Budget12: Fiscal Union? No thanks! Open Letter on Openness to President van Rompuy and Parliament President Buzek

Some government leaders and commentators are advocating what they call a FEDERAL fiscal authority to tax everyone and spread this money to governments. Some call this a supranational authority. It is not. It involves reinforcing secretive, cartel-style politics.

But would a FEDERAL fiscal union and a new "authority" help at all? It would tax more money from the public to help those who are already convicted by the facts and public opinion to be

• untrustworthy,
• crooked,
• distorters of statistics,
• in collusion with each other in fraud,
• liable to criminal prosecution under the treaties.

Nearly all governments have shamelessly violated the treaties such as the Stability and Growth Pact to control budget overspending and inflation. (In a Community system overspending and inflation involves stealing from Member State partners as well as deceiving national citizens.)

A fiscal union without openness or proper democracy is a fraudulent fiscal compact or a cartel compact.

In the face of a European Court judgement a few years ago, they shamelessly thumbed their noses at it and said it was up to them to decide whether they -- France and Germany in this case -- would be punished for this violation or not.

The European Central Bank has shamelessly violated specific articles of the treaties -- and done the exact OPPOSITE of what it was supposed to do, because an unelected, technocratic President of the ECB decided -- without asking the public -- that it was necessary to deal with the long-term fraud committed by politicians over decades.

Will a 'normal' FEDERAL-style fiscal union stop fraud among European politicians involved in tax and statistics scams? No. The guardians are the politicians themselves! The Commission has been shorn of all independence. It is a politicians' club.

Will it open up the present secrets of what they discuss behind closed doors? No.

Will it stop the international cartel of political parties acting in their own interests? Hardly, it will only encourage it.

ALL THE LEVERS OF POWER WOULD REMAIN IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE PROVED THEIR UNRELIABILITY IN THE PAST! -- THE POLITICAL CARTEL OF MAJOR PARTIES, COLLUDING TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE CITIZEN! No checks and balances but reinforced cartel-power!

Supranational means international democracy. Robert Schuman defined supranationalism in terms of democracy and openness -- which is precisely what the Council and the European Council or the EuroGroup are NOT practicing. They want more secrecy now to hide the past and present scandals and political collusion.

What is proposed has nothing of democracy or light about it. If they wanted a supranational institution, it would be dead easy. A complementary supranational institution already exists that would instill HONESTY supervised by taxpayers. But it is in cold storage -- thanks to the Council.

A supranational Community system is a democracy of democracies. We have 27 member democracies at present. WHY should the governance system of European Union be typified by the hyper-secretive EuroGroup or the European Council whose main characteristic is that they do not let the public know what they are discussing, let voters listen to what is said, let companies, associations, trade unions hear what their reasonings are or how the so-called democrats propose to tax and spend the citizens' money?

In the case of the EuroGroup it is not even an official institution of the Community or the EU and it is the EuroGroup that is now ruling the roost. Its chairman says he has to lie for Europe. So the citizens cannot trust even his information about when it will meet. It makes secret treaties, sets up a shady company in Luxembourg that employs government ministers and tries to lever money as if they were a bunch of Wall Street derivative crooks. They lack the expertise. They are already far from the 1.4 Trillion that was boasted about after they set up this ramshackle operation. (That is more than TEN times the annual budget of the EU!)

They lack open confidence of saying whom they are acting for (their parties or their nationals in Europe?) and even their identity (democrats, ministers or perhaps pseudo-bankers, or even conspirators against the too powerful markets?). The dog's tail of the parties is wagging and shaking the nations. The Euro Zone Heads of Government now meet in an huddle or conference that is in NO WAY DEFINED OR REGULATED BY TREATIES. They are not sure whether to call themselves a European Summit, the European Council (which they are not! They exclude the ten non-Euro Member States) or a Council of Ministers (which they are NOT, even though they fraudulently use its letterhead paper to say they are all honest!)

How can Europe get honest finances again? Supranational democracy requires that the Consultative Committees -- the bodies for democratic associations in Europe like the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of Regions and the equivalent body in Euratom -- be elected based on (1) a reference list of relevant European associations (2) elections within the list of those properly registered associations for a smaller number of seats in the appropriate bodies. (This was part of the Founding Fathers' grand design for Europe and is still active in the body for NGOs in the Council of Europe but has been blocked by Council in the Communities.) The elected body would establish the rules for defining what is a democratic association and what is to be excluded as an unrepresentative lobby.

The Consultative Committee of the European Coal and Steel Community -- even though not properly elected on a European basis because European associations did not yet exist -- was able to control the finances and the budget of the pioneer Community and make sure that housing for miners etc paid out of the European tax did not involve corrupt practice and that the European tax of the Community was properly collected from all firms in the Community. Europe had a real European tax until 2002 -- but this was stopped by the politicians when they decided not to renew the Coal and Steel Community Treaty for another fifty years.

At the start of the first Community politicians delayed the implementation of the changes to make the Consultative Committee a truly European body. They preferred to choose the members themselves which was the interim agreement. Then de Gaulle tried to move the European government system of the Communities to French control inside the Council with its closed doors. De Gaulle is long gone but his undemocratic deformations remain. Can they be reversed? Yes. They will be when we have Europeans with moral courage and honesty. The process of justice and democracy is ineluctable.

We, the citizens, are still waiting for the present Consultative Committees to produce plans for THEIR European elections. Don't hold your breath. The European Parliament took decades to fulfill the minimum electoral requirements in the treaties and still has not once had a proper Europe-wide election under a single electoral statute as required by treaty law.

Such Consultative Committees -- if active -- would have prevented the decades of corrupt and fraudulent practice among Member States, the bad construction of the euro and the present mortgaging of the future planned behind the closed doors of the European Council and the EuroGroup. (See the budget series on http://democracy.blogactiv.eu and the commentaries at http://www.schuman.info/news.htm )

The Consultative Committees should have specialized subcommittees on monetary affairs, representing various types of associations of taxpayers. These would be open and would eliminate much of the comitology -- which is neither open nor democratically approved.

Meanwhile both Parliament and the European Council make sure that Budget matters are dealt with the doors closed to the public.

What is to be done? I wrote to both presidents asking for justification, morally and legally, for what is clearly UNdemocratic practice. The following is the latest correspondence.

5 December 2011

Mr Herman Van Rompuy
President, European Council

Dear President van Rompuy,
A year ago I sent a letter asking for the legal and moral justification that the European Council closed the doors on meetings on the taxation of European citizens and budget expenditure matters. This is in opposition to the articles of the Lisbon Treaty. The treaty says clearly that all such matters, especially those dealing with the earliest consideration of legislation, should be dealt with openly. Morally, all Member States adhere to the principle that there can be no taxation without fair and open representation, which is then the basis for public awareness and public consultation. Consultation is impossible if the consideration of such vital financial matters is presented cut and dried by politicians, without public access to the debate so they can employ the means in the treaties to influence the decisions, to ensure control and provide adequate inspection of the results through properly elected Consultative Committees.

The public is showing increasing distrust of politicians and so are markets. This lack of open responsibility has now resulted in proposals for trillion euro operations mortgaging the future of the next generations. Even before the European Council was designated an institution in the Constitutional and Lisbon Treaties, it had the moral obligation to have open meetings. It did not. That was the reason that a decade ago the principles of openness were written into the treaties. Half a century ago Robert Schuman said that "the Councils, the Committees and the other organs {of Europe} should be placed under the control of public opinion."

Secret political 'deals' of the past are now paralyzing Europe. Why is the principle of openness and democracy still not being respected? European finances are not the property of politicians.

I am therefore sending this reminder, as I believe the public has a right to know the legal and moral opinion why the European Council deems it can close the doors while attempting to extract tax money and design its plans for spending public money.

Many thanks for your help in this matter.

Yours etc

A reminder letter was sent to President Buzek of the European Parliament with this complaint introduced to the European Ombudsman for non-response.

The Parliament has not replied to my letters. They deal with my exclusion, press exclusion and exclusion of the public to matters of primary importance to all, namely, holding secret, closed door meetings on taxation of European citizens and use of the budget.

I was excluded from meetings as noted in the correspondence. President Buzek's earlier argument made for exclusion is not logical or consistent. The Parliament excludes journalists and the public whether or not the Council is involved.

The Parliament says it upholds the principle of open meetings. As for the Council setting the rules in prima facie violation of the treaties, there is a simple way to resolve any potential 'bullying' of the Parliament by the Council. That is to get a ruling by the Court of Justice on such articles as Article 15 TFEU and general principles of taxation and open representation.

For decades the institutions involved which are supposed to be independent and sovereign have refused to do so, being submissive to Council. The public which is the most important partner in the taxation debate should under no circumstances be excluded from discussions among politicians who have their own agenda and interests that are not identical with their electors (the voters are a minority of the electors who increasingly refuse to vote) or the public in general. All the institutions were created for the citizens, not for the political parties who are now (often contrary to the treaties) firmly ensconced in all the institutions, save the Court.

Budget5 Letter to European Council President Van Rompuy on moral and legal requirement of open, public debate on taxes

The following letter was sent to Mr Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council about public access to discussions inside the European Council on public money.

Schuman Project

11 November 2010

Mr Herman Van Rompuy
President, European Council

Public access to Budgetary draft legislation meetings

Dear President Van Rompuy,
At the European Council press conference on 29 October 2010 in reply to a question about the Budget, citing the Lisbon Treaty Article 15.2 (TFEU) the Commission President, Mr Barroso, replied that ‘I think we should keep full respect of the Lisbon Treaty in all the co-decision procedures.’

The treaty says in Article 15.2 (TFEU) The European Parliament shall meet in public, as shall the Council when considering and voting on a draft legislative act.

He added that historically 'the European Council has never met in open format.'

In your reply you said: And will not do {so}.

However the European Council is now an institution of the Lisbon Treaty, not an informal arrangement. The closed-door format seems in contradiction with Article 15.1 which says that: In order to promote good governance and ensure the participation of civil society, the Union institutions, bodies and agencies shall conduct their work as openly as possible. Parliament has its debate on the Budget in public. Other articles stress the need for uniform open procedure. How can civil society participate and debate with secrecy in the European Council? Decades of bad financial governance have been aggravated by secrecy.

Public access is the fundament of democracy. It is essential to have open, public sessions of all institutions when it comes to draft legislation on tax and public money. Today is both the time of austerity and of grave suspicions of fraudulent practice in high places. Openness is a moral imperative, as well as a legal requirement.

As confirmed by government leaders, the European Council discussed the budget in detail, (that is ‘considered draft legislation’ ). They did so with the President of the European Parliament and among themselves with the Commission. May I ask for an official reply as to why the meetings of the European Council on public money were shut to the public, television and the press? On what moral and legal basis was it decided that the public and press should be excluded?

Many thanks for your help in this matter.

Budget2 European Council President Van Rompuy and Commission President Barroso declare they refuse to obey the Lisbon Treaty on public money and open access

With breath-taking frankness, European leaders admitted in public that they had no intention to make European 'democratic' institutions open and responsive to civil society. They want them to remain closed and in the hands of a small cartel of politicians and their party machines. But this is ILLEGAL. Their admission flies in the face of both the letter and the spirit even of the Lisbon Treaty -- which the party machines voted into effect, sometimes without even reading the text. One principle that escaped their notice is that public money requires an open public debate. The treaty insists on open debate, not secret conclaves.

The Lisbon Treaty was not ALL dictated by politicians who wanted more power and more money for their careers. Initially it was called the Constitutional Treaty, with which it is largely identical. (It was never a constitution but merely another treaty as Mr Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, its architect, said many times.)

The drafting of that goes back about a decade. Among the groups that were asked to participate were a few who represented organised civil society. There were also a few who remembered some of the democratic principles before the politicians got on their hobby-horse of the power-accreting Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice (MAN) process.

One of the main principles still remains in the Lisbon Treaty. It is called Transparency. Transparency is fundamental to democracy. The principle of Transparency is written in Article 15 of what is called the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Let me quote:

In order to promote good governance and ensure the participation of civil society, the Union institutions, bodies and agencies shall conduct their work as openly as possible.

By their own wish and will, the European leaders decided that the European Council should now be classified as a European institution. It should therefore be open, far more than in the past. Before it was not under the Community system. It was an informal organization and not an official institution. It involved dainty dinners, fine wines and private invitations. Held in exotic locations they were formatted to discourage any thought that the public or the press could gatecrash the exclusive party of would-be power-brokers. The succulent cuisine was contrived to please and pamper egos. If there were any fireworks between the guests, they were private.

Times have changed. The European Council must now respect the joint rules of democratic discourse. It must be open as much as democratically possible. The Leaders must arrange it that every door is open to ‘promote good governance and ensure the participation of civil society.’ It is not a pious wish but a legal obligation of the Treaty that they signed. It is part of a compact between the 27 leaders and all the people.

It does not take a great deal of effort to open a door. To close, bar and lock it takes much more muscle. It also takes an act of will. Why? Because when anyone enters the room, the door must be open. That person then has to will to close it. So any closing of doors has to be explained and agreed by the people in authority — that is the 500 million people who are in charge in a democracy. It is not a matter that is in the hands of the leaders as if they had a privilege to do so. They have no privilege of privacy on public affairs until it is granted by the people.

Secondly the people are quite often most concerned with public money and taxes. That is why they elect representatives to manage fairly and justly their money. There can be no legitimate taxation without fair representation.

Money is collected by democratic legislation from the public by the people’s representatives, in agreement with the will of the people. Money is spent by democratic legislation in agreement with the will of the people. Do the representatives of the people have a right to close the doors of a debate about people’s money? No. The only possible exceptions relate to questions of national security and aspects where it is in the people’s interests that security should not be compromised. Nonetheless reputable democrats should ensure public and democratic control even on security matters.

Public control over public money is why the formulators of this main section on governance principles wrote in the next paragraph (15:2):

The European Parliament shall meet in public, as shall the Council when considering and voting on a draft legislative act.

As recorded in the first commentary, the following facts are apparent.

· Parliament has open sessions on the Budget in plenary and in Committee.

· When there is a disagreement between Council and Parliament, a tripartite Conciliation Committee meeting takes place between the Council and Parliament with the assistance of the Commission.

· This meeting according to the clear words of the Treaty should be open. Instead the doors were closed on this meeting on the collection and use of public money.

At the press conference following the European Council meeting on 26 October 2010, the following question was put to Mr Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council and Mr Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission:

[The European Council] has spent a considerable time considering the budget. There was also a Conciliation Committee meeting during the week with Parliament. Under the new Lisbon Treaty it says that
The European Parliament shall meet in public, as shall the Council when considering and voting on a draft legislative act.
I was wondering why public money should be discussed in secret both in the Conciliation Committee and in the Council. This seems to be in violation to the Treaty. Perhaps you can clarify?

Both Commission and European Council representatives replied.

Commission President Barroso: Regarding the Parliament it is better to ask the Parliament The European Council is one institution and the Council is another. The European Council does not meet in open format. The Council, yes. Today what we have discussed in European Council is reflected in the conclusions.
I think we should keep of course the full respect of the Lisbon Treaty in all the co-decision procedures. The European Council is discussing very general principles that are reflected in the conclusions … so it was not appropriate to have this discussion in another format.

By the way I think that the European Council has never met in open format.

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy: And will not do {so}.

It should be recalled that the Founding Fathers such as Robert Schuman wrote that the 'Councils, Committees and other bodies must be placed under the control of public opinion,' Pour l’Europe, p145.

That is why some legislative procedures were enunciated with infantile simplicity in the Lisbon Treaty. Things which were considered understood by all or taken for granted had to be spelt out because government leaders took advantage of silence or ambiguity.

The section on Transparency in the institutions was added because the government leaders — who called themselves democrats — have since the time of Mr de Gaulle reinforced the secrecy of their deliberations on ‘package deals’. Closed room deals lead to corrupt practice like meat mountains and wine lakes at the citizen's expense. Thus certain transitory arrangements have become semi-permanent.

They stayed because lifting them was also in the hands of ministers. Instead of democratising, they used them as toys for political games of power and influence. Transitory measures like closed councils were necessary at first before the various nations of Europe trusted each other to have meetings in public like grown ups. It is a question of political maturity. Have today’s leaders advanced as they should? Have they returned to neo-gaullism or national selfishness? Does TV time rule or public interest?

Equally consistent, they stopped organised civil society from electing its own representatives in its democratic institution.

De Gaulle also refused to have parliamentary elections to the European Parliament. Elected parliamentarians would be a distraction from his dominating presence in the media. He did not want to be a democrat like the practically unknown but less authoritarian Swiss president! (The Swiss have a better historic record of resisting autocrats and enemies.)

Today government leaders refuse to implement the second part of that oft-repeated sentence in the treaties that the elections should be pan-European and based on a single electoral statute. That legal obligation has been around and ministers have ignored it for nearly sixty years.

Transparency remains a prerequisite of democracy. Schuman wrote that democracy will only work if it is based on Christian principles. 'Democracy will be Christian or it won't exist. An unchristian democracy is a caricature which sinks into tyranny or anarchy,' he wrote. One of these principles involves the correct understanding of human nature. Politicians, like all human beings, cannot be trusted not to err. Hence meetings should be open. Soviet atheism with its millions of victims in the gulags had closed meetings. So did many of the former regimes of now democratic Member States in both the East, Centre and West of Europe.

Three further meetings of the Conciliation Committee between Parliament, Council and Commission will take place. The next meeting is on Thursday, 4 November.

The day after, 5 November, is known in the UK as Fireworks Day. It is the day that the people burn effigies of the traitorous bad guy on a bonfire.