June 21, 2007
Lights, camera, action
Euroland is obsessed with voting formulae - ”square root”, ”double majority” and other such trip-off-the-tounge expressions - but let’s not forget the other side of tonight’s summit: the glamour content.
Hard to believe - gasp - but Brussels’ tatty, low-key EU quarter lacks a certain glamour. The 27 commissioners might be the rock stars of the European Commission but they just can’t compete when the big names come to town.
So, what of Sarko at his first summit? How will he behave on the European stage? Last month he popped to Brussels and his motorcade - which sped past our office - was like that of a US president.
Will he repeat the performance he gave at the G8 press conference? (see this video of him looking drunk and giddy after a meeting with Vladimir Putin. Sarko says he doesn’t drink a drop of alcohol)
It’ll be weird to see Blair here as the minutes tick down on his political stopwatch.
Will he stride around the hulking Justus Lipsius conference centre lapping up his final hours as prime minister? Will he duck out the back entrance or stride through the hack-filled atrium at the front to say au revoir to euroland?
Which of Poland’s hard-nosed Kaczynski twins - one is president, the other prime minister - will turn up? And will they continue to bang the wartime restitution drum?
The mix is combustible and down-to-earth Angela Merkel will need all her diplomatic tools to sort it out. Can’t wait.
“EU: AN ASSOCIATION BASED ON THE PRINCIPLES OF INDEPENDENT, CONSENSUALLY ALIGNED-’EQUAL-NATIONS’- NOT A SUPER-STATE, FORGED BY THE SURREPTITIOUS AMALGAMATION OF THE EU’S PEOPLES”!!!”
The concept of an EU of politically AMALGAMATED PEOPLES was never part of the agreed-to propositions that led to its formation as the European Economic Community (EEC), in the 1950’s.
The misguided development of a ‘European Parliament’ several decades later, predictably- now in 2007- has led to calls (from an intellectually dishonest few) for individual EU member nations to lose their paramount-status as “comparative equals” in the EU’s voting system (Commission, Council of Ministers & committees), to be subsumed BY A POPULATION-BASED-SYSTEM, in which medium sized & smaller EU member nations’ voices, + their potential influence over ALL types of EU decision making: will be rendered nonexistent.
The primacy of individual EU member nations needs to remain a principle underpinning ALL EU structures such as its Commission, Council of Ministers & committees.
How to fix the EU parliament?
EU mp’s ought to be appointed by the govt-of-the-day of their respective nations.
The main motivations behind the formation of the European Economic Community (EEC) (precursor to the “EU”) were so that this “association of economically & socially aligned, independent nations” would, by its structure, be an obstacle against repeats of the worst facets of the continent’s history- damaging competition, ego-driven militarism & costly, destructive wars.
It was also to enable a concurrent, joint approach to development of member nations’ economies & their underpinning legal principles & social/health programmes.
A passively ‘outward-facing by-example’ group of economically & socially ‘aligned’ NATIONS is all that was conceived & proposed initially; worked towards over the following decades- & all that is required for these laudable, & needed, objectives.
EU member nations going further in integration, (as the rejected, so called EU Constitution would have mandated, or, as some of those who support further EU expansion are alleging: ‘that further EU expansion would demand further integration of member states’) will, through the back door, result in the EU functionally ceasing to be a “European community” of equal nations & would result in the EU becoming an amalgamated unitary state…
Super-states’ leaders, like those of lesser states, are always going to be tempted to use their latent military & other types of clout on the world stage.
Sometimes for good. But also, not for good.
The wrong right-wing party taking power in a “new” super-state’s parliament could, without justification, decide to trammel the rights of minorities; suspect ethnic/cultural groups; the poor; women &/or people of religious beliefs within its own borders.
It could decide to do the same outside its borders.
In these types of cases, given the neutered abilities of member nations’ governments to affect the decision making of the “new” super-state’s “super parliament” (due to member-nation’s surrendering traditional authorities/responsibilities to the super-state’s super-parliament)
- countries the size of Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia or bigger countries like the United Kingdom or France, could do almost nothing to prevent their resources being used by the super-state’s government for corrupt or inappropriate purposes.
- member nations disagreeing with a super-parliament run amok, would have no options other than to secede from the super-state, with disastrous economic & other effects- if the super-parliament allowed secession of member states.
Mandatory dissolution of EU member nations’ borders- by misrepresented EU directive’s- or a re-named constitution-in-disguise does not need to be part of any future EU.
The same can be said for an EU defense or foreign policy Minister, or the adoption (either by implication or treaty) of a single currency by all- or new- member states.
Although improving EU bureaucratic function is desirable, using this as a false-logic excuse for further integration of EU member nations will defeat the very laudable purposes that motivated the EU’s (EEC’s) founding.
Worse, this will enable a scurrilous political elite of the continent to have a forum, & vehicle, for an agenda which has nothing to do with fairness, human-rights or shared economic progress-> an agenda predicated on a wish to have a world voice that their respective nations would not have alone- a job for the UN or Nato, not an EU on steroids.
The EU’s member nations need to remain aligned- TO VARYING & FLEXIBLE DEGREES- economically, legally & socially, as part of a passively outward looking association.
The world as a whole needs an EU of ‘independent’, but
willingly-aligned-for-good-purposes nations-> not an ego-motivated ’super-state’, in which many of the EU’s member nations are effectively rendered to fodder for the international agenda’s of a minority, & forced to participate in & contribute to purposes/projects that their
peoples may be adverse to.
Roderick V. Louis
Posted by: Roderick V. Louis | June 21st, 2007 at 11:51 am | Report this commentVancouver, BC, Canada,
ceo@patientempowermentsociety.com