Tuesday, June 17, 2008

"A European elite able to assume directly the leadership of the process should appear"

Oh boy, sometimes I try to produce parodies of how the mindset of the European Union works. The federastic paradigm if you will. This morning I recieved this article from a Romanian MEP and former Foriegn Minister, one Adrian Severin. My attempts at satire are over, we have found it, the very model, mode and perfection of the type,

The European dream embodied into EU was born from the fear from immobility of the desperate persons who eluded the tragedy of the war and wanted to gain the right to peace, freedom, food and dignity. These people chose their leaders
and followed them quite confidently. It is true that the generation of the
leaders who got out of the war also placed the interests of the people and peoples ahead of the partisan interests.

The Euro-skepticism, targeting the minimization if not even the annihilation of EU, burst out of the fear from change of the egotists who had got lazy in the decades of peace and who want to preserve the rights won in terms of protection and assistance, subsidies, scholarships, rents and pensions.

They do not believe in leaders and do not follow them – frequently also from the latter’s fault – and even do not look for them any longer. They prefer the populist managers who flatter their ego and appease their worries giving them the illusion that their good would be durable if they withdraw into a national provincialism and defend themselves against “the others.” This is the essence of the Irish refusal of the EU Reform Treaty. This is the essence of a problem which is not exclusively Irish.

The Irish “No” is not the result or the expression of democracy, but of the crisis of the latter. On the one hand, we have the inability of the mass to find or understand the solutions for the settlement of the complicate problems regarding the guarantee of security and social justice in the conditions of globalization. On another hand, we have the divorce between the people and the elites. The Irish referendum is not a victory of democracy, but a last blow to the idea of democracy. (Especially the direct one). Unwillingly and without knowing, the Irish proclaimed with the candor of innocence that the “king” of democracy is naked.

Undeniably, the European process cannot continue through referendum. Such a method does not function when the electorate is unequally informed and educated about the problems in discussion. The Irish reconfirmed the fact that politics has become a profession which supposes the knowledge of the complex compromises, the contextualization and the prioritization and which cannot be appropriated at mass level or practiced by the ordinary citizen of the complex contemporary society. Therefore, the Irish message is irrational and incomprehensible. The arguments expressed by the partisans of the rejection of the Reform Treaty do not have any connection with its objectives and content. Thus, the act of refusal cannot be translated into subsequent political action at European level because it was not learnt from the Irish what a likable treaty should look like.

Thus, the “No” is without consequences. The refusal of a treaty aiming to remove the EU from the blockage through the consolidation of the European institutions and the increase of their capacity to answer the European and global challenges, by the people who took a maximum advantage from the European integration can be explained only through its belief that the better would be the enemy of the good already obtained, and that this good could be preserved without reforms. Thus, it is clear that the lack of knowledge and understanding of the EU by the ordinary man does not conduct to under-appreciation alone, but also to over-appreciation. The
combination between contempt and idealization, between fear and illusion is lethal for EU. Not from the peoples, but from the leaders the remedy can come.

On another hand, if it is true that the European process needs leaders to lead not to be led, the Irish “No” also proved that the project of the united Europe cannot advance through the care of the national leaders. The latter are the first guilty of the fracture between peoples and elites. Then, they are at the origin of the national-populist propaganda which conducted to the separation between the people’s conscience and the European idea, between the European citizens and the political Europe. The European project claims European architects. The European political class cannot be reduced any longer to the conclave of the national leaders. Even before the birth of a European demos – in whose absence a European democracy cannot exist – a European elite able to assume directly the leadership of the process should appear.

Finally, the Irish refusal imposes the conclusion, so long avoided, that the European idea must be released from the captivity of the blockage minorities. A few tens of thousands of Irish cannot thwart the future of hundreds of millions of Europeans. The European Council will have to decide that from now on the European construction will advance without Ireland or with an Ireland which functions subject to special rules, as a lower category member.

The mutual respect that the Irish and the other European citizens owe to themselves imposes this separation as an undesired but inevitable evil. Not any European minority can decide for the others, it can decide only for itself. That who refuses the majority “de facto” refuses itself. Thus, the Irish make room for a smaller but more federal Europe.

This is unfiskable, but shines a glaring light into the dark, tyrannic soul of the European Union.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yikes! Where's my garlic?

Anonymous said...

Have you seen this?

DECLARATION OF THE ROMANIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT MEPs CONCERNING THE RESULT OF THE REFERENDUM ORGANIZED IN IRELAND



14 June 2008



Regarding the final result of the Irish referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon, the Romanian social-democrat MEPs made the following declaration:



1.The referendum in Ireland has demonstrated that direct democracy (by way of referendum) cannot ensure the progress of the European process. The security, liberty and prosperity of hundreds of millions of European citizens ask for complex leadership actions, which cannot be appreciated by heterogeneous populations, from the point of view of the information level and the education one. European integration is a process that must be conducted politically by the elected representatives of the European citizens.



2. The result of the Irish referendum transmits a message that cannot be understood and therefore cannot orient our future political action as long as, on one hand, the reasons for the negative vote had nothing to do with the contents and the objectives of the Treaty, and, on the other hand, Ireland has been one of the main beneficiaries of European policies. As demonstrated by the experience of the French and Dutch referendums, the attempt to integrate ambiguous popular desires in the European treaties only leads to documents even harder to understand by our citizens, further on from their true European expectations.



3. The decision of the Irish citizens must be respected. However, this cannot be equivalent to defying the desires of the citizens of the other member States. Democracy does not mean that 1% of the EU population can put a break to the progress wanted by the overwhelming majority of hundreds of millions of Europeans.



4. In these conditions, we consider necessary:

a. the continuation of the ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty in all the EU States that haven’t done it yet;

b. placing on the agenda of the June European Council the situation created by the Irish referendum and, in this framework, deciding the measures necessary so that the European integration process continues without Ireland, analyzing including the possibility that this country continue to base its relations with the EU on the Nice Treaty –with the necessary adaptations- while the ratifying States of the Lisbon Treaty act on the basis of this document;

c. the organization by Irish government of a new referendum, as it happened also in the case of the ratification of the Nice Treaty, this time the main question to be asked referring to the Irish people’s option between remaining in the EU in the context of the Treaty of Lisbon or leaving the Union.

Anonymous said...

I assume that sixty years of communism has done this to these poor men. Those who joke about the EUSSR must accept that this is no joke, and not a problem of translation either. Gordon Brown's government are the only likely supporters of these views here in the UK..

the doctor said...

I would take a guess that he was , at one time , a Communist Party supporter . It has a ring of their understanding of democracy .
Personally I believe that he is deserving of a Mussolini moment .

Anonymous said...

Please make this all go away. I have had enough.

sykes.1 said...

When the US adopted its current constitution, it did so by popular referenda in each of the founding states. For the purpose of these referenda, the states radically expanded their electorates from propertied white males to essentially all adult males, thus recognizing that a change of such magnitude required the greatest possible amount of popular support. The constitution was also vigorously debated in public in detail (The Federalist Papers). Several states conditioned their support on the adoption of a Bill of Rights, which the Congress agreed to. How sad, and how instructive the European method.

Anonymous said...

Great find!

Please someone forward this to the murdoch press, the people need to know just what these self sellected "elites" think of us.

Anonymous said...

There's lots about him post 1993, but what did he do during the communist regime? I can't find any mention!

Anonymous said...

I have no expectation of an answer, but I just penned the following:

"Dear Sir,

I noticed from your profile on the Parliament website that you were appointed Professor of Law in 1999. May I ask what your role or profession was before 1999?

Best regards,

xxxx"

Anonymous said...

Which was kind of dumb, cos it says he was an MP in the Romanian Parliament.

I'll get me coat.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Is he related to the bass player out of Siouxsie & The Banshees?

Anonymous said...

I had a vote, I voted NO and I'm bloody happy that I did. It is reading stuff like that which is putting me off the European Union.

'Democracy does not mean that 1% of the EU population can put a brake to the progress wanted by the overwhelming majority of hundreds of millions of Europeans.'

Oh yes it does. Maybe professional politicians like Adrian Severin are worried that their place at the European swilltrough is jeopardised by popular democracy and so wish to circumvent it, if it does not give a result to their liking.

I don't think hundreds of millions of Europeans are in favour of the Lisbon Treaty: if so why were the populations of the various European Nations denied a popular vote on the Treaty? We know it is because a lot of them would vote NO if given the chance. In particular France and the Netherlands.

Maybe the majority of naive Eastern Europeans are in favour because they see membership of the EU as a shortcut to prosperity but don't fully understand what the European Project is all about; which is creating a society were ex-communists can flourish without having to do a stroke of real work!

A workers' paradise indeed.

Anonymous said...

3. The decision of the Irish citizens must be respected. However, this cannot be equivalent to defying the desires of the citizens of the other member States.

No it doesn't. It is the professional politicians who have their future job prospects bound up in a successful European Project who are being defied. There is a big differance between the elected professional politicians and the Nation.

The People are the Nation: not the elected politicians though they think they are.

Anonymous said...

I don't know what scares me most: the fact that this specter of Romania's definitely-not-cool political corner writes such things on behalf of my people, or that I had to find this out from an English-language site...

Euro-politics is not discussed in Romanian press (I mean Romanian language Romanian press, mainstream papers). And people like Mr. Severin have had somehow less threatening opinions while still "at home".

The tone, if not the content of his position, is downright outrageous to me!

"The security, liberty and prosperity of hundreds of millions of European citizens ask for complex leadership actions, which cannot be appreciated by heterogeneous populations, from the point of view of the information level and the education one." Did he just call the Irish and potentially several tens or hundreds of million other Europeans stupid or is it just my imagination?!

Gawain Towler said...

Sadly I don't think it is your imagination. Me I suport NIP in Romania, but I am sure there are skeletons there to.

Laocoon said...

About Adrian Severin. Several years ago, he was asked the following question: "- What is your opinion about the infestation of water with oxygen". And, of course, he didn't notice that is a joke, and he started to express his concern about water suppliers etc. This is the level of that individual. Unfortunately, we have many politicians like him in Romania. :(

Laocoon said...

I don't believe that the people from NIP (national initiative party) are truly eurosceptics. Nobody takes them seriously, in Romania. Cozmin Gusa, the president of NIP, was for many years member in several parties. In Romania, we have the concept of "free-exchangism" (meaning: to go from one party to other, to change your political doctrine over night etc.).

Cozmin Gusa had run for the Mair Office in Bucharest. He proposed to move the main railway station outside the city, in order to free the land for buildings. Absolutely crazy idea, of course. He didn't receive not 1% of votes.

I am an eurosceptic, but, really.. I don't think Cozmin Gusa and NIP are. I don't believe not a single moment in their sincerity, even if NIP (2 people in Parliament - that's because they started their party after the elections of 2004) was the only party that vote against Lisbon Treaty.

More serious is PRM (Great Romanian Party), even if officially it supports EU. But the president of PRM, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, and other people from this party had many eurosceptic discourses and criticize many aspects of EU.

Anyway, don't take Romanian folks and especially Romanian politicians too serious!

PS: I'm apologizing for my (bad) english.

Laocoon said...

I also wants to apologize, as Romanian, for bringing in EU these soviet-style-educated people like Adrian Severin. The political leadership in Romania consist almost entirely in ex-communists leaders or sons of ex-communist leaders. And they preserved their language and attitude, adding, of course, some fresh and stinky political correctness. Really, the European Union should be called, the Soviet European Union!

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