March 15, 2007
Airbust-up in space
The European Union is boldly going…nowhere. An ambitious project to set up a rival to the US military GPS satellite navigation system, cutely named Galileo, has so far stalled at the launch pad. The idea of the EU building physical infrastructure is new, the problems bedevilling are not: national rivalries, bureaucracy, and private companies wanting a public guarantee of making a mint.
Eurosceptics are having a field day, terming it an “Airbus in space”. In fact, it is worse, because Airbus overtook its American rival before falling prey to its own internal divisions. The eight contractors, who have yet to set up the joint company they promised to do last year, say the technical problems are straightforward. And the product will be first-rate, like colour TV to GPS’s black and white. GPS has two signals, one military and one open, free one. Galileo will have five, with a commercial one accurate to within less than a metre and with guaranteed continuity even in the event of military conflict.
There are lots of potential uses, such as mapping crop areas, finding your way with a mobile phone, monitoring forest fires, tracking cargo at sea and the like. However, no-one knows if business can be won from GPS, which is free and has sparked the boom in car navigation devices. Galileo is in danger of losing the space race to China, which will launch its system in 2008, and Russia, which is improving its. Even GPS is going to get a facelift.
The essential conundrum is that this is a political project, to give the EU independent satellite navigation capability, being built as a commercial one. The private contractors will share the cost of development and in theory the risk. But they complain of too much interference from national capitals and are worried about liability for accidents. “Imagine two planes crash into each other over a nuclear power station because of a fault with Galileo,” said one executive. “If we had to ensure against that every aerospace company in Europe would be bankrupt.”
Since the EU only sets budgets for six year periods, they are also uncertain what will happen after 2013. With a current price tag of 3bn euros, the taxpayer could be asked to fund it all, and reap any potential benefits; the concessionaires would become simple contractors.
Jacques Barrot, the shrewd French transport commissioner, has written to the companies and member states so he can start looking at alternative solutions. Full public ownership could be one. How much taxpayers would buy into such idea is open to question.
Any product marketting team at a technology company that suggested entering a market against a rival that had a 10+ year head start, which had used this head-start to secure a dominant market position worldwide, offered their service free to the end user, and had long ago achieved the manufacturing volumes necessary for low-cost hardware (the key criteria for users selecting a system and which newcomers would struggle to match) would see their proposal rejected for funding. The “tall tree” theory of technology market evolution is that in these circumstances the early leader starves its rivals of market share and investment just as a tall tree in the forest starves shorter rivals of sunlight.
One may debate if Galileo has political benefits worth its costs (i would say “no”). But there can be no doubt that as a commercial venture it has all the hallmarks of a likely failure and would not secure private funding.
Posted by: John | March 15th, 2007 at 11:53 pm | Report this commentI think the key fact here is that GPS will never offer commercial QOS guarantees like Galileo will. This is a critical part of any commercial offering, especially for highly sensitive things like oil tankers.
The greater degree of accuracy that Galileo is trumpeting may or may not become reality; in any case GPS will be updated and will also become more accurate; I think this is a red herring.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 19th, 2007 at 1:00 pm | Report this commentChris, there may be a market for oil tankers that need such a quality of service guarantee. But this is the tiniest of elite subscribers and such a niche can never justify the commercial launching and continued operational costs of dozens of satellites.
Galileo cannot ever be justified on a commercial basis, as is evidenced by that fact that it needs EU funding. It is obviously a political project, motivated by the instinctive anti-Americanism of the Old Europe elites who seek to decouple the US from the defence of Europe. It is wholly naive to believe it will provide guaranteed service in all circumstances. At least the Americans are honest about this.
Posted by: John | March 19th, 2007 at 1:44 pm | Report this commentJohn I think that the fact that a project needs government funding does not invalidate it ex ante. If you to a hatchet to all the companies and technologies that had been developed with government money, you’d end up with a pretty impoverished world.
Having said that, I also believe that governments throwing money at doomed political projects is silly; I just don’t think that Galileo is doomed, and I find it somewhat amusing that so many eurosceptics like to blast the project only because it is supported by the EU and therefore must be bad.
I think the commercial QOS guarantee is a really fundamental aspect of the business model. You may be right that it turns out not to be of much interest to a critical mass of commercial subscribers; but that is pure speculation at this point. Let’s meet up in 15 years’ time and see who was right.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 19th, 2007 at 3:45 pm | Report this commentI “blasted” Galileo on criteria I use for judging the likelihood of success or failure of new technology products in industry. As Andrew Bounds accurately states this can only be a political project masquerading as a commercial one because on any criteria I would use it has all the hallmarks of a commercial failure. There are plenty of successful technologies and systems developed without government support. It is indeed the norm today. The question you have to ask when taxpayer’s money is called for is why would the private sector not fund it? Those who compare Galileo to attempting to sell Virgin Coke against free Coca Cola have a point, but even this seriously under-estimates the challenges of bringing high-technology successfully to market at a competitive price relative to an entrenched competitor that has already achieved global manufacturing volumes.
Posted by: John | March 19th, 2007 at 5:34 pm | Report this commentJohnthe flaw in your argument is that the competitor (GPS) does not aspire to maintaining its dominant position.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 19th, 2007 at 8:20 pm | Report this commentThere is no flaw in my analysis Chris. The consumer will decide who “dominates” here. Their choice is between one system, GPS, which offers a free service requiring low-cost receivers whose R&D costs have been depreciated and which has already achieved economies of mass production for the global market. And another system that intends to charge for a service and requires new and incompatible receivers that will inevitably cost more (perhaps far more) initially and will therefore find it nigh-on impossible to break the Catch-22 of needing mass volume to get low handset costs to achieve mass volume. If the EU elites proceed with this project they will very likely have to adopt further measures or see it fail commercially, i.e. use yet more taxpayers money to subsidise receivers or mandate its usage (which will be hard given the availability of the GPS signal in Europe).
The flaw in your argument is that you are a blind-loyal Brussels-based EU fan boy who wildly applauds anything the EU politicians come up with irrespective of whether it meets real needs or not. The only reason Galileo is on the EU agenda at all is that the countries that support it (for political reasons based on anti-Americanism) prefer to get other countries to pay for it. The EU already has too many projects like the CAP which would not exist if the countries that champion it had to pay for it themselves and does not need another one.
Posted by: John | March 20th, 2007 at 6:41 am | Report this commentJohn yor argument is riddled with flaws. Not only is GPS older and less accurate technology (although it will be updated), but it will never be able to fulfill the burgeoning world market demand for global positioning services. Moreover, it does not and will not offer crucial QoS guarantees, and its controllers (the US military) have no interest in it as a commercial competitor to Galileo, since it remains primarily a military resource for use by the US armed forces.
You might not know that the Russians are building their own global positioning satellite network to compete with Galileo and GPS. I think it unlikely in the extreme that they would do so if the case for a 2nd, let alone a 3rd, player in the market were as weak as you make it out to be.
I don’t know why you persist in personal attacks - it only makes you look aggressive and insecure in your arguments. You know nothing about me and yet you claim that I am a blind EU yes-man. You can see plenty of evidence to the contrary on this very blog site, if you bother to read it. But I rather suspect you are only interested in seeing what you want to see.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 20th, 2007 at 12:43 pm | Report this commentThere are no flaws in my analysis Chris and I speak as someone with considerable experience in the technology industry where as you are a Brussels-insider with no knowledge of technology markets. GPS has already dominated the “burgeoning market” you refer too. All the history of the deployment of new technologies shows that those that establish an early lead eventually starve alternatives of the oxygen of market share, which then fall by the wayside. GPS has far more than an early lead in this application area. Aiming Galileo up-market actually reduces further its addressable market as it pushes its costs higher and leads (as Andrew Bounds points out) to costly scenarios where customers must be recompensed when Quality of Service “guarantees” fail to be met.
The Russians (or Chinese) are not interested in a GPS-like system for commercial returns. This technology clearly has military applications and that is obviously the reason the EU elites want a similar system under their own control. The need for even a bogus commercial case for Galileo is entirely due to the need for a smokescreen to hide the geo-strategic ambitions of EU elites who back it as part of their wider goal of decoupling the US from the security of Europe.
Believe me that i am not insecure in my arguments. Pro-EU apologists such as yourself have had it too easy for too long. The future of democracy in Europe demands that you be debunked.
Posted by: John | March 20th, 2007 at 6:09 pm | Report this commentJohn it’s a shame you have to place a discussion about Galileo’s merits in the tired old context of pro- or anti-EU arguments. That isn’t what this is about.
As it happens I have been working in the technology industry for about 10 years.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 21st, 2007 at 8:17 am | Report this commentIt is “Old Europe” politicians that put Galileo on the EU agenda and not me. I have criticised it on commercial grounds, but the politics of it are aligned 100% AGAINST the interests of this country and its primary foreign policy partner. It makes no sense for british taxpayers to be funding something that will not generate a positive return on their investment and which will advance the foreign policy goals of those who are hostile to NATO and the unity of the Western world.
Posted by: John | March 21st, 2007 at 9:39 am | Report this commentWow now we are entering the realms of the surreal. Surely the interests of NATO are defined by its members and not by you? Last time I checked, all the countries contributing to Galileo were NATO members.
As for the commercial prospects, let’s just agree to disagree.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 21st, 2007 at 9:49 am | Report this commentYou long ago entered the surreal Chris but I will not follow you there. Since when exactly are all EU members in NATO? This is obviously a project that was opposed by the US and UK and the fact the Blair caved in to pressure from Old Europe leaders does not mean there is good reason for British taxpayers to be funding a project that will never deliver a commercial return on investment and which is intended to weaken the links between the US and the defense of Europe. You are a man who can deny that the words “restoring tasks to the Member States” in the Laeken declaration does not mean that EU powers should be returned to nation states. So it is asking far too much to expect you to admit you are wrong here. But wrong you clearly are.
We will not agree to disagree on the commercial case for Galileo. It is not there and you have done nothing at all to show that it is. The market for supertankers that trust Jacques Chirac not to turn off a system that tells them where they are to <1m accuracy does not justify putting dozens of satellites in space. Unless you produce some evidence to back up your claim, we may therefore agree that you are wrong to pretend this is a commerical project.
Posted by: John | March 21st, 2007 at 12:24 pm | Report this commentIt is a lie that the Laeken Declaration says the EU “should” (your word and not that of the Declaration) return powers to Member States and you know it.
I have not heard of a single legal expert outside of the UK eurosceptic fringe who has claimed that the treaty was tantamount to the creation of a state; it’s believed even less than that Elvis is alive.
John perhaps you know even less about Galileo than you let on. The EU member states that are putting the most money into Galileo (which is not all EU member states) are members of NATO.
If the UK opposed the project, why is the UK funding it? If the US opposed the project, why have they signed a co-operation agreement?
The formulation “let’s agree to disagree” is code in the adult world for, “this argument is getting nowhere so let’s drop it”. Well we obviously do disagree on the commercial prospects for Galileo and I can think of dozens of applications beyond the oil tankers that will welcome the service.
As evidence that there is a commercial future for the project I would like to propose you take into account the opinions of the countries that clearly disagree with you and have committed money to the project:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_positioning_system#International_involvement
The wikipedia page also provides a good (but not exhaustive) list of applications. These include things like air traffic control.
If you need any further, independent proof, you can always ask PwC, who concluded in their study that the benefit/cost ratio will be higher than for any other infrastructure project in Europe.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 21st, 2007 at 1:39 pm | Report this commentThe link you provide makes no claims for the viability of Galileo as a commercial project. It does however state that Galileo is “a political statement of European independence from the United States”. Do you have any other links to support my case? It is the nature of such political projects (and others such as the Olympics) that commercial benefits need to be made up at the beginning which everyone knows are illusory. It will not matter to the “Old Europe” politicians if the claimed commercial benefits vanish into thin air because they want this project for political reasons; namely as part of their wider goal of decoupling the US from Europe. I fail to see how any of the applications for Galileo could not be supported by the GPS signal, using lower cost hardware available on the world market. If the EU produces projects that reinforce links with the Americans, such as a transatlantic common market, then I would support them to that end. But the Galileo project damages (by design) transatlantic relations and has no commercial rationale either. It is an irresponsible position of yours to support it come what may.
You ask why the UK would fund an EU program (Galileo) with which it disapproves. Have you never heard of the CAP? It is the nature of the EU that we are required to fund things with which we disagree, and indeed to live under laws with which we disagree. In the past we did that because we believed the economic gains of access to the common market were worth these costs. But with the WTO having reduced the EU’s common external tariff so low (~1.9% for goods, 0% for services, ~10.9 for agricultural products), and with heavy-handed EU regulation imposing costs on that section of the British economy (the largest part of it) producing goods and services for domestic consumption that bargain becomes increasingly dubious.
Once again you deny the meaning of the words “restoring tasks to the Member States” from the Laeken declaration that clearly can have only one meaning. Now you go on to say that you have not heard a single legal expert outside of the UK “euro-sceptic fringe” who believes this Constitution amounts to creating a state. Perhaps you would like to run your powers of denial past these statements.
“A constitution would be to turn the whole EU system upside down. At the moment, states confer powers on the Community through treaties. But the effect of a constitution would be to limit the powers to the states, turning them into local councils that are not allowed to do anything unless authorised to do so.”
Martin Howe QC
“The Constitution is not the end point of integration, but the framework for - as its preamble says - an ever closer union.”
Hans Martin Bury, German Minister for Europe - Die Welt, 25th February 2005
“The project of the founding fathers is complete: the economic Union is becoming a political Union…”
Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of the French UMP party & Presidential hopeful - Le Figaro, 14th April 2005
“The Constitution is the capstone of a European Federal State.”
Guy Verhofstadt, Belgian Prime Minister - Financial Times, 21st June 2004
“The EU Constitution is the birth certificate of the United States of Europe.”
Hans Martin Bury, German Minister for Europe - Die Welt, 25th February 2005
“The constitutional treaty puts an end to national democracies”
Philippe de Villiers MEP - Le Figaro, 26th January 2005
“It [the EU Constitution] is a radical text with wide-ranging consequences for freedom and for the well-being and future of the nation state.”
Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic - AFP, 27th September 2004
“[The EU Constitution is] a new step towards a European super-state… I know that the majority of activists in my party share my opinion”
Sören Wibe, Swedish Social-Democrat MP - Le Monde, 30th September 2004
“Creating a single European state bound by one European Constitution is the decisive task of our time.”
Joschka Fischer, German foreign minister - The Daily Telegraph, 27th December 1998
“Monetary union is there, the common currency is there. So our main concern nowadays is foreign policy and defence. The next step, in terms of integration of the European Union, will be our constitution. We are today where you were in Philadelphia in 1787.”
Jean-David Levitte, French ambassador to the USA - press conference, 3rd April 2003
“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.”
Valery Giscard d’Estaing, president of the EU Convention - speech in Aachen accepting the Charlemagne Prize for European integration, 29th May 2003
“It [The Charter of Fundamental Rights] is part of the process of federalising the EU. The consequence of the charter installing a fundamental rights regime within the [EU] treaties is part of the federalising process, and I think everyone apart from the Brits seems to be quite clear about that.”
Posted by: John | March 21st, 2007 at 6:13 pm | Report this commentAndrew Duff MEP (Liberal Democrat) - interview in the Financial Times, 29th March 2000
John thanks for the very interesting quotes, none of which actually says that the treaty creates a state, and none of which comes from a legal expert outside the UK eurosceptic fringe. Philippe de Villiers MEP is the only exception. He is regarded in France as a wild-eyed fanatic.
If PwC’s opinion on Galileo is not good enough for you, why not commission a study of your own?
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 22nd, 2007 at 9:24 am | Report this commentYou provide no reference to the work you claim PwC have done here on the commercial case. But the claims i have seen of Galileo supporting 140000 jobs are clearly pie-in-the-sky. Even taking a conservative estimate that they need revenue of $100,000 p.a. to sustain each job they would require a revenue stream of $14bn per annum to break-even. And that says nothing about the return on capital. How can they achieve such a massive revenue stream, even for a short period, when competing against an established system that provides a free-to-use signal using lower-cost hardware available today?
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1780782,00.html
As for the EU Constitution and the quotes I supplied, they all come from either the designers of the text (who presumably wrote something that meets their stated aims as quoted below), key MEPs (who presumably qualify as legal experts since they write stuff) sitting on the Constitutional Affairs Committee, or from others such as the Queen’s Counsel Martin Howe.
Article 7 of the Constitution establishes, for the first time, the EU as a distinct entity under international law comparable to a state and with the power to sign treaties with other states. Article 14.1 establishes that the EU will have AS A DEFAULT, “shared competence” with member states in all areas where it does not have exclusive competence. Article 12.2 defines “shared competence” to mean that the member state can exercise power only “to the extent that the Union has not exercised its competence”. i.e. when the EU acts it will suppress national law in those areas of shared competence which as mentioned previously is the default as per Article 14.1. Under this definition, competences are shared in the EU only until such time as the EU decides to act, after which the member states cannot act again. This is what QC Martin Howe (presumably you accept a QC is a legal expert?) means when he says “A constitution would be to turn the whole EU system upside down. At the moment, states confer powers on the Community through treaties. But the effect of a constitution would be to limit the powers to the states, turning them into local councils that are not allowed to do anything unless authorised to do so”. The fact that you deny the Constitution is the key step in creating a European state, despite the quotations below from its architects that this is precisely their intention, should reassure no-one given your past efforts on here to deny words from the Laeken declaration that can have only one meaning.
Posted by: John | March 22nd, 2007 at 1:26 pm | Report this commentJohn apologies for not providing the link to the PwC report. Here it is:
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/energy_transport/galileo/documents/technical_en.htm
I think there is a very big difference between a treaty that further integrates Europe (you can call that a “step towards” statehood if you like) and a treaty that creates a state (which only one of your quotes comes close to suggesting).
Which part of Article 1 do you not understand? It says, “…this Constitution establishes the European Union, on which the Member States confer competences to attain objectives they have in common.” Now it seems to me to be self-evident that if the treaty created a state, competences could only be conferred in the opposite direction, as in the UK, where devolution is something granted by Westminster to Scotland and Wales. All the rest needs to be read in that context.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 23rd, 2007 at 9:16 am | Report this commentChris. The PwC report was paid for by the Commission and its conclusions widely disputed, as this FT reports shows:
http://search.ft.com/nonFtArticle?id=020208000096
All the quotes in this report indicate Galileo is a political project designed to decouple the US from the defense of Europe. The commercial case for Galileo is pure fiction. If this project could generate 18bn euro of revenue against a free-to-use rival, private industry would have built it already. The mere fact it needs EU funding shows the business case is at the very best suspect. And even if it could make a profit, it would not be worth the division of the West that it backers are trying to engineer.
http://www.brugesgroup.com/mediacentre/index.live?article=221
As for the EU Constitution, you need to read beyond Article 1 and look at the powers that are conferred to the EU in the Articles I already referenced. These clearly establish the EU for the first time as a distinct entity under international law, a status that no other international organization has and which is a basic requirement of a state. One can say that under the terms of this Constitution the EU would be a confederation of states, with ability to impose law on its member nations against the will of their voters in almost all policy areas and with the right to sign international treaties with other states. I do not need anyone’s eyes but my own to read and understand this text, and it is clear from the quotes I have provided earlier and below from the people who devised and wrote it that this is precisely their intention.
———-
“It is time for plain speaking by this House on whether such a constitution is reconcilable with our position as a self-governing nation.”
David Heathcoat Amory MP (Conservative) - representative of Parliament on the EU Convention
“If the European draft treaty is enacted it its present form, it will fundamentally change the way Britain is governed. Under the treaty’s proposed constitution, we will no longer have any real control over national policy. ”
Frank Field MP (Labour), former government minister - Daily Mail article, 21st May 2003
“We do not believe that democratic legitimacy is secured by the system of voting which allows member states to be out-voted and obliged to introduce changes in their criminal law and procedure with which they do not agree.”
House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee, 3rd July 2003
“The European Union is a state under construction.” - Elmar Brok, Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs
“Anyone in Britain who claims the constitution will not change things is trying to sweeten the pill for those who don’t want to see a bigger role for Europe. The constitution is not just an intellectual exercise. It will quickly change people’s lives. ” - Former Italian Prime Minister Lamberto Dini, The Sunday Telegraph, 1st June 2003
“European government is a clear expression I still use, you need time, but step by step … the European Commission takes a political decision and behaves like a growing government. ” - EU Commission President Romano Prodi, The Independent, 4th February 2000
“We ought to work on a common constitution to turn the European Union into an entity under international law—that is my goal. It is the decisive task of our time.” - Joschka Fischer, German Foreign Minister, Berlin, 25 November, 1998.
“The process of monetary union goes hand in hand, must go hand in hand, with political integration and ultimately political union. EMU is, and was meant to be, a stepping stone on the way to a united Europe.” - Wim Duisenberg, President, European Central Bank
“One must never forget that monetary union, which the two of us were the first to propose more than a decade ago is ultimately a political project. It aims to give a new impulse to the historic movement towards union of the European states. Monetary union is a federative project that needs to be accompanied and followed by other steps.” — Giscard d’Estaing and Helmut Schmidt, former French & German leaders, quoted in International Herald Tribune, 14.10.97
“Your problem [in Britain] is that you are afraid of saying clearly to European citizens just what the European Union is.” — Jean-Luc Dehaene, Vice-President of the European Constitutional Convention. Comment to Peter Hain, Labour Minister for Europe. Quoted in Le Monde, 13 April 2003.
“There are some in this country who fear that in going into Europe, we shall in some way sacrifice independence and sovereignty. These fears I need hardly say are completely unjustified” Ted Heath, July 1971.
“There will not be a blueprint for a Federal Europe” - Ted Heath, House of Commons, 25 February 1970 in run-up to EEC entry.
“There is no danger of a single currency.” - Ted Heath. EEC membership information leaflet, 1975.
Peter Sissons: “…the single currency, the United States of Europe: was that on your mind when you took Britain in?”
Heath: “Of course, Yes.”– BBC Question Time with Peter Sissons, 1 November 1991.
Posted by: John | March 25th, 2007 at 3:33 pm | Report this commentJohn the FT report indicates that several Member States disagreed with aspects ofthe PwC report in 2002. Their concerns would seem to have been addressed, since all have now committed funds.
On the Constitution, of course legal personality is a requirement for the creation of a state, just as it is a requirement for conviction for murder in a criminal court. That does not mean that the creation of a state is the inevitable result, any more than me being a legal person inevitably makes me a murderer. Your argument is not logical.
I have yet to meet a lawyer who thinks that later Articles of a treaty set the context for earlier Articles. It is a fundamental characteristic of these documents that the most important things are said first. Yes, the document would confer many powers on the EU, as the Laeken Declaration suggested it could. But for the first time, it makes specific reference to the fact that these are powers conferred by Member States on the EU for the achievement of the objectives of those Member States, and not vice versa. I know you desperately WANT the treaty to create a state, because it would prove you conspiracy theorists right, but it doesn’t.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 26th, 2007 at 8:48 am | Report this commentDo you think British funding of the CAP means that UK concerns with the common agriculture policy have been addressed these last 30 years? Why is it any different with Galilleo? I wish you were correct that countries only funded EU programs they support, but it does not work that way. If the UK cannot stop a program it has to go along with it, and that is what happended with Galilleo. The fact remains this is a program with no commercial logic, that is designed to split the West. No British government could possibly be in favour of it.
I am not sure what to make of your claim that Articles in a Constitution are ordered by importance. The word ‘laughable’ comes to mind though… Article 1 talks of powers being conferred and those powers are detailed in later articles as I have already explained. Surely the actual powers being handed over make a difference to whether we remain a self-governing country, do they not?
I do not need to take your assurances for what the Constitution means when I can read it myself (and more than just the one article you have read) and can read the intentions of those who drafted it. I have given you many quotes from the people who are behind the Constitution that they want to create a state and the Constitution is their chosen means towards this end. I have given you quotes to support my case that there has been a long-standing deception by pro-EU supporters in Britain to pretend there is no long-term objection to create such a state. I have given you quotes from Continental federalists such as Jean-Luc Daheane who would prefer British pro-EU politicians come clean and spell out to the British public what the real goal is. So my question to you is why I believe you when it is a matter of record what the Continental elite who called for and led the Convention that wrote the Constitution want? Either they are lying or you are. I am pretty sure which it is…
Posted by: John | March 29th, 2007 at 3:36 am | Report this commentJohn the quotes prove absolutely nothing except that those people have widely varying views on the Constitution. Not a single one of them claims that the treaty creates a state.
So either you are being disingenuous or you are just not very clever. I must confess I do not know which it is…
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 29th, 2007 at 10:36 am | Report this commentJohn it may interest you to know that Phase 2 of the Galileo project is being financed to the tune of 17.5% each by the UK, Italy, Germany, and France. This level of funding was not the result of an agreement by QMV or a decision by the Commission - each Member State was free to invest the amount it chose to. The fact that the UK chose to be one of the 4 big investors is clear evidence that the UK government is fully behind the project. This is at variance with your view that the UK does not go along with Galileo - the UK was free to contribute much less to the project if it wished.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 30th, 2007 at 12:34 pm | Report this commentIf that is true Chris it is an inexplicable decision by the UK government and a shocking waste of UK taxpayers’ money. Even compared to Airbus, a project that the UK taxpayer put close to £20bn in to only to see British Aerospace selling the proceeds of this investment off for £1.87bn and exiting the commercial jet industry that it once lead, this is a project with an implausible commercial and strategic case. Furthermore it is a political project aimed directly AGAINST the #1 foreign policy goal of this country which is to maintain the transatlantic relationship.
The UK was one of the countries which argued most strongly against Galilleo. It was right at the time and should maintain that principled opposition now that this project is in trouble. UK companies are not prominent among the industrial collaborators here, so we would essentially be using British taxpayers’ money to finance skills development in other countries towards a foreign policy objective (decoupling the US from the defence of Europe) that is hostile to our interests. The British government should be making it clear this is a project that deserves to be cancelled without further delay.
As for the EU Constitution you should read my quotes again because they clearly indicate a desire to create a state from the men who called the Convention and wrote the thing. Joscka Fischer, the man most responsible for the Convention that drafted the text says “Creating a single European state bound by one European Constitution is the decisive task of our time.” The Belgian prime minister says “The Constitution is the capstone of a European Federal State.” As for your claims that I am not that clever, it is the age-old argument of last resort from those who themselves have ran out of ideas. May I just refer you to Giscard D’Estaing’s quote that “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”. He is talking about you Chris … and it would appear that in your case the cap fits rather snugly.
Your line of argument seems to be rather confused. Are you saying that the Constitution is only 99% or 95% towards creating a state? Do you think that would make it any more acceptable to the overwhelmingly majority of British people who are hostile to that end goal? Or are you arguing, Ted Heath like, that there is no aspiration at all among the EU elites to create a state? When they talk of “ever closer union”, “political union” or “political Europe” they mean creating a confederation or federation of states. Do you deny this?
Posted by: John | March 30th, 2007 at 9:42 pm | Report this commentJohn you might be interested to see the oral evidence given to the Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology on 3 Feb this year by the ESA. It suggests that the UK is rather well placed to benefit from Galileo in terms of the companies involved. Inmarsat, a UK company, is after all one of the prime contractors.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmsctech/uc66-vi/uc6602.htm
On the Constitution, I really think that you are actively projecting your interpretation of the process onto the text.
One of the fundamental challenges in Europe is that we don’t all look at things the same way. “Ever closer union” is one of those formulations that is used to mean whatever you want it to mean. For those who want to create a European state (and of course there are many, some of whom you quote), the phrase points to that end. For those who do not wish to create a single European state, the phrase contains plenty of comfort too - “ever” implies that you never quite get there.
That is why the phrase in itself is not very meaningful and in my view has no place in the treaties. It serves simply to confuse people because it can be interpreted differently by national politicians playing to the national audience. What is much more instructive is looking at the whole text of the treaties (and not cherry-picking certain parts that, out of context, can be interpreted to point where you want them to point to).
I think the EU of today is very, very far from being a single state. I think the idea of putting a percentage figure on it is somewhat unsatisfactory because it implies that the end of the process is necessarily a state, which I disagree with. But for the sake of argument, and of giving you an idea of where I think integration has got us, I would say the EU has about 20% of the powers and attributes of a state. Under the constitution I think it would be less than 25%.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | April 2nd, 2007 at 8:48 am | Report this commentWhat are you trying to show with this link Chris? The french Director General of ESA is hardly independent or has any demonstratable knowledge of a commerical business case to launch 30 satellites in space to compete against a free-to-use system such as GPS. Indeed in the link you provide he makes no attempt to provide any business case for Galilleo, and indeed denies Galileo is space program saying it is a transport programme supported by the EU Commision.
Inmarsat is a consortium founded in 1979 as an intergovernmental organisation, with a headquaters that happens to be in London. Companies that operate technology systems are not themselves technology companies. It is therefore very misleading to view Inmarsat as a UK technology company. It has made big technology mistakes in the past such as betting on a global satellite GSM system for use in areas where there is no terrestrial GSM coverage. For some reason they overlooked the fact that land-based GSM would be deployed everywhere there are people and their potential market for an expensive satellite-based system would turn out to be far too small to pay for their expensive toys in space. It seems they repeat their previous mistake now with Galilleo aiming to compete against a free-to-use system that is already well-established. No good can come from this politically motivated project and it should be adanboned.
You make a great mistake if you believe the commitment to “ever closer union” in the preamble of the Treaty of Rome is meaningless. The preambles of EU Treaties do have legal significance (as per the Continental legal tradition) and are used in rulings by the ECJ. The Constituion is clearly about creating a state recognised in International Law and bound by a single Constitution superior to national constitutions.
May i refer you to this analysis by Anthony Coughlan of Trinity College, Dublin.
http://eurealitshome.com/blog/eu-constitution/
PROVIDING THE NECESSARY CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS FOR AN EU STATE
A Treaty is an agreement between legally equal sovereign States, the High Contracting Parties. A Constitution is the fundamental law of a State
Posted by: John | April 2nd, 2007 at 2:25 pm | Report this commentsetting out the relations between its subordinate parts. Up to now the European Union has been a descriptive term referring to various forms of
cooperation between the EU Member States, some supranational - the so-called Community “pillar” - some intergovernmental, the foreign policy
and security “pillar” or the justice and home affairs “pillar”. Up to now the European Union has been legally indistinguishable from its Member States. The Constitution changes this. Article I-1 states “this Constitution establishes the European Union, on which the Member States
confer competences to attain objectives they have in common.” These objectives are set out in Article I-3 and are very wide. They include promoting the EU’s values - also very wide - a single market based on free competition, establishing an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers, sustainable development, economic growth, full employment, price stability, social justice, upholding the EU’s values and interests vis-a-vis the wider world etc. Article I-7 provides: “The Union shall have legal personality.” Article I-6 lays down: “The Constitution and law adopted by the Institutions of the Unions in exercising competences conferred on it shall have primacy over the law of the Member States” That includes their constitutional law of course. This has never been stated in an EU Treaty before. The doctrine of EU legal supremacy was developed by the EU Court of Justice in the 1960s in relation to the mainly economic areas of the EU, in which EU law was accepted as superior to national law in any case of conflict. This was the relatively narrow, supranational, area of the European Community, or EC. Non-economic areas such as foreign and security policy, or civil and criminal law, were “intergovernmental”, based on treaties between equal State partners and outside the domain of supranational Community law. The EU Commission, the non-elected body that proposes all EU laws, had no function in these intergovernmental areas. The Constitution abolishes this distinction between the supranational “Community” area where EU law operated, and the “intergovernmental” areas where it did not apply. It thus brings all government policy either actually or potentially within the scope of the EU. It is one thing for Member States to go along with a principle of EU legal superiority established by the EU Court of Justice and applied to a restricted range of matters like customs duties or tariffs. It is quite another to concede national sovereignty to an EU Constitution whose writ covers everything from economic policy to criminal law to foreign policy and fundamental human rights.
John I think you ought to take over Inmarsat. You obviously know their business better than they do.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | April 2nd, 2007 at 2:43 pm | Report this commentYou also overlooked the contribution of Mr. Southwood to the Commons Committee proceedings - he is not French.
As for the Constitution, I agree with most of what Anthony Coughlan says in the piece you reproduced. What he notably does not say is that the constitution would create a state.
It is true that the abolition of the Pillar structure and the distinction between intergovernmental and community policy areas is extremely significant. This does indeed represent a major change in how the EU will work, and it is an integrationist step in that it binds the Member States closer together in their co-operation in these areas.
But it would be wrong to present that as entailing the inevitable abolition of vetoes over areas like foreign policy - vetoes which are explicitly set out in the text.
The legal personality of the EU is not an indication that the EU is becoming a state; note that Coughlin doesn’t say this. It is however a step forward in terms of accountability. You, John, and all your conspiracy theorists, would be able to sue the EU in a national court for damage done to you - economic or otherwise.
The idea that the treaty would have supremacy over national constitutions is an odd one - I do not see that anywhere in the text of the treaty. Moreover, if you are worried about sovereignty, the bottom line remains the ability of the UK to leave the club. The treaty provides a clear mechanism for that, which does not exist today. That ability to withdraw from the EU will not change - the day it does will be the day I agree with you that the EU has become a state.
The Bundeslaender in Germany do not draw up treaties between each other - the Member States of the EU do.
Again, I know you would like it to be true that the treaty creates a state. It would confirm your conspiracy theories, but it ain’t so.
Galilleo funding may be structured such that it benefits individual companies even if it is, as a complete project, a net destroyer of capital. Therefore it may make sense for Inmarsat to participate even if it wastes taxpayers money.
Antony Coughlan states (in the link i provided) “The new EU, founded on its own State Constitution, in fact becomes a new European State in the world community of States”. Even for a man with your powers of denial (regarding for example text from the Laeken declaration), it is a bit much to say that he is not stating the EU Constitution does not create a state. How much clearer can he be?
Again it is a great mistake for you to say that “the idea that the treaty would have supremacy over national constitutions is an odd one”. This is already the case with existing EU treaties as interpreted by the ECJ. The UK has no written Constiution and so there is no distinction between constitutional and regular law in this country. But EU law is implicitly superior to our law, including constitutional elements of our law. In other EU countries (all with written constitutions) many include provisions in their Constitution to recognise the supremacy of EU law today by granting EU law a “constiutional immunity”.
The French Council of State for example declared in Febuary this year that EU law will in future have a ‘constitutional immunity’ in France even when the EU law is contrary to the French constitution.
http://www.conseil-etat.fr/ce/actual/index_ac_lc0704.shtml
The french in this respect are merely refelcting a situation long acknowledged in other European countries.
For example, Article 29 of the Irish Constitution states : “No provision of this Constitution invalidates laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the State which are necessitated by the obligations of membership of the European Union or of the Communities, or prevents laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the European Union or by the Communities or by institutions thereof, or by bodies competent under the Treaties establishing the Communities, from having the force of law in the (Irish) State”
The following EU site shows the legal hierarchy is the same today in other European countries, i.e. EU law has supremacy over national constiutions of its member states:
http://ec.europa.eu/civiljustice/legal_order/legal_order_fin_en.htm
e.g. Czech Republic
As regards European law, the EU principle of the supremacy of Community law applies just as in the other Member States. Under this principle, European legislation takes precedence when there is a conflict between national law (laws, orders, etc.) and European law. This applies both where there is a conflict between national law and primary Community legislation (the Treaties) and between national law and secondary Community legislation (regulations, directives, etc.). Nor, according to the prevailing interpretation of the law, are the highest national legal instruments exempt - European law even takes precedence over the constitution and the constitutional laws of Member States.
e.g. Finland:
In accordance with doctrine on the supremacy of European Union law, Union law takes precedence over national law. Therefore where a national provision and a binding provision of Union law are incompatible with each other, the provision of Union law will have precedence, even over our national Constitution.
Posted by: John | April 2nd, 2007 at 3:53 pm | Report this commentJohn I had not actually followed the link to Coughlan’s site, since it looked like you were reproducing his words below the link. Of course I think he is completely wrong about the creation of a state - the EU has very few of the attributes of a state.
The supremacy of EU law over national law is indeed a well-established legal principle. But I have not seen anywhere a credible claim that this supremacy extends to constitutions where they exist - indeed the German courts have ruled that EU law does not have supremacy over their constitution. Nor does the constitutional treaty say it will take precedence over constitutions. It would be an odd thing to omit, don’t you think?
But you still haven’t addressed the point about withdrawal - do you deny that we are free to withdraw? And do you deny that this represents the most fundamental expression of national sovereignty vis-a-vis the EU? Do you know of any European countries (let’s not call them nation-states because there aren’t any) that would allow a state or region or other part to simply secede unilaterally?
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | April 2nd, 2007 at 4:08 pm | Report this commentIt is difficult to see how you can agree with Coughlan’s analysis in one post and then disagree with his conclusion that the EU becomes a state in your next post. The dictionary definition of a state is as follows:
“A state is a political association with effective dominion over a geographic territory. It usually includes the set of institutions that claim the authority to make the rules that govern the people of the society in that territory.”
I think it is clear the EU with its political institutions and legislation with supremacy over national law qualify it as a state already. Perhaps you do not recognize it as such due to its differences from the more conventional nation-states to which you are accustomed? I would describe the EU as a confederation of sovereign states (as they retain their recognition for the time being under international law) with power to impose law on its members in certain fields, and the ambition to extend these fields and to become a federal state. I trust you accept all the references I supplied previously that EU law is superior to national law (including constitutions) when the two are in conflict. Member states of the EU are sovereign (where EU law applies) only to the extent that they can leave the EU and for the first time the Constitution would define the terms under which they would be allowed to leave. Subsequent revisions to the Constitution may of course alter or remove the Constitutional Article allowing them to leave.
If the Constitution were ever to be ratified, the EU would have almost all the trappings of a state, including its own flag, passports, anthem, motto, public holiday (‘Europe Day’), ability to produce law that is superior to national law in almost all policy areas and international recognition as an entity on an equal basis with the other states of the world. All it would really be missing is a people… but without that it can have no democratic legitimacy.
Posted by: John | April 3rd, 2007 at 10:25 am | Report this commentJohn I think what you would like is an EU whose legislation is not binding - a club with no rules but guidelines instead. It’s just not workable.
Of course the Member States commit themselves under treaties to abide by rules. What else is a treaty than a set of rules? The difference between the treaties, including the constitutional trearties, and the constitutions of states is that there is no enforceable penalty for breaking the rules. The ECJ imposes fines. So what if countries don’t pay the fines? Is the Commission going to send in the troops? No, John, the EU is not a state, and would not be one if the new treaty were ratified (which it won’t be anyway).
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | April 3rd, 2007 at 10:51 am | Report this commentThe EU may currently be a state without armed forces, but of course the aspiration to create an EU army was raised as recently as last week by Anegla Merkel in Berlin. Currently it can rely on ECJ ruling and the obligation of member states to abide by them. In cases where member states are in breach of their treaty obligations the EU Commission has options including threats to deny EU funding and the suspension of voting rights in EU institutions. These were for example threatened against Poland when it had the temerity to even raise the prospect of holding a referendum on the death penalty.
Previously you said the EU Constitution does not include any provision that makes it and EU law superior to national constitutions. This is not correct. Article 6 reads “The Constitution and law adopted by the institutions of the Union in exercising competences conferred on it shall have primacy over the law of the Member States”. It makes no distinction between constitutional law and regular law of member states so is superior to both. This is acknowledged in MEP Jens-Peter Bonde’s “reader friendly” version of the Constitution where he has the descriptive remark against this article “All Union law prevails over national law and national constitutions according to the EU Court - this is disputed by some Member States in relation to their own Constitutions”. But it will be the ECJ which makes the definitive judgement and we know what to expect from them.
http://en.euabc.com/upload/rfConstitution_en.pdf
You say it is not ‘workable’ to make some EU law subordinate to national law, but consider the alternative. Is it workable, in a democracy, that Britain is outvoted in the Council of Ministers and its people must live under laws they disagree with? Is it workable that we may elect a new government to Westminster but they are powerless to change decisions a previous government consented to in Brussels? Is it workable that the people of Sweden hold a national referendum on the Euro but are still obliged eventually to use the single currency however they voted? The future of democracy in this country can be safeguarded in only two ways; (1) by withdrawal from the European Union, or (2) by making EU law subordinate to national law in those areas that go beyond the common market. The 2nd option of having an additional second class of EU legislation subordinate to national law has the merit that it would provide a flexible mechanism such that other countries could co-operate further if they wish, while allowing others (e.g. Britain) to opt-in or opt-out based on national elections or referenda. It is no less workable than the far less flexible mechanisms for ‘enhanced co-operation’ and temporary opt-outs contained in existing EU treaties. It would still allow the option of binding legislation related to the common market. But the 1st option of EU withdrawal is also better than the status quo which is intolerable now and will only get worse as the EU legislative machinery produces ever more supranational law over the years in ever more policy areas whose current primacy will inevitably gradually extinguish the power of the Westminster Parliament to legislate.
Posted by: John | April 3rd, 2007 at 8:52 pm | Report this commentJohn I will concede that the EU is more like a state than the UN or NATO or the WTO. I will concede that it might one day become a state, although I find that prospect extremely unlikely.
I do not accept that it is a state - it lacks too many of the characteristics of a state.
The existence of an EU army is not proof of the existence of a state, anymore than the existenceof NATO is proof that that organisation is a state.
You are wrong - the Commission cannot deny voting rights in the institutions. It is the Council that can do this, and it must have the approval of the directly elected EP.
The Council never issued a threat to Poland over the death penalty - some individual countries and the Commission made statements, but no formal threat was ever made. As it happens, I think a country that has the death penalty should be punished.
It is simply not true that EU law has primacy over national constitutions - even if you believe that the ECJ thinks so, the ECJ does not have the power to impose that on the Member States - just as it has taken no action against Germany for finding the opposite.
“Is it workable, in a democracy, that Britain is outvoted in the Council of Ministers and its people must live under laws they disagree with?”
Of course it is. I didn’t vote for Tony Blair or the laws his MPs pass, and neither did the vast majority of my countrymen, but his government is nevertheless legitimate.
“Is it workable that we may elect a new government to Westminster but they are powerless to change decisions a previous government consented to in Brussels?”
Of course it is - you accept the rules of the club or you get out. The rules of the club do not allow countries to go back on previous commitments - THAT would be unworkable. Do you think it would be workable for a Conservative government to go back on a vote it had taken in the Security Council on Iraq or Iran? Don’t be daft.
“Is it workable that the people of Sweden hold a national referendum on the Euro but are still obliged eventually to use the single currency however they voted?”
Of course it is, except that you are oversimplifying. Sweden need never join the euro, as long as it keeps from qualifying.
I think your proposal for 2 classes of EU law has merit - that the Single Market rules be binding but the rest voluntary. But then why call it EU law - the stuff that is voluntary should be called EU recommendations. But I am not sure that the UK would gain much from that sort of arrangement - would you want Italy to opt out of extraditing a London bombing suspect to the UK under the EU arrest warrant just because?
Also, I am not sure you’d really be satisfied with that solution as far as the Single Market goes, since the vast majority of the negative press the EU gets relates to euromyths created in the media about Single Market rules - e.g Bombay Mix, yoghurt bans, etc.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | April 4th, 2007 at 9:28 am | Report this commentYou are correct that it is the Council which would have pursued Poland had it gone ahead with a national referendum on the death penalty, but not correct to say this would not have resulted in the suspension of voting rights to Poland. The action that the EU would have followed against Poland is outlined in the following press release on the EU website which clearly refers to suspension of voting rights.
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/06/369&format=HTML&aged=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
I am not myself in favour of the death penalty, but if the Polish people vote for such a thing in a national referendum then the EU should not be able to overturn this democratic expression of the people’s will. It is simply intolerable that the result of even the most democratic of all mandates – a national referendum - must be ignored when it conflicts with existing EU law.
The ‘rules of the club’ do not need to be broken to correct this situation. They can be modified. Pro-EU types are always saying that rules designed for a club of 6 cannot be used in a club of 27. But equally rules designed for the common market (supremacy of EU regulation over national law) cannot be used in a supranational political union when it means that basic political choices that used to decide national elections are now taken at an EU level that our votes cannot influence.
You may not accept the EU law has primacy over national constitutions but this is the accepted legal order. I do not accept the legitimacy of this situation, but never-the-less it is the way it is now. Your expression “you either accept the rules of the club or get out” summarises the situation nicely and again the remedy should be to change the rules. A country like Germany can only continue the pretence that its constitution has primacy by continually modifying its Constitution to keep it in line with evolving EU law. The French Council of State decision from February this year (see my earlier link) may be viewed as a process to formalise the modification of the French Constitution when it is contradictory to EU law (which under Article 88-1 of the French constitution is granted equivalence in the French legal hierarchy to anything else in the French Constitution). Article 29 of the Irish Constitution is a more ‘practical’ approach that avoids this constant need to modify their Constitution simply by declaring that anything in the Irish Constitution contrary to EU law automatically becomes invalid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Ireland#International_relations
Posted by: John | April 4th, 2007 at 12:14 pm | Report this commentJohn I am not clear about where we are disagreeing on the procedure to be used against a Member State in case of it using the death penalty. It is, as you say, clearly set out in the Commission press release and just as clearly in the Treaty. Voting rights, as you said yourself, could indeed be suspended.
Why is it intolerable that the people of a country should agree with their government one one thing and disagree on another? It happens all the time. Do you think the majority of people in England wanted to ban foxhunting? Of course not. But the government did it anyway.
If the Poles are not happy about not being able to use the death penalty, they can either get their government to change the rules from the inside, or if that is not possible, vote to take their country out of the EU. It’s quite normal and entirely tolerable.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | April 4th, 2007 at 12:32 pm | Report this commentWho are you suggesting the government of Poland is? Brussels?
There is nothing ‘normal’ in a democracy about being required to ignore the result of a national referendum by supranational law with power greater than even national constitutions. In all the world that can happen only in the EU. The remedy you identify of EU withdrawal is one option; another is to make EU law subordinate to national referendum results. Democracy requires one or the other.
(p.s. there was a 2-to-1 majority of British public opinion supporting the ban on fox-hunting.)
Posted by: John | April 4th, 2007 at 10:10 pm | Report this commentI stand corrected on the foxhunting & public opinion. But I think you see where I’m going. Of course it’s entirely normal to make trade-offs in a democracy. Do you think all Bush voters are anti-abortion? Hell no. But they vote Bush because overall the package they get is preferable to them than that offered by the Democrats. Similarly, we may not like individual decisions made by the EU (with our active participation in the process mind you).
But we nevertheless accept them because we understand that our interests are best served by taking the rough with the smooth.
Are you married, John? Ever have to do something you don’t want to because your wife wants you to and you’d rather do it than cause a split? A world full of people like you in marriages would not have many succesful families, because they’d all be wanting to live their lives in splendid isolation, doing only what they want to do to get immediate satisfaction without reference to their overall interests - free love doesn’t work, John.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | April 5th, 2007 at 1:28 pm | Report this commentYour analysis is flawed because:
Posted by: John | April 6th, 2007 at 12:52 pm | Report this comment1. The president of the US has no power to introduce legislation on abortion or other issues which is the right of the Congress. Under Article 2.3 of the US Constitution the President may only “recommend” to Congress such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient and under Article 1.7 has the right to veto its legislation. Without the support of Congress he can implement no program of government and US presidential elections are accordingly not fought on the basis of proposed policy programs set out in a manifesto.
2. You are comparing representative democracy in one country (the US) composed of one nation with EU decision making for 27 countries and nations. American voters may elect a new Congress and President to modify any of their laws and the system has a democratic legitimacy because the American nation is a single demos that accepts the legitimacy of majority decisions of its nationals. In the EU there is no way for voters to elect a new Commission which holds monopoly power to initiate EU legislative changes. There is no pan-European demos to ever give such a vote a democratic legitimacy in any case. We may elect new national parliaments (that increasingly have ever less power to legislate at national level due to the rising tide of superior EU law) and an EU legislature (European Parliament) that cannot initiate its own legislation. But increasingly and inevitably, as per Monnet’s design, our true executive becomes the EU (mainly the Commission due to the powers vested in it) which no voter in Europe can influence. This is a slow coup against democracy that must be stopped and reversed either by EU withdrawal or making EU law beyond the common market subordinate to national law.
3. I was specifically referring not to representative democracy, but to direct democracy, i.e. referendums. Nowhere in the democratic world (outside the EU) must the result of national referendum be ignored. However in the EU the result of any referendum (or national election) on an issue where there is existing EU law must be ignored because the EU law has primacy and cannot be changed by national voters or institutions. In Switzerland for example, the federal state is weak compared to the Cantons and voters may initiate a petition to change the Constitution or any federal law whatever the Parliament thinks. That is democracy (Switzerland has a demos) and its works. Your concept of the EU as a ‘family’ is bogus because the solidarities that exist within a human family are in no way comparable to that which exist between nations (or even with a nation). Any system whereby the people elected by other nations have the overwhelming voice in determining the law we must live under in the UK whatever the views of British voters has no legitimacy in the real Europe of nations where we only accept the legitimacy of decisions taken by a majority vote of our nationals following shared national debate in the context of the shared media, language and political culture that exists within each nation but not at the pan-European level. This is the reason for the developing crisis of legitimacy that the EU faces. Democracy means “rule by the people”, not “rule by other people”.
I hope you are taking note Chris that even Galileo executive’s are now admitting the obvious - that the business case for this project is not there. Without a commercial rationale Galileo is nothing but the politics of anti-Americanism. It would be far better to put taxpayer’s scarce funds to a better cause while uniting NATO countries around the GPS system.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b0ff7dc6-f99d-11db-9b6b-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=70662e7c-3027-11da-ba9f-00000e2511c8.html
An executive close to Galileo confirmed that, despite forming a joint company in March, the consortium had no intention of signing a contract to require it to finance two-thirds of the project. “The market is just not there. We were too optimistic. GPS is fine for most purposes. Besides, who gets the money from satellite navigation services? Usually the maker of the device, not the satellite operator.”
Posted by: John | May 4th, 2007 at 7:49 pm | Report this commentJohn thanks for the update - looks like you are right that the business case is not all that good.
But that does not mean it’s anti-American. You might as well say it’s anti-Russian (since they will have their GLONASS system). It’s about having an independent capability. I would expect the governments to fund it and I would be in favour.
Not sure I understand your last point about Bush and abortion. Bush’s veto power makes him extremely relevant to the abortion debate in the US. My point remains entirely valid - people do not always agree with all the policy preferences of the people they elect. So it is simply bizarre to object to the EU on the basis that a few policy decisions are not ones you support. Your objection makes sense only if on balance, the EU adopts more legislation that is bad from your point of view than legislation that is good. This is not an argument you have yet made.
I think you are badly mistaken on your point 2 as well. There does exist an EU demos that does accept the legitimacy of the EU. The ultimate proof of that is the membership of the EU. US states are not free to secede - they fought a civil war to prove that. The EU does allow countries to leave. That demolishes your argument copmpletely.
Your third point rests entirely on the assumption (which you justify nowhere) that the national level is the only legitimate level on which decisions can be taken. But that approach is extremely problematic because it rules out local, regional, and supranational levels of decision making. As I have said many times before, our lives are deeply affected by NATO, UN, WTO, etc. And we as voters have an awful lot less to say about what those organisations do than we do with the EU.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | May 7th, 2007 at 5:03 pm | Report this commentRussia is a potentially hostile military power which is in no way comparable to the US. If the EU wants to push ahead with Galileo when there is no commercial case for it (and there obviously is none) then, like Russia, it can only be in pursuit of military objectives that are inappropriate for the EU when the responsibility for the defense of Europe lies with NATO. Any such move by Brussels can only make sense to the limited constituency, of which you seem part, who wish to decouple the US from the defense of Europe. These people must be taken on and defeated because their folly is dangerous and certainly runs entirely contrary to the interests of Britain.
You seem to want to re-open a debate on the democratic legitimacy of the EU - a debate you have lost already. Democracy at a local/regional level can obviously exist because people voting in such elections form a part of the same ‘demos’ but are merely voting on issues (e.g. transport in London, etc.) that are not of concern to the whole population. But democracy only scales to the extent of the demos itself, i.e. the nation, which is why we have nation-states and why there is not one example in the history of mankind of a multi-national democracy. Please do not embarrass yourself again by saying there are no nations in Europe. The EU has no ‘demos’. It can only have a democratic legitimacy authorized by the different peoples of Europe and (as evidenced by current moves to impose the EU Constitution in direct violation of the voter’s expressed will) it clearly knows itself that it enjoys no such legitimacy. The majority of Britons do not accept the EU having its current powers - powers that in a democracy should lie with a sovereign people but have been permanently removed to institutions in Brussels in a series of steps known as the Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice treaties. No Briton voted to legitimize these permanent transfers of the exercise of their sovereignty to EU institutions beyond the influence of their votes. All opinion polls in the 1990s showed that any referenda on those treaties would have been lost, just as they now show that any vote on the EU Constitution would also be lost. The entire construction of the EEC/EU since the failure of the European Defence Community in 1952 has been based on Monnet’s neo-functionalist theories of spillovers, i.e. “integration by stealth” and has entirely exhausted whatever early political legitimacy it may have had. Perhaps you can tell me when our EU membership was legitimized? Was it in 1975, a referendum 17 years before the creation of the EU on something else (common market membership) that no Briton younger than 50 now took part in? Was it the 2005 general election when the Labour party manifesto included a commitment to a referendum on the EU Constitution that Blair now wishes to renege on while introducing a treaty with the same meaning but a different name? Was it in earlier national elections when both main parties conspired to deny the people the referenda we wanted? All opinion polls over decades show the same thing - that only a minority of Britons wish to remain in the EU if it means political integration. The bulk of the population either wants a looser arrangement based on free trade but without political or monetary union, or complete withdrawal. The following poll from 3 weeks ago shows this yet again. As worldwide tariffs fall ever lower, and as services (for which the EU external tariff is already 0%) continue to dominate modern economies ever more, the economic case for membership inside the EU custom’s union becomes ever weaker while the cost to our democracy becomes intolerable.
http://www.global-vision.net/files/downloads/download255.pdf
1. The UK staying a full EU member on current terms, participating in further integration. 27%.
Posted by: John | May 8th, 2007 at 7:18 am | Report this comment2. The UK having a looser arrangement with Europe, maintaining free trade & cooperation on common policies, but opting out of political & economic integration 36%
3. Withdrawing from the EU altogether 29%
Extraordinary. Here was I, thinking that I had won the debate on your ridiculous nationalistic philosophy and your imaginary nations and your creative definition of “demos”, but I now read in your posting that in fact I lost that debate. Silly me!
John, you have lost that debate. Let me explain why:
1. You have failed to define “demos” in a way that makes it coterminous with the country level. I have proved repeatedly that the “national” demos is an artifical creation of the state. You have been unable to define the nation or the state in a way that makes it necessarily coterminous with the demos or democracy, because your argument ammounts to, “Only the nation can be democratic. Why? Because only the nation is a demos? What is a demos? It is the nation”. Completely circular. In reality, a demos is a group of people who accept the legitimacy of their governing institutions. In that sense, there is a demos of Newcastle-under-Lyme, a demos of Cornwall, a demos of England,, a demos of the UK, a demos of NATO, a demos of the EU, and indeed a demos of the UN.
2. When was the UK’s membership of the EU legitimised? At the last general election, of course. Doh! Did anyone vote for UKIP or the BNP? Not very many. Ah, you say. But the main parties ignored the will of the people. No. The will of the people is to elect the main parties. Do you think the will of all the people was to send the troops to Iraq? Of course not. A majority was against. Does that make the Iraq war democratically illegitimate? No it most certainly does not. Because we elected the government that made the decision. That is the price you pay for representative democracy. Furthermore, I absolutely reject the suggestion that the people of the UK are against membership of the EU. I want a referendum to prove it. Until then, we can really only rely on elections to tell us. And we have never elected an anti-EU party to government since joining. By the way when was the UK’s membership of NATO or the UN or the WTO last legitimised? When did you ever vote for your last NATO-MP, who decided over the heads of the ruddy foreigners whether to send your troops to Afghanistan or what types of weapons your sons should carry into battle?
If you think I am anti-American, you are wrong. In fact I am a US citizen and I work for the US government. And yet I support Galileo. Inexplicable? Absurd? Maybe you need to ditch some of the false assumptions and prejudices on which your whole house of cards is founded.
It’s fascinating to watch a person emerge over the course of weeks of online debate. There are still lots of things I don’t know about you, but I’ve got you pegged as a diehard nationalist who would fight for his country, right or wrong, who is intellectually curious about foreign cultures but wouldn’t ever consider living abroad permanently because it’s much nicer in the UK, who actually believes that Parliament is the Mother of All Parliaments, that the Empire brought primarily civilisation to the world and that we should be thanked for it, and that the UK has been around for 1000 years.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | May 8th, 2007 at 8:55 am | Report this commentMore bluster from you Chris? Quelle surprise. Your latest claim is consistent only with what I have identified as your defining feature, i.e. an inability to admit you are wrong even when your case has been stripped to the bone and exposed as bankrupt.
Your entire case Chris is based on a claim that the nations of Europe that every one else in the world recognises, do not in fact exist. And that what other people call regions, such as Brittany or Devon are themselves nations whose relationship to the current state they are now governed by is an artificial one that can easily be swapped tomorrow for an allegiance to any other European state or a new one created in Brussels. This Europe of musical chairs is a figment of your imagination. It is total and utter drivel. A Martian arriving in Europe for this first time would quickly realise it is composed of old and ancient nations that correspond to the countries we see on the political map. This is the essential difference between Europe and the United States whose federal government would be impossible to sustain if the Americans were not a single people.
I have been (unlike you) very careful to use consistent terminology, including ‘demos’. This has been defined by others as ‘a community in which the identification of members with the group is sufficiently strong to override the divisive interests of subgroups in case of conflict’. The principle of decision-making by majority only holds within the context of such a ‘demos’ so it is an essential requirement for democracy. It does not exist at the pan-European level. Without it minorities will refuse to accept decisions taken by a majority of others with which they disagree. Redistributive policies that we expect from our governments are only possible within the context of a demos because the solidarities required to legitimise taking money from some taxpayers and giving it to others only exist within such a demos. Democratic governance as we know it is entirely dependent on the nation-state and its demos, and has never existed anywhere on earth outside this context.
This is the reality of Europe and indeed the world. It imposes severe limits on the democratic legitimacy of decision-making in Brussels that have been seriously over-stretched as more powers were transferred to the EU. This is a problem unique to the EU because only it uses qualified majority decision making to impose supranational law with primacy over national law on nations against their will which they cannot change by electing a new government. The project is failing precisely because starry-eyed supra-nationalists are blind to this reality. The response from EU elites to the current crisis of legitimacy is revealing because they identify ‘efficiency’ as the answer to the EU’s ills, i.e. more powers to Brussels and more qualified majority voting to over-rule the national ‘demoi’. This would in fact only further increase the illegitimacy of the EU.
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Posted by: John | May 8th, 2007 at 12:02 pm | Report this commentBTW - you have me wrong on multiple points, including that I have not lived in other countries.
John I agree 100% that a Martian landing on Earth today would see a collection of countries in Europe, and would be able to identify within each a demos. But the Martian, like you, would not have any concept of the historical reality behind those countries.
Because that is what you are doing - denying historical reality. It is breathtakingly bold to claim that the states of Europe today are all in some way ancient; that they are the natural result of social processes and not the creation of the politics, economics, and power struggles. I have yet to see a history of Europe that takes such an approach.
You have again systematically misrepresented my views. When did I say that the Breton nation could easliy swap its allegiance tomorrow for another European country or a new EU state? I don’t even come remotely close to thinking that. What I have said again and again is that:
1. You cannot deny that there are nations in Europe that do not have their own state.
2. These nations, by any definition you care to use, have their own demos.
3. Ergo the demos is not necessarily coterminous with the modern nation state.
That by itself is enough to cause your house of cards to collapse, because you think the demos and the state are coterminous. If I have understood you correctly (and I would not wish to deliberately misrepresent your views), you believe that the nation states have some kind of inherent and ancient legitimacy that is qualitatively superior to the legitimacy of any other form of government.
I say to you that that is utter garbage. Actually I think you know it’s garbage too. Because your argument gets torn between two competing ideas. On the one hand you want the nation state to be inherently legitimate and you reject supranational authority. But on the other, you object to the EU because it exercises a different kind of authority than the UN or NATO or thw WTO do (”This is a problem unique to the EU because only it uses qualified majority decision making to impose supranational law with primacy over national law on nations against their will which they cannot change by electing a new government.”)
Which is it? Is the nation state really the holy grail, ruling out all other forms of government? Or are other forms ok, so long as they don’t overstep a mark that you have decided to set somewhere? What role do you see for treaties in international law? Do you not accept that no UK government is bound to remain a party to the EU treaties?
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | May 8th, 2007 at 3:47 pm | Report this commentMost of your last post is a mishmash of jumbled up incoherency from which it is nigh on impossible – even after multiple reads - to extract anything worth commenting on. Again you show complete inability to differentiate nation, region or state. I have not said the states of Europe are ancient and would not since many of them are less than 60 years old. I said European nations are ancient, for which I have provided ample evidence before. You would do well to repeat to yourself a few hundred times that “the regions of France are not nations” because you will never make a coherent point regarding Europe while you believe such obvious fallacies.
The fact that there is separatist sentiment in a handful of regions in a small number of European countries does not disprove in the least that the nation-state is the ideal form of government, or seriously detract from the general picture of a Europe divided into multiple nation-states each based on a people united by the deep historical bonds of a shared language and culture. On the contrary it merely testifies to ongoing pressure to more closely approach this ideal in Europe. In the few cases where a region may seriously be considering taking the step to nationhood, e.g. Scotland, the region was in the distant past an independent nation that lost its independence under duress. If Scotland were to become independent it would certainly (like Ireland before it) be doing it to conform more closely to the ideal of a democratic nation-state. Such a step would be entirely consistent with my definition of demos, i.e. “a community in which the identification of members with the group is sufficiently strong to override the divisive interests of subgroups in case of conflict”. The Scots, would, if they were to take this step, simply be saying that they as a sub-group no longer consider there to be sufficient common identification with the rest of Britons to remain within the UK state. Unless and until they take this step we can continue to speak of a British ‘demos’. What we cannot do is speak of a European demos which clearly will never exist given the far greater cleavages of language and culture that exist across the Continent. And as per my previous post this lack of a European demos has serious implications for any concept of pan-European governance as it would never have the legitimacy to implement the types of redistributive policies that most people in Europe expect of government. The entire concept of political union in Europe is therefore inevitably doomed to fail due to lack of legitimacy, as indeed we are seeing already.
The one semi-coherent point you make in your last post related to other international organisations like NATO or the WTO. I assure you that should these bodies ever acquire the power to make law that replaces our national law and impose it on us whether we like it or not, then I will be vehemently against them. But currently that is not the case as unanimity remains the rule in these bodies, which anyway lack law-making powers. It is the EU alone which has, by design, these attributes and it will continue to be totally illegitimate until it is deeply reformed by, for example, re-introducing national vetoes, or (better) making its law inferior to national law in non-economic matters.
Posted by: John | May 8th, 2007 at 8:47 pm | Report this commentI am sorry if my argument seems too complex John, but I fear the lack of coherence is shared, at the very least. I am afraid it is you who seem unable to understand the difference between nations and states, if you continue to insist that all European nations are coterminous with states. European nations are indeed ancient – but they only very approximately equate to the states that exist today.
I never said that the fact that there is separatist sentiment “in a handful of regions in a small number of European countries” disproves that the nation-state is the ideal form of government. I said that it proves those states are not nation-states in any meaningful sense. And if you are trying to build your new world order on increasingly fragmented nations, you are blind to historical and current reality. On the contrary it merely testifies to ongoing pressure to more closely approach this ideal in Europe.
What you have not satisfactorily explained is why a person can only belong to one demos, since this is obviously not the case. You only seem to accept the existence of a demos on a state level, and you refuse to countenance a demos at more localised or supra-state level, when these obviously exist.
We do speak of a European demos which clearly does exist given that Europeans accept the legitimacy of the EU system and are free to leave that system.
Simply astonishing that you think the UN or WTO don’t make laws that are binding, and that they work on unanimity alone. I suppose the Iraq had a veto on the resolution that the US used to justify invasion?
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | May 9th, 2007 at 8:47 am | Report this commentI am sure you understand my case Chris – you just don’t like that it is watertight. You are not yourself making any case for the EU, just weak defensive retorts against mine. I do not know how long it is since you touched down from the US but you need to travel more in Europe. It is completely clear that there is an extremely strong correlation between the nations of Europe, the territory they occupy (our countries) and the states that have sovereignty over these territories. The loose arrangement you see between nations and states does not exist in the real world – it is entirely a product of woolly thinking on your part perhaps based on your American citzenship. US ‘states’ are not states because they do not have sovereignty – they are regions in a nation-state ruled from Washington DC with some limited autonomy appropriate in a country of such vast extent. This is in no way comparable to Europe that consists of multiple distinct nations.
The WTO and NATO do use unanimity and, like the UN, have no means of producing law. No international organisation in the world other than the EU can make law and force it onto nations against the will of their voters who are then (because of the current supremacy of EU law) unable to ever change it in subsequent elections. This is a fault unique to the EU that if left uncorrected will inevitably lead over time to the extinguishing of the ability of our national parliaments to legislate. It is a mechanism designed in the 1950s to give credibility to the delegation of common market rules such as to break down restrictive market barriers. This once served a purpose, but it is totally unacceptable that this “community method” now be used for general matters of politics where the sovereignty of the people requires that we the peopleS of Europe vote in national elections to determine matters based on the majority opinion of each national ‘demos’. No other situation has any democratic legitimacy. The interests of our politicians are not aligned with the peoples here. They like a situation where they sit in a legislative body (the EU Council of Ministers) writing law that cannot be opposed by their Parliaments at home, and which will bind their successors should they lose an election. But the interests of the people are in having political elites responsive to our votes. This is why we have now such an enormous gulf between EU elites and the peoples. The future of democracy requires that the interests of the people prevail starting with a rejection of any attempt to re-impose the rejected EU Constitution in a new guise.
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Posted by: John | May 9th, 2007 at 12:08 pm | Report this comment“Il fallait une révolution pour ramener les hommes au sens commun” — Rousseau
John I don’t think you’ve been reading my posts properly. I am deliberately not making a case for the EU to be a state, because I do not believe that it is, should be, or will be a state. What I want to do is try and get you away from an inaccurate, obsolete, and narrow nationalist view of the world. Obsolete not because nations are obsolete (they are obviously not) but because the idea that nation states are the building blocks of the world is yesterday’s idea.
States are the building blocks of the world political order, whether or not they are coterminous with nations (in Europe they are not, almost without exception). They have a demos by definition, by virtue of the fact that they are states. They are not states by virtue of the fact that some demos has naturally evolved to create them. The demos is not the same as the nation; the existence of a demos is typically independent of statehood or nationhood. This is most obviously the case in terms of a local or regional demos, or a supra-state demos.
What I am saying with regard to the EU is that even though it is not a state or a nation, it plainly has a demos. It can therefore be democratic.
I am not saying that the EU is an ideal democracy. But I am objecting to your statement that it never can be because it doesn’t have a demos, since it obviously does.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | May 9th, 2007 at 2:12 pm | Report this commentThere are words in your post Chris, but a complete absence of coherent thought. Nor can any claim you make be squared with British public opinion polls on EU issues or the 2005 referendum results in France or the Netherlands. Perhaps you would like another attempt?
Posted by: John | May 9th, 2007 at 8:14 pm | Report this commentP.S. The definition of a ‘demos’ does not permit the scenarios you imagine. Either there exists “a community in which the identification of members with the group is sufficiently strong to override the divisive interests of subgroups in case of conflict” or there is not, in which the sub-group emerges as a separate demos, as was the case when the Irish separated from the UK in 1921. The only time there can be a ‘nation within a nation” is when it is held there by military coercion as for example China holds Tibet.
Posted by: John | May 10th, 2007 at 9:41 am | Report this commentJohn, you can define demos in a number of ways, but your definition will do. Can’t you see that we all belong to many different demoi? For many years I was a Londoner - part of the demos of Wandsworth, that voted in local elections and had a local cultural identity quite separate from that of a Mancunian.
I lived in ENgland, which has a demos of its own, quite separate from the Scots.
And I lived in the UK, which has a demos that is quite distinct from the French demos.
AQnd I lived in the EU, which also has a demos quite distinct from that of, say, Russia or Egypt.
The identification of Europeans with other Europeans is obviously sufficiently strong to override the divisive interests of citizens of individual Member States in case of conflict, just as in London or England or the UK.
But the demos does not organically create the state - history proves beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt that states or systems of government create demoi, and not the other way around. The Victorian historian Lord Acton says so repeatedly, and it is self-evidently the case. Can you think of a state that does not have a demos? No - you have said so yourself. But you and I can both think of demoi that do not have a state - e.g. the Catalans or the Scots. You have admitted this too.
Logically, if a state always has a demos but a demos does not always have a state, it must follow that the existence of a state entails the creation of a demos, but the existence of a demos does not entail the creation of a state.
By the way I have not seen anywhere any definition of demos that implies that you can only belong to one. If that were the case, it would make the word meaningless and it would simply equate with “nation”.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | May 10th, 2007 at 11:45 am | Report this commentThe literal translation of the Greek-word ‘demos’ is ‘people’, as in the meaning we attribute to the use of this word in the preamble to the US Constitution; “We the People … do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”. There is (as you say) a strong relationship in the English language between the concepts of a ‘people’ and a ‘nation’ though the English word people has other uses (e.g. plural of person) which make it less precise than ‘demos’.
What you are talking of is a weaker concept than ‘demos’ with far less significance i.e. any ‘community’ of individuals. We may as individuals identify with people living on our street, or in London, England, Scotland, Britain,, Europe, the English-speaking world or all of Western civilisation or combinations of such communities. But not all of these communities can qualify as a ‘demos’. It is the relative strength of our identification with these communities that determines this. If sufficient numbers of individuals strongly identify themselves as members of one such group, then that group is a ‘demos’ as per the definition of “a community in which the identification of members with the group is sufficiently strong to override the divisive interests of subgroups in case of conflict”. The formation of a ‘demos’ precludes sub-groups from also being a ‘demos’ as the subgroup has an allegiance to the whole. Londoners’ identity (unlike the Irish) is not sufficiently distinct from the British identity for any of us to reject that we are British. The strength of European identity is far weaker than our national identities, meaning that there is no European ‘demos’. One therefore refers to the Irish or British people (singular) but not a London people, and always to the peoples (plural) of Europe.
The does not prevent a minority of individuals having different opinions as to the communities they most strongly identify with. For example SNP supporters in Scotland, or individuals (e.g. those with dual-citizenship) having divided loyalties. But the ‘demoi’ of which they are part are determined by majority opinion within the group so will remain distinct while the views of such individuals are in the minority.
The concept of a ‘demos’ is of relevance to the EU because of its relationship to the legitimacy of government. An alternative equivalent definition of ‘demos’ is “a community where individuals accept majority decisions of the group with which they personally disagree”. Thus it is a pre-requisite for a functioning democracy. That is to say that if a people (‘demos’) were forced to be part of a larger polity that takes decisions by simple majority then a feeling would soon develop that they as a group were being ripped-off, unfairly treated, imposed upon, oppressed etc. by the greater body which would lead to the idea that they would be better off as an independent self-governing unit.
The legitimacy of governance at EU level would not be an issue if a majority of people in Europe considered their European identity to be stronger than their national identity. In this case we might speak of a European ‘demos’ whose existence could legitimise democ