January 18, 2007
Sego’s playing with fire - who will get burned?
It may seem like clever domestic politics, but Ségolène Royal’s plan to re-run France’s referendum on the EU constitution looks like a disaster waiting to happen: both for France and Europe.
Ms Royal will win plaudits for her commitment to giving the French people their democratic voice, should she win the French presidential elections this spring. Nicolas Sarkozy, her rival, has already committed himself to trying to negotiate a "mini" version of the constitution and to ram it through the national assembly.
Scoring points off the "undemocratic" Mr Sarkozy is the easy bit. The tough part comes if Ms Royal wins the election and has to see through her promise.
By announcing a poll in France in 2009, she is increasing the likelihood that the EU will never have a new institutional settlement. If France has a referendum then the pressure will be on others - like the UK, Netherlands and Poland - to follow suit.
A No vote is certain somewhere along the line, leaving Europe in a state of turmoil, possibly leading to a split and the development of a "core" group of countries committed to more integration. Although some in Paris, Brussels and Berlin like the idea, most agree it would be better for the Union to stick together if possible.
But what about if the country voting No is France - by no means an unlikely outcome given that French voters rejected the constitution in 2005 and only approved the Maastricht Treaty by the tiniest of margins in 1992?
Ms Royal thinks voters can be won over if the treaty is made more "French": perhaps by adding a protocol enshrining social rights or some new clause to make the European Central Bank less interested in inflation and more interested in economic growth.
Dream on. The British will never accept the first idea and the Germans are highly unlikely to approve any changes to the ECB’s statutes, particularly if they are aimed at loosening the bank’s grip on inflation. Disappointed French voters may then be even more likely to vote No to the Mark II treaty than to the first.
Ms Royal’s plans may win her some votes this spring and make her look like a good democrat, but they could put in jeopardy the reforms Europe needs and France’s own position in the EU.
we all know that in any case the constitution will have to be (re)negotiated and possibly changed, so I don’t really see any difference between royal or sarcozy getting the job. french people won’t let it pass this easy anyway.
Posted by: carolina | January 19th, 2007 at 10:13 am | Report this commentSarkozy’s plan has the merit of being clear about what Constitution he is talking about -fair enough to ram a mini-treaty through the Assemblee if you make that part of your presidential election manifesto and it is clear what you want to be in the mini-treaty.
Sego is taking a massive risk - she is pledging a referendum on an undefined text.
You’re eight that she’s done the easy thing by scoring points against Sarko, but I think the mistake is not just about the risks you enumerate - it’s just plain foolish to commit to a referendum if you don’t don’t know what the vote will be on. I suppose, though, that this may be her get-out clause. She can always turn around and say, “Ah well, I would have held a referendum on the treaty if it had been similar to the last one, but this one is now so different that the commitment is void” - could be done, but very tricky.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | January 19th, 2007 at 12:08 pm | Report this commentMaybe the EU should be plunged further into a ’state of turmoil’.
One person’s ‘turmoil’ is another’s thoroughly appropriate re-consideration of the EU’s purpose and structure for the 21st century.
This is the fundamental debate first proposed at Laeken and which the Constitution process completely ignored, instead proposing great leaps further down the 1950s-inspired ‘centralising’ path.
So if ‘turmoil’ is what it takes for EU-statists like supporters of the EU Constitution to get the message that they’re living in the past, and to snap out of their obsession with integration, so be it.
Europe may well come out more democratic, more dynamic, and better equipped to prosper in a 21st century world.
Posted by: Stuart Coster | January 23rd, 2007 at 2:17 pm | Report this commentShe’s not really worried about EU.
Posted by: Observer | January 31st, 2007 at 5:02 pm | Report this commentShe just doesn’t know how to deal with the fact that French want someone with an Iron Fist to rule the abandoned country.
It is not just being a woman that will win elections, it is a fake representation of democracy, it must be a meritocracy!!!
There are other people in the EU institutions thinking that just being a woman grants a place.
Please, come back Meritocracy, please!!!
She’s not really worried about EU.
Posted by: Observer | January 31st, 2007 at 5:02 pm | Report this commentShe just doesn’t know how to deal with the fact that French want someone with an Iron Fist to rule the abandoned country.
It is not just being a woman that will win elections, it is a fake representation of democracy, it must be a meritocracy!!!
There are other people in the EU institutions thinking that just being a woman grants a place.
Please, come back Meritocracy, please!!!
Although I am not a big fan of Ms Royal, maybe it will be good if she wins the presidential elections. When she really wants a new referendum, probably with a no vote, than the time is right for some revolution within the EU.
The ECSC/EEC were created in a time completely different than the present. Trying to unify the European nations is therefore not what we should strive for anymore.
The Member States have, besides the new central and eastern European Member States, lifted each other to a higher level, and we should therefore more focus on economic co-operation rather than what the European Union is doing nowadays: making the EU less competitive with its restrictive legislation.
Posted by: Joost | January 31st, 2007 at 6:09 pm | Report this commentRe Stuart Coster:
I agree instinctively that a well-managed diversity would be better than a dispiriting uniformity. So I’m interested that you imply there is an awareness of this now in the EU? Can you elaborate? Thanks.
Posted by: stephen miller | February 8th, 2007 at 6:12 am | Report this commentSM/DVMX
Stephen,
The 2001 Laeken Declaration that was designed to launch a re-evaluation of the EU’s role, purpose and structure many decades after it was first envisaged surprisingly included the idea that some powers should be returned from the EU to national governments.
But this idea (indeed, the ‘reviewing’ ethos of the Laeken Declaration as a whole) was ignored in the subsequent process that resulted in the yet more integration of the EU Constitution, to which governments nevertheless agreed regardless.
If there is really the awareness among governments that the EU is doing too much centrally that the Laeken Declaration seemed to indicate, then (sadly) it is not being pushed nearly forcefully enough.
Posted by: Stuart Coster | February 20th, 2007 at 1:27 pm | Report this commentStuart has repeated a common theme amongst eurosceptics - that the Laeken Declaration committed the EU (more specifically the Convention) to seek to restore “powers” from the EU to the Member States.
The relevant text actually reads, “Thus the important thing is to clarify, simplify and adjust the division of competence between the Union and the Member States in the light of the new challenges facing the Union. This can lead both to restoring tasks to the Member States and to assigning new missions to the Union, or to the extension of existing powers, while constantly bearing in mind the equality of the Member States and their mutual solidarity.”
First of all, it is not clear to me that “tasks” equals the “powers” that you refer to. A task in the EU context could include such things as the comitology committees or other methods of implementation of EU law, and need not necessarily just mean areas of “competence” - i.e. policy areas where the EU can legislate, or “powers” in the way I think you interpret the word.
Secondly, even if you reject this interpretation of the word “tasks” (and I grant you that “powers” is then used soon afterwards), it is quite clear from the wording that the Convention is being asked to weigh up the pros and cons of EITHER restoring tasks to Member States and assigning new ones to the Union OR extending EU powers.
So the idea that EU leaders ignored their own mandate from Laeken in drawing up the Constitution seems wide of teh mark.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 20th, 2007 at 4:29 pm | Report this commentPathetic Chris. The only conclusion that one can possibly make of the EU Convention is that Giscard D’Estaing et al exceeded their mandate and paddled their own canoe in an overtly federalist direction that was never going to be supported by the public. Guilano Amato, vice president of the Convention, has admitted as much himself in his letter to the FT.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/bac98eb4-ac18-11db-a0ed-0000779e2340.html
Posted by: John | February 22nd, 2007 at 7:44 pm | Report this commentJohn I think you are reacting to a post that isn’t there. I didn’t say that the Convention didn’t exceed its mandate; it may well have done.
What I said is that the common claim that the Laeken Declaration mandated the Convention to designate powers to be returned to Member States is quite obviously untrue.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 23rd, 2007 at 9:40 am | Report this commentYou are wrong Chris. The Laeken declaration says “the important thing is to clarify, simplify and adjust the division of competence between the Union and the Member States in the light of the new challenges facing the Union. This can lead both to restoring tasks to the Member States and to assigning new missions to the Union”.
http://europa.eu.int/constitution/futurum/documents/offtext/doc151201_en.htm
Naturally Giscard D’Estaing ignored this first option totally leading Labour MP and Conventioneer Gisela Stuart to say it would have been “easier for me 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”.
Instead D’Estaing preferred to abuse one of the final sentences of declaration, i.e. “The question ultimately arises as to whether this simplification and reorganization might not lead in the long run to the adoption of a constitutional text in the Union.”
A policy of slight-of-hand has always been part of the Monnet-method of ‘integration by stealth’. But the culture of deceit has always been most apparent in pro-EU supporters in Britain such as yourself who feel compelled to lie about the real objectives of the EU project much more so than your Continental cohorts. Quite simply you have lied for decades and we should not trust one single word from you.
The real answer to the question “Sego’s playing with fire - who will get burned?” is that it will be those who believe that a European state can be created against the wishes of the peoples of Europe or without them noticing.
Posted by: John | February 23rd, 2007 at 7:33 pm | Report this commentJohn I quoted the same text, with the crucial further clause that you omitted, earlier in the thread. You are hiding the full text. It actually continues, “or to the extension of existing powers, while constantly bearing in mind the equality of the Member States and their mutual solidarity.”
The crucial point is that the Declaration could not be said to have issued the Convention with a clear mandate to repatriate powers to the Member States.
As for the slight of hand, you may be curious to know that the Jean Monnet Foundation, which assiduously collects all of his writings, has done a search for the text you refer to, and denies that he ever wrote the statement.
I’ll let readers decide which one of us is the liar based on the pieces of the Laeken Declaration we each quoted.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 25th, 2007 at 7:39 pm | Report this commentI did not quote Monnet. His method is however commonly referred to as “integration by stealth”. Surely not even you, a man with greater powers of denial than David Irving, can deny that?
Your remarks on the Laeken declaration are the pure nonesense we have come to expect from you. Anybody can read the full text at the link i supplied. However you twist it there is only one way to read “restoring tasks to the Member States”.
Posted by: John | February 26th, 2007 at 7:13 am | Report this commentJohn check out: http://corbett.pir2.info/blog/2007/01/so-europe-by-stealth-what-jean-monnet.html
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 26th, 2007 at 9:00 am | Report this commentStop distracting the issue. The Leaken declaration has a stronger commmitment to “restoring tasks to the Member States” (which is a quote) than to “The question ultimately arises as to whether this simplification and reorganization might not lead in the long run to the adoption of a constitutional text in the Union”. Surely you have to accept that?
Giscard D’Estaing et al clearly ignored their mandate and the document they produced deserves to go in the bin. The task of returning powers to nations, or giving national law priority over EU law to create a flexible Europe still however remains urgent.
Posted by: John | February 26th, 2007 at 9:12 am | Report this commentJohn this is more than a little tiresome. The text of the Laeken Declaration cannot possibly be considered to have given the Convention a clear mandate to restore EU competences to the Member States. The mandate specifically included a choice between recommending the restoration of competences to the Member States and recommending the assignment of further competences to the Union.
I do not for one moment deny that the Convention was not given a clear mandate to propose a new treaty.
But if you re-read my original post and the post from Stuart that I was reacting to, it is quite clear that this is really not subject I was addressing.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 26th, 2007 at 11:23 am | Report this comment“This can lead both to restoring tasks to the Member States and to assigning new missions to the Union, OR TO THE EXTENSION OF EXISTING POWERS”.
The mandate is just about as open-ended as it could be. It is most certainly not a clear mandate to cut down the powers of the EU, as Stuart and many others have suggested.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 26th, 2007 at 11:28 am | Report this commentThe truth may be ‘tiresome’ to you Chris, but it cannot be denied. Despite your selective blindness, it is quite obvious that the Laeken declaration gave the Convention a CLEARER mandate to return some powers to nations (as well as transfer others to Brussels) than it did to write an EU Constitution.
With the output of this Convention having been decisively rejected, the topic of returning powers to nations (ideally by making EU law subordinate to national laws in areas of shared competence) would make a good basis for the upcoming Berlin Declaration.
Posted by: John | February 26th, 2007 at 12:22 pm | Report this commentJohn phew finally we agree that the Laeken Declaration did not issue clear mandates either to recommend returning powers to Member States or to draft a treaty. Why didn’t you say so from the beginning?
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | February 26th, 2007 at 4:13 pm | Report this commentThe Laeken declaration obviously suggested returning some powers to nation states. However you try to twist it, there is no other interpretation possible for the words “restoring tasks to the Member States”. This requirement, totally ignored by Giscard D’Estaing & Co. remains a necessity.
Posted by: John | February 26th, 2007 at 7:20 pm | Report this comment