Tag Archives: constitution

You’d Better Move On

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The papers this morning seem to be all full of ‘gloomy’ articles whose principal theme is that Europe has finally been plunged into a grave crisis by this weeks summit.

“People will tell you next that Europe is not in a crisis,” Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who holds the EU presidency, said after a two-day summit ended in acrimony. “It is in a deep crisis.”

As someone who is ‘crisis prone’ I would have imagined I would share that feeling. Somehow I don’t.

Some reasons why.
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Never Do Today…

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…. what you can usefully put-off till tomorrow. There is still a lot of confusion surrounding what has, and what hasn’t been decided in Brussels. On the Constitution Treaty it seems there will now be an open-ended ratification period. What this will mean in practice is hard to see. The answer you give to this question seems to depend on whether or not you think that the French might change their minds after 2007. I wouldn’t be very optimistic on this front. Amongst economists the winds of globalisation are now reaching gale force, but on the political front, amongst voters, protectionism (both in the EU and the USA) is clearly gaining ground. Since I think this latter issue is every bit as important as the remoteness of the politicians when it comes to how people vote, and since I think the calls for protectionism may grow louder, I don’t anticipate that 2 years from now the general climate will be any more favourable to a ‘Treaty-like’ project, in fact, in all probability, quite the contrary will be the case. Globalisation will not be ‘rolled back’, it has already gone beyond the point of that being a viable possibility, but the process off its ‘ratification’, or if you like extension, may well take a “time out”.

The EU is to ?pause for reflection? for up to two years in a bid to resolve Europe?s constitution crisis. Europe?s leaders will next revisit the issue in Spring 2006 as the EU?s constitution deadline of November next year gets kicked into the long grass. Luxembourg?s Prime Minister and EU presidency holder Jean-Claude Juncker hinted that a new constitution deadline could be over two years away. ?After the ?non? and the ?nee?? the November 1 date? is no longer tenable. Those that haven?t ratified won?t be able to do anything until mid-2007,? he said late on Thursday night.

Czech Voters Becoming Constitution Sceptics?

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Evidence is growing that the legacy of the French and Dutch votes will be more enduring than many of our leaders seem to have thought. Now a survey in the Czech Republic finds voters increasingly unwilling to vote the constitution.

The poll showed that 29 percent of Czechs would reject the constitution and 19 percent would support its ratification… More than a quarter of the population is not concerned whether or not the document will be ratified, and another quarter believe ratification is unnecessary in the current situation. “At present, the European constitution would not be approved in a referendum and in addition, a very small number of voters would have take part in it,” Jana Hamanova from SC&C said, in reference to the results of the poll.

This means that the EU constitutional treaty is not currently supported by the majority of potential voters of any of the parties represented in the Chamber of Deputies.

Clueless In and Out of Brussels

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We’re still all waiting really. Waiting to know what the next move really in the saga is going to be (Iceland isn’t in the community yet, if I remember correctly). Staring into the tea-leaves and casting a wary eye over towards Brussels, looking desperately for clues.

What this continuing lack of definition really does is make matters worse., compound the problem. It re-inforces exactly that feeling of being ‘left out of things’ that probably produced the ‘no’ votes in the first place. This isn’t very promising if you were hoping that at least the rejection of the constitution at the ballot box would act as a kind of ‘shock therapy’, now is it?

However, according to the rumours:
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Latvia Votes Yes

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The Latvian parliament approved the Constitution Treaty earlier this morning, by a huge majority:

“Latvia’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to support the EU constitution on Thursday, a decision lawmakers and analysts said sent a message from the new Europe to the old that the approval process must continue.

After several European leaders urged other member states to press ahead with the endorsement process after convincing rejections in the French and Dutch referendums, Latvia’s 100 member parliament voted 71 for the constitution with 5 votes against and 6 abstaining“.

The next hurdle will be the Luxembourg referendum, on the 10th July. This will take place as scheduled if the EU summit of 15/16 June doesn’t decide to change tack.

Meanwhile French media are announcing that there is a plan B, it’s called Blair. Tony Blair, they are suggesting, will seize the opportunity presented by disarray in the federal Europe camp to push ahead with ‘liberal’ economic reforms, leaving the institutional infrastructure to languish. Possibly the outcome the French fear most. Something like this may in fact be what happens.

The Economist On The Result

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The Economist is more or less positive about the outcome, of course it probably didn’t favour the constitution anyway:

French voters have rejected the proposed European Union constitution by a decisive margin. The flawed constitution is now probably dead, though the EU will get by without it. For President Jacques Chirac, however, it is a crushing defeat

Incidentally the Economist is now putting virtually all the Glbal Agenda section. I don’t know what this portends for their online influence.

Voting strength

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I wonder about something… One of the arguments for the constitution, (and for the whole Nice treaty before it), is the changed voting rules are necessary because the increase in members would make the EU dysfunctional, and unable to make decisions. I was always kind of sceptical of that, but it was almost me alone against the conventional wisdom.

Well, now we don’t have to speculate, and it seems to me the EU functions perfectly smoothly. The council adapted, there was no gridlock. I haven’t heard the punditocracy claim otherwise either, and yet people still argue as streneusly that it’s vitally important to reform the rules. They’re just don’t acknowledge that they’re now arguing against the status quo, rather than a a threat in the uncertain future. It’s a bit odd.

Where’s the problem?

The one area where I have read people argue against the status quo is forein affairs. I don’t think the constitution will in practice change much, no government will defer to others on natinal interssts. I think we’ll see increasing cohesion, but because attitudes and habits are changing. But if I’m wrong it could only mean because the constitution takes away much more nat’l sovereignty than I think. I don’t think the pro.constitution pundits really should want to argue that.

(I’ll deal with the principal arguments some other time.)

If they say no

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People will vote no for many different reasons, some for opposite reasons. But it seems clear to me some complaints will be shared by nearly all no voters, as well as many yes voters. Namely, that the EU is undemocratic, that the elites don?t care what the people say, that integration has been pursued without any input from them. Furthermore, I think an appropriate reaction to defeat would be humility. Therefore I think the proper way to rewrite the constitution would be to discard with most of the expansions of the EU’s powers, and as a side dish to introduce more robust measures to make the EU more democratic and accountable. This seems like the right thing to do, and also like a politically wise thing to do. It would make it likelier that people would vote for it, wouldn’t be that vulnerable to criticism that you rerun the vote and ensuing bitterness and still get the important things from this constitutions passed

If they’d scrap language that would invite judicial activism too, I myself could vote for it with enthusiasm.

While it’s not unthinkable that they’d actually do what I’ve suggested, I wouldn’t bet on it. More likely, they’ll either have a new IGC and make some less substantial changes to the constitution, or they will just give up for a few years. Neither scenario strikes me as worse than a yes vote.

What would be worse is if they give up and then go back to IGCs without any referendums or conventions, but I don’t think they could get away with it. In a sufficiently long run I’m sure they won’t, but heightened contradictions will be a mixed blessing. One dismal scenario would be for the French government to promise never to let Turkey in, and then rerun the referendum without changes, which would also be worse, at least if it succeeded, but again I don’t see it as likely.

The EU and the case for a ‘non’ (Updated)

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A couple of weeks ago, Versac from the French blog Publius sent me a bunch of questions concerning my views on the EU and the Constitution. They’re interviewing a number of non-French bloggers in this way. I thought I’d publish my answers here. A sample:

The main negative thing is that it’s giving the EU more power, competences, and I think that’s inappropriate before the democratic deficit is addressed. Also, it may lead to more judicial activism, which is bad.

Voting no is a bit of a gamble, since you can’t be sure it will push the governments in the desired direction, and not for example rule out Turkish membership to get it passed, or end up drafting an even worse constitution. But the happy scenarios seem likelier than the bad ones. We need to bloody the politician’s noses. Above all the present situation is unacceptable, and no real reform seems imminent. We need to seize the rare chance to set the EU on a new course, towards democracy and accountability. By rejecting the constitution, all bets are off.

Full interview under the fold.
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The thing about referendums

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I’m quite fond of representative democracy, and don’t think replicating the Swiss or Californian system would be a particularly good idea. I do however think that referendums are an occasionally vital and necessary part of democracy, and to do away with them, like the German constitution does, would be a great mistake.

There are situations where referendums are the only acceptable alternative. As a supporter of representative democracy I disagree with people who say that this or that issue is too important to be dealt with by the normal electoral process. But I do think I think referendums are necessary when an issue is 1) divisive 2) vitally important and 3) the normal partisan system cannot properly deal with, because the fault lines are different. As a corollary, anytime sovereignty is involved, I think an issue has to be pretty minor for you not to hold a referendum.

Most of the referendums on EU memberships are textbook cases of this situation. In the case of Sweden, nearly half of voters opposed Swedish entry and for most of the campaign the no side led. Without a referendum they would have had to vote for the Green or Left parties if they wanted to stop our entry. Both quite radical non-mainstream parties who together held less than 10% of the vote. In some countries all parties were for membership. In these instances I feel not holding a referendum would be undemocratic, and would to some degree disenfranchise (to use an American term) the whole electorate.
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