Tag Archives: Federalism

Even if the EU became a functioning representative democracy tomorrow it’s not going to solve its ills

What do you do when one of the fundamental things you’ve believed in for years, have spent ages working towards, is actually not anywhere near as desirable as you previously thought?

That’s basically the predicament I find myself in these days, and it’s not a very pleasant place to be.

The old federalist argument, repeated ad infinitum at Ventotene, drawing on Spinelli’s manifesto, is that the nation state is broken and only supranational democratic structures in Europe (a European federation) can fix it.

That’s all very well if your systems of representative democracy work OK, but what if they don’t? What if political parties are tired and hollowed out, and beholden to narrow interests and are in awe of the power of the markets? With election turnouts decreasing? With messy multi-party compromises, and leaders ready to ditch the few principles they once had? Why should we expect leadership to be any more enlightened at EU level than is the case nationally just now?

Make the EU a representative democracy in the classical sense (government contingent on a majority in parliament, executive proposes legislation that the legislature approves and amends, parties run in elections etc.) tomorrow, and we’re just going to replicate all the disfunction on a continent wide scale.

But – conversely – the alternatives are worse. We cannot rely on the illegitimate technocracy of the past that has lacked citizen involvement and democratic control. Equally direct democracy is not the answer, as I am yet to see a fair and partial referendum campaign. And – with the world faced with an economic crisis and the impending damage of runaway climate change – it’s not as if we don’t need political solutions to our many problems, and with so many of these being cross-border in nature, it’s not as if we can do away with the supranational institutions we have.

Where, please, out of any of this, is there any small sliver of optimism?

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On the wrong side every time

Agh, today is painful. I’m a republican, atheist, anti-nationalist, and there’s a royal wedding going on, people sing god save the queen, and British flags are everywhere.

Which got me thinking: which of my political views are actually similar to those of more than 50% of the British population?

I believe in democracy and the rule of law, and a majority probably do too. A majority probably also oppose the death penalty. There should be a market economy, and few would argue for an alternative. But what else?

I’m an outspoken atheist, and I’m also determinedly against religious schools. I dislike the monarchy and would abolish it tomorrow if I could. I despise nationalism and have little tolerance for the concept of the nation state – politics needs to solve problems where the problems are, not according to backward notions of identity or statehood. I’m a federalist, and that applies to all levels – so at the same time more power to local authorities and more power to the EU and internationally too. I’m a vegetarian (logically should be vegan if it were practical), try to be green, cycle and take the train, dislike the motorcar and the plane. I don’t think what class you are should ever be remotely important. I believe in equality between men and women. I dislike the idea of marriage. I support proportional representation. I think speaking foreign languages is vital. I would increase development aid. Prison is to help people, not punish them. I am OK with more immigration to the UK.

Does more than 50% of the UK population agree with any of those things? I think not…

[UPDATE - 1600]
Seems my assumption on the death penalty was wrong, as Martin rather bluntly points out in the comments. So there’s another one where I don’t agree with the majority point of view.

[UPDATE - 7.5.2011]
Oh, and I don’t actually mind that much about Scottish independence either. They will still be in the EU, we’ll still trade with them freely, so what’s the problem? OK, oil negotiations might be hell, but seriously, does it matter?

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European federalism – never more necessary, yet never has the prospect looked so distant

Essentially journalists, politicians, bloggers and the general public have two frames of reference when talking about the European Union. Either it’s talked about in terms similar to the descriptions used for international organisations (the UN, NATO) or in terms similar to states.

Take for example the question of whether the EU is adequately democratic. Compare the level of democratic accountability in the EU, where the European Parliament has rather little scope to shape the major issues of the day, and that in a state in the developed world, and the answer is clear – the EU suffers from a democratic deficit. Compare the EU to NATO or the UN and – unique among international organisations – it does have a democratically elected parliament, so it’s far, far ahead of those organisations.


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Enough of the tiresome pro-European vs. Eurosceptic fight

Am I a pro-European? A pro-EU person? A Eurosceptic? An EU-sceptic? A Europhile? An EU-phile? A Europe-phile? A Europhobe? An EU-phobe?

I don’t know. Does anyone really know? Does anyone actually think about these terms?

In UK discourse about the EU it’s all too simple to throw in the terms ‘pro-European’ and ‘Eurosceptic’ without thinking twice about it. Take this blog post from The Fabians’ Next Left blog, and a follow up. They even throw it into event invites (para 12). The Fabians are supposed to be a think tank, but lazy vocabulary afflicts them too, with pro-European and Eurosceptic used with gay abandon.

So here’s my critique, and a sort-of way forward.

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If you want to be a Eurocrat you have to be an arch-federalist – FT just uses the same old broken frames

It’s good to see that the story that the UK government is cutting funding for the College of Europe is starting to be seen more widely – today’s FT has a story entitled “Funding cut for places at Eurocrat college“. I first wrote about the issue on Friday last week – maybe the FT Brussels people do keep an eye on this blog? Anyway, the FT has a quote from Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg who is an alumnus and he criticizes the UK government’s position – good.

There is one line I really dislike in the FT piece though:

Based in Bruges, it has for 60 years fed prospective civil servants an unabashedly federalist diet of courses for a post-graduate degree in political studies.

Oh come on folks, is that the best that FT journalists can do?

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An end to pro-European stodginess

European Citizen has an interesting and thoughful post about why Guy Verhofstadt’s statement that “The three largest groups in the European Parliament announced today their commitment to pro-European values” is essentially the wrong approach. European Citizen’s critique is not too far away from my own analysis of the travails of the left, that essentially some proper ideological debate in the EP would be of benefit to them and everyone else, but sadly that’s not the route that Martin Schulz and his merry band have not decided to follow.

Essentially Verhofstadt, Schulz, Pöttering and everyone else in the EPP, ALDE and Socialists in the EP are arguing in the wrong frame. Debate about the EU is all too often played out in the pro-European versus anti-European frame, it’s a way of looking at the European Union that everyone understands. But the problem – as European Citizen argues – is that it’s not an especially useful way of coming up with answers to pressing problems or motivating citizens to engage in EU politics.


It’s a hard task, but we instead need to argue about the EU in 2 different frames – an ideological and values based approach for policy programmes, based on Europe-wide liberalism, social democracy, free market or whatever. Then when it comes to institutional and constitutional questions, and relations among the institutions, we need a debate about multi-level governance, sovereignty, democracy and federalism. If this article by veteran Italian federalist Guido Montani is anything to go by then Verhofstadt’s ‘pro-Europeanism’ is more nuanced than his words would imply.

Plenty of those of us who write online about the EU have been genuinely disgusted by the games being played out in the European Parliament since the elections. The consultation with the population every 5 years is done, so it’s time to look inward, keep the ‘eurosceptics’ out, divide up all the jobs among the boys, and then wonder in 2014 why nothing changed. How does one of the most energetic and knowledgeable Europeans I know, Julien Frisch, feel he has to label himself EU-sceptic as a result? And I find myself sympathising with him.

No, no, no. It need not be like that. In the nascent EU-blogosphere we manage to have all kinds of nuanced debates about values and policies, and it doesn’t end up in a pro versus anti-EU argument. We’re tired of that. I don’t agree with Frank Schnittger on CAP, but we can have a civil debate. Are our elected representatives completely incapable of framing things differently?

Photo: Jelle Goossens “Guy Verhofstadt” August 10, 2006 via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution
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