Archive for the ‘Europe’ Category

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Eurabia: No such thing

Friday, January 8th, 2010

The Brookings’ Institution’s Justin Vaïsse takes apart the Eurabia myth in this excellent short piece inForeign Policy.

He points out the concept’s stylistic links to fear of “Eurocommunism” in the 50s and general anti-European and anti-internationalist sentiments on the American right, and correctly positions Melanie Phillips as “on the fringe far right” in European debate.

Here’s some of the good stuff:

If these books insist so much on the future, it is because current [evidence for Muslim take over is] unimpressive. According to the higher range of estimates by the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC), there are already as many as 18 million Muslims in Western Europe, or 4.5 percent of the population. The percentage is even lower for the 27-country European Union as a whole. The future will certainly see an increase, but it’s hard to imagine that Europe will even reach the 10 percent mark (except in some countries or cities). For one thing, as the same NIC study indicates and demographers agree, fertility rates among Muslims are sharply declining as children of immigrants gradually conform to prevailing social and economic norms. Nor is immigration still a major source of newly minted European Muslims. Only about 500,000 people a year come legally to Europe from Muslim-majority countries, with an even smaller number coming illegally — meaning that the annual influx is a fraction of a percent of the European population.

Finally, though the Eurabia books describe Europe as committing “slow motion suicide”, reality begs to differ — and increasingly so. According to demographers, in 2008, fertility rates in France and Ireland were more than two children per woman, close to the U.S. (and replacement) level; in Britain and Sweden they were above 1.9. And though in the 1990s European countries set an all-time record for low fertility rates, figures are now rising in all EU states except Germany.

Posted in Books and articles, Europe, Nationalism & Internationalism, Politics | Comments Off

Cameron and Europe

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

No time for blogging today, but here’s an interesting short paper (pdf) from Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform, talking about how a Cameron government, and David Cameron himself, will handle European issues.

Posted in Books and articles, Europe | Comments Off

A day to remember

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Today is a day to remember – I’m serious. Here’s Dan Hannan, MEP, on his blog this morning:

Britain is no longer a sovereign nation. At midnight last night, we ceased to be an independent state, bound by international treaties to other independent states, and became instead a subordinate unit within a European state.

Hannan’s article is a classic of the genre, combining apocalyptic melodrama with a pedantic legalism that bears no resemblance to the reality of the world as it is lived.

For instance, the reason we are apparently no longer a sovereign state is that the EU now fulfils, in Hannan’s opinion, the four-part definition of a state in Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Treaty. Disaster! Stop all the clocks! Write a thriller about it and call it the Montevideo Protocol (starring a devilishly handsome shaven-headed hero who can’t stand socialised medicine).

The possibility that Hannan might be wrong, or that the EU and the UK might be parallel sovereignties, or that they create a new form of joint sovereignty unimagined in 1933, isn’t considered – why spoil a good drama?

For all it is laughably inaccurate, hyperbole of this kind always goes unchallenged and is then forgotten. The sensationalism of the media and the collective amnesia of the public will ensure that in a few months’ time, the UK will lose its sovereignty all over again, on some other issue, like a constitutional groundhog day.

That’s why you should remember this day. Remember, when life goes on as normal, Parliament continues to pass laws, we continue to be grudging members of the EU, and the world, in general, keeps turning on its axis, this this was not a day when we lost our sovereignty, that it was just a day like any other, like October 22, 1844, for instance.

Then when the next great world-changing disaster comes around, you can remember that the Euro didn’t collapse within five years, sharia law isn’t ruling our streets, and we could all use a sense of perspective.

Posted in Current affairs, Europe, Nationalism & Internationalism | Comments Off

Democracy denied in Switzerland

Monday, November 30th, 2009

The news from Switzerland is bad, not just for the overwhelmingly moderate Swiss Muslim population, but also for democratic reformers in general. Anyone arguing against democratic reform can now say – “let the people have their say, and you’ll get racism and discrimination, like in Switzerland”.

What’s worse, a minority in British politics see such populist racism and discrimination as positive reasons for more participatory democracy. “Cut through the wiles of politicians and the PC brigade, and let the people say what I … sorry, they really think.”

What case can democrats make against those populists?

It has to start from questioning the democratic credentials of the Swiss vote. Sure, the vote was passed in the proper constitutional form, but there are undemocratic elements to every constitution, and I would argue that the use of referendums to deny minority rights is just such an undemocratic element.

One has to draw the distinction between the false view of democracy as “whatever the people think today”, and the larger view of democracy as a system that secures the right of people to control their government both now and in the future.

When I think about the basic principles of democracy, I’m always drawn back to its original Athenian conception, centred around three words – isonomia (equality before the law), isegoria (equal right to speak), and eleutheria (personal freedom).

Two and a half thousand years on, our conception of equality has moved on a little (no slaves, women voting), but the ancient fundamental that a good state secures permanent equality in laws, speech and freedom is written into the US Constitution, the Declaration of Human Rights, and a hundred other basic laws.

If we start with this conception, the Swiss vote starts to look very undemocratic. In the same way that it is not democracy to vote to abolish democracy, it is not democracy to legislate against the fundamentals of democracy.

This Swiss law would be democratic if it applied to all citizens of any religion – the French concept of laïcité works, in theory, like this. As it is, the Swiss referendum attacks isonomia as it applies to Muslim citizens alone. This is even more obvious when one looks at the form it took: a federal constitutional amendment on one religious building in a constitution that delegates every other religious matter to the cantons.

I don’t know what reach the ECHR has in Switzerland – I assume the country is a member of the Council of Europe. I hope that the ECHR has the power to overturn the referendum result. You can imagine the reaction from the rightwingers on the Net: screaming about a disgraceful denial of democracy. I don’t agree. To overturn this unjust and undemocratic referendum would be in itself a democratic decision – even if not taken by the people.

Posted in Current affairs, Democracy, Europe, Long entries | Comments Off

Lock, stock

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

David Cameron has promised a new “referendum lock” – a piece of legislation that will require referendums to be held under certain circumstances. Here’s the relevant extract from his speech:

Never again should it be possible for a British government to transfer power to the EU without the say of the British people. If we win the next election, we will amend the European Communities Act 1972 to prohibit, by law, the transfer of power to the EU without a referendum. And that will cover not just any future treaties like Lisbon, but any future attempt to take Britain into the euro. We will give the British people a referendum lock to which only they should hold the key – a commitment very similar to that in Ireland. This is a major constitutional development. But I believe it is now the only way to reassure the British people that powers cannot be given away without their explicit approval in a referendum.

I would be interested to see how this works. There are a few big questions:

1. What does “transfer of power” mean? Does it cover, for instance, the implementation of a directive that creates a European Food Safety Agency with certain powers – removing some powers from member states? If so, we will be having referendums on a pretty regular basis. Or does it mean (more likely) a treaty change whereby a new competence is given to the EU? If that’s the case, there may not be a referendum for another ten or twenty years.

2. What if there is a difference of opinion over whether something is a transfer of power or not (say, for example, the use of the Lisbon treaty’s self-amendment clauses)? Who decides – presumably Parliament.

3. Surely Ireland isn’t a great example of a country where the referendum lock is used, since (a) it’s part of a written constitution and (b) the Irish Government – not just bad nasty bureaucrats – campaigns for a yes vote every time and gives the yes side a do-over if the first answer is ‘no’. There’s nothing to suggest that wouldn’t happen here – the Government would have negotiated the treaty after all, so why would they campaign against the deal they struck themselves?

Posted in Constitutional Reform, Current affairs, Europe | Comments Off

A disgusting use for a noble phrase

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Truly, the persecution complex of the Eurosceptic movement knows no bounds. According to his announcement today, David Cameron is going to make “Never Again” the slogan of his European campaign.

Never Again? Never Again, over the breach of some pissant referendum promise that should never have been made on an issue that no-one cares about?

Has David Cameron no sense or understanding of history? That phrase is associated (very closely associated) with genocide, and specifically with the Holocaust and the Nazi death camps – the very things that spurred the drive for European unification that he and a motley band of obsessive nationalists whine about.

Have whatever opinion you like about the EU, Mr Cameron, but don’t steal a noble phrase and insult the persecuted, massacred victims of the last great European war.

Posted in Current affairs, Europe | 2 Comments »

Europe's birthers

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Charlemagne on his blog, says:

What are British voters meant to hear [from William Hague's remarks about loss of British vetoes today]? The same thing that Czech voters are meant to hear [from Pres Klaus's statement on signing the treaty]. That something very grave—the loss of Czech sovereignty, the “loss of British national vetoes” has taken place—but that their political leaders are powerless to prevent it. What are they supposed to feel, other than blind rage?

These are very serious words, being used in a self-serving, unserious way. A British voter could easily think that all British national vetoes have now been lost, under the Lisbon treaty, though this is not true. A Czech voter could be forgiven for thinking that his country was no longer sovereign. That is also not true.

Mr Klaus and Mr Hague are indulging in irresponsible talk. And given that the same political leaders talking about the end of the world are not proposing to do anything about it, what are voters meant to think, but that their democracy is coming to an end? I find it depressing when I read the comments on various British news websites about the EU, and find that large numbers of them accuse the government of high treason, or talk of the “EUSSR”, preparing to punish all who dissent. But when political leaders play the same games of rhetorical inflation, who can blame voters for following suit?

I’m drawn to some other profoundly unserious politicians, on the other side of the pond, who are pandering to the most extreme and ludicrous of their constituents by supporting the claim that Obama isn’t a natural-born American.

Posted in Current affairs, Europe, Nationalism & Internationalism | Comments Off

Eurosceptic democracy

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

From today’s Guardian.

In an interview on LBC today, [David] Cameron said he was “disappointed” by the Czech court’s decision [that the Lisbon Treaty is OK constitutionally]. “I hope, of course, [Klaus] doesn’t sign the treaty but I suspect time is running out,” the Conservative leader said.

Is this not extraordinary? To hope that a single individual should go against his own country’s laws, the views of its courts, the opinions of its voters and the democratic decision of its Parliament? How would that be any democracy other than the Eurosceptic kind, where anything that supports the holy cause is democracy, and anything that goes against it is false consciousness?

Posted in Europe, Nationalism & Internationalism | Comments Off

David Heathcote-Semele

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

This morning’s Today programme pitted David Heathcote-Amory against the Economist’s Brussels correspondent, Charlemagne (David Rennie) in a discussion about the appointment of the President of the EU Council.

It was an uneven match-up. Heathcote-Amory complained about the Lisbon Treaty, complained about the undemocratic EU and how awful it all was, and came across as backward-looking, querulous and reactionary. Rennie/Charlemagne tried to drag the conversation towards the future and the powers of the new role, pointing out that the Lisbon Treaty was all but passed, so we should stop complaining about referendums and just get on with it.

The oddest part of the interview was when Heathcote-Amory complained about how the new Council President wouldn’t be appointed by a democratic vote, but by the heads of national governments. Rennie made the point that since the job was to represent national governments, it was reasonable for the national governments to make the appointment.

The point Rennie didn’t make, which is perhaps more important, is that anyone who wants the EU to be less powerful and at the same time more democratic is asking for two incompatible things. Greater democratic legitimacy would push the EU towards being a proper federal state, which would be a very bad thing for those (unlike me) who think that sovereignty within national borders is the most important part of democratic governance.

It reminded me of Semele, the hapless lover of Zeus, who is tricked by Hera into asking Zeus to make love to her in his divine form, and is then burned to a crisp. Semele: Eurosceptics :: Zeus : elected European president.

Posted in Democracy, Europe | Comments Off

Stupid polls 8: Blair and the EU presidency

Monday, October 19th, 2009

I’m not sure whether Tony Blair being President of the European Council would be good idea. The Independent, however, is sure – that he shouldn’t be. You can tell by the big picture of him on the front cover of the paper with “Nein, Non, No” over his head. You can also tell by the way their news article takes really shaky and unreliable data and presents it as conclusive proof that there is

a democratic discrepancy between voters and national leaders – who wield the votes for the new president.

That there is a democratic discrepancy in general, I wouldn’t dispute, but the three pieces of evidence they use in support are, first:

a European-wide petition to stop Mr Blair taking the post … Nearly 38,000 people have signed the petition.

That’s 38,000 out of an EU population of 450,000,000. Second:

After the IoS asked readers’ opinions last week, hundreds responded – and those saying No to Mr Blair outnumbered Yes by 20 to 1.

That’s a little thing called selection bias. And finally:

A poll last week found 47 per cent of Britons were opposed to Mr Blair [sic], with 35 per cent in favour.

Assuming that the question related to the EU Presidency of the Council, it’s asking a lot for British punters (a) to understand that the President’s job will not be the same as Barack Obama’s, and (b) to separate the actual question from knee-jerk anti-EU or anti-Labour feeling. Indeed, given Labour’s lowly standing in the polls and the current anti-politician mood, the fact that 35% were in favour of the Blair candidacy is a pretty positive result for him personally.

Posted in Current affairs, Europe, Stupid Polls | Comments Off

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