I live in a building owned jointly by a hundred families, a cooperative. The other day the board asked the members to vote on a plan to spend four million dollars on renovating the building. When the members voted “nay,” the board asked for another vote, on a slightly reconfigured loan. The membership reacted with great dismay, as it was obvious that if they had voted for the loan, no second vote would have been called for. They felt manipulated, and their resentment is still agitating our small community and threatening future plans to act in unison.
EU politicians are responding to the Irish “nay” vote on the Lisbon Treaty in the same high handed manner my board did, and the effect will be the same. EU leaders are all for democracy—as long as the people vote the way they prefer the vote to come out. In effect, leading EU politicians are more devious than my board. At first they pressured Ireland to hold a swift second referendum. When the Irish refused, the EU politicians called for others to proceed anyhow.
First of all, both German and French leaders, and even the highly respected Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxemburg, called for the other 26 nations to proceed in ratifying the treaty. This move makes little sense if the EU is going to abide by the procedures it itself set, namely that all 27 member nations must ratify the treaty for it to take effect. Why ask for the remaining 26 to go through the trouble if the treaty cannot be legally implemented anyhow?
One response is that, as France's Europe minister, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, put it, that the EU will find some “specific means of cooperation” with Ireland. Another-- a two speed Europe, in which those nations that will ratify the treaty will work more closely together than the others. In either case, the remaining 26 countries do not plan to allow their people to vote on the very consequential treaty, and will rely on ratification by the parliaments. The result? Growing alienation from the whole EU project by large segments of the European publics.
The EU politicians involved are emboldened by the decades in which they made what they considered great progress without truly involving the people. The EU’s European Commission made hundred of decisions without effective public hearings or proper consultations with the citizens of the countries involved or even with the weak EU Parliament. Those decisions stuck because they often dealt with highly technical matters (e.g. harmonizing the axle widths of the railroads of the various countries); the EU ignored the fact that many member nations did not implement the policies the EU pronounced (e.g. the requirement that each member nation dedicate 3% of its public budget to research and development); or — the decisions did cause a measure of resentment, but an initially limited one. However over the years, the high-handed ways of the Commission have become one reason major segments of European publics have soured on the whole idea of a united Europe. True, when the French and the Dutch voted “no” on a previous round of the treaty (then called a constitution), they had several reasons, but among them was a lack of ardor for the whole EU project.
Moreover, the issues the EU now faces are far from limited technical ones, but tap into deep-seated political, moral and emotional issues, such as what is to be done about immigration (which the citizens of several nations are keen to limit, while other EU nations allow immigrants in quite readily-- immigrants quick to move to other parts of the EU); terrorists (different nations have very different notions about civil rights); further enlargement (esp. the admission of Turkey); and above all, the surrender of sovereignty, which the significant increases in EU majority voting, detailed in the new treaty, will result in.
These are not matters that lawyers, civil servants, and a few representatives can rule upon in secret or opaque meetings, or ram through parliaments-- if the majority of the public has other preferences. Either the majorities will have to be persuaded, or the policies adapted. If the EU continues to proceed in the same high-handed, undemocratic way it has been acting, it will face ever more resentment and opposition.
The rejection of the further expansion and enlargement of the EU will express itself in many ways. In some cases, national governments that are pro-EU will be voted out of office. In others, voters will flock to nationalistic right wing parties or movements. Or, they will support strikes, demonstrations, and even civil disobedience to EU measures, or vent their frustrations in some other way.
The time has come when the EU authorities and those who champion the EU project either win more people over to their cause, or sharply modify their project. Most likely they must do both if the EU is to continue to grow and not regress to a merely trade union.
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