If you the common market + democracy you must vote NO to Lisbon

Freeborn John

Under the community method, the Commission holds the monopoly on legislative initiative, i.e. all proposals for new EU law or changes to EU law that is superior to any other for 500 million people. This law becomes binding on all member-states, even those that vote against it, if it accepted by a qualified majority in the EU Council of Ministers. (If co-decision is used then a vote of the EU Parliament is also required). Unlike national law, which can be changed by electing a new government, EU law stays in force in perpetuity, no matter how Irish citizens might vote in future elections. This is an inherently undemocratic decision-making mechanism that was originally designed to put the common market beyond ‘populist’ pressures that might lead to protectionism.

The lack of democratic legitimacy inherent to the ‘community method’ did not matter greatly when most of the things decided by the EU were not politically sensitive but it matters now. The concept of ‘demos’ (for example from the German political scientist Fritz Scharpf) is “a community in which the identification of members with the group is sufficiently strong to override the divisive interests of subgroups in case of conflict”. This concept is central to the cohesiveness of a voluntary community. It is widely accepted that there is no European ‘demos’ or people, implying that the EU lacks the solidarity of the strength that hold a democratic nation-state together by making the minority accept to be bound by majority decisions, even when they disagree with them. In the absence of a European ‘demos’ it is clear that the cohesiveness of the EU depends on not generating the conflict that would fracture the non-existent European ‘demos’ and that this in turn depends on not coercing nations to do what they do not want to do in politically sensitive fields using the community method.

The Lisbon Treaty however does exactly this by ‘collapsing the pillar structure’ that previously limited the community method to just common market law. Under Lisbon the ‘community method’ would becomes the default decision in future (the treaty says “The ordinary legislative procedure shall consist in the joint adoption by the European Parliament and the Council of a regulation, directive or decision on a proposal from the Commission”).

The Lisbon Treaty would not only make the ‘community method’ the default decision-making mode, but allows it to be used in an open-ended list of policy areas. Article 4 TFEU has been worded very carefully with a list of policy areas intended to give the misleading impression that ‘shared competence’ only applies to those fields. However the wording before the list (‘The PRINCIPAL areas of shared competence are...’) means that ’shared competence’ applies to the OPEN ENDED list of policy areas that are not explicitly listed in either article 6 or article 3 (exclusive powers of the EU).

And what does the EU mean by ‘shared competence’? Article 2 TFEU defines ‘shared competence’ by saying that “When the Treaties confer on the Union a competence shared with the member states, member states shall exercise their competence to the extent that the Union has not exercised its competence”. So we see that under Lisbon powers in an open-ended list of policy areas are only SHARED IN TIME! And in case this is not enough the 'flexibility clause' allows a one-time agreement of EU heads of government to permanently increase EU powers to meet any of the rambling objectives listed in the Lisbon treaty. This wording means that the EU has the power to legislate at any time in the future in an open-ended list of policy areas and once it has done so our elected governments may not legislate ever again in any way that conflicts with that new EU law, no matter how we vote in future.

It is clear that this wording in the Lisbon treaty would lead to an ever expanding body of EU law in politically sensitive policy areas that will lead to political tensions in outvoted nations, and that in the absence of a cohesive European demos the European polity will fracture along national lines. The only alternative to fracture is some other means than voluntary consent to hold the EU together, e.g. the personal agreement of political leaders to act in their mutual interest even against the wishes of their voters. It appears EU leaders are doing this already in denying voters any real voice on the EU but this can only ever be a short-term sticking plaster over a problem that will only get worse under Lisbon as the years advance and the accumulated body of binding EU law in politically salient policy areas builds up.

Lisbon will therefore lead to either an undemocratic European state (in all but name) held together by the personal agreement of political elites whose law we cannot change at the ballot box, or to rupture as one nation after another refuses to live under its tightening straight-jacket. The latter would call into question past achievements of the EU (such as the common market) so those who want to combine the economic benefits of the common market with the benefits of a representative form of government must stop Lisbon before it is too late by voting NO on October 2.

Scofflaw

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Scofflaw