March 5, 2007
Life in the EU bubble
Ask British expats about Brussels life and some will admit that they don’t feel as if they live in Belgium.
British newspapers are printed here and can be delivered to your door. English is the language of business, while private British and European schools are on hand to educate your kids.
Even BBC television is beamed across Belgium: those really in need of a reminder of home can watch images of London’s standstill traffic on the news and smirk as they hear about Tube delays on the Northern Line.
Then there’s the EU bubble life in Brussels. Frequently, journalists, eurocrats, lobbyists and lawyers socialise in national or pan-national circles without mixing with many Belgians. All in all, it’s easy for the 60,000 Brits here to overlook their host.
So I was interested to read a Belgian take on the UK, in an interview with Belgium’s ambassador to London, Jean-Miguel Veranneman. While he’s hardly breaking the diplomatic code with his comments, at least we see the other side of the coin.
Mr Veranneman points to differences between the two over the EU. “Of course our views differ on a few subjects, mainly on the future of Europe, a subject where both countries, as you know, are at both ends of the spectrum.”
He adds: “The Brussels Institutions are often criticised for being too bureaucratic and some of the stones that are hurled at the [European] Commission sometimes ricochet and fall in the Belgian garden around it. But we have to live with that and take it with a famous Belgian sense of humour.”
Ever the diplomat, he doesn’t mention a recent rupture in the relationship. Tony Blair (and some other national leaders) triggered this when they blocked Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt from becoming European Commission president in 2004.
The outgoing Belgian ambassador to the UK highlights the biggest issue facing Europe today and possibly the planet. It is whether the world develops into large blocs (with a federal EU state as one of them as he would like) or becomes a world of co-operating nation states. I do not think there will be a compromise between these visions of the future; one will win-out and the other will be vanquished. Whatever they may believe in the Brussels bubble, one only has to look at the wider world to see which way we are heading. There is no reduction in the number of states, but rather a clear trend towards an ever increasing number of them as peoples that were previously forced by military or economic necessity to be part of a large bloc chose their independence. The number of nation states in the UN has risen from ~60 in 1946 to near 200 today. The number of European states has increased from 30 to 50 since 1989 alone. This process has not ended even in Europe and it has scarcely begun in Africa and parts of Asia, where current state boundaries were drawn up by colonial powers with little consideration for the wishes of indigenous peoples. It is entirely reasonable to expect many more nation states to emerge this century as peoples from Quebec to Kashmir, Tibet to Scotland and many more chose a national self-determination that was always desired but never previously attainable. A key reason for this trend is that the cost of national independence has never been lower. It would have been unimaginable in the inter-war period of high-tariffs for a city state like Singapore to be the richest country in Asia because high tariffs gave big countries with large domestic markets a massive advantage. But with already low tariffs today tending towards zero and providing open access to the largest market imaginable – the whole world – all countries, large and small, have equal opportunities to prosper. The implications of a low-tariff world are serious indeed for those who believe in a poltical EU because this completely hollows out the benefit of being inside the EU customs union. Membership of even a single market of 450 million Europeans becomes restrictive compared to the world market. When even China and India, with populations far larger than all of Europe, have seen the light and can date their rise to their decisions to open up to the world who can doubt the EU will be unable to buck the trend? The entire concept of a protective customs union for Europe is steadily being obsolesced by globalisation with “Europeanization” of the economy now revealed as nothing more than an early phase of globalisation.
“Europeanization” of our politics is a different concept entirely that simply makes no sense because it is only within the nation-state (by virtue of its ‘demos’) that democracy can exist. This is why the spread of democracy has followed the rise of nation states throughout the world. In contrast, the supremacy of EU law, combined with qualified majority voting, inevitably leads to decisions made in supranational bodies being imposed on some nations against their will – the very opposite of democracy. This may previously have been acceptable within the EU for uncontroversial common rules designed to ensure a level playing field within the single market. But with a “deepened” EU there needs to be acknowledgement throughout Europe that decision-making rules designed in the 1950s for the common market cannot be extended to cover the controversial areas of politics that typically decide general elections without provoking a true crisis in democratic legitimacy. The ‘democratic deficit’ in the EU is a direct result of the transfer of decision making powers by the treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice in these sensitive areas. The mistakes made by these treaties are the true cause of the crisis that is gradually overwhelming the EU. The resolution of this crisis will be the breaking of the dreams of the Belgian ambassador.
Posted by: John | March 5th, 2007 at 5:35 pm | Report this commentIt is self-evidently true that the nation-state is not the only context in which democracy can exist, since it exists in other contexts, not least in the EU. It is possible to debate the quality of democracy in the EU, just as it is possible to debate the quality of democracy in the UN or NATO or the UK or England or Birmingham or Islington. Democracy self-evidently exists in all of these contexts; what can be debated is only the nature of that democracy.
Indeed arguably, there is no such thing as the true nation-state. I can’t think of a single European country that does not exist despite ethnic factors and not because of them.
Historically, states have been created for political reasons and not because of the evolution of any demos - it would be remarkably naive to think that we are in some kind of new era in that respect.
I must emphasis that none of this should be taken to imply that the EU will or should become a state. It only goes to address the false premises on which the nation-state-centric argument is built.
I also think it is untrue that the world is witnessing a one-way trend towards fragmentation of “artificial” states like the USSR and Yugoslavia, with the exception of the EU. This is simply not borne out by the facts. ASEAN, Mercosur, NAFTA, the African Union, the WTO, NATO, and indeed the UN are all examples of countries integrating with each other in a variety of ways. The EU happens to be the deepest and most advanced of these, but that does not alter the fact that other regional blocs are on the rise and not in decline.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 6th, 2007 at 11:17 am | Report this commentOf course it is also quite obvious that any trend towards smaller countries (because the costs of independence are low) does not necessarily exclude membership of regional blocs. Likely candidates for fragmentation in the EU are the UK, Belgium, and Spain. You can be very sure that an independent Scotland or Catalonia or Flanders will want to be part of the EU - indeed perhaps more so than the countries to which they currently belong.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 6th, 2007 at 1:24 pm | Report this commentThere is not a single good example in the history of the world of a democratic state that is not a nation-state. Multi-national federations break-up and liberate their peoples and the EU will not do the opposite. Birmingham and Islington are part of the same ‘demos’ because the people of those two places will accept the legitimacy of government that is majority-elected by the British people. They will not accept the legitimacy of any government they disagree with that is elected by people of other countries whether they are EU members or not.
The EU institutions are not democratic and never can be without a single European people. It is simply intolerable for an unelected executive body like the Commission to have a monopoly on legislative initiative for 450 million people, when their law has primacy over national law and so cannot be overridden by democractic means at national level. I find it difficult to believe you can pretend otherwise.
Posted by: John | March 6th, 2007 at 1:27 pm | Report this commentJohn the people of Islington have a local council. They are part of London too. They are covered by the greater framework of English law, and they are under the umbrella of the UK. They are also part of an EU democracy - their UK representatives sit on the Council, and they elect MEPs. That democracy exists; it is a fact. You may not like it, but the fact that you say they will not accept the legitimacy of the EU does not make it so, any more than you saying they do not accept the legitimacy of the UK would make it so.
Rather than making sweeping statements of opinion on behalf of other people, it would be better to talk about facts. Once there is a referendum on UK membership of the EU, we will be able to discuss whether Britons accept the legitimacy of the EU’s democracy or not.
But regardless of that, which is a completely separate question, you make yourself look very silly by denying that the EU is democratic at all.
The contention that there is not a single example of a democratic state that is not a nation-state is odd to say the least. I think what you mean is there is not a single example of a state that is not a state. Spain is not a nation-state; the UK is not a nation-state. Belgium is not a nation-state. Nor is any single country in Europe a nation state in the sense that it has a fixed territory that contains a single group that is united in all cultural, linguistic, religious, political, and other aspects.
I sometimes have the example of the Czech Republic or Slovakia thrown at me; look, they say - an artificial state that separated into two true nation-states. Rubbish. The Czechs are divided into Bohemians and Moravians, who have different dialects, different historical backgrounds and traditions, etc etc. The Slovaks have large ethnic minorities - Hungarians, Roma, Ruthenians (Ukrainians). Neither country is a nation-state.
My challenge to you is: name a true nation-state.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 6th, 2007 at 3:52 pm | Report this commentChris - you are a boneheaded Brussels-based federalist totally out of tune with the British mainstream. Despite the many words you spout one will look in vain for the slenderest morsel of common sense. To say that Catalonia and Scotland will break away from Spain or the UK in once sentence, but then to maintain that there is sufficient cohesion throughout the far more diverse EU to sustain a continent-wide political union is clearly to contradict yourself.
Your comments on EU “democracy” are so feeble as to be barely worth responding to and one has to doubt anyway (based on past evidence) how permeable your skull is to reason. If the people cannot replace the executive what democracy is there? If they vote to reject a Constitution only to see the elites try to impose it anyway what democracy is there? If they have law imposed on them they disagree with but can never again change that supranational law through their votes, then what democracy is there? If they may vote for a legislature (EU Parliament) but those elections never result in any change worthy of the name, then what democracy is there? If there are no EU-wide political debates, no common language to hold them in, and no common people to engage, how can there ever be rule by the people? Democracy is far more than that.
Posted by: John | March 6th, 2007 at 5:12 pm | Report this commentJohn why do you keep descending into name-calling? Obviously because your arguments not strong enough to speak for themselves.
I have no doubt that an independent Scotland and an independent Catalonia would wish to be EU Member States in their own right. If you deny that, it is you who is some distance from reality. There is certainly no contradiction there.
The people can and do replace the executive of the EU. Most of the executive function is carried out by the Member State governments. The Commission has also been replaced by the EP, which is directly elected.
Laws are imposed upon the people of Penzance by a very distant London parliament, to which the people of Penzance often object. That in itself does not put into question the legitimacy of the UK system of government - just as the legitimacy of the EU does not rest on whether the laws it produces are liked by all the people. I haven’t ever heard of a demos that is unanimous on all matters.
EP elections do matter; but the more people like you tell others they don’t, the more it will be true. Which is of course your strategy.
There are EU-wide political debates - quite staggering to say otherwise.
I repeat my challenge; name a true nation-state.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 7th, 2007 at 10:32 am | Report this commentChris - You seem to have scant grasp of the roles and relationship of the various EU institutions, what a ‘demos’ is, or what the implications of no EU demos are for the impossibility of democracy at EU-level.
The executive function of the EU is not carried out by the member states or why would there be a Commission? Since judicial power in the EU is exercised by the ECJ and the Parliament is the legislature, what exactly do you think is left for the Commission to do? Commissioners swear an oath on appointment to be independent of their national governments so one has to assume they are independent of national executives. Indeed it is universally recognized that the Commission is the EU executive with a sole right on the initiative of legislation in the EU Parliament. It is an unelected body that cannot be replaced by the people no matter what we think of the laws it initiates. Or perhaps you can tell me when you last voted for the Commission? In no way can this situation be described as democratic. For you to suggest a pure legislature like the EU Parliament has “replaced” the executive functions of the Commission is frankly inexplicable.
The people of Penzance accept the legitimacy of Westminster elections and decisions because they are part of the British demos. The people of Britain will not accept the legitimacy of EU decisions a majority of them disagrees with simply because a majority of Germans, French or others would like them to. That is the difference between a region and a nation. It is the reason why we have nation-states, and the reason that there is no example in the history of the world of democracy existing outside the nation-state. The EU must either go back to the pre-Maastricht situation where the power of its supra-national law is used only for common rules related to the single market, or it must start to break up. The status-quo is not sustainable when legislative creep will gradually lead to its legislative output steadily reducing the scope where national governments we do elect can act. The EU can be no more sustainable than other multi-national federations from history (such as the USSR or Yugoslavia) if policy in politically sensitive areas (such as those transferred to Brussels by the treaties of Maastricht, Nice and Amsterdam) will be imposed on nations against the wishes of their people.
As for Scotland and Catalonia, you can be sure that if they were to throw of the yoke of London or Madrid, they would not likely discard their new found independence for the despotism of Brussels. Free-trade “Yes”. An insignificant voice (<1%) in decisions they would be obligated to accept whether they like them or not - “No”.
Since you have previously been boneheaded enough to repeatedly deny to all and sundry that the six simple words “restoring tasks to the Member States” in the Laeken declaration do not mean that the EU should restore some tasks to member states, then there can be little hope you will grasp or acknowledge even these basic truths. But truths they remain whether you are too pig-headed to acknowledge them or not.
Posted by: John | March 7th, 2007 at 5:23 pm | Report this commentJohn let’s be clear about what I said and didn’t say. I did not say that the EP has taken over the Commission’s executive functions. I said it had replaced the Commission (by firing it).
I am afraid that it is you who does not understand what an executive is if you think that the Member States do not carry out the majority of the executive function in the EU. Do a little reading before wasting our time with such inanities as, “universally recognized that the Commission is THE EU executive”. Yes, the Commission has an importnat executive function (as I have said before). But it is not the EU’s primary executive branch.
The Commission’s legislative power is obviously something that qualifies it as a legislative institution and not an executive one.
The people of Penzance are part of the British demos because the accept the rule of the UK, and not the other way around. Similarly, the EU demos exists in that the peoples of the EU accept the rule of the EU, and the world demos exists in that the peoples of the world accept the rule of the UN.
I am staggered that you can seriously claim that Catalonia and Scotland would not want to be in the EU if they gained independence from London and Madrid. Have you ever heard or read any of the SNP’s policies? Have you spent more than a few hours in Scotland in the last decade? I lived in Scotland for 5 years, and it was impossible to find a place to run away from the hordes of Scots whose vision was of an independent Scotland within the EU. The same is true in Catalonia. If it makes you feel better to pretend the opposite, be my guest.
Why do you persist in hiding the full text of the Laeken Daclaration? What is it that you are afraid of? It quite clearly tells the Convention to examine various options or choices, including the restoration of powers to the Member States and the accrual of further powers to the EU. It does not express a preference.
Can you name a true nation-state? If not, don’t bother replying to this post.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 8th, 2007 at 1:07 pm | Report this commentTo say “The Commission’s legislative power is obviously something that qualifies it as a legislative institution and not an executive one” displays real ignorance of the EU institutions you unthinkingly support. The Commission is not a legislative body. As the executive agency of the EU it has a number of roles, including sending the European Parliament its work program (proposals for laws), but it has no power to write those laws. The monopoly power to initiate binding legislation over 450 million people is not a function that any unelected body should have.
As for you repeatedly denying the Commission is the EU executive, i think it may benefit you in future to check your facts before you post.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/letter_from_america/3921303.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission
Your claims that there are no nation-states and that there is a “world demos” fly in the face of reality. Quite simply they are idiotic statements that deserve no reply.
Finally, if you are you arrogant enough to believe you will dictate the terms on which others post you are once again sadly mistaken.
Posted by: John | March 8th, 2007 at 7:48 pm | Report this commentJohn again you insist on misrepresenting what I said. I did not say that the Commission does not have executive powers; I said that the Member States have more. Whatever shorthand the BBC uses to describe the Commission, that is a fact that remains. Do some reading about government.
Can you still not bring yourself to name a true nation-state?
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 8th, 2007 at 8:20 pm | Report this commentI think it is you that needs to do the reading … and, if you able, some thinking.
There is only way way to interpret your statement “The Commission’s legislative power is obviously something that qualifies it as a legislative institution and not an executive one”. There can be no other conclusuion than YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.
Posted by: John | March 8th, 2007 at 8:57 pm | Report this commentJohn what does “Yes, the Commission has an important executive function” mean?
It comes from an earlier post of mine. This does not contradict the fact that the Commission also has a legislative function.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 9th, 2007 at 8:29 am | Report this commentLet’s not let your ignorance of the role of various EU institutions get in the way here. The important point is that the number of nation-states is increasing throughout the world, democracy is on the march everywhere as a result, and despite the misplaced aspirations of some EU elites, the EU will not buck this global trend in Europe. Co-operation between nation-states is good, but the EU has long exceeded sensible limits that are compatible with democracy. Once the last rites have been served to the Constitution project, the next steps must be to start to restore powers from Brussels to nation states and their peoples. As Cameron has suggested this week, social and employment policy would be a good place to begin.
Posted by: John | March 9th, 2007 at 8:52 am | Report this commentJohn I don’t agree with your view that the EU’s power has exceeded desirable levels from a practical or democratic point of view, but that at least is a rational position.
What is quite stunning is your contention that such organisations as UN, WTO, NATO, EU, Mercosur, ASEAN, NAFTA, and the African Union are relics of a past world order and that those “nation-states” (created by a undefined “demos”) that are not members of such organisations are the building blocks of an emerging new world order.
The empirical evidence is massively contrary to such a contention.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 9th, 2007 at 12:59 pm | Report this commentYou cannot equate all international organizations Chris. The EU stands out as the sore thumb in your list because it is the only one not content to play a given role. Rather it is characterized by a never-ending attempt to extend its competence into more and more areas. Two of the bodies you list (UN, WTO) are global and have specific security and trade negotiation roles that they fulfill pretty well. A third is NATO, a regional body, again with a very specific remit as a defence alliance that it has performed very successfully. All the others in your list (with the exception of the EU) are regional free-trade organizations similar in concept to the pre-Maastricht EEC. The EEC itself was a fine organization back then, but unfortunately was high-jacked by the federalist cause and has since gone very badly wrong indeed. Its current ‘crisis’ can be traced directly to the treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice because it was these treaties that made the move to using a non-democratic supranational decision-making process that had been designed for uncontroversial rules related to a common market and attempted to apply them to politically sensitive areas that should never be decided outside a democratic arena which can only exist at national level. The powers transferred to Brussels by these treaties are precisely the ones that now need to be returned to national control. If they are not, the EU will never recover popular support and may indeed be on course for oblivion. Cameron’s proposal to start the ball rolling by returning social and employment policy to the nation-state is a good starting point, but other areas must follow, including the ‘big ticket’ budget items of agriculture and regional development.
Posted by: John | March 9th, 2007 at 4:47 pm | Report this commentJohn the other organisations I mention, like the EU, are developing in a “forwards” direction - i.e. their remits are all expanding. Not a single one of them is being scaled back. Yes, they do have important qualitative differences from the EU.
But the point you were making is that “nation-states” (which you cannot give an example of) are going to be the fundamental basis of the world order in the future.
Given that the organisations I listed are ALL moving “forwards” and not backwards (regardless of what the EU does), I find that a suspect conclusion to reach.
Institutionalised international co-operation is growing and will continue to grow, because the web of relationships between countries is becoming too complex for them to be managed on a multilateral basis.
You may believe that the EU will collapse because of specific problems it has; I can at least understand that prediction, but if you base such a prediction on some general theory of increasing fragmentation along national lines, I don’t buy it. Democracy will continue to become more complex and interconnected.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 12th, 2007 at 11:24 am | Report this commentI don’t see how the UN, NATO or the WTO are extending their remit (though i would like to see NATO become the official foreign-policy and defence forum for the entire western world). The organizations that you list that are comparable to the EU are NAFTA, Mercosur, ASEAN and the AU. These are largely free-trade bodies similar to the original EEC (the exception being the AU which is a talking shop). None of these bodies have supranational Parliaments, flags, anthems and the trappings of statehood that the EU yearns for. NAFTA will certainly never follow the mistakes of the EU as the concepts of liberty and democracy are too deeply ingrained in the North American way of life. Africans, South Americans and Asians have in the past repeatedly copied European mistakes, such as communism and fascism. Some no doubt may be tempted to copy EU federalism, but they are all very far from that right now, and given their track records and limited experience of democracy are no role model for us. We need to decide ourselves the appropriate level of international co-operation compatible with our democratic way of life, and most reasonable people would conclude the EU has over-stepped these limits by far, leading directly to its current crisis of legitimacy. The only reasonable conclusion is that the past mistakes which lead to this current crisis (i.e. the treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice) should be reversed.
International cooperation is a laudable goal, but your concept of “interconnected democracy” only amounts to people in other countries choosing our government over the heads of the British people. That is not democracy and is certainly not acceptable to the great majority of Britons. The steady rise in the number of nation-states in the world shows clearly that people prefer their independence when possible, and that increasingly it is possible. The WTO’s success in reducing barriers to international trade has greatly reduced the once high advantages of being inside the EU’s customs union. Every WTO tariff cut reduces the economic advantage of EU membership further while the costs of EU membership (direct membership costs, CAP, heavy regulatory burden and the damage it is doing our democracy) have risen remorselessly. Let me ask you this. If the WTO were to achieve the goal of abolishing all tariffs on international trade, then why would Britain or any other country remain in the EU? Bear in mind that the EU’s common external tariff is now not far from this already (~1.9% for manufactured goods, 0% for services, ~11% for agricultural products). EU membership is undeniably expensive, so what are we be getting for our money that is of value to Britons other than tariff-free access to the common market?
Posted by: John | March 12th, 2007 at 7:20 pm | Report this commentJohn you are living in another dimension. Since its inception, the UN has expanded its activities into a vast array of areas – human rights, refugees, children’s rights, telecommunications, health, and many more. NATO has expanded from a West European role to Afghanistan. Hardly a static organisation.
You are simply wrong about the AU, Mercosur, ASEAN, and NAFTA. All have flags and secretariats, plus dispute resolution systems that range from courts of arbitration to the AU’s Court of Justice. Read the rhetoric on the web sites – apart from NAFTA, they all have “founding fathers” and high-minded missions to bring peace and prosperity to the peoples of their member countries.
I am not aware of a single referendum ever having been held in any of the member countries of the UN or the other blocs mentioned above on membership or expansion of activities. Would you have voted in favour of NATO going to Afghanistan?
I agree 100% that if the WTO managed to make world trade truly free, the EU’s single market would be meaningless. But the EU is about far more than the single market; it includes co-operation on energy security, immigration, terrorism, police investigations, etc. That value would not be affected by a perfect result coming from the WTO.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 13th, 2007 at 4:31 pm | Report this commentThere has been no change in living memory in the areas of UN responsibility you talk of. When was the UN Charter last changed? When did you last hear someone say the UN should become a federal government for the world? Compare that with the constant changes the EEC/EU has seen – 4 ratified treaties plus the Constitution in the last 20 years alone also in a federalist direction. The UN’s responsibilities in telecommunications that you mention simply put a body (ITU) that was founded in 1865 under the UN “umbrella”. And this was done many decades ago. The same is true of its Universal Postal Union which dates back to 1874. The output of such a body as ITU does not have force of law – they are “Recommendations”. That type of UN activity in no way compromises our democracy or aspires to replace our national governments. Compare that to the supremacy of EU law and its extension to cover basic issues of poltics such as the rate of VAT or the number of hours we can work. The declaration that led to creation of the UN stated that “The only true basis of enduring peace is the willing cooperation of free peoples”. This is something the EU elites increasingly blind themselves to as they march on towards their federal goal. They would instead impose decision-making by qualified majority voting on free peoples against their wills, or even an EU Constitution that would establish the EU for the first time as an entity under international law comparable to a state, when this Constitution has already been rejected by the people.
The UN is anyway a global body and should never be confused with the EU. If the EU only had a secretariat or court of arbitration like the other regional bodies you mention (or EFTA for that matter) then there would be no problem with it at all. The difference between the EU and the others is that the EEC’s secretariat function has evolved into a Commission that aspires to be the government of Europe. Its court of arbitration has become the ECJ that aspires to be the Supreme Court for Europe modeled on the US Supreme Court. This aspiration of the EU to transform itself into a federal government for Europe is what distinguishes it from all the other regional bodies in the world and also what makes it totally unacceptable. Do you think the AU can become a multinational federation for Africa? The experience of the ill-fated United Arab Republic (comprising Egypt+Syria+Iraq) which collapsed after just 5 years in the 1960s shows that even a confederation between North African countries that share a common language is impossible. How much less likely would be a stable confederation or federation of all African countries? It would not last 2 minutes. Similarly there is no chance that NAFTA will evolve towards an EU-like body because North Americans will never accept the inherent loss of democracy that supra-nationalism entails.
I note you did not answer my question as to why the UK or any other country would stay in the EU if the WTO were able to eliminate tariffs worldwide. With no remaining economic advantages to being within the common market, the cost of EU membership (CAP, heavy-handed regulation and damaging interference to our democracy) would be laid bare.
Posted by: John | March 13th, 2007 at 6:48 pm | Report this commentApoligies for overlooking your response regarding the EU’s political roles in security, immigration etc. However i disagree that these have any positive value. If the EU imposes policy or law in these areas (using QMV) that the british people disagree with then how is their positive value? Are you suggesting that we should remain in the EU so we can be outvoted in these areas?
Posted by: John | March 13th, 2007 at 6:57 pm | Report this commentJohn if you want to take a head-in-the-sand attitude to the UN’s development since 1945/8 and claim that its activities have not expanded, despite the fact that such a claim is demonstrably incorrect (UNEP, UNDP, UNHCR, UNCTAD, UNODC, WIPO, etc), feel free.
It’s a fact - international organisations are multiplying and are growing in their remit. This is happening in parallel with the shrinking size of the average country. This fact has nothing to do with whether the EU is democratic or not - it is simply an observation that casts significant doubt on your conecpt of a world order based on increasingly independent “nation-states”.
As it happens I do think that the AU could develop into an EU - it is pretty clear from the AU’s own publications that this is the aspiration.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 19th, 2007 at 3:38 pm | Report this commentObviously international organizations, like any other, need to adapt to the changing world. But other than the EU, there is no organization in the western world which aspires to turn itself into a multinational federation. Do not speak of the African Union as a role model when talking of the future governance of Great Britain. To suggest that NATO acting beyond its traditional theatre of operations in Afghanistan, or the UN becoming involved in environmental issues, indicates that we are on an inevitable one-way ratchet to ever more powers for supranational organizations is (a) dangerous for democracy and (b) typical for those that live in the Brussels bubble. The goals of the EU institutions (and those like you that live of them) long ago became self-serving but increasingly no longer serve the people. The “more EU” agenda still espoused by some of the duller Commissioners (e.g. Frattini) has no resonance at all with the British public or increasingly with others on the Continent. A new consensus is emerging all across Europe that supra-nationalism and the Monnet-method have exceeded their limits. The public will stand no more. Therefore the one international organization that needs to adapt more than any other to the changing world is the EU itself and it can only do so by beginning to return powers (other than those related to the common market) to the democratic arena that exists only within the nation-state. If you believe otherwise it is you that has your head stuck in the Brussels sand.
Posted by: John | March 19th, 2007 at 6:11 pm | Report this commentJohn I suspect it would surprise you to learn that I agree with you that the EU should let go some of its competences and dismantle & rebuild some of its more damaging policy structures. But that is in fact what I believe.
What I have been objecting to in this thread is your contention that democracy can only exist in the context of a “nation-state”. I think I have given plenty of actual, real-life examples of international organisations that exist and that are compatible with the democracies in their member countries. I have been at pains to point out that this is the case in other international organisations regardless of the problems of democracy facing the EU, which I recognise are real.
It seems to me that you have inexplicably insisted on interpreting this to mean that I see the ever-expanding role of the EU as a natural and fundamentally democratic process. That is not the case and if you read what I have said it is clear that I do not believe that. I simply want to get the context right and point out that your concept of a world order based on the independent “nation-state” (of which you have been unable to give an example) is wide of the mark.
International co-operation around the world will continue to increase regardless of what happens to the EU. But the EU is part of that tendency; it is of course very different from the UN and NATO but it is like these in that it is fundamentally a treaty organisation that institutionalises inter-country co-operation. It may well be that the EU is going too far; but this does not alter the fact.
Going back to the debate about whether newly-independent “nation-states” of the future like Catalonia or Scotland would want to stay in the EU, don’t take my word for it. You might want to read Alex Salmond’s latest piece in the Daily Telegraph on the subject: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=ZWLBYCYZETCUXQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/opinion/2007/03/20/do2001.xml
And then there is your nationalist philosophy of the “demos” which supposedly creates states - in their purest and highest form, the “nation-state”. As a philosophical framework it has the advantage that it tugs at the heart strings and makes you feel good about “your” people, but it largely ignores historical reality, which is that states have more frequently created their demos than the other way around. I have laid down the challenge to you to name a single country that is a true “nation-state” created by a “natural” demos. You have not risen to that challenge, probably because deep down you know perfectly well that there is no such thing. All countries are created for political and not “national” reasons.
Again, please don’t misunderstand me and interpret this as a justification for the EU to create its own demos and thereby become a state. What I am saying is not that the EU can or should create its own demos and become a state, but that it is possible that the EU demos will allow this to happen over the long run.
The European demos exists already in that the peoples of the EU’s member states accept the legitimacy of the system, just as the UK exists because the people that live within its borders accept its legitimacy, by and large.
The legitimacy of a state or a system of government cannot and does not rest on any “national” characteristics; it rests on the will of the people to accept it. In essence, you might say that a successful system of government must be compatible with the demos, and a successful demos must be compatible with the system of government. In this sense at least, the EU retains legitimacy as long as it has members, since they are free to leave the Union at any time.
If and when the EU’s powers do exceed levels that are judged acceptable by the EU demos or the individual demos of any of the Member States, those countries will leave the EU and it will gradually cease to exist. If and when it happens, it will be a practical, political process, just like what is happening to the UK. Romanticising it as somehow “national” and “democratic” fundamentally misses the point, and is dangerous because it creates mythologies that people want to believe.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 20th, 2007 at 1:28 pm | Report this commentYou cannot give me any example of democracy existing outside the nation-state because there is no such example in the history of mankind. None of the international organisations you refer to (with the exception of the EU) has the power to impose law on nation-states against the wishes of their voters. Only the EU has the legislative machinery and primacy of law to make this possible and when used outside the areas of technical rules for the single market this is entirely incompatible with democracy. It is simply intolerable that a nation in Europe can hold a referendum on an issue and be obliged to ignore its result by the presence of overriding EU legislation. If the result of even the most democratic of all mandates must be ignored this clearly shows the supremacy of EU law lies at the heart of its democracy problem and must be modified as a matter of urgency. My proposal would be to introduce a new category of EU law (the ‘recommendation’) for policy areas unrelated to the single market which would have the force of law in member states in the absence of conflicting national legislation. This would allow co-operation between as many countries as wish it, in as many areas as they wish while being compatible with democracy at the national level (since each nation could override the EU recommendation if it wants to).
The EU cannot (despite its efforts) magic a European ‘demos’ out of nowhere and I refute your claim that such a thing exists. You cannot for example compare the reality of today’s Europe to the Continent of Australia which has a single homogenous culture and language that allows it people to live under a single government. Europe is not like that. The British people for one will not accept the legitimacy of EU law or policy imposed on them with which a majority of them disagree simply because there is a majority elsewhere that would like to them to. The same is true for France and other nations. This is the difference between nations like France or Denmark and regions like New South Wales or Queensland. Any pretence otherwise is to ignore the reality of Europe and will invite disaster. You may be correct that in the past non-democratic states have been formed in the world that later constructed a ‘demos’ and eventually became democratic. But the military means they used to form those states cannot be used in 21st century Europe where the existing democratic nation-states must accord with the wishes of the existing demoi.
The reality of Europe is that it is far more linguistically and culturally diverse than the English-speaking world. Recent advances in communications technology mean that the Anglosphere nations, previously separated by geography are in a better position, should they want to, to form a political federation than Europe ever will be. This is because they share a common language, political culture and even the same common-law legal system. There is however no pressure or compelling reason to do this, but it makes still less sense in Europe.
Your ‘challenge’ to name a nation-state is ridiculous and I will not entertain it.
Posted by: John | March 20th, 2007 at 6:12 pm | Report this commentJohn you say you will not take up my challenge of naming a true nation state, but you give the example of Australia and claim that it has a single homogeneous culture and language. That will doubtless be news to the Aborigines whose land has been taken from them by force since the arrival of the white man.
I however will take you up on your challenge to name a whoile series of democracies that exist outside the context of the “nation-state”. The UK is a great place to start. It comprises at least 4 nations, and arguably several more. It was construced by political means without reference to the demos - no referendum or parliamentary vote was ever held in Wales about that country being absorbed into the kingdom of England. And yet a British demos does exist - not because Britons have some fundamental unity that distinguishes them from the Irish or the Danes or the Dutch or the Saxons or the Normans or the Bretons or the French, but because the people who are in the UK by and large accept that state’s legitimacy. That is self-evidently true and no amount of bluster can alter that fact.
To name a small sample of other democracies that are quite obviously not not nation-states: Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, the USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, India, Austraila, New Zealand… and and and the list goes on.
Democracy and the demos are defined by what is acceptable to the people and not by some pseudo-historical interpretation of “national” identity.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 21st, 2007 at 8:29 am | Report this commentThe Australian aborigines are a disposest people living in a country conquered by another nation that has established a nation-state there on its terms. Is this how you imagine the people of Britain in a future EU state? If you deny that France, USA, New Zealand, etc. are nation-states you are living in cloud-cuckoo land. The British state was established through coercion but there is obviously today a British nation and ‘demos’. The use of military methods to establish states may have been tolerated in centuries past, but coercion cannot be used in the 21st century to create an EU state. The peoples of Europe must be consulted. They have in France & Netherlands already rejected this, and as the FT/Harris Poll this week shows the British would reject it overwhelmingly. Indeed previous polls have shown that only 4% of the British people support a full blown political EU union, which is approximately the same number that believe Elvis Presley is alive.
Posted by: John | March 21st, 2007 at 9:33 am | Report this commentJohn I am glad you admit that Australia is not a nation-state, since of course the Aborigines are supposed to be equal citizens of that state, despite being disposessed people.
Perhaps you need to read a little French history if you believe that France is a nation-state. France contains large minorities of non-Frankish inhabitants - the Corsicans, the Basques, the Bretons, the Normans, and the Germans living in Alsace-Lorraine, to mention but a few. These peoples had their languages, cultures, religions, and their states supressed, and yet they are part of a successful state today. France is not a nation-state, but it is a successful system of government nonetheless. Not because of any “natural”, “national” demos, but because of what the French continue to accept today, regardless of how the country was created.
I agree that forcible integration into a state such as France or the UK will not be tolerated today; but I do not believe that the EU is likely to exert force if and when it becomes a state at some distant point in the future.
It will happen if the people of Europe want it to, just as the EU’s disintegration will happen if the people of Europe want it to.
Nice try equating the constitutional treaty with the creation of a state - but no one except blind eurosceptics who haven’t read Article 1 believes that.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 21st, 2007 at 9:46 am | Report this commentWe have discussed your knowledge of the EU Constitution before and again you display an inability to get beyond Article 1. The Constitution must be seen in the context of the whole series of treaties since the Single European Act which have all been in the direction of creating a European state. This is the declared goal of dozens of Continental politicians, the “decisive act for our time” to use the words of Joscka Fischer and others that were instrumental in the formation of the Convention and the text it produced. The Constitution marks but the latest step on this road, giving for example the EU legal personality (under Article 7 which you presumably never got so far as) for the first time to allow it to sign international treaties with non-EU states that would be binding on its members. Supporters of the Constitution do not of course see it as anything but another interim step (all be it a decisive one) towards their federalist goal, and were it ever to be ratified will immediately be calling for its provisions to be used to transfer further powers to Brussels. They need to be stopped and the damage they have done to our democracy must be rolled back by returning powers taken by the treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice to their rightful home in our democratic nation states. Nothing less is acceptable.
If you believe France is not a nation-state you live in a dream world. I most assuredly do not “admit” that Australia is anything but a nation-state because it is nonsense to say otherwise. You seem to equate the presence of ethnic minorities in a country with a refusal to acknowledge those countries are governed by a nation-state. It is rubbish and you know it. To follow your “logic” to its conclusion, what advantage do you see in the British people becoming an ethnic minority in an EU state over which they would have no effective control? Should we do that simply for the pleasure of being outvoted and compelled to live under laws we disagree with?
Posted by: John | March 21st, 2007 at 12:27 pm | Report this commentJohn you are almost there! According to you, what defines a demos is such things as a common language and culture, and yet you admit that the Aborigines have nothing of this in common with white Autralians. And yet they live together in a democratic state, regardless of the rights and wrongs of that state’s creation. So you have in effect admitted the contradiction.
The logic you ascribe to me (and I am beginning to feel like I am talking to a brick wall here) is NOT logic that I use, endorse, or accept. I do NOT think that the question is whether each individual ethnic or “national” group has total control over the system(s) of government it has, but whether it ACCEPTS those systems of government. Legitimacy is nothing other than acceptance by the people - it is not bestowed by some ethnic marker.
I provided a comprehensive demolition of your argument that France is a “nation-state” and listed a series of nations within that state, and all you can do is splutter that I live in a dream world. You offer no counter-arguments.
Are the Basques not a nation? Is that nation not quite separet from the nation of the Bretons? And are they both not quite separate from the Germans? And so on and so forth…. And is it not true that these nations all live side-by-side in a state called France, that is by and large accepted by its constituent parts - i.e. the nationS plural, the French demos? The French demos did not create France. Politics created a state that had no meaningful ethnic coherence, but is now nonetheless accepted by the people it governs.
Of course, in the EU context, for every law “we” disagree with (meaning the majority of Britons), there is a minority of Britons and a majority of Europeans that agree with it. In other cases, there are laws “we” the majority of Britons do agree with that are not so popular with majorities in other EU countries. But that is really neither here nor there, since what matters is whether on balance the benefits outweigh the costs.
I know you think the costs outweigh the benefits, but we might have a more rational discussion if you stopped trying to justify your opposition to the EU on the basis of some spurious “national” definition of democracy and on the obvious but irrelevant fact that there might be individual EU laws that are upopular in parts of the EU.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 21st, 2007 at 1:16 pm | Report this commentI am “there” already Chris, but where you are is anyone’s guess. It appears you do not understand the difference between a region and a nation. Alsace, Aquitaine, etc. are regions of France and not nations. As for your “comprehensive demolition” I suggest you use a dictionary because I do not intend to discuss further with you if France is a nation-state or not. No reasonable person in the world would deny that it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_france
Britain is not a region of Europe. Contrary to your claim, the British people will not accept the legitimacy of law they disagree with simply because there is a majority in the European Parliament or Council of Ministers that would like them too. There has recently been a majority in the European Parliament for abolishing Britain’s opt-out from the Working Time Directive for example, something that the British people and successive governments wish to maintain. Do you believe this vote in the European Parliament has any democratic legitimacy?
If the EU is not structured to recognise that Europe consists of nations and not regions then it will suffer a crisis of legitimacy (which has begun now). The simplest restructuring compatible with the reality of a Europe of democratic nations would be to make EU-law subordinate to national law outside the area of the common market. Otherwise it will suffer the inevitable fate of all multinational federations in history. States without a single demos are inherently unstable and ultimately break down along the linguistic and cultural lines that define real nations. Belgium shows this by threatening to break into two even as its Prime Minister dreams, Nero-like, of an impossible United States of Europe.
Writing in the “Conquest of Gaul” Julius Caesar described the people of Gaul (France), the Helvetii (Swiss), Belgae (Belgians), Spanish, Germanics (Germans) and British in terms that are still recognisable today and as inhabiting territories with nearly identical borders to today’s European countries. I think this first-hand account, written 2000 years ago, disproves your notion that the modern European states created their peoples and that the EU can do likewise. The nations of Europe are ancient and will not lightly be wished away by EU bureaucrats or you.
http://www.unrv.com/fall-republic/gaul-conquest.php
According to Gibbon, Rome fell because the division of Europe into independent states was “productive of the most beneficial consequences to the liberty of mankind”. The EU will deserve to share its fate, and for the same reasons, if it pushes on ignoring the reality of the Europe of nations.
Posted by: John | March 21st, 2007 at 6:17 pm | Report this commentJohn if you are looking back to Julius Caesar for your information on the ethnic make-up of France and justification for calling it a nation-state you are making yourself a laughing stock. Not only is the territory of the Roman provinces of Gaul very significantly different from modern-day France, but you seem to place an inordinate amount of faith in his knowledge of ethnicity in the entire territory, which at that time of writing was still largely unexplored. You and I might go to the Far East and think that the people all look fairly similar, and we might write it down too. That does not make it true.
We know today (and this is not disputed) that most of the Gauls were Celts who were later pushed out of large parts of what is today France by the Germanic Franks. The Celtic culture of Gaul still survives in Brittany. The Breton language is the language of a distinct culture; a nation. The French state has systematically sought to integrate the Breton nation into France, and has succeeded in making the Breton demos part of the greater French demos. The Bretons accept the legitimacy of French rule.
Neither the Corsicans nor the Basques nor the Germans nor the Savoyards nor the Normans have close cultural similarities with the Celtic Gauls of Caesar’s time. You’ll have to do an awful lot better than that to come anywhere near proving that France is a nation-state. It is not.
Of course I accept the democratic legitimacy of the European Parliament’s views on the working time directive. I don’t like it, but it’s entirely legitimate. Nor do I like the anti-Christian laws being pushed through Westminster this week. But my not liking it doesn’t make it democratically illegitimate.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 22nd, 2007 at 9:43 am | Report this commentI leave it for others to judge who the laughing stock is Chris. What was that one again about France not being a nation-state?
I have not used any ethnic basis for my insistence that Europe consists of nations. There are no significant ethnic differences between the Irish, British, French etc. But these are certainly different nations that only accept the legitimacy of law decided by a majority of their nationals. Why was the Irish state established in 1921 if not to assert that the Irish nation would not accept the legitimacy of the Westminster Parliament over them?
Please explain to me how you can possibly believe a vote in the European Parliament to remove one country’s (the UK’s) opt-out from the Working Time Directive has any democratic legitimacy when it is not supported by the majority of the one people it will affect, their government or a majority of British MEPs? Democracy (from demos=rule, kratos=rule by) is rule by the people to which the law applies; not rule by other people.
I have given you a first hand account, written 2000 years ago, that the nations of Europe we see today existed that far back. The paperback version of Caesar’s account contains a map of this ancient Europe (unfortunately not reproduced online) which shows borders approximately where they are today. The online text clearly refers to the Rhine as the border between Gaul and the Germanic tribes, the various regions of Gaul (corresponding to today’s regions of France) and the location of the Helvetti as modern Switzerland. These nations went on, many centuries later, to produce the democratic nation-states we see today, the most perfect form of government designed by man. Despite your claim to the contrary, it is clear that nation-states created in the 17th to 19th centuries (often from the remnants of collapsed of multinational empires) did not create the peoples of Europe but that the different nations with their distinct languages and cultures existed for a much longer time. Nations are the one permanent fixture in the affairs of the world and the EU is failing precisely because it has systematically ignored the established fact that people will only accept the legitimacy of majority decisions taken by fellow citizens of their demos.
Posted by: John | March 22nd, 2007 at 1:46 pm | Report this commentJohn I grant you that IF the nation-state really were a true reflection of the undiluted democratic will of its own, single people, whose interests were defined by their borders alone and did not need to take account of outside factors, your vision of a world of fully independent nation-states would be very appealing.
The problem is that this kind of nation-state does not exist. Your use of Caesar’s Gaul is a textbook example of use of “national” myths to re-write history. That Caesar’s Gaul had a Rhine border that matches modern France’s Rhine border with Germany is totally insignificant. The Germanic tribes that were separated by the Rhine from the Celtic Gauls long ago crossed that border and made it irrelevant. It’s a major river so of course it’s likey to be a border. And you offer no explanation for how the Basques, Bretons, Savoyards, Normans, Corsicans, and Germans fit into your French “nation”.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 23rd, 2007 at 9:25 am | Report this commentLet’s not get too carried away by whether the spirit of Asterix lives on in modern France. There is plenty of evidence that European nations predate modern states, not least their long-established languages.
To pick up on your point, the nation-state does uniquely allow the democratic will of its people to be determined and that Will only exists within the national context of a demos united by culture and language. I take issue with the second-half of your assertion though which seems to equate “fully independent” politics with the complete separation of nations, i.e. North Korean style autarky. You seem to be suggesting that the interdependence of nations makes the surrender of sovereignty to supranational government desirable or necessary and I strongly disagree with that. We can have trade and common agreements with other countries while still allowing the national electorate to have the final word on whether we live under the results of those international deliberations or not. This is indeed the norm in the world, how the UK relates to non-EU countries, how all non-EU countries relate to each other, and how international fora such as Kyoto, etc. come to agreements that no nation is compelled to accept against the will of its electorate.
I have no problem with the politicians that the British people elect having discussions with politicians from other nations in a forum on issues of mutual concern. I do however take exceptional issue with being forced to live under law or policy that the British people disagree with but cannot change through their votes. This happens in the EU because (uniquely in the world) it has the ability to produce supranational law that has primacy over national law and can be imposed by qualified majority vote on nations whose electorate disagrees with it. The EU can date its current crisis of legitimacy to exactly the point (Maastricht) when it extended the application of its supranational law beyond the common market and introduced imposition of that law by QMV. This was a step compatible with the goal of creating a multinational confederation or federation. It was not a step compatible with democracy.
Supra-national law with primacy over national law imposed against a national electorate’s will is fundamentally undemocratic and should only be used in strictly limited circumstances. I would define those circumstances as being to prevent people in one nation doing harm to the health, wealth or environment of people in another nation, subject to the equal right of other nations. The basic premise of the common market to prevent member states from blocking the goods, people, services and capital of other nations satisfies this constraint as might others on cross-border pollution. But if the EU wants to do anything beyond this limit then it is only acceptable if the legislation it produces in these additional areas is subordinate to national law so that the national ‘demos’ can overrule it when it wants to. The EU is suffering a crisis in legitimacy precisely because it has vastly overstepped this limit on the usage of law with primacy over national law. It now needs to be tamed, or if necessary abandoned in the likely case that reform proves impossible.
Posted by: John | March 25th, 2007 at 4:07 pm | Report this commentWell I’m glad that you’re big enough to admit you were wrong on France being a nation-state, and even provided the coup-de-grace yourself: language. The language of the Gauls that Caesar encountered was of course very distantly related to Latin, Germanic languages, or ancient or modern French at best. It was Indo-European, but you are right that this is meaningless, since all of Europe speaks Indo-European languages.
On democracy however, you’re doing it again, saying that the British people (for whom I speak every bit as much as you) do not accept the EU. Why don’t we have a referendum before making such statements? In the absence of such a referendum, the only concrete evidence we have is that of local, general and European elections. As you know, the only parties advocating withdrawal are UKIP and the BNP, and their share of the vote is small at best. It is certainly not a majority, and has never been since the 70s.
By the way, I don’t remember voting for Kyoto. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 26th, 2007 at 8:56 am | Report this commentThere is indeed plenty of evidence that European nations pre-date modern states; that is exactly what I have said before. But there is no example I know of of such a European nation being co-terminous with a modern state. I have challenged you to suggest an example and the best you could come up with was France, which is a textbook case of a state that is in no way co-terminous with a nation.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 26th, 2007 at 1:24 pm | Report this commentJohn you might want to take a look at Wikipedia’s “Languages of France” page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_France), which lists the 77 languages spoken in that modern state. If you look at France in that context, it becomes clear that French is nothing more than a state lingua franca imposed on the various nations in France in order to create a coherent state.
It is instructive that the EU is not making any attempts to impose a single language on the Member States - that would be a key sign of attempts to create a state. The fact that the EU’s official languages are all state languages (e.g. French and not Corsican) maintains a significant barrier between the citizen and the EU: the Member State.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 26th, 2007 at 1:34 pm | Report this commentFrance is obviously a nation-state. I did not pick it as an example - you did - and i am not going to waste a second on your ludricrous claim that it is not.
Your opinions in no way represent the British mainstream on the desirability of ever more EU integration. I am the other hand represent the British mainstream that wants the UK’s relationship with the EU to be based on free-trade only and am more than prepared to abandon it unless it can be reformed in that direction.
Posted by: John | March 29th, 2007 at 2:54 am | Report this commentJohn your powers of denial of reality are astounding. By the way, I am Father Christmas.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | March 29th, 2007 at 10:33 am | Report this commentI am not sure what you think i am denying Chris. British opinion polls on attitudes to the EU are thin on the ground since the 2005 votes in France & the Netherlands. But they do show British people want what i want; namely reform of the EU to make it a free trade zone, or abandonment of it if such reform cannot be achieved. They also show that only 10% of the population would support your goal of more political union such as the EU Constitution would deliver. As a Brussels-based Brit with your nose in the trough it may be that isolation from the British political mainstream is occupational hazzard to which you have fallen prey.
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YouGov poll of 2021 Britons in June 2005.
Which of these statements is closest to your view?
‘The UK should pull out of the EU.’ 24%
‘The UK should be part of the EU but only if it is a trading bloc that enables goods, services and workers to move freely between member states, and gives up its other functions, such as promoting EU-wide policies on such issues as immigration, the environment, working hours, terrorism and foreign policy’ 35%
‘The UK should remain part of the EU broadly as it is now, but use its power of veto to block any moves towards greater political union’ 21%
‘The UK should work for closer political union within the EU.’ 10%
Don’t know 10%
In order to reduce the EU’s powers, a new treaty will be needed. Other countries might well use their veto to block such a change. Suppose Britain then had to decide whether to pull out of the EU altogether or to remain a member of the EU as it is, which option would you support?
The UK should pull out of the EU 59%
The UK should remain a member of the EU 31%
Don’t know 10%
http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/RMW050101026_1.pdf
Posted by: John | March 30th, 2007 at 9:58 pm | Report this commentJohn I was referring to your ability to deny that France is not a nation state, despite me producing overwhelming evidence to contradict the various criteria you have named.
On UK opinion, I think the most relevant measure would be a referendum and I am desperately keen to see one announced. Hopefully the new PM will do so to clear the air. One opinion poll doesn’t prove a blessed thing - The Telegraph can come up with all sorts of stuff to support its editorial line. Eurobarometer, by contrast, suggested last year that British public support for the EU was at a 10-year high. Unless opinion had turned around dramatically in the year between your poll and mine, they can’t both be right.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | April 2nd, 2007 at 8:55 am | Report this commentI suggest you debate with French people if France is a nation-state or not. I think your concept will be news to them and i am not going to be distracted by what i consider a ludicrous claim.
The “Open Europe” poll this week has been widely reported. It shows the voters of 16 EU countries, including Germany, would reject any new EU Constitution or treaty that transfers further powers to Brussels. Britons would reject any such treaty by 67% to 21%. Britons would reject Euro membership by 77% to 19%. 58% of us want powers returned to the Westiminster government we elect from the Brussels executive we have no control over.
The EU elites however are hell-bent on the opposite. The nations of Europe, including Britons MUST stand up and assert that sovereignty belongs to them and not the irremovable oligarchy of the EU Commission and Council that aims systematically to subvert the democratic will of the people.
http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/mainfindings.pdf
——————-
“Experience hath shown that, even under the best forms (of government), those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” — Thomas Jefferson
http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/mainfindings.pdf
Posted by: John | April 2nd, 2007 at 3:13 pm | Report this commentJohn I have close links with France and know a great many French people. Almost without exception, those who are from the non-French nations of France (Bretons, Normans, Basques, Sayoyards, Alsatians, etc) accept being governed by the state of France. Hence the legitimacy of the French state. But not a single one of them would claim that the French state is the result of a natural process of democratic development by a single, unified French people. Perhaps it is you who should get out more and meet some Frogs…?
You can continue to dismiss the fact that France is not a true nation-state as “ludicrous” if you want - but you won’t convince many people unless you have some facts or criteria to back up your claim. I haven’t seen any except the amusing claim that France is the descendant of Roman Gaul or the attempt to link Frenchness to the French language, which has been violently imposed on the peoples of France over the centuries.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | April 2nd, 2007 at 3:29 pm | Report this commentWhat makes you think I do not have French friends or work with French people daily? I am sure I inhabit a far more cosmopolitan environment than any Brussels-based insider. It is you that needs to get out more because “little Europeans” such as yourself are failing to recognize that the emerging globalized world is obsoleting your 1950’s vision of a regional superstate.
The development of the French nation is described in more detail than you or I can go into in the following Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_people
You will see I am not the first to start with Gaul when talking of France and finish with the nation-state. You may note the map of Western Europe from 58BC showing Britannia, Italy, Spain and the western borders of Germania in the same places as today and the existence of Belgica not so unrecognizable from the Belgium of today all existing more than 2000 years ago. The existence of Aquitania as a separate entity in Gaul 2000 years ago still perhaps has echoes in the separatist sentiment of Basques. The nations of Europe have ancient roots and will not lightly be wished away by Brussels.
Anyway, i am not going to get distracted by the historical evolution or ‘purity’ of one or other modern nation-state. My point is that the nation-state is the best form of government yet invented, is essential for democracy and is on the rise world-wide as evidenced by the ever-increasing number of nation-states in the world. Given free-choice, it is the preferred form of government for all of humanity on every continent and the EU is not going to replace it with a non-democratic multinational empire of the type that the nation-state replaced throughout Europe in the 18th century.
Posted by: John | April 4th, 2007 at 12:27 am | Report this commentJohn do you accept that your theory of the nation-state is the best form of government yet invented is problematic if there are no such nation-states (hypothetically)?
If the best you can do to prove the existence of the nation-state of France is to point at the borders of the Roman provinces of Gaul, you are not doing very well. The borders were largely defined by natural geographic boundaries such as the Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the sea. The people of Gaul have nothing to do with the people of France. Nor is there any continuity in the government of the territory of Roman Gaul to the present day.
You even mentioned Belgica and Belgium. Belgium was created by a European treaty in the early 19th century as a buffer state, and contains three major ethnic groups. The fact that the borders bear a passing resemblance to the Belgica of Roman times comes from the desire of the treaty parties to manufacture a semblance of historical validity for the completely artificial state they created.
Does your Roman Spain make room for the Portuguese or Catalan or Murcian or Basque nations? Does it include the Muslim Spain that existed for far longer than Christian Spain after the reconquista?
Did you know that Garibaldi was born in Nice and fought the French for control of that city? Do you think Nice is properly French or Italian?
Did you know that one of the fathers of Italian unification, Massimo D’Azeglio, said: “We have made Italy, now we have to make the Italians”? Doesn’t say much for your nice nationalist mythology of the natural Italian demos, does it?
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | April 4th, 2007 at 10:01 am | Report this commentThe entire surface of the world is divided into states, and the great majority (and increasing) are nation-states. If there were no nation-states the nations of the world would create them as rapidly as possible, as the creation of the unified German state following the removal of Soviet coercion in 1989 shows. Your hypothesis is therefore ridiculous. I do not have to prove to you that nation-states exist when their existence is established fact.
No continuity of government is required for a nation to continue to exist. Did the French revolution of 1789 or the collapse of the 3rd-Reich destroy the French or German nations? Has the Tibetan nation disappeared under Chinese occupation? The Taj Mahal and New Delhi testify to centuries of foreign domination of India, but the people emerged again with their Hindu culture intact. Nations are rocks that may be overwhelmed, even for centuries, by foreign domination but which resurface again and again throughout history always aspiring to national self-determination, a right now guaranteed in the UN Charter. Long after the EU is a footnote in history, the nations of Europe will still exist. The German and Italian unifications were based on demoi that already existed (as per that map of Europe in 58 B.C.) with languages (all be it with significant dialects), religions and cultures that already existed as the Italian renaissance of the 14th and 17th centuries testifies to. The EU is attempting to follow the model of German unification starting with the zollverein customs union and leading via confederation to a centralised (and undemocratic) state. But the cultural and linguistic diversity of Europe is far greater than that of the ancient German states or Italian city states. The British people in particular share a greater linguistic and cultural affinity with the rest of the Western World than with these continental nations and will not be subsumed into any EU-nation. We are happy to trade and co-operate with other nations in Europe and elsewhere in the world, but we are going to govern ourselves.
Posted by: John | April 4th, 2007 at 9:50 pm | Report this commentAt the risk of repeating myself (but hey who’s reading this anyway?), “we” the demos of the UK are NOT a nation, and therefore the state we live in is not a nation-state. Similarly, the people or demos of France is not a nation (it is composed o people who belong to many different nations), and therefore FRance cannot possibly be a nation-state.
By the way do you think Switzerland is a nation-state?
We Britons will thankfully continue to avail ourselves of the opportunities provided by full membership of the EU. We don’t want to fall prey to isolationist xenophobic nationalists like you.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | April 5th, 2007 at 1:21 pm | Report this commentThere may be no such thing as a pure nation-state but in the real world the nation-state is the dominant (and increasingly so) form of government in the world and the only one compatible with democracy.
http://www.answers.com/topic/nation-state
Switzerland is certainly an interesting case that you would have done better to focus on rather than France. It may be tempting to regard it simply as a buffer-state used by its neighbours to deny each other strategic ground. But the history of the Swiss shows that they are more than this and comprise a people with an old and distinct identity dating back beyond William Tell to the Helvetti tribe that Julius Caesar recounts in his “Conquest of Gaul”. They have consistently resisted foreign aggression and even when overwhelmed by Napoleon succeeded in bringing down the centralised “Helvetic Republic” he forced on them.
http://www.unrv.com/fall-republic/helvetii.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetic_Republic
I am a democrat and an internationalist who works daily in the globalised economy with colleagues from California to Shanghai. I live in the most cosmopolitan city on Earth. I can assure you I am neither xenophobe nor isolationist and am pretty certain I have far more first-hand experience of countries in Europe or the World than the vast majority of those who live in the Brussels bubble. I have certainly mispent far more Friday evening at Heathrow baggage reclaim than I care to remember. I desire international co-operation but it must exist within a framework that respects democracy and the sovereign rights of nations to self-determination accorded to them in the UN charter. The EU since Maastricht has increasingly diverged from this as it tries more and more to impose supranational law on nations against their will in more and more policy areas using QMV. It must be reformed to make it democracy-compatible or, in the likely event that it proves not to be reformable, it should be abandoned. You attempt to insult me by calling me a nationalist, but Ghandi was a nationalist and Stalin built a multinational federation that ultimately proved unsustainable.
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Posted by: John | April 6th, 2007 at 8:19 pm | Report this comment“The most puzzling development in politics during the last decade is the apparent determination of Western European leaders to re-create the Soviet Union in Western Europe.” — Mikhail Gorbachev
Or “isolationist xenophobic nationalists” who have fundamental criticism of the EU like Tony Benn, eh Chris?
Oh… errr…
I think Chris has confused the word “nation” with “race” throughout his argument, and has consequently made a bit of a fool of himself.
According to my dictionary, a nation is a large aggregate of people united by common descent, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular state or territory.
Sounds pretty familiar vis-a-vis Europe today, to me.
You could say; a group of not necessarily the same peoples but who have enough in common on a variety of fronts to conceded to be governed together.
There is certainly evidence that this ‘commonality’ requirement is today being stretched in Europe’s existing nations, not least in our own country.
But doesn’t this serve to show that responsive, democratic government at a far wider EU level - the EU’s clear objective - is impossible? It is an idea today going in completely the wrong direction to popular sentiment.
Political elites imposing such outdated ideas on unwilling or unaware peoples can only end in instability, as resulting larger disaffected minorities inevitably seek more responsive, local government again.
Credit where it’s due; trying to assert that Europe has no nations is certainly the most ambitious effort to make the EU seem less threatening that I’ve ever read. But hardly convincing.
In reality, if Chris is endorsing the EU, rather than any fantasy utopian ‘post-nation’ construct he may lust after, he is merely advocating a nation state on a wider, pan-European scale.
Posted by: Stuart Coster | April 11th, 2007 at 5:28 pm | Report this commentFirst of all, Stalin was one of the greatest nationalists in history. The USSR was nothing like the EU - it consciously glorified the Russian “nation” at the expense of all the other peoples of the USSR. This is established historical fact - it is well-documented in all manner of historical sources. He may have been a Georgian, but he understood that to win his war with Germany and later the West he would have to appeal to more than just international co-operation or the virtues of federalism. He decided to use nationalism, and it worked wonders for him.
Anyone who compares the USSR to the EU seriously misunderstands the two. The USSR was aone-party state, with the party having parallel structures to those of the state - the party, which was under unified political control, controlled the state. While the state was nominally a federation, the Party was not federal in any meaningful sense.
Secondly, Stuart, I wasnot defining the nation, but simply using the definitions provided by John. He tried language - no one who claims the demos of the UK is united by language can be taken seriously unless that person admits that the dominance of English was the result of state policy and not that the state was the result of the dominance of English within its borders. He tried ethinicity - you bot now admit that this is not a criterion.
My point is not to define the nation or the nation state (indeed I contend that Europe is made up of states and nations but that these are only coterminous in exceptional circumstances). Nor am I trying to justify the creation of a European nation or a European state. I am only trying to debink the great swindle that is inherent in nationalist objections to the EU. John says the EU can never be truly democratic until it has a demos. What I am saying is that by that standard, no EU country is democratic. What I am saying is, throw the national identity thing out the window and focus your objections to the EU on real life issues - e.g. the EU doesn’t work, or the EU’s existence is contrary to the will of the people it governs, or the legislative process is rubbish, or “comitology” doesn’t make good regulation, or the EU is over-regulatory. But spare us bogus arguments based on bogus nationalist premises.
By the way Stuart according to your dictionary definition, the EU is a nation. As it happens, I don’t think the EU is a state or is becoming a state or should become a state.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | April 16th, 2007 at 11:58 am | Report this commentStalin may be described as many things, but he was no nationalist when he presided over a multinational federation that held its constituent nations together by force. The distinction between the EU and USSR is that the former is an enlightened despotism whereas the latter was a tyrannical one. Just as Prussians and Russians could not replace the enlightened despots of Frederick the Great or Catherine the Great, Barosso et al may attempt to use their monopoly power to initiate legislation over 450 million people for what they fancy is our best interest, but no European voter can hope to replace or significantly influence the Commission or Council, nor change EU law in the future through our votes.
If the EU were a nation, as you now claim, then it would be possible to create an EU nation-state as simply as it was to create the unified German state in 1990. But this is clearly not the case. The failure of the EU is not due to a lack of perfect institutions, corruption, inefficiencies in its legislative processes or a bias towards over regulation, painful as these are. You may prefer to debate these things, but it would be to overlook the real issue, which is the illegitimacy of supranational law in the real Europe of nations. No revised institutional framework on offer from Merkel & Co. will remedy this. You could copy the tried and tested US Constitution, developed by a genius Madison (who puts Giscard D’Estaing to shame) following the most assiduous study into the reasons for the collapse of earlier confederations throughout antiquity, and it would still not work in Europe precisely because Europe (unlike the USA) consists of multiple nations. The solidarities that exist within nations do not exist between nations. Someone from Salzburg may accept their taxes being used to fund the education of a stranger’s child in Graz or the unemployed in Innsbruck or drug rehabilitation in Vienna but it is a different matter when the beneficiaries of their largesse live in other countries. Consequently we will not accept the legitimacy of pan-European governance in which the views of our fellow nationals are overwhelmed by the opinion of the nationals of more populous lands based on a completely different set of political instincts, values and calculations than our own.
Let me repeat (unfortunately once again) that contrary to your last statement I have not used ethnicity in my assertion that the peoples of Britain, France, Ireland etc. are separate nations. There are no significant ethnic differences between these peoples, but separate nations they assuredly are. Let me ask again why the Irish nation, sharing a language and ethnicity with the English, would create their state in 1921 if not to assert that they do not accept the legitimacy of the Westminster Parliament to decide the law under which they must live? There is no difference between this and the British refusing to accept the democratic legitimacy of law from the EU institutions. The British people have never agreed to become a region in a country called Europe, and we never will.
So long as you and others persist in advocating political structures (supremacy of EU law in ever more areas) and decision-making mechanisms (QMV) for the EU that fails to recognise that Europe consists of nations and not regions you will only further weaken its already threadbare legitimacy. This is the quicksand in which the EU is floundering, and if Merkel et al push on regardless their project will deserve to sink without trace. The only route out of the quagmire is to make EU law subordinate to national law (outside the area of the common market) or return powers to the control of national electorates starting with those taken by the treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice.
Posted by: John | April 16th, 2007 at 6:00 pm | Report this commentFirst of all, John, it is universally recognized historical fact that Stalin openly and systematically pursued a policy of Russian nationalism. If you really want to challenge this, I will be glad to provide you with such evidence on this blog.
Secondly, it is somewhat tiresome that you continue to willfully misrepresent my words and ascribe beliefs or political preferences to me that are not mine. In my last post, I said, “By the way Stuart, according to your dictionary definition, the EU is a nation”. This is quite clearly not a statement of my opinion. On the contrary, it is a statement that aims to shine a light on the inadequacy of the dictionary definition that Stuart used. I think you know this, and I regret that you see the need to dishonestly misrepresent my words. Just so it can be crystal clear; I do not think the EU is a nation any more than I think the UK or any of the EU Member States is a nation. They are not.
You say, “The solidarities that exist within nations do not exist between nations.” But of course they do. In the UK, the English and the Scots and the Welsh have been happily expressing solidarity with each other for many years. In France, the Basques and the Corsicans and the Bretons consider themselves French – not because they are part of a bogus French nation, but because they accept the legitimacy of the French state.
So we British accept the legitimacy of the EU in the same way as the Welsh accept the legitimacy of the UK. The day we have the referendum I so crave, this will be confirmed. If your side wins the referendum, which I think is a possibility about as remote as can be imagined, I’ll accept that. But until then, you only make yourself look silly by claiming to speak for us. You don’t.
The EU is based on treaties that are fully compatible with international law. This will continue to be the case, and governments will continue to co-operate in the institutional structures they have set up because they know that this is infinitely more efficient and cost-effective than doing the same via a web of bilateral agreements.
Nationalism is a deeply flawed political philosophy because it bases itself on falsehood - the falsehood that the state and the nation are coterminous and have an inherent legitimacy that is based on identity rather than political reality. The whole construct is therefore fundamentally unsound - it is the nationalist view of the world that is in the quicksand!
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | April 17th, 2007 at 9:53 am | Report this commentGive it up, Chris. If ever a man ever needed a dictionary it is you because you have no idea of the difference between a nation and a region and your argument consequently lacks any rigour.
Fell free to go down another rat-hole, regarding Stalin, but I reserve the right not to follow you there unless you can make some coherent point of relevance to the EU. If you do, be sure to identify the similarities Stalin had (if you can find any) to a true nationalist such as Ghandi who led his nation out of multinational empire towards independence and democracy. Stalin should indeed be your role model, having succeeded in doing the opposite by building a multinational federation.
You are wrong that Stuart’s dictionary definition of a nation can apply to Europe. His definition is “a large aggregate of people united by common descent, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular state or territory”. There is no common language to unite Europeans, and the common elements of our cultures (such as the legacy of our Christian heritage) apply equally to the rest of the western world. If you compare the English-speaking countries of the New World to Britain then by these criteria of descent, language and culture we have far more in common with the Anglosphere nations than we do with any Continental nation. More than 1 million Australians (>5%) for example were born in Britain and the greater part of that country’s population trace their ancestry here and speak our language. A similar number of Britons live in North America. But no-one suggests we need EU-like institutions to impose supra-national law on our natural partners in the English-speaking world. Quite simply, it is a concept alien to our culture.
You confuse nations and regions throughout your argument. After more than 500 years of cultural assimilation Wales is a region of Britain. Scotland is not a clear-cut case case, but until the Scots follow the example of the Irish and establish an independent state then Scotland is a region of Britain. The Basques, Corsicans and Bretons are likewise regions of France, and accept the legitimacy of the French state only because a majority of them consider they are part of the French nation. Do you think these French regions would agree to rule from London or any other European capital other than Paris? If not, why not? The answer can only be that Bretons and Corsicans identify themselves within the French nation and do not feel part of the British nation.
One thing we can agree on is the need to test the legitimacy of British EU membership. The EEC was a different beast when we joined and no Briton now younger than 50 was able to vote in the 1975 referendum. In a democracy sovereignty belongs to the people, and it is not legitimate for any government to permanently transfer the power they were elected to exercise for a 4-5 year term to Brussels institutions that are forever beyond our control. The current EU can claim no legitimacy in this land and never will until we in Britain are given our say in a national referendum. The most recent opinion poll shows our top priority for EU reform is to “turn the EU into just a simple free trade area, without political aims”. Britons would vote 67%-21% against any new EU treaty that transfers more power to Brussels and 15 other EU nations would do the same. All 27 EU nations want a referendum on any resurrected EU Constitution that the polticial elites now conspire to deny us. Monnet’s “integration by stealth” has failed because the views of supra-nationalists such as yourself are not representative of real people outside the Brussels bubble. Like a thin layer of oil on water they do not mix with the views of the overwhelming majority of Europeans who continue to define themselves within a national context.
http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/mainfindings.pdf
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Posted by: John | April 17th, 2007 at 10:57 pm | Report this comment“We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country” – Thomas Jefferson
John if you look at the definition carefully, the criteria are “common descent, culture, or language”. Unless my English grammar is failing me completely, any one of those criteria suffices to qualify, by virtue of the use of the word OR.
It is most certainly the case that most Europeans are of a common descent. It just depends how broadly you care to cast the net - i.e. how closely related are the Basques to the Finns? They are at least probably descended from a common Indo-European ancestor culture. Granted, that does not say much about the ethnic homogeneity of the nation being described, but that is the case for any “nation” you might care to define, and is after all the point I am making - ethnic “nationality” is largely mythical.
Do Europeans share a common culture? Of course they do. Any Germans and Brits visiting China together are immediately struck by how European they feel in that context.
Do they share a common language? No. But then neither do the Swiss.
The criteria are really vague enough that almost anything can qualify. These criteria are really about perceived identity. The key part of the definition is the second part, inhabiting a particular state or territory - since clearly the peoples of the EU inhabit the EU.
Your objection that European culture is broader than just Europe takes you nowhere. What you are saying is that Europe has no claim on European culture since that is now much more widely spread than geographical Europe. But can’t you see the same is true of France and the French language. By your book, France has no claim to French culture since the Walloons in Belgium and the French-speaking Swiss and the peoples of the ex-French Empire share that culture too. The same holds for the British Empire. You object that Europe is not exclusively European. So what? Britain is not exclusively British, as you say yourelf. You are in fact all over the place.
It is quite staggering to read your words: “the Basques, Corsicans and Bertons are likewise regions of France…” since when is a person a region? Here we come to the fundamental confusion you have in your argument - you confuse the PEOPLE- the nation, the demos, with the STATE. They are not the same.
Perhaps you’d care to justify your assertion that Monnet supported integration by stealth? That has been comprehensively demolished by some excellent work by Richard Corbett MEP. Monnet never thought or said anything of the kind - the quote so often reproduced by UK anti-Europeans is a fabrication.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | April 24th, 2007 at 3:16 pm | Report this commentIs that really the best you can do after one week’s thought?
Unless you can say something new or coherent (preferably both) then my last answer more than covers your latest effort.
Posted by: John |