EU ENLARGEMENT: 'Welcome to the Battle for Democracy'

national | miscellaneous | news report Monday December 30, 2002 01:51 by Anthony Coughlan jcoughln at tcd dot ie

EU ENLARGEMENT: 'Welcome to the Battle for Democracy'

Sent to you for your information by Anthony Coughlan.

WELCOME TO THE BATTLE FOR DEMOCRACY

by Jens-Peter Bonde MEP

(June Movement, Denmark, and member of the Convention on the Future of
Europe drawing up the EU Constitutional Treaty/ Constitution)

I had a pleasant cultural shock the other day. During the Copenhagen summit I took part in a television debate on Polish TV with my Polish
colleagues from the European Convention.The debate lasted a full hour. All participants were allowed to speak full sentences and put forward
reasoned arguments and take part in a genuine dialogue instead of the short soundbites we are used to in the "free" West.

How refreshing. We have no real public debate in our "democratic" EU. We have not - yet? - a public debate about the EU Convention. Yet in one
year's time we will have a new European Constitution. There will only be free public discussion about it in the countries which now decide that the final decision shall be taken by referendum.

Portugal, Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands will have referenda. Leading politicians in France are also calling for a referendum. But it is stillonly a minority of countries that will allow their citizens a say, in the "free" West.

THE CULTURAL SHOCK OF AN UNREFORMED EU FOR THE YOUNG DEMOCRACIES

The 10 Applicant countries will now all have referenda to decide their future with the EU. They are young democracies, used to hidden decisions in the past. They will get their first major cultural shock when they enter an unreformed EU. There they will find 20 people, the members of the EU Commission, with a monopoly to propose laws. Even in the Soviet Union,
the governing "politbureau" did not have that power.

They will find that 85 % of all laws are decided on by civil servants in working groups under the Council of Ministers, and the remaining 15 % in
the Council itself.

In the EU Commission, in the working groups and on the Council of Ministers, most laws are decided by bureaucrats behind closed doors.
Elected members of national parliaments and the European Parliament have a very small role to play. The elected members of the national
parliaments in the Applicant countries will be shocked when they realise that they are going to lose the major part of their newly won democracy.

EU LAW HAS PRIORITY

The new countries will have to obey all our 85,000 pages of EU law.
They will have no choice but to accept every single line, even when EU law is in conflict with what they might have decided on their own. A simple regulation decided by civil servants behind closed doors late at night will always have priority over national law. Even their national Constitutions are subordinate to simple regulation from Brussels.

EU law always has priority. This is stated explicitly in Convention President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's draft Constitution. But it is already a fact to day - even if it is not generally known, even by many policy-makers.

In the debate on Polish television, a member of the Convention tried to play down the constitutional process by saying that every organization has a statute, so that the draft EU Constitution is not a real constitution like the Polish one. I asked if this delegate knew of any other international organization with a statute allowing the organization to overrule the Polish Constitution.

For three decades we have had Danish politicians who have denied most of the facts of European integration. We had a Prime Minister who said the
European Union would be "stone dead" if we only voted Yes to the Single European Act in 1986. The government promised "veto rights" on every single issue when they introduced qualified majority voting and stopped using the Luxembourg compromise and its veto.

Danish voters are used to half truths and would not believe the Danish EU politicians, even if they were right. Before the many new referenda in
the EU Applicant countries, I will advise my colleagues to stick to the truth and nothing but the truth if they want to be portrayed and survive as trustworthy politicians.

NEW MEMBER STATE POLITICIANS SHOULD BE HONEST AND TELL THE TRUTH

Explain the lack of democracy in the EU and tell your fellow citizens how you want to reform the existing undemocratic EU. Will you join the
federalists and opt for a European Government controlled by the European Parliament? Or do you prefer a "Europe of democracies" where the common decisions are controlled efficiently by the national parliaments?

Do you believe that a European people will emerge to take part in vigorous European electoral debate and elections if the European Parliament gets thepower to install a common EU Government? Do you prefer a European Commission with one representative elected from each national
parliament or eventually directly elected by the different peoples of Europe?

Will you make transparency and openness the general rule and closed meetings and secret legislative documents the rare exception?

Do not deny the lack of democracy in the EU. Confirm the sad facts to the electorate. Conclude that this is the reason you do not want to join,
now, or explain why and how you want to join now in order to take part in the democratic battle inaside the EU and have your say.

DO NOT DENY THE LACK OF DEMOCRACY IN THE EU

The enlargement Accession Treaties will be signed on 16 April in Athens. I will personally vote in favour when the act is brought to the European
Parliament, since there has to be at least 314 votes in favour to allow enlargement and since I want to respect the referenda in the applicant
countries.

Hopefully the Consolidated Treaties and the full "acquis communautaire" will soon be available in all languages so that there is enough time to study them before the referenda. There cannot be serious referenda when the full content being voted on is not yet published.

You will also have to allow a certain time for neutral and pluralist information to be disseminated. And you will have to organize a
balanced debate where everyone will feel fairly treated and therefore accept the result whether it is a Yes or a No.

This demands equal funding of the campaigns for Yes and No, and democratic responsibility in private and public media. The European Parliament
cannot send observers to elections in Pakistan and elsewhere and criticise biased campaigns and election results there, when we ourselves allow one side to monopolize access to the media in the Applicant countries before their referenda.

That said: welcome to the Applicant countries, so that we can together reform the EU into a slimmed-down Community focusing on genuine
cross-border issues - one that is democratically governed and controlled by the peoples and the elected representatives of Europe.

Join the debate!

___________

Jens-Peter Bonde is President of the SOS Democracy Inter-group and the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities(EDD) in the European Parliament.