Deirdre DeBurca Speech for European Green’s Dublin Seminar

Wednesday December 01, 2004 18:17

by Deirdre DeBurca - Green Party

.

Good morning. It’s good to be here today addressing this gathering of the European Green Party in Dublin. The broad range of Green Parties from different European Member States represented here today certainly reflects the strong internationalist identity of the Green political movement. Appropriately enough, the purpose of our gathering here this morning is to debate the future of the new draft EU constitution. The Irish Green Party welcomes the opportunity to debate the proposed EU Constitution as part of our own internal process which will result in the party holding a special convention next year to decide what official position we intend take on the EU Constitution.

Clearly our focus must be on the extent to which the new constitution will assist in progressing our broad Green political agenda both within European Union, and ultimately at a global level. Now, while political pragmatism would suggest that we cant expect the new Constitution to satisfy all of our political requirements, it is reasonable to propose that if the overall effect of the new constitution is to take the European Union in a direction which conflicts with the political direction outlined in our own European Green’s Guiding Principles document agreed in Rome in February of this year, then we should not support it.

So in what direction does the new EU Constitution take the European Union? Well it important to remember that the process of drafting a constitution for the Union began as an exercise in trying to enhance its internal legitimacy, or- put more simply- to tackle the European Union’s widely acknowledged democratic deficit. Essentially, as more aspects of national sovereignty are transferred to the European level, the ability of citizens to influence and supervise this new European power base has declined significantly. The democratic controls that apply at a national level are clearly lacking at an EU level.

The Laeken Declaration of 2001 acknowledged the lack of democracy and transparency in the Union, said that the Union needed to be brought closer to its peoples, and referred to the possibility of ‘restoring tasks to the Member States’. However, it is worth noting that the new Constitution contains not a single proposal to repatriate powers from EU institutions to Member States’ parliaments. While we are told that the emerging political form of the European Union is some kind of hybrid, federal-type polity, unfortunately, in contrast to traditional federal systems where clear competences and powers are located at regional, national and federal levels of government, the proposed EU constitution transfers significant new legal powers upwards to the EU institutions without including any bold initiatives to enhance the role of national parliaments or regional assemblies.

In fact, the role of national parliaments, as envisaged by the constitution, appears to be largely one of surveillance and monitoring of the EU institutions. There are two rather weak protocols attached to the constitution relating to national parliaments. One of these protocols provides that national parliaments are to be informed of proposals for EU laws at the same time as the Council of Ministers and the EU Parliament. Another protocol on subsidiarity provides that national parliaments can complain if they believe that the principle of subsidiarity has been breached within six weeks of learning about new EU legislation. If one third of the national parliaments object then the Commission can exercise its discretion to maintain, amend or withdraw the proposal, but the draft Constitution does not require it to do any of these things. Furthermore, it contains no provisions for a meaningful strengthening of the role of local or regional government, and even EU bodies such as the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee under the draft constitution remain politically insignificant in terms of their overall role in EU institutional decision-making.

The new constitution also contains a rather weak form of a citizen’s legislative initiative whereby one million citizens from a ‘significant number of member states’ can petition the European Commission to propose a new law in an area where it is felt that legislation is required to fulfil the objectives of the constitution. (Unfortunately as the draft Constitution does not propose to give the EU Parliament the power to initiate legislation which other parliaments have, EU citizens are deprived of the opportunity to petition their own elected representatives to introduce desired legislation). The provisions of the draft constitution leave it to the discretion of the Commission, an unelected body, whether to act on such a popular initiative or not. Most strikingly, there is no provision in the new constitution for automatic citizen participation in the adoption of the constitution. There no provision on a European-wide referendum, and the method described in Article IV-443 for adopting the text remains the basic intergovernmental treaty procedure whereby each state ratifies the document in accordance with its constitutional requirements.

In fact, an article in the Economist magazine in June of this year proposed that while the original motivation for a European Constitution may have been to address the EU’s democratic deficit, the Convention process actually ended up focusing on quite a different problem – that of how to make decision-making easier in an enlarged EU. As a result, the draft constitution removes national vetoes in over 40 different policy areas. A new Qualified Majority Voting system has been introduced based on the Double Majority principle, where member states voting weight will be more proportionate to their population size, thus weakening the voice of medium sized member states in favour of the larger states. The draft Constitution also proposes that the EU Commission will have fewer commissioners by 2014, with one third of Member States having no voting commissioner for a five year period on a rotating basis. The European Council- comprised of Heads of State and Government- will have a president for two and a half years in place of the current arrangement whereby a different Member State assumes the EU Presidency every six months. The draft Constitution also proposes that the Union will have a single Foreign Minister to represent it externally, as opposed to the two representatives in place at present.

Some of the more worrying new provisions of the draft Constitution include the ‘passarelle’ or ‘escalator’ clause which empowers a summit of Heads of State to move policy areas from unanimity to majority voting without the need for a new treaty, or for ratification by national parliaments or by popular referendum. Another worrying provision is the so-called ‘flexibility clause’ outlined in the Constitution. This states that if the Constitution has not given the EU sufficient power to attain one of its objectives (which are very wide indeed) the Council of Ministers, acting unanimously, shall take the extra powers to itself, without any further treaty renegotiation.

I am suggesting here today that rather than the draft constitution having addressed the democratic deficit at the heart of the way in which the EU functions, instead it has conferred even more power on its unreformed institutions. For example, the draft constitution concentrates even more power in the hands of the already powerful European Council, particularly in relation to external affairs across all policy areas. The European Council consists of the 25 Heads of Government and State and is the most undemocratic EU institution, as it operates free from the constraints of institutional accountability, with no real requirements for transparency, or judicial or parliamentary control. As far as the European Parliament is concerned, although it has been given a more equal say with the Council of Ministers in the law-making process through the extension of the co-decision-making process, it still does not have the power to propose or initiate legislation as most other parliaments do. It also lacks the legal authority to hold the Commission to account for its actions, as its powers are limited to dismissing the entire College of Commissioners, which naturally is a measure of last resort, only to be used in the most extreme circumstances.

The powerful but unelected European Commission has been described by commentators as part civil service, part government, given the unusual powers it has as an unelected body, including the jealously- guarded right to initiate legislation. The Commission has seen its powers increase under this new constitution, in particular the power to initiate and negotiate international trade agreements in all service areas, including the areas of health, education and cultural services. At the same time, Member States have largely lost the power of veto that they had in the Council of Ministers over the liberalisation of services in these areas. Furthermore, it is a matter of concern to many that the new Commission is dominated by neo-liberals such as Barroso, Mandelson and Mc Creevey.

There is much more I could say about the serious democratic shortcomings of the European Union, particularly in the light of the new powers it will assume if the draft Constitution is ratified. There are those who will argue that although the democratic credentials of the Union leave a lot to be desired, the new constitution should be supported in the interests of promoting the European Union as a necessary counterweight to the hegemony of the United States. This is a very dangerous argument to make however, unless we are satisfied that, in particular, the military and economic power to be exercised by the Union is subject to acceptable democratic controls.

Constitutions do not normally enshrine an economic ideology, which is generally the stuff of debate between political left and right. They do however set general rules for working out such differences. By contrast the new EU Constitution turns neo-liberalism, a competitive market economy based on the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour, and a monetarist economic policy into constitutional principles. Those of us in the Green Party who are committed to seeing the European Union become a model of sustainability- meaning a forward looking combination of ecological, social and economic development - must be concerned about the extent to which neo-liberal economic policies have been essentially ‘locked in’ to the new EU constitution, ultimately depriving EU citizens of any meaningful political choice. Unfortunately the extent to which neo-liberal economic policies are embedded in the draft Constitution will ensure that the political rhetoric about ‘sustainable development’ within the European Union will remain just that – political rhetoric.
As far as the military power of the European Union is concerned, the provisions of the draft Constitution point to the end of the formal military neutrality of states like Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Malta. It replaces the Nice Treaty provision that the progressive framing of a common defence policy "might" lead to a common defence should the European Council so decide, with the provision of the draft Constitution that it "shall lead to a common defence when the European Council, acting unanimously, so decides". The Constitution requires all member states to "make civilian and military capabilities available to the Union for the implementation of a common security and defence policy" and "to undertake progressively to improve their military capabilities". It permits EU military operations to take place without a UN mandate. It establishes a European Arms, Research and Military Capabilities Agency that will certainly see the armaments industry flourish in the European Union. It allows for structured co-operation between groups of EU states in relation to defence issues, including a common defence, while working through the institutions of the European Union. The Constitution also contains a Solidarity Clause under which all Member States commit themselves to come to the defence of another Member State in the event that it is the target of a terrorist attack, or the threat of a terrorist attack. This latter provision appears to reflect something of the pre-emptive doctrine so favoured by the Bush Administration and must be of concern to many citizens who fear that the kind of military power that is aspired to by the European Union is being influenced by that currently exercised by the United States.

In conclusion, I want to propose that while one of the primary functions of the new European Constitution should have been to address the serious internal democratic deficit of the European Union, it has failed in this regard. At the same time it transfers a significant amount of power from national parliaments to the Union’s institutions, particularly in what were formerly the two intergovernmental pillars of foreign security and defence policy, and justice and home affairs. The concentration of political power in transnational institutions without this power being accompanied by real accountability and meaningful democratic controls is potentially a very dangerous development. As responsible Europeans and as political representatives and activists who wish to see the European Union become a model of, and provide global leadership in, the areas of sustainable development, strong social and environmental protection, progressive migration policies, peaceful conflict resolution and fair trade,
I am proposing that we need to think long and hard about whether supporting this constitution will help to advance those very political objectives.

Certainly, while the easier political option for the European Greens might be to support the draft EU Constitution and win the favour of political and business classes across the Europe, ultimately we have to be true to our own political belief system and our distinctive political agenda. Otherwise, as a trans-national political movement, we do not deserve the support of our own domestic electorates, or of the wider European public.

Thank you and I look forward to your questions.