I do not need an article all that is needed is a glimpse at history.
So the fact that
EU newcomers prepare to join euro
let you fear by a short glimpse at history that nationalistic squabbles and old hatreds could rise to the top.
I wonder, whose. Beside yours, of course.
The European Parliament, the legislative arm of the European Union, has elected Josep Borrell president. Borrell is 57 years old, from the Catalonia region of Spain, a pro-European socialist, and was a member of the convention that drafted the EU constitution last year. The voting was the first to involve representatives from the new member states, and was boycotted by euro-skeptics who disagree with the growing legislative powers of the EU.
Quote:European Parliament Chooses President
CONSTANT BRAND
Associated Press
STRASBOURG, France - Despite a boycott from Euro-skeptics, lawmakers on Tuesday elected a pro-European from Spain to be its next president as the expanded European Parliament met for the first time.
The 732-member assembly chose Josep Borrell, a relatively unknown Spanish Socialist, to its top job.
The parliament vote was the first for hundreds of lawmakers from the 10 new member states that joined the EU in May - many from the former Soviet bloc.
Borrell received 388 votes on the first ballot - well above the 324 needed for the top job in the 732-member parliament.
The 57-year old, who comes from the region of Catalonia in Spain, succeeds outgoing president Pat Cox.
Taking up the presidential gavel, Borrell praised Cox for his term as president and his work to secure a first EU constitution.
He asked all members for their help during his 2 1/2 year term as head of the EU assembly to push ahead with European integration.
"Thank you to those who have voted for me," Borrell said. "I would call upon you to help me."
Borrell was able to beat the other two contenders for the post easily.
Of 700 votes cast, former Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek, nominated by the Liberal Democrats, got 208 votes and French communist leader Francis Wurtz got only 51.
Euro-skeptics, including the 12 member anti-EU United Kingdom Independence Party, boycotted the vote and said they would fight hard to obstruct the work of the new assembly.
Robert Kilroy-Silk, the UKIP's telegenic figurehead and one of its new European lawmakers, said he was appalled at what he saw during his first day at work.
"We will do everything we can ... to obstruct and delay legislation," Kilroy-Silk told reporters. "A politically united Europe, this is for me a nightmare."
Borrell's victory was expected following a deal between the conservative European People's Party and the Party of European Socialists - the two largest groups in the assembly.
The two parties worked together to secure the EU's top jobs for the next five years. The deal is expected to help former Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Barroso to win lawmakers' approval as president of the European Commission, the bloc's executive.
Barroso must get backing from the European Parliament in Thursday's vote before he can take office, succeeding Commission President Romano Prodi, whose term ends Oct. 31.
Borrell was Spain's transport minister under former Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzales in the 1980s and early 1990s. He also sat on the 105-member European Convention that drafted the EU constitution last year.
Borrell's language skills - he speaks Spanish, English, French and Catalan - will be key as he represents the European Parliament across the continent and at EU summits.
His political skills will also be tested in handling the ever fractious parliament, which now has eight political groupings, including larger Euro-skeptic and far-right groups, which made strong gains in European elections last month. Their success came amid voter apathy across Europe - turnout for the historic vote last month hit a record low of 45.5 percent.
Source
Parties/Groups in EU-parliament:
The different European institutions:
There are five EU institutions, each playing a specific role:
-European Parliament (elected by the peoples of the Member States);
-Council of the European Union (representing the governments of the Member States);
- European Commission (driving force and executive body);
- Court of Justice (ensuring compliance with the law);
- Court of Auditors (controlling sound and lawful management of the EU budget).
These are flanked by five other important bodies:
-European Economic and Social Committee (expresses the opinions of organised civil society on economic and social issues);
- Committee of the Regions (expresses the opinions of regional and local authorities);
- European Central Bank (responsible for monetary policy and managing the euro);
- European Ombudsman (deals with citizens' complaints about maladministration by any EU institution or body);
- European Investment Bank (helps achieve EU objectives by financing investment projects);
Soure and more
HERE
Barroso wins EU Commission vote
Quote:Former Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso has won a strong endorsement from the European Parliament as the next president of the executive European Commission.
The 48-year-old centre-right leader won 413 of the 711 votes cast in the 732-member EU legislature on Thursday, with 251 against, 44 abstentions and three spoiled ballots.
The comfortable majority rewarded the multilingual Barroso's projection of the image of a pragmatic consensus builder and strong communicator at a time when the EU faces growing voter apathy and a leadership deficit.
"The European Union cannot work on autopilot ... There is a need for political leadership, for political courage and I will try to show that leadership," he told the EU legislature at the end of a two-day confirmation debate.
He received a standing ovation when the result was announced and pledged in a brief acceptance speech to "build a dynamic coalition for Europe".
Barroso will take office for five years on November 1, succeeding Romano Prodi of Italy, after forming his 25-member executive, with one commissioner from each member state.
Critics say Prodi has been a weak leader and poor communicator, even though the Commission has successfully steered through the launch of the euro single currency and the EU's biggest enlargement to 25 members on his watch.
Barroso stressed he wanted to lead a strong and independent Commission, deflecting pressure from big member states over the allocation of key economic portfolios by joking that he wanted not just one but 24 "super-commissioners" in his team.
But he left some hope for Germany and France, which are pressing for a powerful vice-president in charge of all economic policy, saying he had not taken a final decision on the structure of the new EU executive.
source
He is still controversial.
They told us we Dutchies have a very important post now with our Neelie Kroes. Somehow I do have the feeling that's just EU (or should I say, GUIF propaganda - you can figure out yourself what that means :wink: ) propaganda.
Barroso's anti-sleaze drive aims to boost confidence in the EU
Quote:The 25 new European commissioners yesterday agreed a new anti-sleaze code as the Commission's president-elect, Jose Manuel Barroso, moved to rebuild public confidence in the European Union.
Mr Barroso, the former Portuguese prime minister, and his newly appointed colleagues also pledged at their first informal meeting to improve communications with the people of Europe to overcome the image of remoteness that has dogged Brussels for decades.
But Britain's representative on the Commission, Peter Mandelson, the new Trade Commissioner, found himself immediately embroiled in a row over the proposed European constitution after he appeared to suggest Britain could hold a second referendum if voters reject the document.
Speaking in a BBC interview, he insisted a "no" vote in a referendum would not force the abandonment of the document. His comments were seized upon by the Conservatives and anti-referendum campaigners. Michael Ancram, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: "Peter Mandelson has wasted no time in returning to his traditional contempt for the democratic views of the British people."
Mr Barroso said his tenure as president would focus on driving forward economic reform. "The goal of becoming the most competitive economy in the world is one we can achieve and we should not feel discouraged," he said.
He urged commissioners to put divisions over Iraq behind them. "Some people in Europe may think that it is good that things are going badly for the United States. I really think that is an irrational and a bad policy," he said.
He emphasised his aim of improving the public standing and openness of the EU by pointing to a new 15-page code of conduct for commissioners and a series of working rules designed to prevent allegations of mismanagement and conflicts of interest. It bans commissioners from outside work, except for honorary charity commitments, and says that they must not take payment for articles or speeches. The code was informally accepted yesterday and will be adopted in November.
The appointment of Mr Mandelson, who has twice resigned from the Cabinet, has already provoked controversy. He resigned as trade and industry secretary after controversy over his home loan from the then paymaster general, Geoffrey Robinson, and quit as Northern Ireland secretary over the Hinduja passport affair.
The 25 new commissioners, many of whom are unknown outside their own countries, met for two hours of informal talks in a building across the road from the commission's Brussels headquarters.
"We need a world in which politics has a more continental dimension," Rocco Buttiglione, the incoming justice and home affairs commissioner, said. "The United States has already done this and for this reason they are a superpower."
The new members of the Commission will not formally take up their posts until the beginning of November.
Uniform Resource Locator
good luck for the start at november...
I hope they do understand most Europeans just don't CARE.
The EU has internal outsourcing problems
Continental giants say they won't help East take jobs away
BRUSSELS When eight poor countries of Central and Eastern Europe joined the grand European project this year, they believed it would give them a chance to overcome the crippling horrors of their communist past..
The promise of trade and a combination of the cheap wages and lower taxes they could offer foreign investors would deliver, they believed, new prosperity..
Yet this week their richer Western partners in the EU made clear that while this bright promise still holds true, the East's success must not come at Westerners' expense..
When EU finance ministers and central bankers gather Friday and Saturday in the Netherlands for talks about the long-term budget, some of the richer, but now slow-growing and lethargic Western nations will tell Central and Eastern European countries that they must raise their business taxes and so stop luring away companies and jobs from the West..
Germany and France, whose economies have become moribund and where unemployment is high, believe Eastern countries are indulging in harmful and unfair tax competition..
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French finance minister, this week proposed cutting off the billions of euros in EU regional development aid that flows from Western coffers into the poorer East, which he says is making Easterners' low taxes possible in the first place..
The Germans and French say it is unclear why they should subsidize Polish roads, freeing the Polish government to cut taxes and poach German businesses. Or why, as the German finance minister, Hans Eichel, said this year, Germany is "sponsoring" the loss of its own jobs..
"Sarkozy's position does not yet carry a majority, but the issue of tax competition will not go away," said John Palmer of the European Policy Center in Brussels..
The debate is part of a wider discussion that will take place among finance ministers Friday about the EU's next budget for 2007-2013..
Berlin, Paris and London want to cap spending at 1 percent of the EU's gross domestic product, less than the European Commission's call for a 1.14 percent cap, which is backed by the Eastern members. Politicians will also consider whether to reform rules on how European governments should steward their finances, known as the Stability and Growth Pact. The commission last week proposed allowing countries to concentrate more on spurring growth and less on meeting specific deficit targets..
While both issues are politically charged, the dispute over what tax rates to charge companies doing business in EU countries may prove to have the most far-reaching consequences..
In some ways, it is a European version of the U.S. debate over the outsourcing of jobs to lower-wage countries. That revolved around fears that the United States was losing jobs to cheaper, newly developing countries in Asia and Latin America. In Europe, the contrast between the rich and poor has been made starker since trade borders fell fully on May 1. Countries such as Germany are now faced with nimbler, hungrier, and lower-cost competitors in their own backyard and within the EU..
This spring, some rich nations imposed limits on migrant workers to stop cheap labor from flooding into Western Europe. Now the focus has turned to company tax and businesses that are migrating abroad to exploit the low rates available in the East..
Fears of harmful tax competition have been around for two decades. In the 1980s, Britain cut business taxes to 35 percent from 52 percent as part of a "reinvention" of its own economy. In the 1990s, Ireland went further, lowering business taxes to 12.5 percent and triggering a boom in high-tech foreign investment on the Western fringe of the Continent..
Now, the countries of the East want to emulate Ireland's experience, and have started to cut company taxes from already attractive rates..
The gap is startling. This year, Poland reduced its basic rate to 19 percent from 27 percent; Slovakia to 19 percent from 25 percent; and Hungary has a 16 percent rate. Estonia levies no taxes on some earnings..
By contrast, Germany charges corporations taxes of around 39 percent..
It is a tempting advantage some companies are finding hard to resist. In March, the head of the German Chambers of Commerce urged German businesses to look East, earning him the ire of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Next year, Austria, which shares a large border with the East, will cut corporate taxes to 25 percent to stop companies drifting away to the East..
"These countries have the assured international environment of the EU, labor costs are 20 percent of Germany's costs - and they have lower taxes," said Stefan Bach at the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin..
Lithuania, where Bach just visited, has "massive foreign investment at the moment," he said..
All this leaves West Europeans asking why EU enlargement should harm them, when they invited the poor Easterners into the club and when they foot the EU bill? Germany is the biggest contributor to the Union's E100 billion, or $122 billion, annual budget, including the E26 billion budget for regional aid..
But the East's response is unequivocal. Its politicians argue they need and deserve extra help to make up for the damage wrought by communism. "I am against the idea of harmonizing corporate taxes," Danuta Hubner, the Polish minister who will be responsible for regional aid in the new European Commission, said..
The EU's Eastern countries ask: Why would foreign investors come if they did not get tax benefits to compensate for bad telephone lines and pitted roads? Without low taxes, the East stands little chance of catching up with the West, they say, and a prosperous East is in everyone's interests since Germany and France could sell their exports into these new booming markets..
Easterners are not isolated in this battle. The British and Irish oppose tax-rate harmonization. A country's tax rate, they say, is its own business, and tax competition is healthy because it forces governments to be efficient with public money and also because low taxes stimulate growth..
"It's simply about national sovereignty," a British official said. "It's as simple as the Boston tea party.".
The European Commission, the arbiter in this dispute, supports the tax cutters. This week it called Sarkozy's comments "muddled thinking.".
But on Friday it is expected to put a proposal before Europe's politicians which France and Germany do support. Importantly, it wants to harmonize corporate tax rules..
When the people of Eastern and Central Europe joined the EU in May, they thought they were embarking on a project designed for the mutual European good, but they are discovering it is a competitive world even within the EU's sheltering borders. National political instincts burn strongly, and the rich West, their economies stumbling, fight hard to keep their longstanding privileges..
International Herald Tribune
au1929 wrote:The EU has internal outsourcing problems
That's true. It also has outsourcing problems with America. This may not be an often-told story on your side of the Atlantic because bright European immigrants don't fit the American media's standard story line that the foreigners are out to get you. All the more reason to post it here.
In a recent feature, Deutsche Welle wrote:Every seventh person with a doctorate in science leaves Germany for the United States, The Scientist magazine has reported. Three of the four German Nobel Prize winners work in the United States. "The trouble is that we are losing our highest achievers," Christoph Anz of the Confederation of German Employers Associations told The Scientist. "We have reached the point where we will no longer be able to compete in the booming biotechnology sector."
Gerd Kempermann, a researcher in molecular medicine who has worked in the United States, says the work structure in other countries is often more attractive than in Germany. "The rules (in Germany) don't always fit everyone. When someone realizes that they don't fit into a certain formula then they begin to search for where their potential can be realized -- where employers look to see what they can offer good employees."
The most common complaints are that German research and development is under-funded and that institutes and universities are plagued by unwieldy bureaucracy. "American universities offer scientists better pay conditions, more time for research and less time spent teaching," said Peter Doermann, a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology near Berlin. Some estimates say that scientists can earn three times as much money working in the United States compared to Germany.
Brain Drain Hurting Germany
In other words, Americans weary of outsourcing may take comfort in the fact that their country ends up on the right end of end of it more often than they think. And as far as science and engineering is concerned, I'm in a position to tell that your country deserves it.
I believe the 'outsourcing' issue is frequently misrepresented by both politicians and the media in America: perhaps Europe has the same probnlem too. As long as we maintain relatively free markets for capital and labor, and sustain economic policies that reward entreprenurs, we will find ourselves on the leading edge of innovation and new economic activity. The spread of free markets and economic growth in China and India is, under these circumstances, a significant benefit to America, both economically and politically.
In a similar vein, there is nothing in the growing economic (and political) stagnation of Europe that either benefits the U.S. or which should be a source of satisfaction to Americans. The failure of the established EU nations of Western Europe to welcome their new Central European associates with reasonably free labor and capital markets will have lasting bad effects in Europe and will contribute to the growing gulf between Europe and America.
georgeob1 wrote:... the growing gulf between Europe and America.
Thanks, George, for your response!
A recent poll seems to support my theory that you "have to asnwer" this way, since this "
Poll finds [only] Europeans and Democrats think alike" :wink:
Quote:That suggests that if John Kerry wins the presidency, and if his policies reflect his supporters' attitudes, the rift that has widened between the US and Europe in recent years could narrow again.
Well, the next time, when the US is you going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line ... ...
Walter,
You are correct in finding a connection between my views on U.S. politics and on the political and economic policies of the nations of "Old Europe". As the poll you cited suggests, Democrats in the U.S. do tend to be a bit like the center left governments and political parties in Western Europe in their political and economic views. However my opposition to both is based on my view of first principles, and not on any reaction to the current political debates here. Happily fewer Americans than Europeans apear to be infected with these regressive ideas. Most of the indicators here suggest that Bush will win the coming election.
Europe provides Americans with a wonderful example of the stagnation and paralysis that can attend the application of these ill-advised policies. "Old Europe" appears to be completely blind to their demographic statistics and the rapidly accelerating depopulation they indicate, as well as their attendant inability to sustain the social welfare systems their aging populations have grown to expect. Similarly "Old Europe" pressures Ireland and Slovakia (and others) to "harmonize' their tax policies with those of France, Germany, etc to protect the bloated bureaucracies of these governments (and the politicians who direct them) from competition from the more efficient governments of younger, growing and successful states. These are the behaviors of the old, tired, and retired. The next stage is death.
I had hoped that the admission of the 11 new members of the EU would be accompanied by freer markets for movements of labor and capital across an extended Europe. Unfortunately this does not seem to be happening.
This all seems so infantile to take a "ball of snakes" like the EU and treat it as if it's a new item on the world agenda. Who gets the "COY" award here? There is no lack for intelligent critical anaysis of the ongoing agendas at work and at cross-purposes here. Is this some ulterior move to discredit A2K?
(PS: For many people; anyone who winks at you in conversation is a despicable scoundrel. This applies to internet chatter as well.)
The American right likes nothing better than to point out where "old Europe" is, in their patronising view, going wrong. Though they never say it, they secretly want the European experiment to fail. It is a bold experiment for sure, nothing like it has ever been attempted.
The European Union marks the coming together of different peoples from all over the continent, who share a view that the future lies in working together based on our common European heritage.
They understand, which few Americans seem capable of doing, that the sovereign nation is an idea past its time.
We are not building a new country; we are sharing sovereignty and leaving behind old emnities in so doing.
The American conservative loathing for this new political dispensation is not based just on Europe's broadly social democratic domestic agenda. It is based on fear.
Fear of the unknown, as I said few Americans can get their heads round the EU concept. But also fear that the EU will come to challenge the US in some way. In one sense this is groundless. It will be a while before Europe out performs the US economically. (And if the name of the game is just economic power, then America has far more to fear from the inexorable rise of China).
But in another sense, America has reason to be worried. The EU is poised to assume (take back would be a better description) the moral and political authority to give it leadership of the "Western" world. This is not because Europe has the biggest and best military, far from it. It is because, given the choice, the rest of the world would prefer to look to Europe and European ideas as expressed through the EU than towards the nationalism isolationism and aggression which seems to be epitomised by America today.
How and why America lost its moral compass and hence its leadership of the world under the (hopefully) short presidency of one G W Bush will be a topic of endless discussion for future historians.
Agreed, Steve ..... and a nice "A2K-evening"!
BERLIN President Horst Köhler of Germany on Sunday tapped seething resentment among East Germans and fueled tensions inside the country over the financial costs of reunification after he said it was no longer realistic to expect the Eastern states to have the same living standards as those in the West..
In an interview with Focus, the German newsmagazine, Köhler, former head of the International Monetary Fund, said differences existed inside the country between north and south, east and west..
But providing subsidies to bridge those differences, particularly in the six Eastern states, would saddle the younger generation with very high debts, he added..
It was the first time that Köhler, a Christian Democrat, had raised the issue of long-term financing for the East since his election as president last July..
His remarks, made a week before East Germans go to the polls to elect regional governments in the states of Brandenburg and Saxony, are likely to be exploited by the far-right parties as well as the Party of Democratic Socialists, or PDS, created out of the former East German Communist Party..
Latest opinion polls give the German People's Union, or DVU, and the National Democratic Party, or NPD, rival extremist parties, 9 percent, while the PDS could win 25 percent of the vote in both states..
The Social Democrats and conservative Christian Democrats share power in Brandenburg, while the Christian Democrats govern Saxony, one of the few East German states that have attracted high levels of foreign investment, particularly in the high-tech sector..
In response to Köhler's remarks, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, whose governing Social Democrats are bracing themselves for heavy losses next Sunday in Brandenburg and Saxony, warned against exploiting the tensions between East and West..
"We are one country, one people and we must do politics for all of Germany," he told Inforadio Berlin-Brandenburg..
An opinion poll published last week found that every fourth West German and every eighth East German wants a return of the Wall that divided the two Germanies until it was torn down 14 years ago..
The Social Democratic Party is increasingly unpopular in the East, largely because of reforms that will be introduced next January and that were the catalyst for the weekly Monday demonstrations, started last month..
The far-right parties, who in their election campaigns claim among other things that foreigners are responsible for the high unemployment, now play a prominent role in these demonstrations in a bid to push Schröder's government to amend its "Hartz IV" reforms. These include the reduction of benefits for the long-term unemployed..
The organizers of the demonstrations had hoped to attract support from across the 16 federal states, but so far they have been confined to the Eastern ones where the DVU and NPD have used the unemployment and anti-foreigner issues as platforms for their campaigns..
In some of the Western states there is growing resentment of the East German protests since unemployment affects these states as well. The official unemployment rate in Eastern Germany is around 20 percent and the federal average is over 10 percent. But in some villages and towns in the Eastern states, the levels are much higher..
Köhler's plain-speaking interview confirmed what a special government-appointed commission recently concluded on the state of the East German economy and how difficult it will be to bring it up to West German levels. The report said the massive injection of more than E1.25 trillion, or $1.5 trillion, into the Eastern states since 1990 has not created jobs or helped to create a new manufacturing base..
Despite this report, politicians Sunday said Köhler was entering dangerous waters..
Christoph Matschie, leader of the opposition Social Democrats in the Eastern German state of Thuringia, said Köhler had "instigated a highly dangerous debate," adding it would strengthen feelings in the Western states that the East Germans have had enough financial support..
Wolfgang Böhmer, prime minister of Saxony-Anhalt, said the Constitution itself stipulates the goal of bringing poorer states up to the average standard of the more well-off ones, implying Köhler was questioning those constitutional principles..
Matthias Platzeck, the Social Democratic prime minister of Brandenburg who still hopes after next Sunday to continue sharing power with the conservative Christian Democrats, said it was "obvious to me there are differences among the regions. The question is how wide they are.".
International Herald Tribune
Giscard says 'a rule we can't change' hurt Ankara's chances
PARIS Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the father of Europe's new constitution, has acknowledged that the wording of the draft charter effectively diminishes Turkey's chances of success in its 40-year quest to join the European Union..
In an interview with the International Herald Tribune, Giscard suggested that a key provision of the constitution, known as double-majority voting, could kill Turkey's effort to join because the country's projected population at the time membership talks could be completed, in 10 to 15 years, might exceed that of every other member state..
Turkey's large pool of inhabitants would automatically accord it enormous weight in EU decision making, and that could discourage member states from allowing Turkey into their club. The current system relies less on demography..
"This is a rule we can't change," said Giscard, who presided over the 18-month convention that drafted the charter. He said the consequences of Turkish membership under the new system would be "much greater" than under current rules. "With accession, Turkey would become the most populous country in the EU with the greatest voting power in the council," he said..
While he stopped short of saying that the new voting rule had been designed to make it harder for Turkey to join the EU, others who worked with him on the constitutional treaty suggested that it had..
"I would say that the proposal was not tabled in innocence, and having been a member of the convention, I know what I'm saying," Ana Palacio, the former foreign minister of Spain and a member of the draft committee, said in an interview in April. "I strongly believe that it is in the EU interest to have Turkey as a member, but under the double-majority arrangement, Turkey has no chance of ever joining.".
With the fate of the constitution itself still unknown, pending referendums in several EU countries, the issue remains theoretical for the moment..
But with the European Commission due Oct. 6 to submit its verdict on opening official membership talks with Turkey, the remarks are bound to add to a gathering controversy..
Political momentum seemed to be gathering for a favorable verdict next month, but several high-profile European politicians have voiced doubts in recent days. Last week, Frits Bolkestein, the EU's internal market commissioner from the Netherlands, and his colleague, Franz Fischler, an Austrian who is in charge of the commission's agricultural portfolio, became the latest ones to make public their concerns..
Turkish officials dismissed Giscard's analysis, saying that the argument that Turkish entry would upset the balance of power in the EU was largely a fig leaf for other concerns, they said..
"Of course you can always say that France and Germany founded the EU and now there is a country that you're not sure is really European - but the world has changed, sorry," said Engin Solakoglu, first secretary of the Turkish Embassy in Brussels..
The debate so far has focused mainly on Turkey's human rights record and its compatibility with Europe's Christian and cultural heritage, but Giscard suggested that the country may simply be too big to join..
The constitutional treaty, which was agreed on by leaders in June but still must be ratified by all 25 member states, links decision-making in the union more explicitly to population than does the current voting system, giving bigger countries more power than their smaller neighbors..
With 70 million inhabitants, Turkey is already the second-most populous country in the region, behind Germany with 82 million; by 2020, Turkey's population is projected to reach 85 million, while Germany's is expected to ease slightly, United Nations forecasts show..
The question at the heart of Giscard's argument is this: Even if Turkey is given a date to begin accession talks later this year, how likely would it be that it would win the required unanimous approval from all existing EU members a decade from now, when it would carry the most weight in EU decision making from the start?.
"If you bring in a new member that accounts for 16 or 17 percent of the European Union population, it changes the system completely," Giscard said in his ornate office on the Left Bank of Paris late last week. The former president, who has been at the heart of the European project for 30 years, has made no secret of his opposition to Turkish entry, which he notably said two years ago would be "the end of Europe.".
The key to the debate is Article 25 of the 349-page constitution, which outlines what is known as the double-majority voting system. All decisions that do not require unanimity - many matters, especially foreign policy and taxation, still do - must be backed by at least 65 percent of the EU population and 55 percent of member states. Put another way, any country would need support from 35 percent of the EU population and 45 percent of member states to block a proposal it did not like..
Under the current system, an eleventh-hour bargain struck in December 2000, votes and population are more loosely linked. Germany, France, Britain and Italy each have 29 votes, although the latter three each have about 60 million inhabitants, compared to Germany's 82 million. Even more strikingly, Spain and Poland, each with a population of less than 40 million, have 27 votes..
Asked whether the double-majority voting system will make Turkish entry less probable, Giscard answered, "Yes. Because this is a rule that we can't change, and the consequences would be much greater." He added: "It would give Turkey a significant weight in blocking decisions.".
As Europe struggles to integrate its large and growing Muslim population, attitudes about Turkish membership in the EU remain highly skeptical. A poll last week showed only 16 percent of respondents favored the idea in France and 33 percent in Germany..
Those who favor Turkey's accession, like Palacio, say that at a time when the West is perceived as arrogant and dismissive in parts of the Muslim world, accepting Turkey into the EU would be an important strategic gesture..
Governments that support Turkish entry include Spain, Britain, Italy and the Netherlands, which holds the Union's rotating presidency and is likely to push for others to offer Turkey a date to begin negotiations some time next year..
But opponents say the country's religious and cultural heritage is incompatible with that of the EU. They cite doubts about Turkey's human rights record and its democratic reforms, and they warn that it could cost billions of euros in subsidies..
On Friday, Fischler, one of the main contributors to the commission's upcoming report on Turkey, became the latest critic publicly known to express variations of these arguments. In a letter to fellow commissioners that was leaked to the Financial Times, he said Turkish membership may cost E11.3 billion, or $13.9 billion, in agricultural subsidies per year and claimed that Europe risked "imploding" with such an influx of Islamic inhabitants. Several politicians from member states, especially conservative Christian Democrats, have also made their misgivings known..
Giscard said he would rather see an arms-length strategic or economic partnership with Turkey. "We have boxed ourselves in a corner," Giscard said. "There are a lot of formulas outside the pure and simple membership, like a strategic partnership or a Nafta-like economic partnership.".
But some EU observers questioned whether Turkey would really have so much say as a member of the EU. They note that voting weights are of limited importance, given that the most sensitive decisions in the Union still require unanimous approval..
"We don't vote that much in the EU - the EU is a consensus-driven organization," said Steven Everts of the Center for European Reform in London..
Everts also pointed out that even if the demographic projections make Turkey the most populous country in the region, it would not be able to block any decisions alone; it would need the populations of at least two other big countries to meet the required 35-percent mark..
With at least nine European nations planning referendums on the constitution, there is still a possibility that double-majority voting never will be implemented. One failed referendum would be enough to kill formal adoption of the document, and in some countries, notably Britain, the likelihood today is that it will be rejected..
Despite the risks, Giscard said that in principle he was in favor of referendums in all member states. "The advantage of a referendum is to address the basic issue of distance between the people and the states," he said. "If you have a big project like this, it should be normal to ask the opinion of the citizens.".
International Herald Tribune
