They did this as a response: the European people had made their view clear -- they did not want the European Constitutional Treaty. The overall view was confirmed by referendums in The Netherlands and France. One such 'NO' should have been sufficient. The public was against the confused and confusing alternative presented to them. It was not an improvement to the previous treaties, no matter how much they had been despised, ignored and distorted by past self-serving nationalist leaders (like de Gaulle and others).
Referendums promised for the United Kingdom and elsewhere were unceremoniously and undemocratically abandoned. Why? We can now see that further massive Noes would have made the later strategy of the political cartel (that was not interested in democracy) even more difficult.
A Debate ??? Never did any of the institutions -- as far as I am aware -- publish the original documents describing how the Founding Fathers defined European supranational democracy.
- They never described the supranational system of democracy and how it worked before de Gaulle tried to destroy it.
- Nor did they publish the central pledge of the European Statesmen describing how they saw European democracy developing.
- They did not assess the failures of governments to keep the pledges that the governments signed in the earlier and later treaties.
- They did not assess why in the half century of European history the governments have never permitted citizens to have a European Parliament election, according to the principles that the treaties describe. Nor have they permitted elections for the representatives of organized Civil Society. That would act against all cartels, whether economic or political.
- If democracy is about elections, why have the government leaders and the Commission and the other institutions never published a report on their own failures in democracy? That alone would indicate that the Plan D for democracy was dishonest, duplicitous and deceitful, a counterfeit and a smoke screen.
- Instead, European leaders made a decision in the secret confines of the Council building to try to force this Constitutional Treaty through by other means. They knew this was not an honest approach. In fact the leaders themselves declared that this was not an honest approach.
While with one side of their mouth they used the words Democracy, Dialogue and Debate, with the other they plotted to install a political cartel.
How did the politicians act? Did they destroy the failed and rejected treaty? Did they ask how European democracy could be improved? Did they examine how the Community system had proved so successful since the Schuman Declaration of 1950 and examine how this longest peace and prosperity had been achieved? Did the party politicians promise that the next treaty they would propose would be so eminently democratic that it would pass muster even if 27 States held referendums? (The fully functioning democratic Community system could assure this.)
Not at all. They did the opposite. They devised a scheme that imposed what had been rejected. They rendered all public debate impossible. The ministers themselves described their disreputable grand design as to ensure 'incomprehensibility' to make it deliberately 'unreadable' and 'impenetrable'.
How on earth could people who describe themselves as democrats -- in fact the representatives of 27 democratic States -- collude so shamefully in deceit? Power tends to corrupt, absolute power absolutely.
In the democracy-darkened corridors of the Council, where de Gaulle's henchmen used to strong-arm the small countries and make 'package deals' of wine lakes and meat mountains to bribe voters, all made the deal. All were suborned. Was there not a single honest leader amongst the 27 leaders of government and State who objected to this duplicity and fraud? Apparently not. Pseudo-democrats deceived themselves together. The two or three major political parties made a cartel by a pact of blood.
They should not deceive themselves. It was not an innocent deal. All Europeans will pay the cost of this democratic injustice in the future. Cartels fleece the customers, blunt wise action and end in tears, too often unforeseen bloodshed.
The political cartel cut the Constitutional Treaty into a series of amendments to the existing treaties. They tried to pass the whole thing off as merely amendments to treaties that did not require democratic assent. Amendments, they said hypocritically, do not require a democratic debate with the people. Really? That would seem to depend on their importance. This is especially the case when the 'amendments' seek to destroy the democratic heritage of more than half a century.
Then they refused to publish the consolidated text. That was a deliberate act to stop citizens discussing its contents. They told parliaments to whip the party members of parliament without even a full text in front of their eyes.
In spite this censorship, some universities and private organizations did try to assemble the texts from the confusing jig-saw bits. They found they could not even publish a definitive text. The text of the Treaty -- affecting 500 million citizens -- was passed around like some sort of Samizdat, the clandestine, banned literature illegally distributed inside the Soviet Union! The public was allowed little or no dialogue or debate on the political powers described in the Lisbon Treaty. What a travesty of any sort of democracy!
The little the public understood was that it was the same as the Constitutional Treaty that had been roundly rejected as unworkable, confusing, anti-democratic and gave powers to a self-selected elite in the form of a political cartel. Parliament would lose its power to sack the Commission. It would open the doors to a new wave of corruption among political parties.
The Council cartel maintained Lisbon was different from the Constitutional treaty because it left out reference to the European Flag. Oh really? Who was objecting to the European Flag? Practically no one! It did not harm anyone. Is this the crux of the constitutional treaty? Isn't it rather that it replaced the democratic philosophy and democratic law of the Founding Fathers by a confused and confusing hodgepodge with its multiplicity of high-paid presidents? Is this talk of Lisbon being a different treaty from the rejected Constitutional Treaty not just dishonest duplicity? Judge for yourself. Has the European Flag disappeared from public and private buildings, official letterheads and documents?
Such distortion and dissimulation is contrary to the conscience of any honest person. It is contrary to the principles of democracy, as enunciated by Robert Schuman and the founding Fathers of supranational European democracy. It is also contrary to the founding document of Europe, its Magna Carta, the Europe Declaration. The European institutions have refused to publish this key document on democracy for decades. That is a corrupt practice.
In order to pass a treaty that the people had refused, the cartel politicians did not hesitate to change the national constitution of France, ignore firm pledges for referendums and act contrary to the views already expressed with some clarity.
The European Commission and institutions started this debate. They declared it was necessary. We are happy to contribute to the Debate and Dialogue on Democracy with those responsible.
Your comments are welcome.
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