January 31, 2007
If Europe thinks Blair is bad…
Tony Blair is not the most loved politician in Europe: too pro-American, too liberal, too British and so on. But what many European politicians seem to have missed is that Blair is the most pro-European British prime minister since Edward Heath in the 1970s: things aren’t going to get any better.
Gordon Brown, Blair’s presumed successor, has a reputation around Europe for being uninterested in the EU and dismissive in his dealings with fellow ministers. But what would happen if Brown lost the next British election - probably in 2008 or 2009 - to the Conservatives?
A glimpse of Britain’s European future came on Wednesday in a wide-ranging speech by William Hague, the Conservative foreign policy spokesman. If you thought Tory thinking had moved on much since the days of Margaret Thatcher, this might make you think again.
To the extent that his speech deals with Europe, it is primarily the usual list of Conservative complaints about the EU: too much federalism, too much integration, "farcical" attempts by foreigners to reform their economies, the euro.
Apart from his promise to work with the Tories’ new allies on the Czech centre-right to promote economic reform and an outward looking Europe, there is nothing about the role the European Union could play to achieve the party’s many other objectives.
For example, it is hard to see how a Conservative government can tackle climate change - a top priority of the leader David Cameron - without working through Europe or using the EU’s economic muscle to pressure other parts of the world to fall into line. The same goes for the role of the EU in tackling illegal migration, a problem which often ends up on British shores after migrants pass through the porous borders of the internal market. Nor are there any words of support for Jose Manuel Barroso’s pro-business European Commission, which gets little praise elsewhere in the EU for its efforts to fight protectionism and extend the single market.
It is his lack of anything positive to say about Europe which is most striking in Hague’s speech. Although Cameron has been adopting a more constructive tone about the EU himself, most recently on a visit to Brussels, the hardliners are in a majority in his team.
Blair’s critics in Europe may one day look back at his leadership as a halcyon moment in the UK’s engagement with the EU.
What is so bad about that foreign policy speech? It sets a balanced tone looking at relations with countries all around the world. The reality is that it is you guys at the FT that are out of touch with your limited sights on Europe. You were the diehard supporters of the Euro and will doubtless be the last to champion the pro-federalist agenda behind the EU Constitution. You should take off the Brussels-blinkers and look at the world how it really is for a change.
Posted by: John | January 31st, 2007 at 8:14 pm | Report this commentJohn I disagree. You can’t call the speech balanced if it doesn’t recognise that the EU is good for some things. The problem that UK eurosceptics suffer from most of all is the perception (in my view correct) that they would throw the baby out with the bath water. The EU, for all its many faults, has massively increased our export potential, has helped spread peace and democracy to other parts of Europe, thereby avoiding the need for dangerous wars on the continent, etc etc.
If you make a speech that talks only about the problems and not about the benefits, you come across as a radical. That is not what the Conservative Party was ever about before, even in Mrs Thatcher’s day.
Blair was so successful in stealing the Tories’ clothes that the centre-right party he defeated in 1997 exists only in name. By destroying that party, he has allowed room for the much less moderate Tory party of today in the political spectrum.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 1st, 2007 at 12:17 pm | Report this commentExport potential?
“Intra EU trade in manufactured goods has been shrinking since 2000 … levels of intra-EU trade in services are lower than a decade ago”
(Wim Kok, President of the EU High Level Group on the Lisbon Strategy presenting his report ‘Facing the Challenge: The Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Employment’ in November 2004)
That the single market is far from a success, particularly relative to the huge burden of regulation the EU has consequently generated on all business (not just the small percentage involved in exporting to EU countries) is not a controversial view.
Also ask Dominique de Villepin’s think tank. Their recent report said “no sudden burst in the trade of goods and services has been observed since the Single Act entered into effect in 1993, nor since the euro was introduced in 1999.”
The problem is that the EU’s only ‘baby’ is ‘ever closer union’ - and that does actually need to be thrown out with the ‘bathwater’ of its negative effects.
Posted by: Stuart Coster | February 1st, 2007 at 2:35 pm | Report this commentSorry Chris. By your logic these journalists at the FT, by only ever writing a constant diatribe of pro-EU articles, are radicals too. This is one speech dealing with all parts of the world that mentions the EU in passing. William Hague points out that he was in a minority nine years ago in opposing the euro but that now there is no substantial body of opinion in the country in favour of it. Indeed EVEN the FT now has said that Britain’s decision on the euro has been “vindicated”. Hague’s speech also advocates Britain pushing for an EU reform agenda to complete the single market and to create an outward-looking Europe. He goes on to say that continuing attempts to revive the EU constitution will fail and lead to divisions. Hardly radical stuff is it? Many Labour MPs such as Gisela Stuart have said the same. The issue here is not the EU’s woes but the FT’s woeful reporting. It badly needs a new generation of Brussels-based journalists because the ones it has are stuck in the past.
Posted by: John | February 2nd, 2007 at 1:13 am | Report this commentI don’t want to get into a statistics battle, but I am pretty sure that the UK’s exports to the EU have been at least keeping pace with exports to the rest of the world.
What is not a controversial view is that the Single Market needs to be improved; what I would deem very controversial is the view that it is a failure, which is what you seem to be saying. Indeed you are the first person I have ever heard express that view.
Of course no sudden burst has been witnessed; that is because trade flows are not prone to sudden bursts, and because the regulatory environment is not prone to sudden bursts either.
John you must be reading a different FT from the one that I have been reading. And indeed you have provided a prime example of a story that is not blinkered Commission propaganda.
I don’t see how Hague (or you) can retain any credibility as having a balanced point of view when he talks only of the (real) problems and ignores the (equally real) benefits.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 2nd, 2007 at 9:11 am | Report this commentChris. Perhaps you could demonstrate how to achieve ‘credibility’ then by following the approach you advocate Hague takes and balance your views with some examples of where you think the EU is doing badly?
As for your point to Stuart that he must be the only one thinks the single market is not a success, perhaps you should speak to EU Enterprise Commissioner Günter Verheugen. He has said that the compliance with EU single market regulations now costs the European economy €600bn a year. In 2003 the Commission published its assessment that EU GDP in 2002 was around €165bn higher than it would have been without the Single Market. So even on the Commission’s own estimates this means that the benefits of the single market are less than a third its costs.
Posted by: John | February 2nd, 2007 at 11:25 am | Report this commentAs an Ex-European now living in the US, I can understand a growing concern of many Europeans that are loosing their identity, culture, currency due to the “EU-sation.” Not sure where will the whole EU wind up but economic integration in Europe should not force radically differnet European culture to blend to the point where everyone will speak Esperanto…
Posted by: euromade | February 3rd, 2007 at 5:51 am | Report this commentJohn, certainly. The CAP needs to be scrapped and rebuilt from first principles. The use of comitology procedures needs to be pared down and made more transparent (e.g. by listing the names of the committee members). The accounting system needs to be overhauled so that Member States take proper responsibility for the parts of the budget expenditure that they control. Internal Market legislation needs to be enforced properly and consistently. The ECJ needs to be faster (unfortunately this probably means bigger). The EU needs many of he institutional changes set out in the Constitution. The list goes on.
I think there is a big difference between qualifying success and branding something a failure. The Single Market is not a failure. Verheugen would never say that; nor would anyone but the most blinkered anti-European. But it is of course far from perfect.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 3rd, 2007 at 12:07 pm | Report this commentStrange Chris that that the remedies you propose for the EU’s failings are to make the ECJ larger and give it an EU Constitution, etc. It is perfectly fair to say the EU is failing when it is, and unfortunately the remedies you propose are exactly in the centralizing federalist line that has caused it to fail in the minds of voters who regard it as remote, undemocratic and obsessed by its internal institutional arrangements. The time has come for real reform to begin to remove powers from its bodies to improve democratic control of our national executives.
Posted by: John | February 4th, 2007 at 12:41 pm | Report this commentJohn the Costitution is not a centralising or federalist document.
And I don’t think it is fair to suggest that I am a one-dimensional centraliser when I point out several problems that need to be addressed by de-centralising and increasing transparency - e.g. the CAP and comitology reform.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 5th, 2007 at 9:04 am | Report this commentThe Constitution is most obviously a centralizing and federalizing document when it would transfer many fresh powers to Brussels, create more of the trappings of state (foreign minister, etc.) and make the EU an entity under international law capable of signing its own treaties. You are living in denial Chris if you believe otherwise. If you support its ratification (and you say it is the answer to some of the so-called problems you raise) then you are simply an apologist for the same “more EU” agenda that has led to the current mess.
Posted by: John | February 5th, 2007 at 9:35 am | Report this commentYou talk of the CAP but propose nothing to reform it. The CAP should be renationalized with individual countries free to decide whether to support farmers themselves but to do so from their own budgets. Failing this, countries should be allowed to opt-out of the CAP.
John not everybody fits into neat pro-European or anti-European boxes. I certainly do not.
The Constitution’s Part I is not centralising - it re-affirms the control of the Member States to a degree never seen before in an EU treaty. True federalists are quite dismayed at the text. The Foreign Minister will preside over a policy that remains subject to the veto, and is therefore a title that is rich in symbolism and poor in powers.
Legal entities can be sued and held accountable, unlike the EU of today - obviously a step forward in accountability.
I did not say I supported the Constitution’s ratification - I said that I said many of the ideas set out in the Constitution are needed for the EU to work better. As it happens, I do not support the ratification of the text as it is, but of a slimmed-down, Part I-only version.
I respectfully suggest that you double-check what I wrote before jumping to incorrect conclusions and pigeonholing people’s views into your pre-fabricated categories.
By the way I don’t disagree with your proposals for the CAP, although we might well diverge on the detail.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 5th, 2007 at 10:53 am | Report this commentIt is ridiculous of you Chris to suggest the EU Constitution is not a centralizing text. Some federalists feel it does not go far enough, but its direction is clear.. Gisela Stuart, Tony Blair’s representative to the Convention that drew up the Constitution said that it would have been easier for her to go into the Presidium and admit to having committed the most horrendous crimes than to question, or even to suggest that powers ever return to member states. “It was a no-go area, absolutely unforgivable”. So tell me Chris, what powers does the EU Constitution return to nation-states?
Posted by: John | February 5th, 2007 at 1:09 pm | Report this commentJohn by “powers” to be returned to the Member States, you are thinking only of the narrow question of what policy areas the EU is allowed to legislate in.
My point was much more fundamental, and is amply illustrated by Article 1 of the existing Treaty compared to Article 1 of the Constitution:
(Current Treaty)
By this Treaty, the HIGH CONTRACTING PARTIES establish among themselves a EUROPEAN UNION, hereinafter called ‘the Union’.
This Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen.
The Union shall be founded on the European Communities, supplemented by the policies and forms of cooperation established by this Treaty. Its task shall be to organise, in a manner demonstrating consistency and solidarity, relations between the Member States and between their peoples.
(Constitution)
1. Reflecting the will of the citizens and States of Europe to build a common future, this Constitution establishes the European Union, on which the Member States confer competences to attain objectives they have in common. The Union shall coordinate the policies by which the Member States aim to achieve these objectives, and shall exercise on a Community basis the competences they confer on it.
2. The Union shall be open to all European States which respect its values and are committed to promoting them together.
It is quite clear from the latter text that the Union has powers “conferred by” Member States. If you look at the current Treaty, that language is entirely absent and anyone would be forgiven for thinking the Treaty is more integrationist than the Constitution.
I don’t think this is a controversial position, except in the UK anti-European milieu, where opposition to anything coming out of Brussels is de rigeur, even if it happens to match the preferences and aspirations of those concerned. The antis need the Constitution to be integrationist, or else their key message (that the EU is destroying the nation state) is undermined. That the Constitution is not the genesis of a superstate is nothing more than an inconvenient truth that is best ignored for ideological reasons.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 5th, 2007 at 1:25 pm | Report this commentIs that really it Chris? If that is the best you can do to uphold your claim that the EU Constitution is about returning powers to nations-states then YOU ARE TOTALLY AND UTTERLY PATHETIC. To ignore all the substantive moves in the document to transfer fresh powers to Brussels and the creation of more of the trappings of state can only be described as duplicitous. This text confers ~40 new powers to the EU and does nothing to change the definition of “shared competence” which states that “The Member States shall exercise their competence to the extent that the Union has not
exercised, or has decided to cease exercising, its competence.”. In plain English, in those areas where the EU does not already have “exclusive competence” the EU may act at a time of its choosing in the future to legislate and from then this suppresses the competence of our nation-states. Nowhere does the EU Constitution say what powers are not within its competence. To say this is anything other than centralization in a federalist direction indicates you are being either naïve or deceitful. And you do not need to take my word for it when you have those of the people behind it:
“The Constitution is the capstone of a European Federal State.” - Guy Verhofstadt, Belgian Prime Minister, Financial Times, 21st June 2004
“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. ” — Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.
“The European Union is a state under construction.” — Elmar Brok, Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs
“Creating a single European state bound by one European Constitution is the decisive task of our time.” - German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer
Posted by: John | February 5th, 2007 at 2:54 pm | Report this commentJohn I am sorry that you feel the need to descend into a tirade of personal insults.
The text of Article 1 of each of the Treaties is actually quite significant legally; I think you are making a mistake in dismissing this.
Yes the Constitution does provide the EU with more policy areas - but I don’t consider that to be a structural change in how centralising the EU is; it is not something that is set in stone. That list is subject to revision as in every previous treaty.
What is most significant is not the list of policy areas but the legal context for the conference of powers; and the text I pasted into my previous submission is crucial to understanding this. So I don’t think I am being either naive or deceitful.
The quotes you provide need to be understood in context. Giscard needed to say that the Constitution was different - otherwise his time spent at the Convention would have been a waste of time. Belgium wants a superstate and has made no secret of it; politically, Verhofstadt has to claim the Constitution as a success. Brok and Fischer are similarly superstate-minded; they are expressing their wishes rather than the reality. I would no more take the word of Giscard on the significance of the Constitution than that of Chirac on the UK rebate. I prefer to follow the text.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 5th, 2007 at 3:30 pm | Report this commentThe fact that you only seem to comment on Article 1 of the Constitution is perhaps revealing in terms of how far you have got in terms of understanding it Chris. As per Giscard’s statement you fully deserve to wear the dunce’s cap. But the British people are not going to be as easily fooled as you might wish. If the EU Constitution were to be ratified it would provide the framework for the gradual hollowing out of our democracy year-in, year-out with every new EU law until we reach the point where Westminster would have barely any remaining competence to legislate at all. Our national elections would slowly be reduced to electing a Westminster “executive” with no remaining power to legislate at home and whose remaining power is based on the seat it confers in the EU Council of Ministers with just 11% of the votes to decide laws that affect Britons. The right of initiative of all new legislation affecting this country would belong to the EU Commission that is unelected and unaccountable to the voters of any country. This text will never be tolerated by the people of this country when it amounts to the gradual extinction of our democracy.
Posted by: John | February 5th, 2007 at 3:47 pm | Report this commentJohn it’s somewhat churlish of you to suggest that I have not read past Article 1 - of course I have. But I, at least, have read Article 1. I don’t think many constitutional or international lawyers would recommend reading only the parts of the Constitution that deal with transfer of additional competences to Brussels in order to understand the centralising nature or otherwise of the treaty.
The Constitution is like every other EU treaty in that it transfers policy areas to the EU’s field of legislative action. So what’s new? It doesn’t have to be called something different if it just does that.
It’s called something different because it addresses the structural aspects of how the Union draws authority from the Member States. In case of a legal dispute between the EU and a Member State about sovereignty, the latter will always be able to point to Article 1 and its explicit recognition that the EU’s powers are conferred by the Member States in order for the Member States to achieve their objectives. It does not refer to an EU that defines the objectives that the Member States wish to achieve, nor to powers that the EU may confer on the Member States.
I don’t think you need to worry about the text being acceptable to the people of the UK or not, since it is highly unlikely to be presented to them in its current form!
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 5th, 2007 at 4:56 pm | Report this commentIf you are ever able to get past Article 1 of the treaty Chris you wish to take a look at Article I-14 which establishes, as a general rule, that when a policy area does not fall into the defined areas of “exclusive competence” then the area shall be regarded as one of “shared competence” such that when the EU acts (at a later point in time) it will suppress national competence. It is therefore incorrect to say there are safeguards in this treaty to prevent the continued accumulation of powers by Brussels. The wording of Article I-14 is such that the areas of “shared competence” are non-exhaustive thus leaving room for any undefined areas to fall into this category should it be judged that this is necessary for the EU to meet ITS objectives defined simply as those that can be “better achieved” at Union level.
In the case of any dispute between nation-states and the EU as to who has competence it will in the final analysis be the ECJ that decides. The court is a highly integrationist body that interprets the goal of ‘ever closer union’ in the preamble of the Treaty of Rome as its ultimate goal. Only once in its 50-year history has the ECJ ever ruled against the EU institutions when deciding if they have over-stepped their authority. This is therefore a highly integrationist text carefully worded to ensure that powers flow in one direction only: From our nation-states to Brussels. It must be rejected in whatever form it reappears (including just Part I as you propose) and I have every confidence in the good judgment of the majority of British citizens that it will be.
Posted by: John | February 5th, 2007 at 5:50 pm | Report this commentJohn it is indeed incorrect to say that there are safeguards in the treaty that would prevent the EU gaining further legislative powers; which is why I never said that there were. My point was about the legal basis for the holding and use of those powers.
The ECJ, like everyone else, has its faults. But it too is a creature of the treaties and could be dismantled by future treaty negotiation if that was the will of the Member States.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 6th, 2007 at 8:26 am | Report this commentYou are twisting in the wind Chris. There is (by design) no safeguard in this treaty to prevent the continued evolution of the EU towards a state or the expansion of its powers either through the continued acquisition of new competences or through legislative creep. It is a treaty that deserves to die no matter how many times it is presented to the peoples of Europe and in whatever form. It contains no features worth retaining. The EU has gone wrong through the series of treaties in the 90s by attempting to shoe-horn politics into institutions designed to police a common market. The primacy of EU law over national law (and even national constitutions) makes it unsuitable for the day-to-day matters of politics. The next steps in the EU should be to recognize this, either by making national law take priority over EU law in matters of “shared competence” or by returning powers to our national democracies. There is no future for the sovereignty of the people unless such steps are taken.
Posted by: John | February 6th, 2007 at 12:21 pm | Report this commentWell John I think we’ll have to agree to disagree about the EU generally - I am certainly more than prepared to give it a good few more years before giving up on it.
I am interested in your comment on “our national democracies”, however - you seem to think they are imbued with some kind of fundamental virtue. Is the UK (or France or Slovenia or whatever) of today the only repository of legitimate authority in your view, and if so, why?
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 6th, 2007 at 12:46 pm | Report this commentDemocracy is more than majority voting. To have legitimacy democracy requires a strong sense of community or ‘demos’ that only exists in the real Europe at the level of the nation. This provides the solidarity, mutual identification and commonality of interest among people that allows minorities to freely consent to majority rule and obey a common government. Such solidarity is the basis of shared citizenship. It underpins a people’s allegiance to a government as “their” government, their willingness to finance that government’s tax and income-transfer system, and so ties the richer and poorer regions and social classes of the nation together. The solidarities that exist within European nations do not exist between European nations. There is no European ‘demos’ and without it there will be no democratic European governance. Europe must therefore be organized as co-operating nation-states that do not have EU-wide solutions imposed on them against the wishes of their electorates by QMV.
Posted by: John | February 6th, 2007 at 1:25 pm | Report this commentJohn I thought you might reply like that - you are in fact setting out a very traditional nationalist position.
I think it’s fair enough, but it takes little account of the reality of today, where nation-states are outsourcing sovereignty all over the place - UN (and all the very significant commitments that involves), WTO, ECHR, NATO, not to mention the EU. The UK is entirely subject to international law of various kinds. The only difference between the surrender of sovereignty to these bodies and to the EU is one of degree.
Incidentally I would agree that the main pillar of legitimacy is consent, and I would be very much in favour of a referendum in the UK on EU membership because I am convinced it would lay to rest the fallacy that we are against continued membership. Bring it on!
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 6th, 2007 at 1:52 pm | Report this commentYou cannot compare the EU to bodies like the WTO or NATO where we have vetoes and which do not have their own legislative machinery that can impose law on the UK irrespective of the wishes of the British people or their government. Furthermore, you cannot “outsource” sovereignty. In a democracy sovereignty belongs to the people and is lent to a government (on the basis of an election result) to be exercised for a fixed period of time. After that time the people should be free to elect a new government who can undo any work of the previous government that the people are unhappy with. It is not legitimate that any government, elected for a fixed-period, proceeds to hand over the sovereignty of the people to EU institutions for all time that need not then take any account of the wishes of those voters ever again.
You may believe the British people would vote for continued EU membership but we know that any such vote would be used for decades hence as justification of more and more integration leading to an European state. The British people lied to in 1975, will not be fooled again. Our EU membership is being fatally undermined by two key trends. The first is the falling levels of tariffs worldwide with the EU’s common external tariff now standing at ~1.6% for industrial goods, 0% for services and ~10.9% for agricultural products. This is a far cry from the 1970s and now means that the cost of being outside the EU’s customs union is tending towards zero. The 2nd is the rising cost, economic and political, of membership including the disastrous combined effect that the primacy of EU law and its legislative creep is having on our democracy. It is not a matter of ‘if’, but ‘when’ the crisis comes. So by all means – bring on a referendum on membership – but you should be fully prepared to lose.
Posted by: John | February 6th, 2007 at 2:46 pm | Report this commentIt is simply not true that the UK or other UN member states have a veto over all the decisions taken by the UN and its various organs.
There are countless treaties that bind our country regardless of the will of the government. These cover such areas as diplomatic procedure, the International Court of Justice, human rights, refugees, narcotics, human trafficking, law of the sea, disarmament, the rules of war, the environment, etc etc. None of these are subject to the kind of veto you advocate.
Moreover, the fundamental thing about treaties is that signature and ratification is by consent of the governments in question - there is always the option to pull out. This is why your assertion that the UK has handed sovereignty to the EU “for all time” is well wide of the mark.
I agree that in theory treaties should be subject to regular referenda to re-legitimise them, but I think there is a legitimate (for want of a better word) issue with practicality here. You can’t put every treaty out there to a vote every five or ten years, because there are too many. Moreover, I am not convinced that it would be sustainable or desirable for an EU Member State to leave the EU, rejoin, then leave, etc ad infinitum.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 6th, 2007 at 3:36 pm | Report this commentI also don’t understand why the UK should have more legitimacy than an independent Scotland - after all, the solidarity, mutual identification, and commonality of interest north of the border is quite clear, and the UK could be (and is, by many) considered as artificial a construct as the EU.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 6th, 2007 at 3:57 pm | Report this commentThere is a huge difference between the UN founded on its charter commitment to national self-determination and the EU founded on an ‘ever closer union’ that is gradually removing our national self-determination. Unless you advocate EU withdrawal then there is no means by which sovereignty transferred to Brussels can ever be regained and there is not one incident in the history of the EU of this ever happening. The UN has no legislative machinery that can overrule our laws against our will. The power of its secretariat is in no way comparable to the EU Commission with its monopoly on legislative initiative at EU level that not only results in EU law that overrides national law (and even national constitutions) but actually suppresses the competence of national governments to legislate in the area covered by the new EU law. The inevitable accumulative affect of this process over decades is that the EU will gradually extinguish the ability of our national parliaments to legislate. We can already see this happening now. In 1979 Margaret Thatcher ran on a program of government that included raising VAT from 8% to 15%. Based on the approval of a single British government, the EU now has a law setting the minimum rate of VAT in an EU country at 15% that binds all future British governments. So no British government can ever run again on a program to reverse these changes that Thatcher initiated. Indeed even if we have a national referendum to reduce VAT below 15% it would have no effect because even with the most democratic of mandates we are not free to introduce any national law that conflicts with EU law. There are many such examples of where our democracy is slowing being denuded by our EU membership. It is not acceptable that basic decisions about our taxation can not be taken by the governments we elect and it would be equally unacceptable no matter what supranational body were to blame.
Globalisation, the open international trading system and an era of low tariffs worldwide now allow even small states to prosper as independent entities. Singapore for example is the richest country in Asia. This would have been unimaginable in the inter-war period when high tariffs gave big countries with large domestic markets a huge advantage. With the economic cost of independence now so low it is no surprise to see more and more nations choosing the right to self-determination accorded them in the UN Charter. The number of states in the United Nations has increased from fewer than 60 in 1946 to nearly 200 today. The number of European States has increased from 30 to 50 since 1989 alone. This process has not ended even in Europe and it has scarcely begun in Africa and parts of Asia, where current state boundaries were drawn up by colonial powers with little consideration for the wishes of indigenous peoples. There are some 6000 distinct languages in the world. At their present rate of disappearance there should still be 600 or so left in a century’s time. These will survive because in each case they are spoken by several million people. There are clearly many embryonic nation states in the world today including I would say Scotland. Many new nation states, probably hundreds more, are likely to come into being during the 21st century including Tibet, Kashmir and possibly Quebec. Indeed it seems to be an unwritten rule that nations comprising multiple language blocks must break-up unless one language absorbs another. The global and historical trend is therefore strongly away from multi-national multi-lingual federations such as the EU elites would like to impose on us.
Posted by: John | February 6th, 2007 at 6:29 pm | Report this commentIt’s amazing how people can see only what they want to - I totally agree that there is a trend towards splitting up of the nation states we have grown familiar with over the last decades and centuries - Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, USSR, and now maybe UK and Belgium.
However, what we are seeing at the same time is the swift growth of regional organisations of countries that aim to offset the negative effects of small-country status in a globalising world: NAFTA, Mercosur, ASEAN, African Union, and of course the EU. The EU is the most advanced of these regaional groupings and undeniably serves as inspiration for them. The EU would therefore appear to be well-placed to benefit from this worldwide trend.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 8th, 2007 at 8:30 am | Report this commentThe USSR and Yugoslavia were not nation-states but multi-national federations. This is the reason they broke up and also why the goal of European federalists will never be achieved.
The EU may be a pioneer but it is not correct to say it is “advanced”. A better description is that it is a prototype of international co-operation that was acceptable as the EEC but has since gone badly wrong. NAFTA is superior in that it does not have supra-national political institutions akin to the Commission or Parliament that aspire to replace our democratic governments. The ongoing loss of democracy entailed by EU membership is in no way tolerable. A crisis in legitimacy must occur as the nations of Europe realize that the democratic governments they elect have ever less room in which to operate. The “no” results in the 2005 referendums are merely the beginning of this crisis.
Posted by: John | February 8th, 2007 at 9:19 am | Report this commentJohn I see where you’re coming from, but obviously disagree. Only time will tell. But one thing is quite clear - 100, or even 50 years ago, being an independent country was universally considered to be a sign that you had “arrived”.
While that dynamic continues, with the collapse of “federations” like the USSR and Yugoslavia as well (which were really states), the creation of new multinational groupings like the ones I mentioned is entirely new and is the most striking feature of geopolitics today. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were obviously totally different from the EU.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 8th, 2007 at 3:09 pm | Report this commentThe old economic advantage of the EEC/EU has been steadily undermined by falling tariffs worldwide and the costs of EU membership (both economic and to our democracy) have risen to intolerable levels. Integrationists refuse to be diverted from their goal and seek to bring back the EU Constitution which should have died already in any democracy worth the name. The time for letting supra-nationalists get away with this is over. You need to be taken on and comprehensively defeated because what you stand for – the gradual elimination of the nation-state – is not acceptable. You may disagree with this, but the great majority of Britons are with me.
Posted by: John | February 8th, 2007 at 8:19 pm | Report this commentWell John that’s rousing rhetoric, but of course I disagree with you. We have never alected an anti-European government, and as I said before, I am confident the UK would vote to remain in the EU if given a shot at a referendum. But neither of us is going to win that argument by posting on this page.
I don’t believe in the graudal elimination of the nation state. I believe in the co-existence of the nation state with other levels of government, but sub-national and supra-national. And I am firmly convinced that this isthe future. The evidence is overwhelming.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 9th, 2007 at 9:01 am | Report this commentYou cannot have a “co-existence” of nation-state with “other” levels of government when the creation of EU law suppresses the ability of nations to legislate. One replaces the other. The evidence for that is overwhelming, including yesterday’s announcement by the french Council of State that EU law from now on will have a constitutional immunity in France. All polling evidence in the UK shows the British want nothing more than free-trade from Europe and eventually UK governments will have to reflect the wishes of the British people. A few years ago you would no doubt have been saying that the British will vote for the Euro or the EU Constitution. Now you say you want a referendum on EU membership. But the tide has turned everywhere in Europe due to the fundamental trends I have mentioned earlier. The EU simply makes less and less sense economically as tariffs fall worldwide and costs more and more. So by all means let’s have a referendum on EU membership. But you should be prepared to lose that debate just as you have lost the Euro debate and the Constitution debate.
Posted by: John | February 9th, 2007 at 9:42 am | Report this commentWell John hope springs eternal, right?
I don’t think any of the debates have been lost by anyone (you or me) - these are all still very much live issues.
I think you are oversimplifying when you say that nation states’ ability to legislate is supressed by the EU. You could equally say that local or regional authorities’ ability to regulate or legislate is supressed by the nation state, or that the WTO supresses the EU’s ability to legislate. It’s all a question of what level is the most appropriate for particular types of rules. You seem to be one of those who would prefer to see as much power as possible concentrated at national level as opposed to any more local or more supranational level. I take a different approach, one which I would argue is more in tune with the modern world.
You takes your pick - good luck to you.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 9th, 2007 at 11:43 am | Report this commentIt is only at the national level (by virtue of the national ‘demos’) that democracy can exist. It is for this reason that the overwhelming majority of political issues should be decided within the nation-state. Politicians in national executives may be tempted to transfer powers to the EU because they also sit on the EU Council of Ministers and the decisions they take there are not subject to the democratic checks (i.e. parliamentary votes and the approval of 2nd chambers) on their powers that exist at the national level. They may also have personal career ambitions that lead them to make pro-EU ‘noises’. But the interests of our politicians are not automatically aligned with those the people and we must be very careful to ensure they do not get away with this. I oppose the transfer of powers to the EU because the sovereignty of the people can only exist within the nation-state. The quality of our governance depends on it. It seems to me that you have no real coherent argument for why it should be otherwise.
Posted by: John | February 9th, 2007 at 12:35 pm | Report this commentWith respect, I think your statement that democracy can only exist at the national level is patently false - and your entire argument rests on that false premise.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 9th, 2007 at 1:34 pm | Report this commentFirst of all, at least I have an argument where as your case is nothing except sticking your fingers in your ears and singing La, La, La. Secondly, if the law of this land is increasingly imposed on the British people through an executive determined by the voters of other countries then democracy here has died. Every new EU law suppresses the ability of the Westminster Parliament to legislate. The cumulative effect over time is that the British executive (PM + Cabinet) will have less and less ability to legislate via the Westminster Parliament. Our real executive will steadily become the EU Executive institutions (Commission + Council of Ministers) with the unelected Commission holding a monopoly on legislative initiative at the European Parliament which will steadily become the determines that writes our law. You may call that many things … but democracy it is not.
Posted by: John | February 9th, 2007 at 5:13 pm | Report this commentFirst of all, at least I have an argument where as your case is nothing except sticking your fingers in your ears and singing La, La, La. Secondly, if the law of this land is increasingly imposed on the British people through an executive determined by the voters of other countries then democracy here has died. Every new EU law suppresses the ability of the Westminster Parliament to legislate. The cumulative effect over time is that the British executive (PM + Cabinet) will have less and less ability to legislate via the Westminster Parliament. Our real executive will steadily become the EU Executive institutions (Commission + Council of Ministers) with the unelected Commission holding a monopoly on legislative initiative at the European Parliament which will steadily become the only body that writes our law. You may call that many things … but democracy it is not.
Posted by: John | February 9th, 2007 at 5:15 pm | Report this comment