Seminar on the EU Constitution.

by euro Thu Dec 02, 2004 15:51

NewsBlog Critical of the EU Constitution
http://www.teameurope.info

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A network defending democracy
http://www.teameurope.info/modules.php?name=News&file=categories&op=newindex&catid=4

TEAM is an information network linking almost 60 organisations, political party and non-party, from more than 20 countries across Europe. It includes democratic and non-racist organisations from the centre, left and right of the political spectrum.

What unites us is a common belief in the principles of democracy - as requiring representative government, citizen participation, transparency, accountability and free and fair public debate. We regard the current development of the EU as a manifest threat to these principles:

1. The building of a centralised federal-style EU Superstate, with common supranational policies and harmonisation in more and more political areas, reduces the power of democratic nation states and the right to self-determination of their citizens.

2. The centralisation of more and more power to Brussels and Frankfurt removes decision-making and control from national governments and parliaments - which are democratically accountable to their voters and citizens - to bureaucrats and politicians at EU-level, who decide policy package deals among themselves behind closed doors.

3. The project of an EU Superstate is being pressed by the euro-federalists without the support of their citizens in the EU Member countries. The lack of respect for the the Irish No to the Nice Treaty in 2001 and the Danish No to the euro in 2000, shows how the EU ignores the wishes of ordinary people.