If you gained a 32.5% majority in any election, would you be pleased? No doubt. It is a resounding victory over your opponent.
Is the European Parliament boasting about the results in the June election of last year? Hardly. The majority of Europeans voted AGAINST the MEPs. They voted against the Parliament. They voted against the political parties as they are being now represented.
In effect the majority of 57 per cent of the voting population abstained. They listened to the radio, watched television received the political literature. Then they looked at the list of candidates.
They voted for NONE OF THE ABOVE on the ballot.
The European people have given a crushing vote against the political class and their actions. That appalling overall result includes the countries where voting is compulsory! They get fined if they do not vote! Yet many didn't. These countries all showed an increase in those who refuse to vote. They are saying: 'Go on, fine me or take me to court -- the whole thing smells rotten!"
It's far, far worse in countries where people are FREE TO CHOOSE. In Slovakia 80.4% abstained from voting for the EP. In Lithuania it was almost the same (79%). In Poland it was more than three out of every four electors who refused to vote. Is this is what Europeans are to expect all over Europe in the future?
Isn't this information shocking? Why am I writing about it now? Simply because the European Parliament has just published the results and those of a survey about last year's elections. A bit late you might say. So would I. Are they worried? Not a bit of it!
This is what they say: "Even though the turnout in the EU 27 fell by two percentage points this year, it was a smaller downfall compared to previous election" of 2004. In other words the ship of democracy is sinking fast but it is sinking less rapidly. They don't seem to care that the trend is strongly down to the bottom of the sea! The last air is now bubbling out of the luxury cabins.
The political parties don't care. The politicians shrug their shoulders collectively: 'Parliamentary elections are getting more and more irrelevant but people are getting used to the fact we turn them off. We still have a few that vote. The masses are not yet burning tyres in the street. Be cool!'
This is how democracy is sinking into distrust and incoherence.
Election Year ........................1994 .....1999 .... 2004 .... 2009
Turnout drops .................. 56.7%..... 49.5%..... 45.5% ....43%
Abstention rate increases 43.3% ..... 50.5% .... 54.5% .... 57%
The report does not reveal the embarrassing fact that ever since the politicians moved to a secretive intergovernmental system from supranational democracy, voter turnout has continually dropped. In 1979 turnout was 63%, then in 1984 it fell to 61%, and further to 58.5% in 1989 and so downwards, constantly and interminably.
So who is refusing to vote? Is it the older people who no longer vote? Not at all. There is a disastrous loss of young voters going to the polls. One in two of the older voters went to vote but in the 18-24 age group, only just over a quarter of the young voted (29%). That is a difference of 21 percentage points from the young to old. The trend is stark. The numbers of young electors who want to vote has dropped by a THIRD since the last election of 2004. Isn't that a sign we are sinking deeper into a grave crisis?
The crisis of democracy is also apparent when voter background is viewed. The highest turnout comes from executives, managers and directors (53.5%). The lowest comes from unemployed 28%, students 35%, and manual workers 36%.
The most important group who should be represented in Parliament are those who are most likely to abstain. Two out of three people who find that that are in difficulty paying their bills at the end of the month do not vote.
And before the MEPs say that the non-voters are simply not interested in Europe, that simple is not true. One in two of the abstainers said they felt an attachment to Europe. Clearly they think something is seriously wrong with the system. It is time that the MEPs took their responsibility seriously.
Instead of publishing how they can have a single European election instead of 27 national ones, the Parliament has published a Handbook for political parties about how to cheat in the European elections.
The failure of European citizens to go to the polls is a grave crisis that has to be tackled. Even worse is blindness in face of the catastrophe and refusing to do anything about it. The MEPs have lost sight of what a Community Parliament is all about. They are confused by the old forms of national political ping-pong that passes for democracy. How many of them are familiar with their responsibilities under the treaties? If they were why did they vote away their most important power -- the power to dismiss the Commission? That is no longer possible!!
They haven't fulfilled the most important requirement towards their electors. No wonder the electors are fed up! It has been more than half a century that the treaties have OBLIGED governments to have a single statute and a single election for all of the European Community area. The governments and all previous European Parliaments have FAILED to fulfill this duty. What is the point of voting for MEPs when voters are voting in 27 national elections. That is just a repetition of the same national elections. It doesn't make sense. The voters know it doesn't. Yet the governments insist of having 27 sets of national elections where each government fiddles the rules so that the governments parties get voted into the European Parliament. That is plain dishonest.
Every time when questioned just before the elections, politicians say 'It is too late to organize a single European election, according to the treaties.' When they are elected MEPs never bother to take their duties seriously.
Is the European Parliament worried? Are the governments concerned about sharp electoral practice? Obviously not. If they were they would have blazoned the democratic danger to everyone. Why release this poll months late? Why are governments not making a fuss about the looming catastrophe of democracy? Because the present corrupt status quo suits them fine.
Are the new MEPs worried? No they are more interested in getting a large increase in personal expenditure that they just voted. They are angling to have more party members in Parliament and making the necessary treaty changes without getting public approval and especially without another referendum in Ireland.
How do I know they don't care? Because the above statistics -- which are obviously at the core of public debates on representation and legitimacy -- were buried in the survey so as to downplay their importance. The Press Release is also rather dismissive of the importance and makes no mention of the catastrophe of confidence. Furious public distrust will not go away by ignoring it. No questions were posed about how the present Lisbon Treaty compares with the supranational democracy envisioned by the Founding Fathers. No questions were raised as to why the Parliament gave up its power to sack the Commission, thus entailing a new wave of corrupt practice.
Nothing was asked about what the Parliament had to do with the longest period of peace in Europe. Or why the Parliament refused to publish the Lisbon Treaty before it was voted. No questions were posed as to why the Europe Declaration declares that the people should be FREE TO CHOOSE and all this was arranged when the people in referendums said NO.
This is how the release presents the results to grab people's attention of the democratic crisis:
"The European Parliament has published the results of its latest Europe-wide opinion poll into citizens’ perceptions of the Parliament and its activity. The poll shows tackling poverty, improving consumer and public health protection and fighting climate change were the top policy priorities of those who took part. The data collection took place during January and February. Following a number of polls in the run-up to and aftermath of the 2009 European elections, this is the first of the regular polls which will be run during the current parliamentary term."
Ho-hum! That is the sort of vibrant press presentation you get when you place the statistics in the hands of the very people who are going to look bad if the real results are exposed. They want to bury the results. They want to avoid embarrassment.
Just to show that they did not care two hoots about what the public said, thought or did about the results, they released the information late on Friday. They are probably sorry that had to publish the report at all.
They delayed and delayed. But they had to publish it eventually. They waited. Everyone is going home for the weekend. They probably thought: "No one will notice the double crisis of European Democracy and the blind plunge to electoral irrelevance."
WHEN ARE EUROPEANS GOING TO HAVE THEIR FIRST EUROPEAN ELECTION -- AS DESCRIBED AND MANDATED IN THE EUROPEAN TREATIES OF 1951 AND 1957???
21 May, 2010
Did Monnet know how to make European war impossible? If not, who did?
What is the greatest achievement of Europeans in modern times? Is it our prosperity? Our Single Market? The Euro? Europeans have never been richer, lived longer or had access to such good health services, not recently or at any time in their history. Is this our best achievement? Not at all. Is it our technologies, the great pinacles of industries and science that our universites and research centres have produced?
Europe's greatest triumph is none of these. It is more mundane. The greatest VICTORY in all our history is that for the last several generations, Europeans are not killing each other in wars!
At the origin lies a revolutionary, spiritual idea. It comprises a scientific theory for ending war and its application put into practice with great political precision and openness. From that fecund event Europeans are harvesting a new power and resource, never before seen by our ancestors. Yet its origin is still unclear, misted by myths.
For thousands of years until 1945, Western Europeans were at war every generation. They formed armies to invade each other. Schools taught the children how to dispise their neighbouring nations. The same children later sacrificed their lives, while others worked in industries providing every more efficient means to kill the neighbours. Historians scribbled away saying how they had won crushing victories over their oppressive neighbours. (They did their best to hide the defeats and how they enslaved others.)
This doctrine of peace -- this secret-- is more than important: it is vital for the survival of the planet. It marks a complete philosophical and political break with history. The peace plan escaped the great intellects of the past, the philosophers and the politicians. Some brave souls in the past spoke of the need for European unity and a peace system. They did not, however, describe what we have today. They usually spoke of creating a grandiose Council of European governments with a European army that would pounce on any group that would not follow some policy or other. And they constructed complex systems -- they were phantoms -- with European councils or congresses that no one really believed in. Which of these great European thinkers speaks of a supranational Community in the exact terms we know it today?
None of them.
Who then was responsible for putting this extraordinary idea of the European Community into practice? It was far beyond the ability of any politician or statesman in the past. Who was at the origin of this idea that changed the face of the planet from the fires of war?
Or did it happen by accident? First let us dismiss this absurd idea. Up to 1950 all the think tanks and serious minded political thinkers were convinced that the past history of wars would continue to repeat itself. Judging from the facts they were right. One keen observer wrote that war was becoming such a feature in European politics that the Continent would now enter a dark age of continuous wars and poverty comparable to that half a millennium previously. Europe would become a black hole of dissent. Why ? Because the wars were becoming more deadly with each advance in industrial power. There was no comparable change in the mentality of Europe's leaders to create peace. None showed the ability to learn from past mistakes.
Instead of chaos, however, came order and the beginning of a new democratic organisation. Order does not come from chaos. Democracy does not suddenly arise from mob wars. Any sensible person knows that.
Something changed radically in 1950. Peace emerged with the creation of a new entity. Clearly the supranational Community idea was at the heart of this peace-making mechanism. It prevented both a war with the Soviet Union (who no longer considered bickering, nationalistic western Europe easy pickings because of its poverty and dissent). It also stopped a new war of revenge by a rising, defiant Germany although there were many plots and neo-Nazi movements in this period.
Who was responsible for this master plan? Did it come Robert Schuman or was he simply a recipient of a message of a few pages from Jean Monnet? Monnet was in 1950 the head of the French Planning and Modernisation Agency. Was the Schuman Declaration just Monnet's Plan for Europe? That sounds cute. Some enthusiastic journalists in 1950 said so. But no one says it today because there is no evidence.
If anyone disagrees, please show me the proof. But beware, I don't believe in fairies or Father Christmas. Where are the drafts? Where are Monnet's intellectual analyses of the political, philosophical, historical ideas of the past? No one has found them. Monnet himself says that his planning group never even considered such an idea of a supranational Community -- before April 1950. Nor is there any evidence that Monnet ever read any of the authors who spoke of the unity of Europe such as Dante, Erasmus, Abbé de St-Pierre, Rousseau, Kant and Proudhon.
Monnet published a book of extracts of his speeches called 'The United States of Europe have begun'. Yet he does not mention, commend or criticise Vladimir Ilyich Lenin who also wrote about a United States of Europe: 'A United States of Europe is possible as an agreement between the European capitalists ... but to what end? Only for the purpose of jointly suppressing socialism in Europe.' Monnet was silent. Yet he was married in Moscow in 1934 under Soviet law.
So did this man who left France and his father's cognac works at 16 to work in London come up with some British ideas about unifying Europe? There is no evidence. Did he read some insight in a book either there or in Canada where he went to sell cognac? His father told him:' Don't take any books with you. Look out the window and speak to people.' (Memoires p47). Monnet worked during two world wars in encouraging weapons supply but none of his colleagues record any views about making weapons unnecessary for Europeans after the war. If Monnet never considered the problem of making war impossible, who did?
Did the peace doctrine that involved a supranational Community just emerge fully fleshed out in all its political, economic, legal and social details in April 1950? If it was not complete by then why did the French Government agree to the Schuman Proposal? It is clear that Monnet had something to do with the producing a paper but what was it that convinced a score of hardened ministers in Georges BIdault's government? The proposal itself?
Is this Monnet-gave-a-message-to-Schuman story a self-serving myth? Was it invented to boost Monnet and most of all to stop the most revolutionary form of democracy yet proposed? Why was it called a 'Community', a term Monnet had not used before? Where did the strange term, 'supranational' come from? Did Monnet invent it? The answer is Monnet spoke nothing of such ideas before April 1950, that is a few days or weeks before the Schuman Declaration was made.
Robert Schuman gave several speeches on all these subjects in the YEARS before the Schuman Declaration. for example a year before the Declaration in May 1949, he gave two speeches (one in London and another in Strasbourg) proposing the creation of a supranational community. He said a new system would put an end to the war and bring lasting peace. Such a supranational Community had never existed in history before. Schuman explained why previous plans for Europe had failed. He mentioned all the main attempts including Dante, Erasmus, Abbé de St-Pierre, Rousseau, Kant and Proudhon. He explained why they would not work. He also mentioned other such planners.
Schuman said there was a system that would work. He called it a supranational Community system. He said so many times. A year later, on 9 May 1950, the French government accepted his proposal for a supranational European Community with its five democratic institutions. Almost immediately Western Europe began to benefit from the longest period of peace in the history of the six founding members. In 1953, he confirmed this peace was assured. That would seem premature to most people. How can you say that after only three years from the Declaration, peace without end would be assured among European peoples? Yet that is what he said.
The record shows that Schuman was right. Our generation, after more than 65 unprecedented years of peace, can confirm Europeans are living in the longest peace ever known. Schuman is dead but the present generation can experience that fact that his prediction holds good so far. Thus it was totally scientific in theory and application. Schuman's proposal was the result of a profound analysis, political realism and the application of Christian Democracy. Schuman said the European Community was like a 'scientific experiment' based on a theory about which he had absolutely confidence.
Monnet made no such scientific predictions, nor had any such scientific theories. If Monnet supposedly wrote the solution to Europe's 2000-year problem of war and peace on four or five sheets of paper, then wasn't sure to whom to give it, then finally decided to give it to the Foreign Minister, who had long expressed ideas about peace through a supranational Community, then this certainly needs some explaining!
Europe's greatest triumph is none of these. It is more mundane. The greatest VICTORY in all our history is that for the last several generations, Europeans are not killing each other in wars!
At the origin lies a revolutionary, spiritual idea. It comprises a scientific theory for ending war and its application put into practice with great political precision and openness. From that fecund event Europeans are harvesting a new power and resource, never before seen by our ancestors. Yet its origin is still unclear, misted by myths.
For thousands of years until 1945, Western Europeans were at war every generation. They formed armies to invade each other. Schools taught the children how to dispise their neighbouring nations. The same children later sacrificed their lives, while others worked in industries providing every more efficient means to kill the neighbours. Historians scribbled away saying how they had won crushing victories over their oppressive neighbours. (They did their best to hide the defeats and how they enslaved others.)
This doctrine of peace -- this secret-- is more than important: it is vital for the survival of the planet. It marks a complete philosophical and political break with history. The peace plan escaped the great intellects of the past, the philosophers and the politicians. Some brave souls in the past spoke of the need for European unity and a peace system. They did not, however, describe what we have today. They usually spoke of creating a grandiose Council of European governments with a European army that would pounce on any group that would not follow some policy or other. And they constructed complex systems -- they were phantoms -- with European councils or congresses that no one really believed in. Which of these great European thinkers speaks of a supranational Community in the exact terms we know it today?
None of them.
Who then was responsible for putting this extraordinary idea of the European Community into practice? It was far beyond the ability of any politician or statesman in the past. Who was at the origin of this idea that changed the face of the planet from the fires of war?
Or did it happen by accident? First let us dismiss this absurd idea. Up to 1950 all the think tanks and serious minded political thinkers were convinced that the past history of wars would continue to repeat itself. Judging from the facts they were right. One keen observer wrote that war was becoming such a feature in European politics that the Continent would now enter a dark age of continuous wars and poverty comparable to that half a millennium previously. Europe would become a black hole of dissent. Why ? Because the wars were becoming more deadly with each advance in industrial power. There was no comparable change in the mentality of Europe's leaders to create peace. None showed the ability to learn from past mistakes.
Instead of chaos, however, came order and the beginning of a new democratic organisation. Order does not come from chaos. Democracy does not suddenly arise from mob wars. Any sensible person knows that.
Something changed radically in 1950. Peace emerged with the creation of a new entity. Clearly the supranational Community idea was at the heart of this peace-making mechanism. It prevented both a war with the Soviet Union (who no longer considered bickering, nationalistic western Europe easy pickings because of its poverty and dissent). It also stopped a new war of revenge by a rising, defiant Germany although there were many plots and neo-Nazi movements in this period.
Who was responsible for this master plan? Did it come Robert Schuman or was he simply a recipient of a message of a few pages from Jean Monnet? Monnet was in 1950 the head of the French Planning and Modernisation Agency. Was the Schuman Declaration just Monnet's Plan for Europe? That sounds cute. Some enthusiastic journalists in 1950 said so. But no one says it today because there is no evidence.
If anyone disagrees, please show me the proof. But beware, I don't believe in fairies or Father Christmas. Where are the drafts? Where are Monnet's intellectual analyses of the political, philosophical, historical ideas of the past? No one has found them. Monnet himself says that his planning group never even considered such an idea of a supranational Community -- before April 1950. Nor is there any evidence that Monnet ever read any of the authors who spoke of the unity of Europe such as Dante, Erasmus, Abbé de St-Pierre, Rousseau, Kant and Proudhon.
Monnet published a book of extracts of his speeches called 'The United States of Europe have begun'. Yet he does not mention, commend or criticise Vladimir Ilyich Lenin who also wrote about a United States of Europe: 'A United States of Europe is possible as an agreement between the European capitalists ... but to what end? Only for the purpose of jointly suppressing socialism in Europe.' Monnet was silent. Yet he was married in Moscow in 1934 under Soviet law.
So did this man who left France and his father's cognac works at 16 to work in London come up with some British ideas about unifying Europe? There is no evidence. Did he read some insight in a book either there or in Canada where he went to sell cognac? His father told him:' Don't take any books with you. Look out the window and speak to people.' (Memoires p47). Monnet worked during two world wars in encouraging weapons supply but none of his colleagues record any views about making weapons unnecessary for Europeans after the war. If Monnet never considered the problem of making war impossible, who did?
Did the peace doctrine that involved a supranational Community just emerge fully fleshed out in all its political, economic, legal and social details in April 1950? If it was not complete by then why did the French Government agree to the Schuman Proposal? It is clear that Monnet had something to do with the producing a paper but what was it that convinced a score of hardened ministers in Georges BIdault's government? The proposal itself?
Is this Monnet-gave-a-message-to-Schuman story a self-serving myth? Was it invented to boost Monnet and most of all to stop the most revolutionary form of democracy yet proposed? Why was it called a 'Community', a term Monnet had not used before? Where did the strange term, 'supranational' come from? Did Monnet invent it? The answer is Monnet spoke nothing of such ideas before April 1950, that is a few days or weeks before the Schuman Declaration was made.
Robert Schuman gave several speeches on all these subjects in the YEARS before the Schuman Declaration. for example a year before the Declaration in May 1949, he gave two speeches (one in London and another in Strasbourg) proposing the creation of a supranational community. He said a new system would put an end to the war and bring lasting peace. Such a supranational Community had never existed in history before. Schuman explained why previous plans for Europe had failed. He mentioned all the main attempts including Dante, Erasmus, Abbé de St-Pierre, Rousseau, Kant and Proudhon. He explained why they would not work. He also mentioned other such planners.
Schuman said there was a system that would work. He called it a supranational Community system. He said so many times. A year later, on 9 May 1950, the French government accepted his proposal for a supranational European Community with its five democratic institutions. Almost immediately Western Europe began to benefit from the longest period of peace in the history of the six founding members. In 1953, he confirmed this peace was assured. That would seem premature to most people. How can you say that after only three years from the Declaration, peace without end would be assured among European peoples? Yet that is what he said.
The record shows that Schuman was right. Our generation, after more than 65 unprecedented years of peace, can confirm Europeans are living in the longest peace ever known. Schuman is dead but the present generation can experience that fact that his prediction holds good so far. Thus it was totally scientific in theory and application. Schuman's proposal was the result of a profound analysis, political realism and the application of Christian Democracy. Schuman said the European Community was like a 'scientific experiment' based on a theory about which he had absolutely confidence.
Monnet made no such scientific predictions, nor had any such scientific theories. If Monnet supposedly wrote the solution to Europe's 2000-year problem of war and peace on four or five sheets of paper, then wasn't sure to whom to give it, then finally decided to give it to the Foreign Minister, who had long expressed ideas about peace through a supranational Community, then this certainly needs some explaining!
12 May, 2010
The 2030 Gonzalez Reflection Group report: the Council's poisoned chalice
When The Council of Ministers asked Felipe Gonzalez to lead a Reflection Group on Europe 2030, it offered the participants a poisoned chalice. It told them that under no circumstances were they to discuss, debate or expose INSTITUTIONAL questions.
They took it and drank. And from the report itself, they did not realise how poisoned it was. How can anyone discuss the dangers, challenges and responses of Europe while drugged and with their arms tied behind their back? It is more. It is blindfolding the Reflection Group. The drugged chalice has befuddled their minds with intergovernmentalism. The Council party Cartel, having fraudulently imposed the Lisbon Treaty, do not want anyone to discuss anti-democratic practice and the Council’s GUILT!!
No wonder that the Group is confused as to whether 'EU’s common agenda and purpose' comes from the citizens or whether it is handed down after discussions by party politicians in its secretive Council of Ministers and then delivered on a plate to the citizens by the Council from behind its closed doors. At one stage the report says citizens must develop a sense of ownership and elsewhere that the European Council should be given leadership (nothing about earning leadership!). The Group was not allowed to pose the question why, if the citizens had already said NO to the Lisbon /Constitutional Treaty system, then why the citizens should accept another Diktat from the coup leaders, a party cartel, posing as democratic representatives.
So what did the twelve eminent wise persons come up with? They identified many problems but they failed in the first task of such a reflection group. That is to make a balance sheet on what the Founding Fathers and later politicians had done to SERVE Europeans and for the future of Europe. They failed to distinguish between service to Europe and the self-serving demands of egotistical leaders and cartels. The Group avoided anything controversial that would offend their political paymasters (one million euros) at the European Council of Ministers.
The Group say that ‘the historical origins of the EU are well known ' but they show no real grasp of them. In other words they failed to understand what were the principles and actions that allowed them to be there, meet, discuss and not be involved in some further European war or crushed by some dictatorship of the left or the right.
Let us take just four examples.
1. Security and defence policy. Robert Schuman created a Community in which ‘war was not only unthinkable but materially impossible.’ If for two thousands years Europeans had been continually killing each other and teaching their children to hate, it seems important to any wise person to find out why and how they stopped. How did this happen? It is important not only for the past understanding but for setting the basis for a future security policy. Can people in today’s killing zones around the world benefit? Do we want our neighbours to be peaceful?
Should not Europe be involved in works of peace, as Schuman said? That should be the mission statement for external policy. Instead the Reflection Group says that Europe should be more assertive. It says it has 1.8 million soldiers under arms. That is half a million more than the USA. But the EU is incapable of deploying a 60,000-strong rapid intervention force. That indicates something is seriously wrong with both the concentration on force and the internal decision-making structure of the EU. The Group does not ask the question: How do we make sure that peace is spread across the world. What are the principles Schuman and his colleagues discovered without armies and how should they be applied between now and 2030. The world's greatest security system -- stopping war between Europeans -- did not require a single gun.
In other words, in terms of Community policy, the Council’s prohibitory mandate not to discuss institutions and supranational democracy befuddled and distorted their minds. It did it so much as to render it practically useless. They did not reached the starting line of utility.
Even worse. If the Council had not forbidden the Group to analyse this essential question of war and peace, then the report would have provided real policy options. By drinking from the Council’s poisoned chalice, the Group comes up with the opposite, illogical conclusion to Community reasoning. It says: ‘A Union of 27 Member States pooling their sovereignty in order to reach common decisions is not an obvious global power house.’
In fact, to anyone who thinks, it is obvious. If Europe showed that the entire population WHO WERE FREE TO CHOOSE had reached a democratic consensus (rather than dictated policy from the self-proclaimed leaders in Council), then Europe would be without doubt the greatest leader of the planet. If all the population was convinced personally that the planet was in danger of Climate Change destroying the environment, causing diseases, migrations and wars, it would be a marvelous example to any dictatorship or religio-political fanaticism and authoritarianism. It requires that all Europeans should become highly reasonable, well-educated and knowledgeable. Only wise people with wise leadership, dedicated to peace can lead the world wisely. That's what Schuman meant by real democracy as distinct from counterfeit democracy of the communist 'people's republics'.
The Group fails to analyse why the EU’s successful foreign policy always comes from its supranational Community structures and never from its intergovernmentalism.
2. Energy. The Group rightly points out that Europe is getting deeper and deeper into trouble with its imported energy dependency. That should be fairly obvious to all. For oil, Europe is 90 percent dependent on suppliers who have in the past tried to place a blackmail embargo on Western Europe. Countries like the Netherlands and Denmark were placed under total embargo while the rest were told that oil supplies would be cut by ten per cent each month unless European States changed their foreign policy. Some 80 per cent of its gas comes from suppliers who have recently subjected vast stretches of Europe to cold, cold winters by stopping the supply. And the EU which is basically built on a foundation of coal strata now imports from abroad about 50 per cent of its coal. Yet the Group do not signal this Energy Deficit and Blackmail as a MAJOR DANGER to the economic existence and viability of the European economy.
They say the opposite. And they are quite wrong in their conclusion. They say ‘There is no chance of becoming energy independent’. That is simply not true. It is possible that if Europeans set their collective minds to the main problem for its continued economic existence, Europe could be ENERGY INDEPENDENT BY 2020. That is what a top European industrialist said a few days ago. Obviously the Group did not ask anyone who knew — which is why they are repeating the soothing, lying propaganda of the oil and gas importers, who want European acquiescence to blackmail prices and extortion.
Europeans are currently paying about eight hundred percent of the free market price of oil. Oil was less than 10 dollars in 1999 and major oil companies said this was about what they expected the long-term price to be. They assumed the cartel and financial leverage powers of the oil cartel had been broken. Then oil shot to 147 dollars a barrel. How did this happen? By a combination of energy cartels squeezing supply, falsifying demand, financial leverage and greed. The western economy could not take this blood-sucking amounting to around 10 percent of GDP. The cartel action partially collapsed. It is not dead. Like a leech, it is just sleeping it off.
Now energy prices are on the way to upwards again. If Europe wants to have TRILLIONS MORE bled from its economy in the years till 2030, it should do exactly what the Group thinks is best — nothing. If Europe wants to take seriously the Warnings made from the 1950s on that oil dependency will mean economic and political servitude, then they should re-read the Community’s Louis Armand report Un Objectif pour EURATOM. This too was commissioned by the Community's six governments but it had some hard-headed analysis. It stated starkly: 'Shortage of Energy (that is NATIVE European energy) is likely to become the strongest force arresting economic growth.' They warned against foreign dependency. And they said all this in 1957 when oil was under two dollars a barrel. There was then a free market and no oil cartel.
The Group should have reviewed what many reports said subsequently. Instead the Group made no balance sheet of past failures. That is just the attitude that will cause us to repeat them with ever more disastrous consequences. The most obvious feature is oil and gas dependency with the same sort of political paralysis as drug addiction.
The solution then, a half century ago, as now, is the same — a European Energy Community based on democratic principles with clear objectives to be so energy independent that Europe will be able to act independently in the world about Energy and Climate Change. As for the urgency of this problem, it has been well known for decades. It is no revelation when the Group says 'Europe needs a common strategy,' but they don't say how to kick the addiction! Europe needs to face up to the truth that this drug will not last forever. Drugs supplies are running out fast!
The only way to stand up to global CARTELS is by united action of the victims and all sympathisers in an open, democratic anti-cartel. Otherwise economic bullies will only grow stronger. Urgent action is needed not only for Europe but for the planet. The world is facing climate disasters on a massive scale. We are already seeing increasing migrations, wars and epidemics. We can expect far more of the same.
THE WISEST WAY TO REVIVE THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY IS BY CONTROLLING THE MAXIMUM BUYING PRICE OF IMPORTED ENERGY THAT EUROPE IS PREPARED TO PAY. IT COULD THEN USE THE HUGE SAVINGS, AMOUNTING TO TRILLIONS. THE SAVINGS SHOULD CREATE A FUND TO BE DEVOTED TO PROVIDING FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR INFANT ALTERNATIVE ENERGY INDUSTRIES AND ENERGY-SAVING TECHNIQUES IN EUROPE. THE FUNDS SHOULD BE UNDER NON-PARTY POLITICAL, DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF INDUSTRY, WORKERS AND CONSUMERS. EVERY CITY AND EVERY HOME SHOULD BECOME ENERGY NEUTRAL. NO NEW VEHICLE SHOULD USE PETROLEUM. OIL SHOULD BE USED FOR PLASTICS AND OTHER INDISPENSABLE PRODUCTS.
3. Democracy The Reflection Group showed some sense in raising the question of democracy for organised civil society. Yet it gave no school report or balance sheet on democracy. What it does not say is the organised civil society, supposedly represented in the Economic and Social Committee has NEVER had an election as required by the treaties of Paris and Rome -- fifty years ago! Nor has the European Parliament EVER had a single European election under a single statute (rather the present 27 national ones) as required by the same treaties.
4 Finance and the crisis By failing to make a balance sheet, the Group has not analysed how in the 50 years of the founding Community, Europe had its own European financial resources. It had a European tax. It was able to have European loans and in fact built up a banking operation that was bigger than the European investment Bank. Why did the Council insist that it should be disbanded?
Today the major monetary contention lies between Europe which still assumes that money should represent real assets (and political parties should not fiddle the proper State accounting, causing other member states to foot the bill) and the USA which has abandoned the concept of solid money by opening the Fed to big collapsing debtors of any stripe. The banking and funding operations of the European Coal and Steel Community were based on real assets not electronic fiat money. They gained and retained the highest international ratings. The loans were granted by international bankers because the Community used the money to invest in renewal of coal and steel operations based on the democratic decisions of the entrepreneurs, workers and consumers. And they were always pleased to see there was no default because of corruption or fraud because these three democratic groupings kept a watching eye on how the money was spent.
It was the party-political ministers in the Council of Ministers who in 2000 refused to renew the Treaty establishing the Coal and Steel Community for a further fifty years. Instead they said citizens should have intergovernmental funding controlled by political parties in governments. Party politicians thus removed real democratic control from European money. They had no democratic mandate to make this change. The present crisis shows how corrupt and crisis-ridden such a political cartel system can be.
They took it and drank. And from the report itself, they did not realise how poisoned it was. How can anyone discuss the dangers, challenges and responses of Europe while drugged and with their arms tied behind their back? It is more. It is blindfolding the Reflection Group. The drugged chalice has befuddled their minds with intergovernmentalism. The Council party Cartel, having fraudulently imposed the Lisbon Treaty, do not want anyone to discuss anti-democratic practice and the Council’s GUILT!!
No wonder that the Group is confused as to whether 'EU’s common agenda and purpose' comes from the citizens or whether it is handed down after discussions by party politicians in its secretive Council of Ministers and then delivered on a plate to the citizens by the Council from behind its closed doors. At one stage the report says citizens must develop a sense of ownership and elsewhere that the European Council should be given leadership (nothing about earning leadership!). The Group was not allowed to pose the question why, if the citizens had already said NO to the Lisbon /Constitutional Treaty system, then why the citizens should accept another Diktat from the coup leaders, a party cartel, posing as democratic representatives.
So what did the twelve eminent wise persons come up with? They identified many problems but they failed in the first task of such a reflection group. That is to make a balance sheet on what the Founding Fathers and later politicians had done to SERVE Europeans and for the future of Europe. They failed to distinguish between service to Europe and the self-serving demands of egotistical leaders and cartels. The Group avoided anything controversial that would offend their political paymasters (one million euros) at the European Council of Ministers.
The Group say that ‘the historical origins of the EU are well known ' but they show no real grasp of them. In other words they failed to understand what were the principles and actions that allowed them to be there, meet, discuss and not be involved in some further European war or crushed by some dictatorship of the left or the right.
Let us take just four examples.
1. Security and defence policy. Robert Schuman created a Community in which ‘war was not only unthinkable but materially impossible.’ If for two thousands years Europeans had been continually killing each other and teaching their children to hate, it seems important to any wise person to find out why and how they stopped. How did this happen? It is important not only for the past understanding but for setting the basis for a future security policy. Can people in today’s killing zones around the world benefit? Do we want our neighbours to be peaceful?
Should not Europe be involved in works of peace, as Schuman said? That should be the mission statement for external policy. Instead the Reflection Group says that Europe should be more assertive. It says it has 1.8 million soldiers under arms. That is half a million more than the USA. But the EU is incapable of deploying a 60,000-strong rapid intervention force. That indicates something is seriously wrong with both the concentration on force and the internal decision-making structure of the EU. The Group does not ask the question: How do we make sure that peace is spread across the world. What are the principles Schuman and his colleagues discovered without armies and how should they be applied between now and 2030. The world's greatest security system -- stopping war between Europeans -- did not require a single gun.
In other words, in terms of Community policy, the Council’s prohibitory mandate not to discuss institutions and supranational democracy befuddled and distorted their minds. It did it so much as to render it practically useless. They did not reached the starting line of utility.
Even worse. If the Council had not forbidden the Group to analyse this essential question of war and peace, then the report would have provided real policy options. By drinking from the Council’s poisoned chalice, the Group comes up with the opposite, illogical conclusion to Community reasoning. It says: ‘A Union of 27 Member States pooling their sovereignty in order to reach common decisions is not an obvious global power house.’
In fact, to anyone who thinks, it is obvious. If Europe showed that the entire population WHO WERE FREE TO CHOOSE had reached a democratic consensus (rather than dictated policy from the self-proclaimed leaders in Council), then Europe would be without doubt the greatest leader of the planet. If all the population was convinced personally that the planet was in danger of Climate Change destroying the environment, causing diseases, migrations and wars, it would be a marvelous example to any dictatorship or religio-political fanaticism and authoritarianism. It requires that all Europeans should become highly reasonable, well-educated and knowledgeable. Only wise people with wise leadership, dedicated to peace can lead the world wisely. That's what Schuman meant by real democracy as distinct from counterfeit democracy of the communist 'people's republics'.
The Group fails to analyse why the EU’s successful foreign policy always comes from its supranational Community structures and never from its intergovernmentalism.
2. Energy. The Group rightly points out that Europe is getting deeper and deeper into trouble with its imported energy dependency. That should be fairly obvious to all. For oil, Europe is 90 percent dependent on suppliers who have in the past tried to place a blackmail embargo on Western Europe. Countries like the Netherlands and Denmark were placed under total embargo while the rest were told that oil supplies would be cut by ten per cent each month unless European States changed their foreign policy. Some 80 per cent of its gas comes from suppliers who have recently subjected vast stretches of Europe to cold, cold winters by stopping the supply. And the EU which is basically built on a foundation of coal strata now imports from abroad about 50 per cent of its coal. Yet the Group do not signal this Energy Deficit and Blackmail as a MAJOR DANGER to the economic existence and viability of the European economy.
They say the opposite. And they are quite wrong in their conclusion. They say ‘There is no chance of becoming energy independent’. That is simply not true. It is possible that if Europeans set their collective minds to the main problem for its continued economic existence, Europe could be ENERGY INDEPENDENT BY 2020. That is what a top European industrialist said a few days ago. Obviously the Group did not ask anyone who knew — which is why they are repeating the soothing, lying propaganda of the oil and gas importers, who want European acquiescence to blackmail prices and extortion.
Europeans are currently paying about eight hundred percent of the free market price of oil. Oil was less than 10 dollars in 1999 and major oil companies said this was about what they expected the long-term price to be. They assumed the cartel and financial leverage powers of the oil cartel had been broken. Then oil shot to 147 dollars a barrel. How did this happen? By a combination of energy cartels squeezing supply, falsifying demand, financial leverage and greed. The western economy could not take this blood-sucking amounting to around 10 percent of GDP. The cartel action partially collapsed. It is not dead. Like a leech, it is just sleeping it off.
Now energy prices are on the way to upwards again. If Europe wants to have TRILLIONS MORE bled from its economy in the years till 2030, it should do exactly what the Group thinks is best — nothing. If Europe wants to take seriously the Warnings made from the 1950s on that oil dependency will mean economic and political servitude, then they should re-read the Community’s Louis Armand report Un Objectif pour EURATOM. This too was commissioned by the Community's six governments but it had some hard-headed analysis. It stated starkly: 'Shortage of Energy (that is NATIVE European energy) is likely to become the strongest force arresting economic growth.' They warned against foreign dependency. And they said all this in 1957 when oil was under two dollars a barrel. There was then a free market and no oil cartel.
The Group should have reviewed what many reports said subsequently. Instead the Group made no balance sheet of past failures. That is just the attitude that will cause us to repeat them with ever more disastrous consequences. The most obvious feature is oil and gas dependency with the same sort of political paralysis as drug addiction.
The solution then, a half century ago, as now, is the same — a European Energy Community based on democratic principles with clear objectives to be so energy independent that Europe will be able to act independently in the world about Energy and Climate Change. As for the urgency of this problem, it has been well known for decades. It is no revelation when the Group says 'Europe needs a common strategy,' but they don't say how to kick the addiction! Europe needs to face up to the truth that this drug will not last forever. Drugs supplies are running out fast!
The only way to stand up to global CARTELS is by united action of the victims and all sympathisers in an open, democratic anti-cartel. Otherwise economic bullies will only grow stronger. Urgent action is needed not only for Europe but for the planet. The world is facing climate disasters on a massive scale. We are already seeing increasing migrations, wars and epidemics. We can expect far more of the same.
THE WISEST WAY TO REVIVE THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY IS BY CONTROLLING THE MAXIMUM BUYING PRICE OF IMPORTED ENERGY THAT EUROPE IS PREPARED TO PAY. IT COULD THEN USE THE HUGE SAVINGS, AMOUNTING TO TRILLIONS. THE SAVINGS SHOULD CREATE A FUND TO BE DEVOTED TO PROVIDING FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR INFANT ALTERNATIVE ENERGY INDUSTRIES AND ENERGY-SAVING TECHNIQUES IN EUROPE. THE FUNDS SHOULD BE UNDER NON-PARTY POLITICAL, DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF INDUSTRY, WORKERS AND CONSUMERS. EVERY CITY AND EVERY HOME SHOULD BECOME ENERGY NEUTRAL. NO NEW VEHICLE SHOULD USE PETROLEUM. OIL SHOULD BE USED FOR PLASTICS AND OTHER INDISPENSABLE PRODUCTS.
3. Democracy The Reflection Group showed some sense in raising the question of democracy for organised civil society. Yet it gave no school report or balance sheet on democracy. What it does not say is the organised civil society, supposedly represented in the Economic and Social Committee has NEVER had an election as required by the treaties of Paris and Rome -- fifty years ago! Nor has the European Parliament EVER had a single European election under a single statute (rather the present 27 national ones) as required by the same treaties.
4 Finance and the crisis By failing to make a balance sheet, the Group has not analysed how in the 50 years of the founding Community, Europe had its own European financial resources. It had a European tax. It was able to have European loans and in fact built up a banking operation that was bigger than the European investment Bank. Why did the Council insist that it should be disbanded?
Today the major monetary contention lies between Europe which still assumes that money should represent real assets (and political parties should not fiddle the proper State accounting, causing other member states to foot the bill) and the USA which has abandoned the concept of solid money by opening the Fed to big collapsing debtors of any stripe. The banking and funding operations of the European Coal and Steel Community were based on real assets not electronic fiat money. They gained and retained the highest international ratings. The loans were granted by international bankers because the Community used the money to invest in renewal of coal and steel operations based on the democratic decisions of the entrepreneurs, workers and consumers. And they were always pleased to see there was no default because of corruption or fraud because these three democratic groupings kept a watching eye on how the money was spent.
It was the party-political ministers in the Council of Ministers who in 2000 refused to renew the Treaty establishing the Coal and Steel Community for a further fifty years. Instead they said citizens should have intergovernmental funding controlled by political parties in governments. Party politicians thus removed real democratic control from European money. They had no democratic mandate to make this change. The present crisis shows how corrupt and crisis-ridden such a political cartel system can be.
10 May, 2010
EU's ANTI-Schuman communication policy
On 9 May 2010 Europe held festivities for 65 years of peace brought about by the SCHUMAN DECLARATION on 9 May 1950. American, French troops and Welsh guards in their traditional red tunics and bearskin helmets paraded in Moscow. They marked the end of World War Two. Millions of Europeans died. Many more were mutilated by war. Children and populations were traumatized. Cities and livelihoods were destroyed. Nations learned to hate each other with a vengeance. In the years AFTER the war, many Germans died of starvation.
Five years after the most horrendous destruction of World War 2, people were expecting further war. The Soviet Union maintained its huge wartime army and seemed poised for further expansion. The West European nations had already disbanded their armies. Germany also was preparing for revenge. To stop this threat of world suicide, Robert Schuman announced a plan for building a supranational Community of Europe. It was based on the purest form of democracy yet conceived.
Europe today is living in the longest period of peace in the entire history of Western Europe.
Was this epoch-making event apparent in Brussels on 9 May 2010? No. All the offices of the EU were closed. The exception was the Council building which had an emergency meeting of the Economic and Finance Ministers. In the early hours of Monday morning they put together an agreement to be able to draw on some 750 billion euros (a trillion dollars) to help the governments (or rather the political parties) of Greece, Portugal and other countries who had been warned many times that they had been found out in corrupt practice, bloating the civil service to support THEIR voters, letting the rich get away by bribe rather than taxes and fiddling the books of the State's economy. (All this corrupt practice meant that the citizens -- in particular the poor -- of other Member States who kept straight books would have to pay for continuous fraudulent practice of political parties.)
That sum is equivalent of 2000 dollars for every man, woman and child in the EU. Considering that many of the rich do not require more help, it would be a powerful help to the poor who do.
A small poster at the Council doorway announced that the previous day, 8 May, there had been an Open Day. Had the officials made a mistake about the date? Did they not check their calendars and their history books?
Was this Open Day celebrating peace? It did not say so. Did it explain why Schuman made the Declaration and what was his purpose? Did the posters announce that at last the European people had a model form of democracy? They wouldn't dare. After the fraudulent dismissal of referendums in France, the Netherlands, Ireland and the refusal to have referendums elsewhere, any use of the word DEMOCRACY would not be appropriate.
That is why the EU has hidden, and continues to hide, the key founding Europe Declaration of Inter-dependence. Europe's Founding Fathers say there that this is the foundational document of Europe, an organised supranational Community of peoples. It also says that the people must be FREE TO CHOOSE.
The poster cheekily wrote something about 'from the Schuman Declaration to the Lisbon Treaty' as if to say Schuman would have approved this monstrosity which is aimed at destroying representative democracy in the Commission, in Council, in the Parliament and for organised civil society in the Consultative Committees. Not one of these institutions has democratic representation as the founding fathers wrote that they should in the founding treaties of Paris and Rome!
How bizarre! Schuman day is reduced to an Open Day to Europeans who have the right to visit the offices every day. They pay for it. Schuman Day is NOT open office day. It is supposed to celebrate European Democracy -- but we unfortunately do not have it.
The EU planners attempted to have a sort of ANTI-Schuman day -- implying that democratic access to civil servants is a privilege granted at the haughty behest of the eurocrats themselves. The EU's Communication operators succeeded in making the central part of rue de la Loi look drab and unwelcoming. Did they put up any posters on the large facade of the Berlaymont building housing the Commission? No. This facade is usually used for announcing major, minor and obscure events gaining the approbation of the EU authorities. Instead an unattractive bare wall faced onto the Schuman Roundabout.
Was there an excuse for this insult to the founder of the EU from whom the eurocrats who owe their salaries? Were the workman unable to roll out a huge welcome sign indicating how European democracy works? Were they perturbed by the emergency European Council called for Friday 7 May? Not at all! They never even planned it.
On the Charlemagne building next door, are large advertisements for European Maritime Day. These have been up for some time. And for those who are unaware of the momentous day it is 20 May. So the planning part of the Communications services can think ahead a few days. The snub is deliberate because the key advertising space remained void and empty.
This then is proof that in the eyes of the Communications people at the European Commission the idea of celebrating 65 years of peace and 60 years of the Schuman Declaration is a poor relation to the importance of this Maritime day whatever it means.
They gave further proof of their disdain. To underline this disapproval of anything about Schuman, on Monday morning 10 May the Commission showed just how well-planned was their affront. By lunchtime on Monday morning they had rolled down a huge banner from the headquarters building of the well-paid Eurocrats -- who have similar pay-grades to that of the President of the United States of America!
What does the banner say?
STOP POVERTY NOW!
Five years after the most horrendous destruction of World War 2, people were expecting further war. The Soviet Union maintained its huge wartime army and seemed poised for further expansion. The West European nations had already disbanded their armies. Germany also was preparing for revenge. To stop this threat of world suicide, Robert Schuman announced a plan for building a supranational Community of Europe. It was based on the purest form of democracy yet conceived.
Europe today is living in the longest period of peace in the entire history of Western Europe.
Was this epoch-making event apparent in Brussels on 9 May 2010? No. All the offices of the EU were closed. The exception was the Council building which had an emergency meeting of the Economic and Finance Ministers. In the early hours of Monday morning they put together an agreement to be able to draw on some 750 billion euros (a trillion dollars) to help the governments (or rather the political parties) of Greece, Portugal and other countries who had been warned many times that they had been found out in corrupt practice, bloating the civil service to support THEIR voters, letting the rich get away by bribe rather than taxes and fiddling the books of the State's economy. (All this corrupt practice meant that the citizens -- in particular the poor -- of other Member States who kept straight books would have to pay for continuous fraudulent practice of political parties.)
That sum is equivalent of 2000 dollars for every man, woman and child in the EU. Considering that many of the rich do not require more help, it would be a powerful help to the poor who do.
A small poster at the Council doorway announced that the previous day, 8 May, there had been an Open Day. Had the officials made a mistake about the date? Did they not check their calendars and their history books?
Was this Open Day celebrating peace? It did not say so. Did it explain why Schuman made the Declaration and what was his purpose? Did the posters announce that at last the European people had a model form of democracy? They wouldn't dare. After the fraudulent dismissal of referendums in France, the Netherlands, Ireland and the refusal to have referendums elsewhere, any use of the word DEMOCRACY would not be appropriate.
That is why the EU has hidden, and continues to hide, the key founding Europe Declaration of Inter-dependence. Europe's Founding Fathers say there that this is the foundational document of Europe, an organised supranational Community of peoples. It also says that the people must be FREE TO CHOOSE.
The poster cheekily wrote something about 'from the Schuman Declaration to the Lisbon Treaty' as if to say Schuman would have approved this monstrosity which is aimed at destroying representative democracy in the Commission, in Council, in the Parliament and for organised civil society in the Consultative Committees. Not one of these institutions has democratic representation as the founding fathers wrote that they should in the founding treaties of Paris and Rome!
How bizarre! Schuman day is reduced to an Open Day to Europeans who have the right to visit the offices every day. They pay for it. Schuman Day is NOT open office day. It is supposed to celebrate European Democracy -- but we unfortunately do not have it.
The EU planners attempted to have a sort of ANTI-Schuman day -- implying that democratic access to civil servants is a privilege granted at the haughty behest of the eurocrats themselves. The EU's Communication operators succeeded in making the central part of rue de la Loi look drab and unwelcoming. Did they put up any posters on the large facade of the Berlaymont building housing the Commission? No. This facade is usually used for announcing major, minor and obscure events gaining the approbation of the EU authorities. Instead an unattractive bare wall faced onto the Schuman Roundabout.
Was there an excuse for this insult to the founder of the EU from whom the eurocrats who owe their salaries? Were the workman unable to roll out a huge welcome sign indicating how European democracy works? Were they perturbed by the emergency European Council called for Friday 7 May? Not at all! They never even planned it.
On the Charlemagne building next door, are large advertisements for European Maritime Day. These have been up for some time. And for those who are unaware of the momentous day it is 20 May. So the planning part of the Communications services can think ahead a few days. The snub is deliberate because the key advertising space remained void and empty.
This then is proof that in the eyes of the Communications people at the European Commission the idea of celebrating 65 years of peace and 60 years of the Schuman Declaration is a poor relation to the importance of this Maritime day whatever it means.
They gave further proof of their disdain. To underline this disapproval of anything about Schuman, on Monday morning 10 May the Commission showed just how well-planned was their affront. By lunchtime on Monday morning they had rolled down a huge banner from the headquarters building of the well-paid Eurocrats -- who have similar pay-grades to that of the President of the United States of America!
What does the banner say?
STOP POVERTY NOW!
07 May, 2010
OFFICIAL: The European Commission REFUSES to publish its foundational Schuman Declaration and the Declaration of Interdependence
How many documents are archived for the public on the European Union website? There were on 7 May 2010 a total of 369,224 documents on the website www.europa.eu.
Question: Which two documents does the Council and the Commission REFUSE to publish?
Answer: The most important documents of all -- the two documents that reveal the ORIGIN and the PURPOSE of the European Commission and the European Council, how European democracy should work and what it means for the future. In fact the European authorities BANNED the documents which are most vital to understand the origin of Europe as it is today and about its future.
On 30 November 2009, I wrote to President Barroso of the Commission, all members of the European Commission.
Dear President Barroso and Commissioners,
Congratulations on your new positions. During the coming months, the 60th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration will take place on 9 May 2010. I hope that the entire Commission will give great thought to the preparations for this major event. The Member States are living through the longest period of peace in more than 2000 years of European history. We are faced with global challenges of the greatest dimension. Europe has to set the highest moral example as it did by creating a Community of peace.
Yet for the last decade or more I have asked the Commission's information services to communicate in publications and on the web the foundational documents of Europe. This includes the FULL text of the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950 and the Europe Declaration made and signed by all founding fathers on 18 April 1951 after the signing of Europe's founding treaty. This Declaration of Inter-Dependence is equivalent in importance to America's Declaration of Independence. I have never seen a publication of the Commission where this is printed. Why not?
In this regard, I am enclosing a copy of my latest letter to the Commission's Communications services, who have not yet replied to my August request to publish these foundational documents. I hope that the first thing in office will be for you to publish "the real foundation of Europe" -- to quote from the Declaration at www.schuman.info/EuropeDeclaration.htm
My best wishes for your term in office to build supranational democracy.
On 6 January 2010, I received a reply on behalf of President Barroso and the Commissioners from the Director General of the Communication DG. The Director General says that the Commission and its website DOES publish the full text of the Schuman Declaration.
This is not true. If the Commission does not know what exactly is the Schuman Declaration, if the multiple thousands of officials have not brought this to the attention of their bosses, then the Communication Directorate General and the Commissioners have not yet got to Square One of Communications.
The Communication DG is one of the largest services in the Commission. The operation runs many sections such as the thousands of staff around the world in the Commission Representations. They provide information to the world's 6 1/2 billion people about what the European Union is, how it was created and why it is important for the entire globe. The heads of the offices now sport the title of Ambassador, for example, Ambassador of the EU to the United States in Washington.
It also has services to communicate with 'the citizens'. It has its own public opinion polling operation called Eurobarometer. And to be sure that the officials have adequate means to speak for Europe, it provides high tech infrastructure worldwide and 'professional' training for the officials about how to communicate Europe. WHAT on earth is the training service teaching the officials?
It has a system to reply to citizens' inquiries called Europe Direct. And to keep in touch what the press and media are saying it has services on Media Monitoring and then Media Analysis. Its Spokesperson's group is answerable directly to President Barroso. It holds daily press conferences broadcast worldwide on digital TV. Besides that it gives 'off-the-record' briefings to the thousands of accredited journalists in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg.
On top of that there are services for Research and Speech-writing. The Commissioners should say something that is true, in fact nothing but the truth. It has services for Promotions and Strategy. So why haven't any of these very clever, well-educated and analytical people come across the real origin of the European Community??! Why hasn't any of the thousands of these communications specialists said: "We haven't really EVER published the main FOUNDATIONAL DECLARATIONS of Europe"? Haven't the officials told their hierarchical chiefs: 'The best way to promote Europe is to tell the truth? It is the best strategy because if we get found out telling falsehoods, we will lose any remaining confidence and public trust we may have.' Why have none of the Commissioners explained the founding fathers' concept of European Democracy?
And of course none of these communications experts has produced a document giving Robert Schuman's own explanation of the Schuman Proposal. He should have known best. He managed to get French Government approval for this revolutionary measure. He did it by democratic debate in Parliament, in public meetings and with his fellow ministers. He did it over a period of years when he was Prime Minister and when he was the Foreign Minister. He explained it to the French public on a radio broadcast on 9 May 1950.
Well before this he had explained what is meant by a supranational Community and European Democracy in many speeches in years before the 1950 Declaration. He gave speeches at the United Nations in 1948 and 1949, and major speeches in Strasbourg, London, Brussels and in North America about the principles of supranational democracy. All these speeches were BEFORE 9 May 1950. And he gave scores of speeches afterwards. He was known as the Pilgrim of Europe because he went from town to town, city to city giving many speeches. Thus he explained both before and after 1950 what the new foundation of European democracy was and how it would work.
What does the Commission explain? Nothing.
For the Founding Fathers the Declaration of Inter-dependence of 18 April 1951 was of the same importance as the founding document of the United States of America, the Declaration of Independence. In fact it was more important because it would help stop World Suicide.The leaders of all the founder States of Europe signed the document saying that 'In signing the treaty founding the European Community for Coal and Steel Community, a community of 160 million Europeans, the contracting parties give proof of their determination to call into life the first supranational institution, and consequently create the TRUE FOUNDATION for an organized Europe.'
Of all the 369,224 documents on www.europa.eu would not a NORMAL person think that this was the most essential document to provide for the public? It starts by underlining, in the most authoritative way possible, the plenipotentiary powers of the signatures of the founding fathers acting in the name of the Six royal and presidential Heads of State:
Considering that world peace can only be safeguarded by creative efforts commensurate with the dangers threatening it;
Convinced that the contribution that an organized and invigorated Europe can bring to civilization is indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations;
Conscious that Europe will not be constructed except by concrete achievements establishing first of all the reality of partnership, and by the establishment of common bases for economic development;
Anxious to cooperate through the expansion of their primary products in raising the standard of living and in progressing in works of peace;
Resolved to transform their age-long rivalry through the unification of their essential interests, and, by the inauguration of an economic Community, to assemble the initial basis for a broader and deeper Community of peoples who had for centuries been opposed in bloody conflicts, and to set the foundations of institutions capable of providing a direction to a destiny that is henceforward shared,
Have decided to create a European Coal and Steel Community.
The European Commission -- who owe their very existent to this Declaration -- OFFICIALLY refuse to publish it, the foundational Declaration that provided Europeans with the longest period of peace ever known in Europe's history!
Here is the reply of President Barroso and his colleagues from the Communications Director General.
8 January 2010
Thank you for your message of 30 November 2009, which you addressed to president Barroso as well as several members of the current and incoming European Commission. The President asked me to reply on his behalf.
We publish general information on the history of the EU on our website and occasionally in brochures. Our site http://europa.eu/abc/history/index_en.htm contains an overview of the key historical moments to which you rightly attach great importance, including the signature3 of the Treaty fo Paris on 18 April 1951. The site also contains the full text of the Schuman declaration, and has short overviews of the lives and contributions of our key founding figures.
In addition to archives and sites for specialists, declarations such as the one of Inter-Dependence can be found on the website "European navigator" (www.ena.lu). This site is not managed by the EU institutions, but we often recommend it in our communication work as a useful service that provides access to documents about EU history to wider circles that history experts.
Every year Members of the European Commission, DG Communication and its Representations in the Members States celebrate the 9th May. This year these celebrations will also commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Schuman declaration, in addition to offering a moment of reflection on the future of the European Union.
Yours sincerely, etc
If you check on the site Europa.eu you will find that neither the FULL text of the Schuman Declaration or the Declaration of Inter-dependence-- the founding documents of the EU -- is published. The site referred to, when it is working, translates the key term for Community by 'pool'!! That Gaullist term is a derisory approach to democracy. The censorship of the Commission shows utter contempt to democracy. It acts as if it were still a Gaullist-dominated instrument of French policy.
In a world of open communications, no government, nor any international organization can block the truth. If all the Commissioners unite to block the key Declarations that say Europeans must be FREE TO CHOOSE, then other means will publish these foundational Declarations. They can, for example be found on www.schuman.info, which was created more than ten years ago precisely because of this neo-Gaullist censorship. I hope many other electronic sites and publications will make these key documents well-known to counter the Commission's and the Council's anti-democratic policies.
In Europa's section on Democracy Dialogue Debate you will find the page CLOSED with the stamp:
This site has been ARCHIVED on 28/2/2010.
The Dialogue of the deaf is over. Have the ANTI-Communicators archived the Democracy Debate? Dream on!
Question: Which two documents does the Council and the Commission REFUSE to publish?
Answer: The most important documents of all -- the two documents that reveal the ORIGIN and the PURPOSE of the European Commission and the European Council, how European democracy should work and what it means for the future. In fact the European authorities BANNED the documents which are most vital to understand the origin of Europe as it is today and about its future.
On 30 November 2009, I wrote to President Barroso of the Commission, all members of the European Commission.
Dear President Barroso and Commissioners,
Congratulations on your new positions. During the coming months, the 60th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration will take place on 9 May 2010. I hope that the entire Commission will give great thought to the preparations for this major event. The Member States are living through the longest period of peace in more than 2000 years of European history. We are faced with global challenges of the greatest dimension. Europe has to set the highest moral example as it did by creating a Community of peace.
Yet for the last decade or more I have asked the Commission's information services to communicate in publications and on the web the foundational documents of Europe. This includes the FULL text of the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950 and the Europe Declaration made and signed by all founding fathers on 18 April 1951 after the signing of Europe's founding treaty. This Declaration of Inter-Dependence is equivalent in importance to America's Declaration of Independence. I have never seen a publication of the Commission where this is printed. Why not?
In this regard, I am enclosing a copy of my latest letter to the Commission's Communications services, who have not yet replied to my August request to publish these foundational documents. I hope that the first thing in office will be for you to publish "the real foundation of Europe" -- to quote from the Declaration at www.schuman.info/EuropeDeclaration.htm
My best wishes for your term in office to build supranational democracy.
On 6 January 2010, I received a reply on behalf of President Barroso and the Commissioners from the Director General of the Communication DG. The Director General says that the Commission and its website DOES publish the full text of the Schuman Declaration.
This is not true. If the Commission does not know what exactly is the Schuman Declaration, if the multiple thousands of officials have not brought this to the attention of their bosses, then the Communication Directorate General and the Commissioners have not yet got to Square One of Communications.
The Communication DG is one of the largest services in the Commission. The operation runs many sections such as the thousands of staff around the world in the Commission Representations. They provide information to the world's 6 1/2 billion people about what the European Union is, how it was created and why it is important for the entire globe. The heads of the offices now sport the title of Ambassador, for example, Ambassador of the EU to the United States in Washington.
It also has services to communicate with 'the citizens'. It has its own public opinion polling operation called Eurobarometer. And to be sure that the officials have adequate means to speak for Europe, it provides high tech infrastructure worldwide and 'professional' training for the officials about how to communicate Europe. WHAT on earth is the training service teaching the officials?
It has a system to reply to citizens' inquiries called Europe Direct. And to keep in touch what the press and media are saying it has services on Media Monitoring and then Media Analysis. Its Spokesperson's group is answerable directly to President Barroso. It holds daily press conferences broadcast worldwide on digital TV. Besides that it gives 'off-the-record' briefings to the thousands of accredited journalists in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg.
On top of that there are services for Research and Speech-writing. The Commissioners should say something that is true, in fact nothing but the truth. It has services for Promotions and Strategy. So why haven't any of these very clever, well-educated and analytical people come across the real origin of the European Community??! Why hasn't any of the thousands of these communications specialists said: "We haven't really EVER published the main FOUNDATIONAL DECLARATIONS of Europe"? Haven't the officials told their hierarchical chiefs: 'The best way to promote Europe is to tell the truth? It is the best strategy because if we get found out telling falsehoods, we will lose any remaining confidence and public trust we may have.' Why have none of the Commissioners explained the founding fathers' concept of European Democracy?
And of course none of these communications experts has produced a document giving Robert Schuman's own explanation of the Schuman Proposal. He should have known best. He managed to get French Government approval for this revolutionary measure. He did it by democratic debate in Parliament, in public meetings and with his fellow ministers. He did it over a period of years when he was Prime Minister and when he was the Foreign Minister. He explained it to the French public on a radio broadcast on 9 May 1950.
Well before this he had explained what is meant by a supranational Community and European Democracy in many speeches in years before the 1950 Declaration. He gave speeches at the United Nations in 1948 and 1949, and major speeches in Strasbourg, London, Brussels and in North America about the principles of supranational democracy. All these speeches were BEFORE 9 May 1950. And he gave scores of speeches afterwards. He was known as the Pilgrim of Europe because he went from town to town, city to city giving many speeches. Thus he explained both before and after 1950 what the new foundation of European democracy was and how it would work.
What does the Commission explain? Nothing.
For the Founding Fathers the Declaration of Inter-dependence of 18 April 1951 was of the same importance as the founding document of the United States of America, the Declaration of Independence. In fact it was more important because it would help stop World Suicide.The leaders of all the founder States of Europe signed the document saying that 'In signing the treaty founding the European Community for Coal and Steel Community, a community of 160 million Europeans, the contracting parties give proof of their determination to call into life the first supranational institution, and consequently create the TRUE FOUNDATION for an organized Europe.'
Of all the 369,224 documents on www.europa.eu would not a NORMAL person think that this was the most essential document to provide for the public? It starts by underlining, in the most authoritative way possible, the plenipotentiary powers of the signatures of the founding fathers acting in the name of the Six royal and presidential Heads of State:
Considering that world peace can only be safeguarded by creative efforts commensurate with the dangers threatening it;
Convinced that the contribution that an organized and invigorated Europe can bring to civilization is indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations;
Conscious that Europe will not be constructed except by concrete achievements establishing first of all the reality of partnership, and by the establishment of common bases for economic development;
Anxious to cooperate through the expansion of their primary products in raising the standard of living and in progressing in works of peace;
Resolved to transform their age-long rivalry through the unification of their essential interests, and, by the inauguration of an economic Community, to assemble the initial basis for a broader and deeper Community of peoples who had for centuries been opposed in bloody conflicts, and to set the foundations of institutions capable of providing a direction to a destiny that is henceforward shared,
Have decided to create a European Coal and Steel Community.
The European Commission -- who owe their very existent to this Declaration -- OFFICIALLY refuse to publish it, the foundational Declaration that provided Europeans with the longest period of peace ever known in Europe's history!
Here is the reply of President Barroso and his colleagues from the Communications Director General.
8 January 2010
- Subject: Europe's foundational Declaration of Inter-dependence
Thank you for your message of 30 November 2009, which you addressed to president Barroso as well as several members of the current and incoming European Commission. The President asked me to reply on his behalf.
We publish general information on the history of the EU on our website and occasionally in brochures. Our site http://europa.eu/abc/history/index_en.htm contains an overview of the key historical moments to which you rightly attach great importance, including the signature3 of the Treaty fo Paris on 18 April 1951. The site also contains the full text of the Schuman declaration, and has short overviews of the lives and contributions of our key founding figures.
In addition to archives and sites for specialists, declarations such as the one of Inter-Dependence can be found on the website "European navigator" (www.ena.lu). This site is not managed by the EU institutions, but we often recommend it in our communication work as a useful service that provides access to documents about EU history to wider circles that history experts.
Every year Members of the European Commission, DG Communication and its Representations in the Members States celebrate the 9th May. This year these celebrations will also commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Schuman declaration, in addition to offering a moment of reflection on the future of the European Union.
Yours sincerely, etc
If you check on the site Europa.eu you will find that neither the FULL text of the Schuman Declaration or the Declaration of Inter-dependence-- the founding documents of the EU -- is published. The site referred to, when it is working, translates the key term for Community by 'pool'!! That Gaullist term is a derisory approach to democracy. The censorship of the Commission shows utter contempt to democracy. It acts as if it were still a Gaullist-dominated instrument of French policy.
In a world of open communications, no government, nor any international organization can block the truth. If all the Commissioners unite to block the key Declarations that say Europeans must be FREE TO CHOOSE, then other means will publish these foundational Declarations. They can, for example be found on www.schuman.info, which was created more than ten years ago precisely because of this neo-Gaullist censorship. I hope many other electronic sites and publications will make these key documents well-known to counter the Commission's and the Council's anti-democratic policies.
In Europa's section on Democracy Dialogue Debate you will find the page CLOSED with the stamp:
This site has been ARCHIVED on 28/2/2010.
The Dialogue of the deaf is over. Have the ANTI-Communicators archived the Democracy Debate? Dream on!
04 May, 2010
The paucity of today's diplomacy for Europe is revealed by the SCHUMAN DECLARATION
Most people would not judge from its diplomacy that the EU is the world's largest economic power, far outstripping the USA. Europe should obviously have adequate diplomatic representation worldwide. But how? It is not a question of what is desirable but what is realistic, effective and well-founded. Can Europe speak with one voice? Will the European External Action Service (EEAS) provide coherent, consistent action?
In the past various European States tried one of two methods: alliances or conquests. The leaders thought they would thus have one dominant voice for the Continent. It did not work. Or at best the conquerors like Hitler and Stalin were soon defeated. Peaceful or wartime alliances fell apart because of human greed and injustice. Neither Fist nor Fudge will provide the basis for lasting foreign policy.
After a few centuries of not getting their act together, Europe finally hit on a solution. It was a supranational one with a revolutionary concept of democracy. It was not conquest, not a threat of domination, nor flimsy intergovernmentalism. That solution arrived the moment when Six countries created the European Community. It started functioning on 10 August 1952.
The first foreign policy act of this European Coal and Steel Community was to have diplomatic representation with such States as the United Kingdom and the USA. With the British this took the form an association agreement as the country was not a Member State of the Community. Britain became the first Associate Member of the Community.
With the Americans, the European Community established diplomatic relations. The High Authority of the Community was able to take out a US loan that helped set the European Community on a firm footing of independence. The big governments could not control the strings of finance and thus lord it over the smaller European States. Neither could an autocrat who took over a major country like France or Germany dictate his foreign policy to the first Commission, the High Authority.
The core of that supranational Foreign Policy system has never been broken. Not that haughty governments haven't tried their hardest.
The two treaties of Rome give Europe more extensive diplomatic powers. The Euratom treaty is designed to give Europe diplomatic muscle in the non-proliferation of atomic bombs. Today, when some states are arming themselves and are driven by religio-political ideologies and their mobs are shouting 'Death to the world-devourers!' --it is not used. Why? Ask the "leadership" of Europe's diplomacy!
Will Euratom only start to be considered as an instrument of diplomacy whem some fanatic acolyte-martyr explodes an atomic device in one of Europe's cities? Europeans have already experienced murderous bombings in Paris, London and Madrid. Do European diplomats imagine they could then solve such a problem by closing their eyes beforehand and then afterwards by reacting with massive force? That's just not practical against the real ideological culprits. It can also be counter-productive as the West should have found out already following the 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York.
Europe's third treaty, the European Economic Community succeeded in creating a foreign policy in its own sector. For example, Europe had a single trade policy for GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and now has one for the later WTO (World Trade Organisation). That single voice can speak out only because it was based on a supranational Community. The European Coal and Steel Community did this sort of job in the years before the "Common Market".
After many years of successful application of these principles, short-sighted politicians forgot the basis on which Europe had created its own foreign policy. Or they did not want to be reminded. The party politicians ignored the Europe Declaration of the Founding Fathers that said the policy must be agreed by people who are free to choose. They thought they could do the trick by themselves. They devised a new treaty, the Constitutional Treaty, also known as the Lisbon Treaty, where foreign policy is not based on a supranational Community but guess what? Intergovernmentalism. The failing system of the past! It did not stop the Napoleonic wars. It is unable to meet the potentially catastrophic challenges that the planet faces today. To act we need a stronger democratic consensus not less. And it is no use to have foreign policy coming from party politicians who have lost the trust of society.
That is a big step back from a supranational Community system towards pure internationalism or inter-governmentalism. It relies on secret political collusion in the Council of Ministers without real democratic supervision. Supranational Community diplomatic representation is based on sound, long-lasting principles and the European rule of law. It is not perfect but it is light-years away from the sad experience of previous centuries.
The BIG mistake that the party-based creators of this system are making relates to their incomprehension that Europeans should be creating a diplomatic system NOT based on the past. It has to be based on the totally new age that started with the Schuman Declaration. Europe is living in a period where, as Schuman said 60 years ago, for Europe 'War is not only unthinkable but materially impossible.' Unfortunately it is not only thinkable but being rendered more and more possible elsewhere. Europe is under attack and the object of financial and economic blackmail. Party politicians do not seem to understand that such a system, never known in Europe's several milleniums of history, requires new thinking.
Instead of correcting their bad record so far, governments are trying to sweep it under the carpet. Member State governments still have not fulfilled their treaty obligations to make this European diplomacy really effective. For example after nearly sixty years they have not once held a Europe-wide election for the European Parliament. It is required in the 1951 Treaty of Paris and those of Rome, 1957. However, a supranational Community is still the only really effective basis for creating a common policy for 27 disparate democracies.
Intergovernmentalism rests on the shaky sands of governments, who at every election or collapse of coalition, change their policy positions. This is equivalent of the Americans trying to create a diplomatic service based on a consensus of 50 States. The Americans long ago decided they needed a federal system to ensure diplomatic representation. However, European leaders seem to have decided that the eighteenth century is their ideal model. Can diplomacy be accomplished just by hiring 5000 or 7000 diplomats among national civil services and party hacks?
An effective new European diplomatic service cannot succeed based on a failed philosophy. It is also turning its back on the key event of all Europe's history. Europe's new diplomacy that began in August 1952 was based potentially on two things: democracy and a new European order of law. The real strength of foreign policy is where it can rely on democratically backed European supranational law. What the Lisbon EEAS system is trying to do is twofold: deny the democratic potential of the Community such as the elections the governments promised in the treaties and secondly base it on Council based fiat-law which is hollow.
Cutting out the powers of the democratic institutions won't work. Replacing them with a political cartel in the Council and shutting the doors behind it will not cut the mustard.
Conclusion: A solid European diplomatic representation needs to be based on an in-depth supranational Community system. Today Europe should be concerned with the world challenges that threaten both itself and the planet. Intergovernmentalism by fiat will not suffice.
If the European leaders are serious about acting diplomatically for the planet they need to go back to their history books. A further Community needs to be created on democratic and supranational principles to meet the Climate and Energy challenges. A European Energy Community is the way to tackle the most urgent planetary problems facing Europe. The Copenhagen Climat Change conference showed the paucity of the European anti-supranational, neo-Gaullist system.
The planet needs some action from Europe. Europe needs to activate its democracy.
In the past various European States tried one of two methods: alliances or conquests. The leaders thought they would thus have one dominant voice for the Continent. It did not work. Or at best the conquerors like Hitler and Stalin were soon defeated. Peaceful or wartime alliances fell apart because of human greed and injustice. Neither Fist nor Fudge will provide the basis for lasting foreign policy.
After a few centuries of not getting their act together, Europe finally hit on a solution. It was a supranational one with a revolutionary concept of democracy. It was not conquest, not a threat of domination, nor flimsy intergovernmentalism. That solution arrived the moment when Six countries created the European Community. It started functioning on 10 August 1952.
The first foreign policy act of this European Coal and Steel Community was to have diplomatic representation with such States as the United Kingdom and the USA. With the British this took the form an association agreement as the country was not a Member State of the Community. Britain became the first Associate Member of the Community.
With the Americans, the European Community established diplomatic relations. The High Authority of the Community was able to take out a US loan that helped set the European Community on a firm footing of independence. The big governments could not control the strings of finance and thus lord it over the smaller European States. Neither could an autocrat who took over a major country like France or Germany dictate his foreign policy to the first Commission, the High Authority.
The core of that supranational Foreign Policy system has never been broken. Not that haughty governments haven't tried their hardest.
The two treaties of Rome give Europe more extensive diplomatic powers. The Euratom treaty is designed to give Europe diplomatic muscle in the non-proliferation of atomic bombs. Today, when some states are arming themselves and are driven by religio-political ideologies and their mobs are shouting 'Death to the world-devourers!' --it is not used. Why? Ask the "leadership" of Europe's diplomacy!
Will Euratom only start to be considered as an instrument of diplomacy whem some fanatic acolyte-martyr explodes an atomic device in one of Europe's cities? Europeans have already experienced murderous bombings in Paris, London and Madrid. Do European diplomats imagine they could then solve such a problem by closing their eyes beforehand and then afterwards by reacting with massive force? That's just not practical against the real ideological culprits. It can also be counter-productive as the West should have found out already following the 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York.
Europe's third treaty, the European Economic Community succeeded in creating a foreign policy in its own sector. For example, Europe had a single trade policy for GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and now has one for the later WTO (World Trade Organisation). That single voice can speak out only because it was based on a supranational Community. The European Coal and Steel Community did this sort of job in the years before the "Common Market".
After many years of successful application of these principles, short-sighted politicians forgot the basis on which Europe had created its own foreign policy. Or they did not want to be reminded. The party politicians ignored the Europe Declaration of the Founding Fathers that said the policy must be agreed by people who are free to choose. They thought they could do the trick by themselves. They devised a new treaty, the Constitutional Treaty, also known as the Lisbon Treaty, where foreign policy is not based on a supranational Community but guess what? Intergovernmentalism. The failing system of the past! It did not stop the Napoleonic wars. It is unable to meet the potentially catastrophic challenges that the planet faces today. To act we need a stronger democratic consensus not less. And it is no use to have foreign policy coming from party politicians who have lost the trust of society.
That is a big step back from a supranational Community system towards pure internationalism or inter-governmentalism. It relies on secret political collusion in the Council of Ministers without real democratic supervision. Supranational Community diplomatic representation is based on sound, long-lasting principles and the European rule of law. It is not perfect but it is light-years away from the sad experience of previous centuries.
The BIG mistake that the party-based creators of this system are making relates to their incomprehension that Europeans should be creating a diplomatic system NOT based on the past. It has to be based on the totally new age that started with the Schuman Declaration. Europe is living in a period where, as Schuman said 60 years ago, for Europe 'War is not only unthinkable but materially impossible.' Unfortunately it is not only thinkable but being rendered more and more possible elsewhere. Europe is under attack and the object of financial and economic blackmail. Party politicians do not seem to understand that such a system, never known in Europe's several milleniums of history, requires new thinking.
Instead of correcting their bad record so far, governments are trying to sweep it under the carpet. Member State governments still have not fulfilled their treaty obligations to make this European diplomacy really effective. For example after nearly sixty years they have not once held a Europe-wide election for the European Parliament. It is required in the 1951 Treaty of Paris and those of Rome, 1957. However, a supranational Community is still the only really effective basis for creating a common policy for 27 disparate democracies.
Intergovernmentalism rests on the shaky sands of governments, who at every election or collapse of coalition, change their policy positions. This is equivalent of the Americans trying to create a diplomatic service based on a consensus of 50 States. The Americans long ago decided they needed a federal system to ensure diplomatic representation. However, European leaders seem to have decided that the eighteenth century is their ideal model. Can diplomacy be accomplished just by hiring 5000 or 7000 diplomats among national civil services and party hacks?
An effective new European diplomatic service cannot succeed based on a failed philosophy. It is also turning its back on the key event of all Europe's history. Europe's new diplomacy that began in August 1952 was based potentially on two things: democracy and a new European order of law. The real strength of foreign policy is where it can rely on democratically backed European supranational law. What the Lisbon EEAS system is trying to do is twofold: deny the democratic potential of the Community such as the elections the governments promised in the treaties and secondly base it on Council based fiat-law which is hollow.
Cutting out the powers of the democratic institutions won't work. Replacing them with a political cartel in the Council and shutting the doors behind it will not cut the mustard.
Conclusion: A solid European diplomatic representation needs to be based on an in-depth supranational Community system. Today Europe should be concerned with the world challenges that threaten both itself and the planet. Intergovernmentalism by fiat will not suffice.
If the European leaders are serious about acting diplomatically for the planet they need to go back to their history books. A further Community needs to be created on democratic and supranational principles to meet the Climate and Energy challenges. A European Energy Community is the way to tackle the most urgent planetary problems facing Europe. The Copenhagen Climat Change conference showed the paucity of the European anti-supranational, neo-Gaullist system.
The planet needs some action from Europe. Europe needs to activate its democracy.
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