Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho: On the European Union Constitution
Jordi Mallach expressed fear, uncertainty and doubt about the European Union Consitution. I would like to make the following two points:-
Much of what is in the proposed Constitution is already in force as part of the current foundational treaties. So, if you read the Constitution and want to bash it, please read also the current treaties. I expect you to find it to be clearer and content-wise quite similar to them. So don't think that this document is an evil attempt to seize power or something (well, it might be that but I doubt it).
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A change to the current foundational treaties would be necessary in any case. The acceptance of new member states makes decision-making by the current rules difficult, if not impossible.
I assume most of the FUD spring from the grand name of the new document, a Constitution. It deserves the name quite rightly. It is the sole foundational document after it is accepted, replacing quite a few treaties. However, its impact is mostly illusory. A similar change was done in Finland a few years ago, when the three constitutional statutes (none of them called the Constitution) were combined and updated into a single law called the Constitution. (Long-time Debian developers probably remember my ill-conceived ITP from four years ago:)
Perhaps this FUD is exactly why the consitution should not be subjected to referenda. I don't doubt that Jordi is not alone in his feelings, and such feelings could easily cause it to fail in a referendum. The only effect of such a failure would be making decision-making in the EU painful, without actually addressing the issues people have, such as Jordi's regional issues.
2004-06-19T22:24+0300 - /en/politics
Trackback url: http://antti-juhani.kaijanaho.info/blog/en/politics/eu-consitution.trackback (trackback on rikki / trackback is broken)
Re: Constitutions and countries
In addition to not reading properly the last article of mine you referred to, did you not follow any of my links this time then?
- MJR/slef, ma, 21 kesä 2004 22:00
Re: Constitutions and countries
No. If you have an argument, present it in the posting, or indicate clearly that your argument is contained in the links.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ma, 21 kesä 2004 22:18
Re: Constitutions and countries
Now you know what a link-quote is.
- MJR/slef, ti, 22 kesä 2004 00:14
Re: Constitutions and countries
And now we know what a misbehaving arrogant bastard is.
Re: On the European Union Constitution
I am Portuguese, and there are two things I have to remember you. Up to know there was no "European law". European directives had to be ratified by national parlaments. With the European Constitution there will be European law and it will superceed ALL national laws. Our own Constitution had to be changed to accomodate this fact. Also, several competences, up to now exclusive to each country, will become EXCLUSIVE competences of the EU. There is a clear loss of national sovereignty.
Also, the argument on the acceptance of new members does not hold, since the Nice treaty already endorsed the required updates.
To conclude, I also remember you that the process of reaching the draft of the European Constitution was extremely un-democratic. Not A SINGLE voting was done during the entire process. National "delegates" to the assembly were NOT elected. Also, government oficials and even national parlaments (at least in our case) are not granted discretionary constitutional powers.
The European Constitution impact is not illusory. It has several important changes to the current statu quo. You will have a EU president. You will have a european foreign policy official. EU exclusive competences are defined. Unanimity and veto is lost to double majority.
A referendum is without a doubt required. People HAVE to be able to choose their future and to decide in such important matters.
- João Luis Pinto, su, 20 kesä 2004 12:26
Re: On the European Union Constitution
The Nice treaty is inadequate, a stopgap measure because the required changes could not be agreed upon at that time. It was clear even then that further changes would be needed. The loss of unanimity and veto are related to this; what works for a dozen states and which sort of works for fifteen will not work for thirty.
European Union Regulations already override national laws. We lost that sovereignty a long time ago. The Constituion mainly clarifies that.
It is true that competencies are changed.
Laws are generally drafted by government officials, not by elected bodies. Only after a draft has been agreed upon are the elected bodies given a chance to review and change it. This is a part of standard democratic process everywhere.
The EU president and the foreign policy official are examples of the illusory impacts I mentioned. Neither individuals have much individual power; rather, they are there as opinion leaders and to chair certain bodies (and, in the case of foreign policy official, to oversee the execution of policy decision).
Referenda were held in post-Maastricht new members when they joined the EU and in many pre-Maastrict members at the time of adoption of the Maastricht treaty. The essential changes you complain about were accepted then.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, su, 20 kesä 2004 14:48
Re: On the European Union Constitution
You say: "Perhaps this FUD is exactly why the consitution should not be subjected to referenda." That sounds like you have lost faith in democracy. I've not.
By the way, you are an european citizen and you can interact with the european institutions in your mother tongue, which is a language spoken only in europe. On the other side, I'm also an european citizen and I can not interact with the european institutions in my mother tongui, which is also a language spoken only in europe. I don't see that we have equal rights.
- enric, su, 20 kesä 2004 19:09
Re: On the European Union Constitution
Enric: Agreed on the language issue
The problem with referanda is that it is hard to ensure that the decisions are based on fact instead of fear, uncertainty and doubt created by uninformed opinions and demagogy. If democracy is about having as much referanda as possible, I certainly have lost my faith in it; but that is not how I define democracy.
In my youth (well, I am still quite young, I would like to think) I believed in direct democracy. What disillusioned me was a few years' worth of life experience and a minuscule experience in local politics (I have participated in it as a green deputy representative in a minor committee). I have learned that most decisions are quite hard and it takes a lot of effort to learn the issues. If it is hard for a representative, it's going to be even harder for a layman (not for any other reason but that they cannot be expected to invest enough time and energy).
The biggest problem with a referendum is that it can ask only very simple questions, like "should we accept this treaty or not", without any possibility for informed debate. In many cases, a referendum is loaded with implicit questions that have nothing to do with the actual question, for example, it can be considered a vote of (no) confidence for the current national government.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, su, 20 kesä 2004 21:07
Re: On the European Union Constitution
The adequacy of Nice treaty remains to be tested. It has been only a few weeks since the entry of our new fellow countries. The fact that somebody is tryng to makes us believe it does not exist or is inadequate without near inexistant testing and that a new document is required is untimely and, to say the least, suspect.
Regarding "what works for a dozen states and which sort of works for fifteen will not work for thirty": if it doesn't suit all countries, perhaps it should't be EU's business in the first place. The idea of imposing a "EU view", a "formatting" to everything will be, in my opinion, EU's demise. The countries of the EU are simply too different to accept central "formatting".
"European Union Regulations already override national laws": this is simply not true, at least in the Portuguese case. European Regulations, or Directives have to be ratified by our Parlament, that can vote FREELY on it. It is not an automatic process. After the ratification, if the Directive is accepted, it is incorporated in Portuguese Law.
"Laws are generally drafted by government officials, not by elected bodies (...) This is a part of standard democratic process everywhere." Also not true. I, of course, speak only for the Portuguese case, which I believe has several similar implementations in Europe. Governments are EXECUTIVE organs. They can, sometime, legislate, with limited scope (what we call a "decree"), or be delegatted by the Parlament with legislative powers in specific and delimited subjects. All "1st class law" emanates from the Parlament.
Regarding the EU President and Foreign Policy Official, things are also different from "illusory". One of the new exclusive competences of the EU will be, guess what, Foreign Policy! If this is not personal power... Also, it reeks of hipocrisy. Do you really belive the UK and France are going to trade in their seat in UN Security Council for a single EU representative? Do you believe it will happen with all the European countries in NATO?
Regarding former referenda, there was not a single EU related referendum in Portugal, as I believe was also the case in several EU countries. If some opted for it and changed there own internal Law accosrding to it, it did not happen to ALL countries. Also, the scope of what we are discussing now is completely different of what was on the table in the previous treaties. Up to now sovereignty was a non-issue.
The EU "we" are building is seriously lacking democratic support. In the end, for good or bad, if we are talking Democracy you have to let people decide. What you are saying that sometimes things are too complicated for the "layman" is an extremely dangerous way to go. The problem with decisions is sometimes that they try to solve lots of problems satisfying everybody. Perhaps the focus should be on deciding on what is accepted by all and abstain from imposing the rest to Greeks and Trojans.
- João Luis Pinto, su, 20 kesä 2004 21:55
Re: On the European Union Constitution
Note that Regulations and Directives are different things. Regulations indeed override local laws, directives only direct law-making in the individual states.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, su, 20 kesä 2004 21:58
Re: On the European Union Constitution
Antti-Juhani, you said it well: "Referenda were held in post-Maastricht new members when they joined the EU and in many pre-Maastrict members at the time of adoption of the Maastricht treaty." The "many" word happens not to apply to the state I live in. The president by then said: "we don't need a referendum for that, it's like making a referendum to ask the people whether the royal palace should be painted pink or blue". (I find that utterly offensive.)
By now, in my state the people has not ever voted to accept any european institution. I do believe that politicians are afraid of losing the acceptance of a constitution that reinforces the power of states. I'm an euro-enthusiast myself, and if Europe is to become a state as I'd like, I want a really good constitution for it. But the current draft is unacceptable for me and I will vote against it when the referendum arrives.
Also, most of the text of the constitution is of an economical nature, which seems remnant of its beginings as an economic union. But I'm not sure whether the constitution is an appropriate place for that. (I've not read it fully, as it is long and difficult, but I've seen the different parts and read about 10% of them.)
- enric, su, 20 kesä 2004 22:19
Re: On the European Union Constitution
By the way, I'm catalan, and lots of people here (I can not speak about % because those questions never arise in elections) are euro-enthusiasts and much more so than our spanish neighbours. However, there's also lots of people here sad about two things: that they are not going to have the same linguistic rights within europe as other citizens, and that the european institutions are not neutral to the catalan national issues. As an example of the latter, there are iniciatives to forbid acceptance of member states into the union that split from previous member states. And this is even sadder when we notice that several of the new members were some time ago part of bigger states.
- enric, su, 20 kesä 2004 22:26
Re: On the European Union Constitution
Enric: I agree that in states where no referendum has ever been held about the union, this is as good time as any. I also agree that all members should have held (and should hold if not already have held) a referendum about the union as a general concept. However, the consitution in itself does not IMHO warrant one.
João Luis Pinto, however, seems to be ignorant about his own country and about political processes in general. I checked the Portuguese constitution at http://www.parlamento.pt/ingles/cons_leg/crp_ing/index.html. First, it confirms that the Portuguese government does have the power to introduce bills to the parliament; the constitution does not say whether this is the normal procedure or not, but I suspect it is. Second, as an aside, I found it curious that the Portuguese constitution forbids holding referenda on consitutional amendments :)
Pinto seems to confuse the notions of preparation of bills and the enactment of laws: when I claimed that preparation is normally done by government officials, he responds by saying that the government can only enact decrees. Of course he is right, but the response missed the point quite a bit.
I'll also dare to say that if you don't want an inter-European authority that overrides member states in some cases, you should campaign for your country to leave the European Union. There are other, more apt ways to handle simple inter-government cooperation.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, su, 20 kesä 2004 22:36
Re: On the European Union Constitution
It is a fact that governments can propose drafts of law proposals. Even groups of electors. I did not say they couldn't. I just objected to your "generally". Although it is a common procedure, I can asure you (and, well, I live here!) is that is NOT the general or dominationg case. Most of out law is drafted by the Parlament. I would say what you refer as a "standard" is hardly so. I also doubt on the existance of anything close to a "standard democratic process". Also, in the end, what matters is who approves the law.
Regarding your last paragraph, my only remark is on who "specified" what Europe should be? Were is the plan? Are we following a blueprint? Who said and decided that Europe should be "an inter-European authority that overrides member states in some cases"? Or should the rightful people of the EU have the say of what they want?
- João Luis Pinto, su, 20 kesä 2004 23:28
Re: On the European Union Constitution
It is the dominating method here (in fact, MP-initiated law almost never gets accepted as such). I may be mistaken about how common it is elsewhere.
There is no blueprint, it is an evolving process - but one needs only to look at what EU is now to see that it is where it is going. A body of intergovernment cooperation does not need a supernational parliament, for example.
- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, ma, 21 kesä 2004 00:59
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