe.

Unfortunately, the questions that have to be answered by politicians became more and more technically involved. Real material knowledge is the only thing that can lead a decider to a right decision, and to a working coherent system. Average Joe is by far not intelligent enough to know how to reach his goals by telling what are the rules he should abide by. And this is the point where a technocracy becomes better than a democracy. We should keep the good part of democracy: the safeguard. But democracy is not the best decision-making system. A group of anonymous technically literate people are much better at that.

It should indeed not be dominated by some countries, but simply by an anonymous crowd of people who don't think in terms of interests for specific nation-states, but rather in terms of a better overall system.

Whether you like it or not, part of world-wide power comes with military power, and Europe is pretty bleak on that account. Although I find a foreign minister a good thing, I find a president a bad thing. One shouldn't put a person - with all which goes with it: personality cult, desire for success, ... in charge. It should really remain an anonymous crowd.

That's personally exactly what I desire, and what I think would work best: an empire, but without an emperor (a person), but just with an anonymous technocratic machine that steers it, and with an ultimate democratic safeguard that can intervene when things turn too badly, in which nation states get slowly dissolved.

You can be shocked by my "anti-democratic" attitude, but it isn't anti-democratic. Look at how science is "set up". Science is not done by democratic election. But it is also not done by a few dictators who "came to power". Science is done by an anonymous, knowledgeable crowd. Of course, sometimes some scientists have to be whistled back because they propose clearly nutty and dangerous things (that's the "democratic control"), but in the average working of science, one doesn't ask "average Joe" what should be done. And in those cases where one does, one obtains silly monster science, with wasted means, and no genuine science.

There shouldn't be a "popularity contest" of by what rules Europe should function: one should devise a set of rules that achieves its goals best. And to know what must be those rules, it is not average Joe who is going to be able to judge whether that's a good set of rules or not. The goals for Europe are: keeping peace on the European continent, providing prosperity for its citizens, and achieve a certain status of world power - not necessarily a superpower, but a voice on the world theater with which the other players need to count, in order to defend its interests. That's what Europe is for. And exactly *how* that is best achieved, is a technocratic question. What set of rules one should adopt to achieve these goals is not an easy thing to find out. And honestly, how much this or that nation has to say on this or that subject is, in this frame, a totally moot point.

vanesch

Yes indeed. If we do "Europe a la carte", then we will end up with 27 different "cartes".

Art

Vanesch we obviously have totally different philosophical views on the role of Europe and it's administrative construction. I, it seems, have a lot more confidence in the opinion of Joe Average than you do.

One flaw in your argument comparing political/administrative structures to science is that in science there actually is always a 'right' answer whereas in politics there is not. Politics is based on opinion not fact.

As you yourself pointed out in an earlier post different people have very different aspirations and thus different goals. The role of democratic politics is to seek compromise whereby the average level of contentment is at it's highest. If they fail in this they are kicked out by their electorate. Unelected eurocrats are not subject to the same controls and thus are dangerous.

France in particular (and Germany more quietly so) is especially peeved at the USA's global dominance at this time and so they are steering the union towards a point where they can challenge the USA's hegemony not only economically but militarily and has put forward proposals to greatly increase the military spend of the EU members to further their ambitions. Perhaps this is good for some French elites pride but I certainly do not see it as good for the vast majority of the citizens of the EU. What on Earth is the point off kicking off an arm's race with the USA which Europe would surely lose anyway ???

Most countries in Europe particularly Britain and Ireland have very good relations with the US and although under Bush the US has lurched to the right this is only a temporary abberation which will be rectified by the American people themselves at the next general election.

Stripping away all the gloss it all boils down to school yard stuff. France has been upset by US criticisms of her and being aware that alone she can do nothing about it she is trying to persuade/coerce the rest of Europe to join what is a thinly disguised anti-US alliance.

Germany's motivation is even simpler. They have always wanted to dominate Europe so their stance is simply a continuation of their previous policy goals but again they realise they are not strong enough to do it alone and so have taken on partners.

The EU should get back to it's roots. Free trade, common standards and mutual cooperation where applicable.

quadraphonics

Art, I think it's a mistake to interpret increased military spending as inimicable to America. Indeed, the US has been urging Europe to boost defence spending for as long as anyone can remember (and thereby reduce the costs that the US currently bears for European defence). What causes trouble is not the increase in the size of the military budgets, but the proposals to create a military structure separate from NATO, and so disconnected from the US. Another aspect to consider is that the smaller countries aren't particularly interested in being dominated by France/Germany; this is a key reason why both countries are so keen to improve relations with America. I.e., when the two big continental countries have poor relations with the US, the US can use its clout peel off the smaller countries from the agenda of France/Germany, and so throw the EU into political disarray (this is exactly what happened in the Iraq war, for example). This is a big reason for certain features of the EU constitution/Lisbon treaty seeking to limit veto powers and consolodate certain policy prerogatives. Unless and until such changes are implemented (and even then), good relations with the US will be required for France and Germany to advance their continental agenda and position.

Vanesch, I think you're missing another key aspect of democratic processes, which is the legitimacy that they add to the resultant system of rules and laws. It's not simply a matter of preventing bad outcomes by throwing out bad officials (although this is the cornerstone); unless Average Joe feels that he has a real stake in the system, he is likely to view the rules and laws as unwanted impositions, rather than expressions of his own political will. To boil it down: a system of really great laws that nobody respects is not preferable to a flawed system that everyone does respect. I think this is a big part of the dynamic at work in rejecting the Lisbon treaty in Ireland, for example. At some point, it doesn't really matter how good an idea it may be, or how much it might work to Ireland's advantage, if they don't feel that their self-determination is respected.

vanesch

This is, unfortunately I'd say, a very valid point. One has to give a citizen the *feeling* that he had to say something about his destiny - while in practice, of course, he hasn't, as even in a popular democracy system, it is not *his* desire, but "the majority's" expression - not even desire, which imposes its views on him, and that majority's expression is of course mainly the result of propaganda by some media and some groups who know better than others how to manipulate the populace into believing/desiring something.

But unfortunately, people now think they ought to have their saying on every subject, even though they will grossly admit that they don't have the technical knowledge required for dealing with it. As such, the opinion of the most basic idiot counts as much as the person who has studied and reflected on a certain question for years, and of course there are many more of the former than of the latter for every question that is required an answer in a society. It is funny that concerning macro-economic and social questions, everybody - especially those who haven't gotten the slightest form of formal education in it - has strong opinions on what ought to be done, while for, say, medical purposes, they don't. If their doctor (or their witchdoctor !) tells them to take this or that medicine, they'll do so without any "desire of decision taking". They just take for granted that their doctor is using his/her knowledge - knowledge that is recognized by the patient not to be possessed by him - to make his (medical) life better to the best of his ability.

Of course, as Art pointed out, the *goals* are of course political decisions which are open to discussion. But the means to get there are usually technical matters. The only real problem, the most important one, which sets the rule makers apart from the doctor, is: to what goals is that rule maker really using his knowledge ? Is it, as he is supposed to, for to achieve the democratically set forth agenda, or his own agenda ? And that's indeed where democratic control is absolutely necessary: to verify whether the workings of the rule makers really do comply to the democratically set out goals, and not just to serve his/her own agenda/interests/friends/whatever. And I have to admit that examples are abound of rulemakers serving their own agenda so easily that it is probably justified to be extremely suspicious, by definition, of any rulemaker. But then, just as much so for a democratically appointed one as an anonymous civil servant imo. The difference is that the democratically appointed one will need to go through the "manipulate-and-be-popular" phase: he will have to have shown that he's a good liar and knows how to manipulate crowds into liking him, especially the less intelligent ones. He will have had to demonstrate his ability to "talk to the masses" (in other words, to use simplistic and populist language and arguments to get any point across), while an anonymous civil servant doesn't have to do so, and could just as well be selected for his technical skill. I would say that someone who wins any democratic election is almost by definition unsuited to the job, because he has shown exactly those dangerous characteristics you wouldn't want him to have. Now, of course, in doing so, you have a chance to eliminate also the totally bezerk maniac. That's true. But in a given population, I would say that the set of people that have the right qualities to be elected, and the set of people that are intellectually able to think up good sets of rules, is almost disjoint. Ok, there are some people in the intersection. These are the rare pearls, which can go into history as great statesmen. But they are more the exception than the rule.

In other words, the democratically elected rulemaker is very often the charming charlatan, the civil servant is the maybe somewhat shy medical student.

Now, the more local the rule makers are, the simpler and "closer to the people" the questions are they have to settle, the more involved the electorate is, and hence the better the democratic model works. The mayor of a small town is indeed probably best democratically elected. European countries are democracies, so their governments are also elected. But on the EU level, things get really pretty abstract, and the rules on that level are really very remote from people's daily occupations. The relationship between the contents of these rules, and the actual overall impact of them on the wellbeing of citizens is a pretty technical matter. For instance, although it pisses off several countries, the obligation of having a rather balanced state budget is a very good thing on the long term. If you let this go under democratic pressure, this rule would be eliminated quickly, because it stops governments from handing out sugar for the people. The fact that the Bank of Europe is totally independent from any political and democratic pressures is a very good thing. The verification of fair competition is a very good thing. There are very many unpopular but very good rules within Europe. They would suffer under democratic pressure, because they are not always popular. It is only because they are set up and executed by anonymous bureaucrats that they can be instored that way. It is exactly *this* kind of "automated" functioning which is the great plus of the EU, and which would be destroyed by democratic inference.