June 28, 2007
Miliband’s green light to Europe
Brussels has never taken to Gordon Brown. The man who refused to let Britain join the euro is seen by some as a scowling eurosceptic, who only turned up at monthly Ecofin councils to lecture other finance ministers.
Most European capitals know little about the new prime minister: unlike Tony Blair he does not have a big network of foreign politicians he can call friends. But there is a willingness to give the new man the benefit of the doubt and see whether the move from Number 11 to 10 Downing St will change his style.
My guess is that he will, not least for domestic political reasons. By projecting himself as a hard-headed pro-European he hopes to present David Cameron’s Conservatives as a bunch of eurosceptic obsessives, happier in the company of climate change-denying Czechs than mainstream Christian Democrats.
Mr Cameron has already helped him with this strategy by pulling the Tories out of the moderate European People’s Party, alienating such allies as Germany’s Angela Merkel. The folly of this policy was highlighted in brutal style by Quentin Davies, the Tory MP who defected to Labour this week.
Another sign of possible things to come was the appointment on Thursday of David Miliband, a personable pro-European, as Britain’s new foreign secretary. Miliband founded the Centre for European Reform, a Blairite think tank, and has long espoused an active British engagement in the EU.
During his trips to Brussels as environment secretary he was open and enthusiastic about Europe, suggesting the bloc should rebrand itself the "environmental union" to show that it was taking seriously the concerns of ordinary citizens.
Miliband’s paternal grandparents may have both lived in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw during the second world war, but do not expect to hear any Kaczynski-style anti-German rhetoric from the 41-year-old. He is a thoroughly modern European.
Mr Brown’s choice of foreign secretary will be a welcome sign in Brussels and will apparently come as a surprise to some anonymous sources in Westminster - depressingly cited on the BBC Today programme on Wednesday - who thought Miliband was too good to be wasted in a job like foreign secretary.
"There is a school of thought that he would be better off in the television studios than sitting in boring EU meetings," said the reporter.
Is that just the BBC inflating its own importance, or are there really people in London who think Miliband’s talents are better deployed sitting in television studios in Millbank than representing a major world power like Britain in the EU and the world? Thank God Brown isn’t one of them.
“ALTERNATIVE NEW EU TREATY NEEDS TO BE DRAFTED”
The Centre for European Reform (http://www.cer.org.uk ) puts it well: ‘new ideas for a new Europe’…
Legitimately new ideas for the EU are needed!!
… not surreptitiously repackaged, renamed versions of previously-rejected treaties- as is unambiguously represented by the recent approval (by EU member nations’ heads of govt) of the EU Constitution-in-disguise: the EU ‘Reform’ Treaty!!
Unfortunately, new ideas for the EU likely won’t come about- or be deliberated widely & openly- without an active- BUT ALSO OBJECTIVE- British engagement in the EU.
If approved, the deceptively promoted, specious ‘new’ EU Reform treaty will launch the EU’s member nations on a pathway to lose their ABILITIES TO DECIDE POSITIONS & ACTIONS RE FOREIGN & ECONOMIC ISSUES & THEIR ROLES/RELATIONS WITH Nato.
Without explicitly delineating it, the treaty’s blatant purpose is to begin a process of the EU functionally ceasing to be a European “community” of “equal nations” & becoming an amalgamated super-state.
UK politicians & concerned stakeholders across the continent ought to jointly write a counter ?EU reform treaty?, describing a future EU, with rationalized structures, powers and purposes-> that are alternatives to the EU-Constitution-by-another-name Reform treaty & its blatantly destructive-to-EU-member-nations’ independence clauses.
Articulating loudly, often & widely the obvious (time-bomb-like) flaws and immense dangers in the proposed treaty is needed, but to cultivate active popular support & reasoned evaluation-of-the-issue: “joe public” in ALL EU member nations needs to be shown simply, palatably & explicitly-> an alternative EU structure, that is in-plain-speak, capable, & better, than what is represented by the ‘new’ treaty.
HOW TO ?REALLY? SIMPLIFY THE EU??
EU PARLIAMENT:
If not abolished, then much, much smaller, perhaps with 10 mp positions allocated per EU member country, instead of the present EU member nation independence-destroying system.
EU mp’s should not be elected, due to the dangerous, inherently oppositional relationship this system creates between EU member nations’ governments & the EU parliament… Instead, EU mp’s ought to be appointed by the govt-of-the-day of their respective nations.
GET RID OF THE POSITION OF EU PRESIDENT ALTOGETHER:
In its place have the EU Commission’s EU-member-nation-appointed President chair Council of Ministers meetings.
If the current 6-month long President of the Council of Ministers position is increased to a 2 &1/2 year long tenure-> it can only be a matter of time before there are suggestions to have the position elected by an EU-wide election process… & after that, to ‘migrate’ the position from the Council of Ministers to the EU Parliament, while scrapping the Council-> the only remaining venue where EU member nations have retained any legitimate ability to participate- with vetoes- in policy/law decision making.
EU ‘HIGH-LEVEL REPRESENTATIVE’ (FOREIGN MINISTER POSITION): A TIME-DELAYED SURRENDER OF MEMBER NATIONS’ INTEGRITY!!
This position is not needed for the EU or its member nations to govern themselves; work-together; or to implement existing or new laws, standards or
policies-> as related to member nations’ or internal EU issues.
EU member nations losing their ability to opt out of EU foreign policy positions/actions- as the creation of an EU Foreign Minister type position would- eventually- mandate, will serve to destroy the check & balance system that member nations can & do play against each other, under the present EU model.
Aligning member nations’ foreign policies ought to be possible. But forced-aligning/participation of member nations? is not required by an EU that is not a super-state, or has zero pretensions to become one.
Sufficient structures exist world-wide (Nato, UN, etc) to enable the effective aligning of EU member nations? foreign & related types of policies- without forcing all member nations to adopt & provide their resources for the same positions, always.
MEMBERSHIP OF NATO OUGHT TO BE COMPULSORY FOR EU MEMBERSHIP
EU: A COMMUNITY OF ‘INDEPENDENT’ NATIONS
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 main objectives behind its formation 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 internal 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.
The world as a whole needs an EU of ‘independent’, but willingly-aligned-for-good-purposes nations-> but 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.
EU member nations approving the (’super-state facilitation’) EU Reform Treaty, will, without directly articulating it to their respective citizenry: begin a process with objectives of the EU functionally ceasing to be a European “community” of “equal nations” & becoming an amalgamated unitary state…
Concerned politicians & other stakeholders that object to this transpiring, ought to work together to provide the electorate in all EU member nations with an easy-to-understand proposed ‘new’ EU structure that retains the principles of ‘community’ & member nations ‘national-integrity’-> & that removes the obvious conflicts of interest represented by the existence of an elected EU parliament functioning alongside member nations’ national parliaments…
Roderick V. Louis
Posted by: Roderick V. Louis | June 29th, 2007 at 3:00 am | Report this commentVancouver, BC,
Canada,
ceo@patientempowermentsociety.com
Roderick, like I said before, there may or may not be some good ideas in your posting, but was immediately turned off by the capital letters and the bold print, plus words like “surreptitious”. Not a sign of a constructive approach.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | June 29th, 2007 at 8:11 am | Report this commentThere is nothing moderate about the EPP. They are swivel-eyed Federalists of the worst kind whose views on the future of the EU (like those of FT journalists) have nothing in common with the great majority of British voters. The Tories are going to have to do a LOT more than withdraw from the EPP to get my vote. Brown at least has kept us out of the Euro so has some personal credibility. The Tories will need to secure a referendum on the EU Constitution to beat that.
Posted by: John | June 29th, 2007 at 6:07 pm | Report this commentRoderick, we are glad that a Canadian of your stature has the time to berate our Eurocracy, next time we’ll be sure to really detach Quebec as thanks.
We are rather fans of the CER, however, we find ourselves rather questioning her latest policy recommendations: http://europhobe.wordpress.com/2007/07/12/engage-hamas/
We wonder, furthermore, how Mr. Miliband will enjoy debating foreign rather than environment - his old remit - policy with Europeans….
Posted by: europhobe | July 12th, 2007 at 6:39 pm | Report this commentRoderick, we are glad that a Canadian of your stature has the time to berate our Eurocracy, next time we’ll be sure to really detach Quebec as thanks.
We are rather fans of the CER, however, we find ourselves rather questioning her latest policy recommendations: http://europhobe.wordpress.com/2007/07/12/engage-hamas/
We wonder, furthermore, how Mr. Miliband will enjoy debating foreign rather than environment - his old remit - policy with Europeans….
Posted by: europhobe | July 12th, 2007 at 6:40 pm | Report this commentI think Miliband is one of the more promising members of the Brown team; which makes me wonder how long he will stay a member of the Brown team…
Posted by: Insideur | July 20th, 2007 at 10:41 pm | Report this commentI’d be interested in an updated GoogleAnalytics chart (may be two with about six weeks coverage), just to see if the effect did wear off after a while and also, did others link to your new name with the same link-text (allinurl:…). I hope you will publish a follow up.
Posted by: Chat | August 1st, 2007 at 11:51 pm | Report this commentI’d be interested in an updated GoogleAnalytics chart (may be two with about six weeks coverage), just to see if the effect did wear off after a while and also, did others link to your new name with the same link-text (allinurl:…). I hope you will publish a follow up.
Posted by: Chat | August 2nd, 2007 at 7:44 am | Report this comment