September 24, 2007
Kicking the referendum habit
Like a patient undergoing aversion therapy, the European Union is painfully learning to kick the referendum habit. The Dutch government decided last Friday it would ratify the EU’s Reform Treaty without a referendum. The British and Danes intend to follow suit. Less well-known, at least outside France, is that President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government in Paris is thinking of joining the club - albeit from a different angle. They want to change a clause added to the French constitution in 2005 that requires a referendum to approve the entry of all would-be new EU member-states after Croatia, which is expected to join a few years from now.
The principle behind aversion therapy is pretty simple and not very nice. To suppress an undesirable habit, you make the patient associate it with unpleasant side effects. So, if you are the EU and you have a habit of holding referendums, you make sure the referendums go the wrong way.And that they certainly have, on several occasions between 1992 and 2005. Aaarghh! Can you feel the benefits already?
The French constitution’s new clause was introduced at a time when French politicians and sections of public opinion were fretting about the possibility that Turkey might one day join the EU. Now, there’s no reason to think Sarkozy has softened his opposition to Turkish membership. But the constitutional clause, if left unchanged, could easily result in French voters rejecting EU entry for countries such as Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. That strikes some in Sarkozy’s circle, and many in EU countries outside France, as plain silly. It would destabilise a part of Europe where the prospect of EU membership is one of the few things that keeps conditions relatively benign.
Whether Sarkozy can remove the referendum pledge from the constitution remains to be seen. But if he doesn’t, the EU may have to brace itself for another nasty session of aversion therapy.
Mr Barber,
One of the aims of the Laeken declaration, and one of the intentions of the Constitutional process, was to bring European institutions closer to its citizens. In other words, to address the democratic deficit and the lack of popular support for the EU.
So presumably you suggest the best way to address this democratic deficit is to ignore referendum results? To ensure referenda are never held again? To carry on in spite of the wishes of the people?
European history is littered with countless ‘aversion therapy’ events which warn against ignoring the will of the people. They are otherwise known as revolutions.
Posted by: Stu99 | September 25th, 2007 at 8:04 am | Report this commentThe referendum issue is a tricky one.
Yup, the refusal to grant the British or other nation a referendum on the slimmed down Revision Treaty, would seem to be incompatible with the notion of bringing Europe closer to the people.
However, this is built on the assumption that referenda are the means of letting people decide on the issues before them. Should the ban on soft drugs be lifted? Should we bring back the death penalty? Such questions require yes or no answers, and, arguably, are suited to the medium of referenda. In the context of a 250 or so page document, raising all manner of wider political issues, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of pages of legislation and case-law implicity referred to, a yes-no referendum is not the appropriate means of letting the people decide. ‘Well, I like Article 295 but not 295a’. Can we write footnotes in the text of our referendum paper? Clearly no, and the only appropriate forum for deciding on the minutiae and details flowing from such a technical document is debate in the chambers of the democratically-elected legislature, representing the views of the people, where each clause can be properly debated and weighed in the balance.
To look at the results of the French and Dutch referenda is, at best, disheartening. Of the French who actually voted on EU-related issues (ie not those protesting at the Chirac government) and thereby opposed the referenda, were apparently voicing their criticism at the over-liberal agenda allegedly enshrined in the Constitution’s provisions. But how many of those were actually voting on the basis of the wording of the treaty, and not, as is far more likely, as a result of the furore stoked up over the Bolkestein directive (which in any event was broadly an affirmation of existing obligations). And the result? Sarkozy gets to remove a pro-competition clause from the new Revision Treaty..what evidence of support did he have for this? Was he reading people’s referendum ballet papers? Or did this handily fit it with this own political agenda of nationalistic protectionism?
To add insult to injury, the ‘no’ from the Dutch has been married to the ‘no’ from the French - as if the ultra-liberal Dutch were in any way opposing the Constitution for any of the same reasons. Still, this double refusal has somehow lent legitimacy to other national leaders to pick and unpick the treaty at their will, fashioned after their own idea of ‘popular support’.
Finally, in Great Britain, the national press, the Fourth Estate - accountable to no one and thus at total liberty to say anything it likes, true and untrue, without fear or need of correction - holds an incredible sway over the great British public. Of course, the dry, yet important achievements of the EU pale in comparison with the headline-grabbing failures, which more often than not are widely exaggerated to satisfy the ownership of the papers that is concentrated, regrettably, in the hands of the few…How democratic is that?
Posted by: John Bailey | September 25th, 2007 at 3:24 pm | Report this commentMr Bailey,
Surely every election involves complicated issues that very few people fully grasp? Presumably you suggest we should cease all elections because the (ahem) uninformed voters may not understand all the intricacies of all the issues.
The real problem is that the EU has never had a popular mandate. It has never come clean about what it actually is, what is it stands for, or where it is going. It has been built in the shadowy underworld of international diplomacy, behind closed boors, with backroom horse trading and excruciating compromise over naked self-interest.
Surely it’s not surprising that, when asked, people vote on a menagerie of different concerns. Faced with a popular rejection, there are tow possible responses.
The incorrect response
Ignore the result. Carry on regardless. Sneak through the back door what you failed to bring through the front. Revert to the closed-door shadowy underworld of backroom diplomacy. Oh yes, and pledge to never again put the EU to a vote.
The correct response
Posted by: Stu99 | September 26th, 2007 at 6:07 am | Report this commentGo back to the drawing board and define what EU is. Start, like any good business, with a mission statement and work from there. You might even come up with something people want and – heaven forbid – they will vote for.
Stu I think you are right and wrong at the same time. Yes, much EU business has been carried out behind closed doors, and yes, ministers and bureaucrats looooove to come home from Brussels and say that the nasty EU has forced them to do such and such (didn’t the BoE just do that this month?), all the while keeping stumm about the fact that they voted in favour or abstained on the issue. So yes, there is a real problem of transparency, and the Council is the place where serious reform should start. In with the cameras!
But to say that the EU has never been honest about what it’s about is rather odd. It’s not like the treaties are not or were not public documents. And it’s not like the Commission or the Court of Justice, which are the only two main institutions beyond the DIRECT control of voters, somehow had a hand in defining the direction of the treaties. The treaties were adopted and ratified by NATIONAL politicians. If there is any problem about coming clean (and I am not convinced there is one), it is a national problem and not one that can be blamed on EU institutions, which are simply doing what the treaties set them up to do.
If there has been a deception, it has been on a quite mind-blowing scale, and has involved virtually every signifiant politician in Europe since the War. That’s quite a conspiracy theory there, and I just don’t buy it.
If the EU lacks popular legitimacy (and it does), that is the fault of national politicians who find it convenient to hide behind Brussels, and not the other way around. Those national politicians, regrettably, hide behind the legitimacy of their national governments to make subtle attacks on the legitimacy of the EU. Why?
Why does Gordon Brown feel he has to say that an EU Treaty has to be in “Britain’s national interest”? Not, as you might think, because the UK national interest might be slightly different in some areas from the wider EU interest, but actually because such a statement invests HIM with the legitimacy that he feels he needs to stay in power. In reality, it’s not actually about UK vs EU, but if he makes it so, he gives himself the role of the local hero, the defender of the helpless Brit.
Jack’s a plumber. He goes to a house to repair a leak. The housewife asks him what’s gone wrong. “Hmmm”, thinks Jack. “I could tell her that this pipe is very old and was laid such that when work was done by kicthen fitters, it vibrated. I could tell her that the plumber who laid the pipe could have thought about future kicthen fitters, and that the kitchen fitters could have shifted the pipe, but that it wasn’t really foreseeable and not any one person’s fault. I mean, the world isn’t black and white”
“Oooor, I could tell her that he old plumber was rubbish, did bad quality work, and has really screwed up her system, to the point where it needs a thorough overhaul. More business for me, and who am I really hurting? The other plumber doesn’t talk to his customers much anyway.”
Guess what. 9 out of 10 plumbers will go for the option of disparaging another, even subtly, especially if it doesn’t cost them anything.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | September 27th, 2007 at 9:44 pm | Report this comment